Member postings for Henry Brown

SOBA do tailstocks, I just bought a second hand one from the unmentionable auction site for £40, HV4 - 6 size. It's been lightly used, still in box so effectively new, it's a crude and poorly finished bit of kit but for what or when I use it I'll do.

As above, I picked up a lovely 8" EME rotary table (thought to be Eastern European) for £100 last year.

I'd certainly be buying a DRO before a rotary table, in fact since I've had the DRO I've not used the RT. There's a job coming up soon that has circular slots that I'll use it for but even that could be done with a DRO...

I've bought a couple of indexable holders with tips from Chesterfield Machine Tools on the unmentionable auction site, good value and the quality seems fine for my use. They often do an option to buy extra tips, if they don't have them ask and they will do a Buy It Now option.

Did you try locking the two loose ones up and trying to loosen the tight one first, mine go about 100-120 degrees anti-clock from locked to free. I think I'd take the bar out and put a wide piece of wood on the bed as a safety belt. Sorry if I'm covering stuff you have tried...

As Alan said, the chuck needs a gentle tap on the jaw side, all three of mine respond to this treatment. I'd be a bit concerned about the lack of marking though especially if it doesn't have the 0 0 marks to be sure it was put back in the same place.

Interesting, thank you Brian. I don't think I'd use one as a centreing device but do like the idea of having a shadow graph type facility in the workshop.

I don't support as I very rarely use it due to some misinformation a while back.

I'd look for second hand, sadly there are loads of engineering companies out there selling off top quality equipment at knock down prices. I don't have a Soba rotary table but their products are, in my opinion at best average. Good luck with your quest though.

Very quickly Steve, I guess they were shipped on Monday as I paid for them on Sunday. You should get your order today or tomorrow then - look out for the DPD van!

Sounds good Pete, hope they are in soon...

One thing I did check yesterday was the internal register diameter that needs to be a good fit on the clamping post and it's 26mm. I've had to order a piece of steel to make a new post, I didn't want to modify the one that came with the lathe, as I hadn't got anything suitable.

I noticed there was a hardness readout with the tool post, one of the standard tool holders and the parting blade holder, a nice touch I haven't seen on any "hobby" tooling I've bought.

My A set plus a parting blade holder, arrived today, it need de-greasing but first impressions are excellent. I'll need to make a new tool post stud to suit my lathe before I can make any swarf...

I've been going to make some slide covers for a while, the original plan was to machine them from ali but I came across some up and over door runners and harvested enough 2mm thick lengths to make these...

I quite enjoy a bit of tin bashing on occasion and these went quite well, I fitted them on top of the existing slide wipers and they looked like this:

I need something to stick along the edge end, I'll experiment with some rubber or a length of split tube to finish them off.

Still following with interest Fred and enjoying the great work you are doing! a great idea to put a magnet to catch the swarf but I wondered why you changed the support at the "free" end of the mandrel?

NDIY - good idea, but my wife would keep pinching the bucket! Would be an easy thing to make though...

peak4 - Here you go Bill: Link

I picked this up from CPC (part of Farnell) recently, its basically a magnet on a handle. With the handle released it picks the swarf up, with it pulled up it drops it off.

My wife is very forgiving about oily finger prints and the like but gets a bit twitchy about me bringing swarf in. I've been using one of those cheap little telescopic magnets but it took ages to do he whole floor. This gizmo works well and picks up most magnetic swarf, a quick wizz over with an old vacuum gets the rest. Cost was £17, with some change, delivered, I consider it to be a good buy.

Edited By Henry Brown on 14/11/2020 19:12:54

Excellent, well done Steve! I'm almost there with Peter, some of the holders I want are out of stock, I'm waiting for a reply to confirm a delivery date for the out of stock parts.

For those who are wondering who Peter is, his full name is Peter Wendlandt and he is the owner of the company (hence the PeWe co.name). He has been making his version of Multifix since 2006 and has traveled to China on a regular basis to ensure quality and manufacturing is to his satisfaction. He also has an engineering business.

Steve, I'd like to send you a message ref. the positive response from PeWe...

Edited By Henry Brown on 12/11/2020 14:07:32

Interesting you find Gloves in a Bottle sticky David, I wonder if you are putting toom uch on your hands? I started off putting about the same as I would have when I used barrier cream at work but quickly discovered that a small blob about the size of my little fingernail is plenty. I might try the other two when this lot of GiaB runs out...

As for a sense of smell, I normally don't have one so it could smell of old socks and it wouldn't matter

Been pondering something similar since I acquired an old 46Kg dividing head and although I've taken just over 4Kg out of it by removing excess metal during its rebuild I still find its on the limit of what I want to comfortably lift. Storage of whatever device I go for is my main problem so something overhead would be best for me but I will need to move strip lights to span across a few floor joists so will be it interesting to see what others suggest. I did make a gantry type lifting beam for getting my old Super 7 out and putting my new lathe in place, pallet racking beams with the ends cut off and suitably modified for that, but its too heavy for occasional use and lives on the wrong side of the workshop.

Edited By Henry Brown on 12/11/2020 10:13:58

Master gears was my first thought but the quality just isn't there and the big ones probably don't have enough face width. My moneys on teaching aides with the big ID letters and numbers.

I'm toying with getting a set, I emailed PeWeTools yesterday for confirmation of the size for my machine, its just over an A as the cross slide is 80mm wide and I would be interested in some extra holders for 16mm tooling. I would also like a holder for my 26 x 1.5mm parting blade (an excellent bit of kit from JB Cutting Tools) as it doesn't seem a great idea to put the holder it fits into another holder. It is a big chunk of money though if extra holders are included in the costing, if you don't have enough holders for all the commonly used tools plus a few I can see there isn't any real advantage. I can see me needing at least six holders plus a parting off holder plus some sort of boring bar holder.