Member postings for Nick Clarke 3

What I find equally interesting is that according to an on line dictionary the alternative definition is:

1 archaic : a brief letter

2 a: an official order directing that a member of a military force be provided with board and lodging (as in a private home)

b: quarters assigned by or as if by a billet

and I receive an invitation to a formal meeting described as a billet every so often.

So not only why billet for metal but why two so different meanings?

Our workshop is very well equipped and available for members to use and there are plenty of helpful and knowlegable members around as well.

To show how much of the advice given, while clearly based on experience and perfectly accurate is not the only option can I suggest the following:

I have never needed to put 38mm stock through the mandrel - even the longest and largest material has been turned using the chuck and a steady

If you accept a chuck that is not screwed on then inverting the parting tool in the front toolpost and running in reverse also works

I would personally rather NOT have a self extracting tailstock if I could because there seems to be no standardisation in taper lengths today and sometimes a tool will extract when you don't expect it to and sometimes you fit a new tool into the taper and it is too short to extract and also a spanner left permanently on the lathe tray is scarcely less convenient than a lever and can be more secure.

So I suggest you accept all the advice you can and see which applies in your particular case - while you clearly wish to upscale some of the suggestions given may be beyond what you personally need and as we are not working but hobbyists a few extra moments setting up is rarely important.

As Howard has already mentioned the club I am a member of can I suggest you have a look at the website of the Sutton Coldfield MES - we are just off the A38 at Little Hay,

Our website at www.scmes.co.uk has more details including the (members only) workshop classes run in the club workshop.

I have a dro on my small lathe but as my mill is a Sieg SX1L and very small I am trying to see how to replace it with something a little larger before I go down the dro route - but this is unlikely without major building work to extend my garage workshop!

But the point I would like to make is that milling machines were not common I. The home workshop even in the 1960's and if you go back a little further many articles described how to manage without vertical slides, micrometers or even dials on cross or top slides (or even topslides themselves!)

The mindset to have is not what do you need to make something but rather "I know I can make it but would an accessory or two make it easier, or make the accuracy I would like easier to achieve"

So no you don't need a dro but it will give you more information about how you manipulate the machine tool that could be useful and probably, but not certainly, tell you the dimensions of what you are making visually.

My Drummond Roundbed was £25 on eBay with a cracked saddle.

A replacement saddle spotted on eBay a couple of months later before I got chance to have the original welded was £21 so the bare lathe with a small 3 jaw and a full set of change wheels stands me at £46 so there are bargains out there if you are prepared to wait.

They were also branded as Alpine and sold by independent retailers

They were also branded as Alpine and sold by independent retailers

ETW was also at the RAF Apprentice training school at RAF Halton - a brief appreciation and notes on his career appears in ME 3394 Vol 136 1970 with additions in the following issues and into Vol 137

LBSC is supposed to have referred to him as ‘CopyCat Evans’

I don't think ETW is likely to have been Vulcan as after the takeover in the 60s Vulcan disappears while Westbury continues as a contributor - my own feeling is that L.B.Howard was Vulcan with Garcke over him as managing editor of Electrical press - the previous owners. When LBSC fell out with the editor he appealed to Garcke but was not helped - again taken from Hollingsworth.

After the takeover when LBSC returned he worked with Martin Evans as editor which might have not happened if ETW was there as well.

Have a look at the series of articles by Martin Evans in 1998 'Early Days at the Model Engineer Office'

What might also be interesting might be to follow the travels of the magazine round London - Kingsway, Great Queen Street etc etc

It appears from the companies house site that the company has only ever posted dormant company accounts - which are only supposed to be used if the company has not traded during the year.

If the company has traded then there is a filing issue - which while incorrect does not in itself mean that the company is not supplying goods to customers but they may be liable to financial penalties under companies legislation.

Whether an individual can trade personally when they are at the same time a director of a dormant company is a question above my pay grade, my not being a lawyer. 

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 23/08/2023 21:31:39

I bought the Seig SX!L mill from ArcEuro (now superceded) because it was all I had room for and within its limits it has done good work, but there are definite limits to a mill that is a bit small - far more so in my opinion, than with a small lathe which can often be made to punch far above its weight if necessary. However I have access to larger machines in the club workshop so this has only ever been a matter of convenience.

The main point to remember though is that while a lathe can do work with a single tool and perhaps a drill chuck a mill will need cutters, a machine vice, possibly clamps and the list of accessories does go on - none of which are supplied as standard while the lathe does often come with at least a chuck.

When I mixed, matched and sold car paint many years ago the mantra was that you could overcoat cellulose with a synthetic enamel paint but not the other way round.

Assuming your xylene behaves like cellulose and I suspect it will, you can almost certainly put synthetic enamel on the solvent based paint - but it not unwise to try a test first.

The mnemonic was you put (S)alt on (C)hips but not (C)hips on (S)alt

(C) = cellulose or other solvent based paint and (S)=synthetic enamel

But if you want an extra level of safety have a look round your local model shop for alternative paint ranges to Humbrol as some (Tamiya and Revel spring to mind but check) are water based acrylic.

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 16/08/2023 10:29:34

Used to demonstrate that in school science lessons with a 2.5l paint tin (new and bought empty) and a bunsen burner. blowing into a bit of rubber tube caused custard powder in the tin to be sprayed about in the tin where the flame from the bunsen blew the lid off with a satisfying bang!

While the experiment was supposed to show that you need to expose a large surface area and not just a heap of custard powder to burn it was not a very successful experiment as pupils didn't really see the point - and after one colleague showed you could get the lid of the tin to blow off with no bunsen or custard, just a hard blow we stopped doing the experiment.

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 15/08/2023 08:41:26

25 BA is listed as 0.25mm diameter ( 0.0098" ) 0.07mm pitch ie 363tpi and a tapping size of 0.18mm - but whether it ever existed outside of a British Standard I am not certain.

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 15/08/2023 08:28:07

The original Birds custard was developed because the wife of the company founder was allergic to eggs and he wanted to find her a substitute

I am afraid that I will have to disagree with you regarding HP laser printers - I have been using them for 35+ years and in my last job before I retired two years ago we hdr 10 in use with virtually no problems. They were all B&W or Colour run on compatible cartridges and normal office quality paper. Even so some of the cartridges were expensive and we had a couple of equally reliable brothers as well but while the cartridges were cheaper you had to replace the belts, drums etc separately in addition unlike the HPs where everything got swapped with the cartridge - but you paid for it. The main problem with the brother printers was that while an HP would carry on printing even if streaky when the internal counter on a brother toner, drum, Waste bottle or belt clicked over to enough the printer stopped - some counters could be reset but not all meaning that the occasion when any printout, even if low quality, would on a HP on the brothers you got nothing.

And the Joy valve gear also suggests LBSC (the original was stephensons) so I can go with John's suggestion

In the past LBSC would describe a loco in several sizes so it may be a model that is well known in 2 1/2" gauge but not in gauge 1 - also he would sometimes describe a loco and then in a later article give a few notes and drawings and a boiler design for a gauge 1 version. In those far off days getting castings produced or even buying ready made wheels or cylinders was possible where we need to qoote a design today.