Member postings for Graham Meek

I have found the photographs of Jamie's attachment.

The Unimat 3 version had the alignment bar on the opposite side and used a different clamping device. Similar in action to that found on an Engineers Scribing Block.

This new computer is taking some getting used to so my apology for the double posting.

Regards

Gray,

The single cone point screw impinging on the Vee shaped slot will over time form conical indentations in the Vee.

Jason's suggestion of a separate mating Key is a good idea, but I would prefer to see two screws, or one screw and two dowels to locate the Key. I would expect the the Key to jam with only one fixing point. Due mainly to the turning moment imposed by the weight of the milling head when the clamp is released.

I did describe an attachment some while back in MEW for the Compact 5. Jamie Wood supplied the photographs. This design was a spin-off of one originally intended for the Unimat 3. Both items used to be sold by Neil Hemingway back in the 1980's. A photograph of this does appear in one of the "World of Model Engineering" books published by MAP. This attachment requires no machining of the Column or the Column clamping member. As a bonus this attachment can also be rotated about the Column which a keyway in the Column will not allow on the conventional lathe set-up.

Regards

Gray,

The above engine was owned by Dr John Beddard. You will see it has been modified quite a bit from the original design. Most of the modifications can be attributed to me and include cast iron cylinders , re-designed cylinder heads and valve gear.

The engine was originally run using a single carburettor, but it ran very un-evenly. This was put down to the induction periods of the 90 degree lay-out. Converting to a twin carburettor set up made this engine more docile and a joy to run.

Regards

Gray,

Hi Bill,

If you send me a Members email with your email address I will send you the Photo's and the text which made up the article.

As regards a demonstration of it's use I never did this. It was assumed the reader would be familiar with the operating requirements as they would already possess the Jig. Besides I am not into U-Tube and lack the necessary equipment.

Strictly Old School here.

Regards

Gray,

I had thought initially that it should be BOAT, but steered clear of that as it is political and would probably end in the post being closed. Besides the post concerning boars has, I think, enlightened a few. Plus I have learnt something with regard to the problems wild pigs / hogs are causing in other countries.

Regards

Gray

Hi Bazyle,

I am sure I could arrange some exports if you should need them. After all they did roam through out the United Kingdom at one time. I certainly don't mind sharing.

As regards the garbage, you should see the streets of one of the Forest towns after these animals have been through on the night before Refuse collection the next day.

It is probably costing the ratepayers a load of money replacing the damaged waste bins, but not the Forestry Commission. It is a classic case of the boar population now being bigger than the naturally available food supply.

"Wild Boar Forest of Dean", on google will yield the proof you require.

Regards

Gray,

Hi John,

We saw the report on one of the BBC programs. We also noted the the elaborate fencing installed when these Wild animals (ref DEFRA), are kept, by anyone other than the Forestry Commission.

I am just wondering if they will join the Boar here one day.

Regards

Gray,

Hi Ega,

Originally there were 90 released by a farmer in 2002 or there abouts. The last figures in the press prior to Covid showed the numbers were 1800 and that was after culling 500 that year. There cannot be a true number given the area these animals cover and the number of Rangers available to count them.

The Forestry Commission or what ever they call themselves these days agreed to keep the numbers to the same as the original 90 that were released. This was later revised to 400 when they could not manage to get down to 90.

It is ironic but a local sixth form student worked out what the population would be a few years back and so far he has been proven right.

The fact that no-one has been prosecuted for releasing these "Dangerous animals", (Ref DEFRA), into the wild leads me to think it was done intentionally and with the blessing of the Forestry Commission.

Why do I think this, well in the meantime we have had Beavers released as well as Pine Martin. Clearly it is all part of a covert plan. Hence my ref to Wolves.

Regards

Gray,

Ega,

You are right on that score.

