Member postings for old mart

Chronos is one of my favoured dealers, they are good. I have recently bought two Vevor brand chucks hoping they would be ok, and was pleasently surprised. The 100mm three jaw scroll is much better than it's low price would suggest and the 160mm 4 jaw scroll which I had vowed never to buy is better than expected also. The 160 was even cheaper than normal because the box was damaged, but the usual expanded polystyrene innards fully protected the contents. I cannot afford a 6 jaw chuck.

Best of luck for a smooth transition moderators and IT guys.

I count myself lucky to have been left a Record vise on the garage bench when we bought the house 15 years ago. It is a 5 inch steel version which was perfect mechanically after I had milled up a pair of steel jaws and found some 5/16 Cycle threaded countersunk screws for them. The jaws are parallel within 0.002". I don't think there is any way I could break it, and it makes up for my leaving my 4 1/2 Paramo behind when I sold my bungaloo.

I was concerned about earth leakage when fitting the VFD to the Tom Senior and noticed that the EMI filter can be disabled to reduce earth leakage. Fortunately this feature was not needed.

We have a similar Taiwanese mill with R8 and a 500mm bed stroke at the museum with a single phase 1.5hp motor and we have shell mills up to 80mm diameter. The depth of cut and feed rate usable with steel is limited to a lot less than the shell mills are capable of but still usable. The round column is more bother than a knee mill, but with patience you can live with it. For the price of that Warco, you may be able to get a better secondhand machine.

I did mention the variations in quality, it would be best to get quality collets in the cutter sizes that you use most often, but if the system is intended primarily for workholding in a lathe then the full set will have to be bought. I got er25 for the mills as cutters over 16mm get very expensive and there are alternative indexable milling cutters with carbide inserts which are more economic to use. For lathe use only, the er 40 offer a greater range of sizes.

Iv'e no idea the makers name, but I bought one very similar a couple of years ago which lacks the lightening holes. It has come on useful making toolholders for carbideinserts because of the double rotation andthe tilt combined.

Here's a photo of the tailstock sitting on the part machined block. Today, I got the exact height and did some chamfers around the block. The tailstock will fit much better that the original one, especially close to the spindle.

Edited By old mart on 09/09/2023 16:44:01

If your regrinding is limited to trimming the ends, the cutters will work well enough for hobby use without recoating them.If you regrind the OD and loose the coating and some diameter, they would still work, especially for aluminium.

The dual language road signs probably contribute to increased accidents. We had a Welsh volunteer at the museum, who lived in Weston Super Mare and he was always miffed to find that his bus pass would not work in Wales.

As for PIN, that is an acronym in English which has not been translated at all.

Edited By old mart on 08/09/2023 20:41:16

I had already made a special nut which, in theory, would work with a ratchet, but when the tailstock was close to the saddle, there was very limited room and all the efforts were in vain. The riser block, for a change, was exactly the right size and the stepped sides which fit in the bed gap got milled using a 50mm shell mill with APHT11 inserts, again I was lucky to find a box of Iscars which are superior to the cheap Chinese ones. I only had to square off the inside rads left by the APHT inserts. I have left about 1mm height to finalise and there is an adjustable gib copy of the Atlas one to make. Four SHCS will hold the block to the original base with just enough movement built in to get the quill dead in line with the spindle in plan view.

Welcome t the forum, John, you have come to the right place to find advice on Myfords, there are dozens of experts who can answer every imaginable question you can think of.

Well before the museum's acquisition of the Atlas 12 x 24 lathe, I had bought an unused lathe tailstock, thinking of modifying it for use as a rotary table tailstock. It never made the front of the queue and has sat patiently waiting for a use. The Atlas tailstock is a bit of a pain to use with only a nut securing it o the bed and the Chinese one has a lever clamping arrangement. I would guess that it was for a 10" lathe and a suitable block of steel to get it in line was also laying about. I would have preferred cast iron rather than a block of chrome moly, but beggers can't be choosers. The MT2 quill has the same travel as the Atlas one and is also self extracting, the scale is metric rather than in inches, but that never bothers me. The Atlas bed is the same as a Myford, not as good as a prismatic one, but simpler toi fit things to.

I will post some pictures as things progress

The Watson PARA X60 came today. It does not shine with the epi illuminator on the Vickers, but is excellent on the biological Lomo. It has an air gap of about 1mm from cover slips. I am delighted with my £20 outlay.

An unloader valve has a non return valve between it and the receiver and is only there to make the restarting of the motor easier by venting the cylinders as the motor stops when it reaches the preset pressure. The main concern would be the condition of the receiver as it is very old. Most failures are benign when a leak develops, as I was told by the man who recertifies the museum's compressors, but I wouldn't bet my life on it not exploding at any time.

It certainly is worth the money, but getting the missing parts could take some time. I would also look out for a longer bed, the similar machine at the museum has a bed with 500mm movement in the X axis. There are many ways of moving the head up and down if you have the imagination and will to tackle it.

You can buy as many of these electrodes as you want, no restrictions, put the part number into the ebay search box. There are hundreds listed, and second hand ones are cheap. As I mentioned, the scrap man took a perfectly good set away with the old boiler on Monday when my new replacement was installed by the same man who fitted the old one in 2010, I have just found the original paperwork. Fitting such things to a gas boiler is only allowed for people with Gas Safe approval.

The instructions mention filling the pipe with sand to reduce the kinking on the larger sizes.

The other info I would like is about a Watson objective that I have bought on ebay cheaply.

WATSON

PARA

X60

3mm NA.85

Any ideas what it is would be appreciated.

Having two types of microscope does mean it will work on one, at least.

 I suspect that the irises are missaligned, free moving, but I don't know how they are intended to work.

Edited By old mart on 05/09/2023 19:56:56

Edited By old mart on 05/09/2023 19:57:48

Here it is, the four position nose turret is integral. The two chrome levers are at the left end, the straight knurled knob next to the right lever slides about 5/16" axially moving a lens in the tube and the beam splitting mirror control is by the nosepiece. This is probably an early example as most I have seen are L shaped to save room. My test of the infinity 6X on this microscope had excellent results, and I was unable to fault it, maybe low power makes shortcomings harder to detect.

Edited By old mart on 05/09/2023 19:32:39