Member postings for old mart

Last time lidl brought out some brushless 20V power tools, they changed the shape of the battery from the Parkside X20V team type. Then, mysteriously, the brushless tools dissapeared and the older designs came back in. The older type batteries came in 2 and 4 amp hour sizes.

I just looked on their website for the brushless in vain.

Edited By old mart on 19/02/2021 15:18:45

It's a good idea when the length of the vise restricts both X and Y movements. I have addressed this with the 100mm Bison vises by cutting the rear lug off, but also enabling a bolt on lug just in case the vise needs to be fitted lengthways on the bed. You could make a bolt on lug if there was a need to.

I bought two boxes of mixed woodruff keys, one imperial and one metric on ebay. They weren't expensive and have saved time.

I think your method was very good and to a high standard. There are usually several ways to do any job, depending on what tools and materials are to hand at the time.

I have a set of three plates for the Soba 6" rotary table and consulted the charts only to find that the plate holes available left out quite a lot of indexing positions. I wanted 118 which was not available, so a table of positions to the nearest minute of arc was printed out and we had to do the job the slow way.

I fully agree with S-O-D's post regarding the component aspect of a VFD. The controls are there solely to be used for setting up the parameters and there should be no need to ever touch one when in use. A problem exists for many users where the instructions are so difficult to understand, that any thoughts of proper remote controls are set aside. Full size controls in secure cases and in easy to reach places on the machinery can reduce the possible danger of touching any hazardous part of the VFD.

The Schneider ATV12 that I bought has the heatsink connected to ground, and as the metal box bought for it to fit in had a steel plate in the back, the VFD is bolted to it using thermal grease. The box has ventilation top and bottom which is ideot proof. The plate is included in the earthing system, for the box and its door. As this was for use in a museum, the close inspection by a qualified electrician was mandatory for insurance purposes.

If there was sufficient diameter at the top of the Tom Senior spindle to accomodate a screwed in plug, I would have made a capitve drawbar of the same design as Diogenes II has (see his photos). That design would work with Morse taper spindles which are unlikely to have any steps in the bore.

That large worm wheel is driven by a worm on the donkey engine crankshaft. Did you notice that there were two donkey engines, only one was needed.

Those teeth on the big wheel look like steel pins, which would make sense for a gear that was not used often.

Those figures you have ended up with are plenty good enough for home shop milling, you could spend many hours trying to get them better for no real purpose.

A helicoil is a diamond section steel, or stainless steel coil which requires a larger thread in the base metal than standard. It is the larger thread which gives more strength. Almost all aircraft threads in aluminium and magnesium have helicoils in them and many steel parts also. The thread is stronger, tougher, and has a couple of added bonuses. The coil is easy to replace if necessary, and the coil can be made self locking. If your alloy is a good one, then 2 diameters of thread used will be plenty for your lathe. From the pictures, 2 diameters or more is easy to achieve, without needing the coils.

Adan Santander has just made a backing plate for his lathe out of aluminium, athough it is bolt on rather than screwed on. See the thread: "8 inch 4 jaon WM290 lathe".

You must have cheated and swept the floor first.

Good result, your backplate will do its job perfectly. Make sure the studs and nuts are high tensile. If you ever worry about the threads in the aluminium, then helicoils would address that.

I went to see the doctor about 40 years ago with pains in my fingers. My mother suffered with osteo arthritis in her hands from her fifties onwards, so the diagnosis was straightforward. The best bit of advice the doctor gave me was to keep the fingers straight and they would not end up like curled up claws. I have taken glucosomine and omega 3 oil for many years. I don't know if this has helped or not, so deciding whether to take herbal remedies is up to you. The The arthritis has progressed slowly from joint to joint, the first ones were the end of the middle fingers, after all this time they no longer hurt, but only move about 20 degrees. At the moment, the end joints of my thumbs are the most painful. The strength of my grip in much diminished and picking up small things is difficult, and writing anything more than a cheque is not on. My knuckle joints are the least affected, fortunately. When I had my first knee replacement, I was on a high dose of morphine for 24 hours, and during that time, I had no pain in my fingers, which felt quite strange.

I notice that the power feed motor is rated at 240V 50Hz, so was an import from the USA, probably fitted after the machine was first used. It certainly looks like a toolroom quality machine, and of European manufacture.

With your permission, I could ask about the mill on the American forum,The Home Shop Machinist.

Edited By old mart on 15/02/2021 20:05:57

Good result, Peter, 0.001" is very good for any scroll chuck. I am always surprised at how many people shy away from dismantling and cleaning scroll chucks, they are very easy to work on.

I also have a Morse taper arbor which has a bad chuck mounting Jacobs taper, the chuck in question ran much better on a replacement. Another test you could try would be to chuck up a piece of steel in the lathe and turn it parallel to the drill chuck maximum size. Then fit the drill chuck to it and check the runout of the body, and also the tapered bore. Then turn down the steel to 1/2 the maximum chuck capacity and repeat the test. If you have a MT socket that you can set running true in a 4 jaw chuck, you can check the Jacobs taper end for runout.

Cast iron finds most favour for backplates because of its supposedly superior vibration damping characteristics and the self lubricating qualities making it less likely to seize up in threaded spindles. Most of the ones I have made are CI, but I did buy a small steel one which has been used as the boss of a faceplate and has caused no trouble at all. The threads are kept clean and lightly oiled. I agree CI is the worst stuff to machine because of the horrible dust, unless you can get some SG cast iron which machines nicely and avoids the mess. If you choose CI, then get a blank of the rough shape, I once made a 160mm out of a cut bar, with twice the mess.

Edited By old mart on 15/02/2021 19:28:25