Wild Boar are more of a problem in this area than Scam phone calls. The once idyllic landscape of the Forest of Dean now resembles a cratered battle field landscape. I am waiting for some bright spark to suggest the introduction of Wolves to control the numbers, as clearly culling is not working.

Regards

Gray,

Just to let people know the latest scam telephone calls received recently have come with our Area Code and realistic area number. It has the usual spiel about money having been spent on a credit card.

As we do not have a bank in our area it is easy enough to spot, but has caught my wife out once.

Regards

Gray,

Hi Roger,

I am glad to hear you have finally succeeded in the illusive true miniature diesel. I have been following your posts on the other Forum throughout. I regret to say my efforts have fallen by the wayside for a number of years.

You deserve praise for your efforts, and I do hope you will put your work into print.

Regards

Gray,

Hi Bud,

You are right I did forget about the Tufnol Gear.

If you look through my albums there is a Spindle Lock that will protect this gear, and should it fail there is also how to make a replacement. I think there was an article in MEW a while back on this if I remember right.

Regards

Gray,

Hi Jamie,

Sorry I misunderstood your post. I thought you had the Proxxon head as well. This has a better speed range than the C5 and that range is also better than the milling head on my mill. The fact you can mount cutters directly in the spindle is a big bonus with these machines.

That is not such a bad idea about the thread showing your mods.

Regards

Gray,

Hi Bud,

It may well be that Moly was added in an attempt to quieten the gearbox. Having had 3 x FB 2's over about 40+ years I have never needed any additive. The last machine I had up until June of this year had been running for many years on Castrol Syntrax. This being a fully synthetic oil does not need to be changed and is not going to degrade the O-ring seals. I used Syntrax after seeking advice from Castrol Technical staff.

I suspect you will need to do many oil changes to get the Moly out of your machine. It was not something that Emco recommended adding.

Provided you do not remove the side covers you can remove the Quill without draining the oil, provided the head is in the vertical of course.

Regards

Gray,

Hi Bud,

After removing the Quill feed pinion and the clamp if fitted that holds the cable for the motor.

You will first of all need to remove the motor. Beware this has an extension piece on the end of the motor shaft which is the oil pump for the head. You will need to raise the head about 150 mm to clear this before any sideways movement.

There are 6 x M6 capscrews retaining the top cover, but before removing the cover wind a few wraps of insulation tape or similar around the thread on the end of the spindle to protect the oil seal in the cover. The cover is dowel located around the oil pump bore so it may need a Light tap with a soft mallet on the rear overhang of the cover.

The circlip at the top of the spindle needs to come off next, the tape will need to come off now. This is under pressure from the spring so watch out. Remove the spring and seat along with the Quill alignment bolt. At this point the Quill is free to drop so make sure you have had the Quill lock on during this time.

Release the lock and the Quill should drop out or with a bit of applied pressure.

Assembly is the reverse of the removal process, but be sure to fit a New O-Ring to the Quill.

I hope this helps,

Regards

Gray,

I am with Baz, the sound is the same as the machine I had some years ago. The problem can be worse when the Gibs are too tight, especially when lowering the knee.

Regards

Gray,

Hello Jamie,

Glad you like my old school scales.

I had hoped to purchase a good FF400 mill when I was looking around for a replacement for my FB2. Unfortunately these are like Hen's teeth. It would have matched the C5 capacity better.

I did consider at the outset fitting digital scales, especially as my memory is not so good these days. Upon checking the clearances under the table feed unit this was not going to be that easy. Plus the reading heads on the scales looked totally out of proportion on this machine. This coupled with my planned usage these days I could no justify the expense. I would still have needed to put some form of bar on the machine to carry the table stops.

What are you intending to do with the C5 Milling head?

Regards

Gray,

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the kind words, in an ideal world the part should have gone back.

Unfortunately post Brexit things from the continent now take months instead of days. I had waited 3 months for the milling table base to go with the vertical attachment I already had. In the end I purchased a complete machine.

Thus getting a part replaced under warranty would just take too long in my book. There is also the chance that the replacement will be no better.

The actual amount of material removed was miniscule to correct the part, but I am not impressed with my set-up. It was hoped to machine the offending face of the component using my homemade boring & facing head. While the head had sufficient travel to do the job in hand, the head would not extend far enough.

As the Proxxon is now my only working source of milling machine, (The Unimat 3 is still waiting for attachments), it was either strip the set-up down and make an extension holder for the boring bar, something that is now underway. Or adapt something to extend the range of the existing boring head.

I have had for some time a small manual boring head. This has a detachable 12 mm shank, so a new 8mm one was made and the additional boring head offered up. At the bottom speed of 280 RPM I was expecting the machine to throw a wobbly, but it did not show any signs of complaint.

Whilst the set-up had more overhang than I would like it performed the job in hand to my satisfaction and produced an excellent finish. The swarf can be seen on the boring bar.

Re-assembling the milling machine it would be nice to say it was perfect upon re-checking. I had decided I would accept a total run-out of 0.05 mm. Luckily it was less than this at max error of 0.01 mm, thus a mornings work including the photo session was well worth the effort.

After all I had a result the same day. Despite the poor engineering of the machine it is still a good design and works well given its diminutive size. The Proxxon School Report would read "could have done better"

Regards

Gray,

All the right letters but not in the right order!

Edited By Graham Meek on 15/10/2022 13:04:29

To get the salvage scheme under way I decided to set the spare Quill up on an angleplate.

To get a Zero-Zero reading at either end of the quill a 0.05 mm feeler blade was inserted at the top of the Quill.

Once the readings were the same the assembly was transferred to the milling machine table.

While the reading on the surface plate was zero at both ends. When the assembly was clamped to the table there was a small error. Hence the piece of Cigarette Paper towards the rear of the angle plate.

The offending part was then mounted on the quill and clocked true to the Y-axis and locked.

The next check was to see if the initial run-out was in the same direction as it was on the surface plate, which it was. With the stylus of the clock at such an angle, the reading on the clock cannot be trusted as regards a measurement. The clock is merely being used to indicate a run-out.

The last job for the clock was to bring the spigot onto the same centreline as the milling spindle.

Another portion of the salvage shortly,

Regards

Gray,

A lot of the modifications are coming to an end, however there are one or two items that need rectifying. When I set this mill up for the first time. I decided to do some alignment checks. Tramming the head was a must and here I had a shock.

There was nearly 0.2 mm run across the table when rotating the clock held in the spindle over the width of the table. This was not something I was expecting from Germany. Some of the run was attributed to the Column not being vertical.

The column has a turned down portion on the end to fit in a hole in the base of the machine. The problem was there was 0.03 mm taper on this turned down portion. Smaller at the bottom of the column. Because two 8 mm grubscrews to the rear of the column are used to clamp the column in place. The bottom M8 screw was pushing the column over due to the taper on the spigot. This made it lean away from the operator.

To overcome this I inserted a tapered steel plug inside the tubular column. This was drawn into place with an M8 piece of studding and a roller thrust race under the nut. This rectified the taper and also made the clamping area solid. The column now sat dead vertical as I would expect. Why the column is turned down 1 mm smaller escapes me. It is an un-necessary operation, why not make the hole 1 mm bigger.

However the run still existed but luckily it was much less, but still more than I was willing to live with. Enter the milling head from a spare second-hand milling attachment. Clocking this head showed very little error. Thus there was a duff part somewhere.

Thus it now has become the time to sort this problem out.

This is the setup used to track down the error, above I am checking the first side before rotating the Quill housing on the parallels.

These next two photographs show the the readings at these points.

Whilst 0.04 mm might not seem a lot this is only half of the error across the width of the table. (The Quill Housing is half the width of the milling table).

Now I knew where the error was time to set about fixing it.

More on that later,

Regards

Gray,