Member postings for old mart

If you look at the illustration supplied by Steviegtr, there appears to be a cylindrical gauge block in front of the height gauge. It is the type with flat ends to measure, rather than the precision outside diameter.

It might be copper clad stainless steel, and a magnet does not work with austenitic types, so a file at an angle on an edge would show up any colour change in the thickness.

Check the paint on the back of the cabinet first, before using any solvents. Brake cleaner spray might be ok .

It might be best to forget the saw and do it all in the mill. A new sharp end mill, or slot drill, the biggest you have would be best. With the bar in the milling vise, sitting on parallels, mill the first flat until it is just about 58mm wide in several stages. Then turn the work round so it rests on the milled flat and mill it to 22.3mm thick. Do the third face until the last of the original outside of the bar is gone and the corners are square. Turn it round for the last side and mill it to 35mm. You should have a rectangular section 22.3mm by 35mm. I don't know what acetal is like to machine, somebody here will know.

I agree with Phil P, it is probably full hard copper, but could be an alloy, if you were in the USA, the local scrap merchant would be able to test it in a jiffy, maybe the UK ones could too, if it wasn't for the CO19 restrictions.

It was not that easy to clean our one with it in bits, and the accessibility was ten times as good. You can only try putting in a hot solution of biological washing tablets and leaving it overnight. Fortunately, the bottom of the tank is above floor level, so you can syphon it out. If the stuff coming out looks filthy, it would be worth repeating the process until the mix looks clean. Then plenty of rinsing is required so the new suds isn't contaminated. At the museum, we don't use any pumped coolant, but use Rocol diluted to 10% in bottles, it already contains biocides.  When you eventually refill, it would be safer to use a stronger mix for your soluble oil, and hopefully the antibacterial properties would remain for longer.

Edited By old mart on 19/06/2020 14:04:48

I was just idly looking at the ARC site at the Seig mills, and the top of the range SX3.5DZP stood out. It is expensive, but you get all of the extras which people wish to add onto their mills. Tooling is always an add on which never seems to end, but that is par for the course.

Round master gauge block sounds likely, from Steviegtr's post. It probably fitted where the blued item is and that fitted in the lollipop cutout.

To check the capacity of the chuck, just remove the chuck and lay it on the bench. Remove the jaws and lay them on their sides next to their slots. Line up the teeth on the jaws with the scroll teeth and move them until at least two teeth overlap, not including the missing tooth. That will give a good idea what you can get away with for maximum diameter. Somebody tried to hold something with only one tooth engaged in the scroll and broke it off. It will always be the same jaw as that one is the first to end up with only one engaged. When you see the price of even second hand jaws, a new chuck from ARC gets more attractive.

The broken teeth on more than one jaw shows that the person had several episodes of stupidity.

Edited By old mart on 18/06/2020 19:50:40

Some other makes of chuck already have a hole, the one I did the other day had a hole the size of the end of the arbor, why Jacobs had to be different, I have no idea. We inherited an unused British made Jacobs chuck of 1/4" capacity on a MT1 arbor. We do have 1-2 adaptors, but I drilled it and fitted it to a MT2 arbor so it would fit the lathe directly, or the mills via a tang type R8 adaptor. It runs 0.0015" tir which is plenty good enough for us.

Welcome to the forum, Johnathan, sorry to hear of your tale of woe. There should be plenty of people on this forum to help and give encouragement. By the time you get the lathe up and running, you will be an expert on Bantams.

Your photos don't seem to be working. Try looking in "albums" and add selected photos to "add photos". When you have something in the album, you can then access it when you post and clink on the camera icon to transfer it to the post. There are several threads on the forum showing how to do it.

Edited By old mart on 18/06/2020 16:07:26

Possibly a screwdriver for the gibs?

Perhaps you could mark the end of the new screw "LH", in case somebody encounters it in years to come.

When the Sable was made, the spindle thread was increased in size from the other clones, so S B and Boxford backplates are too small. You know that, but others might not.

Edited By old mart on 18/06/2020 15:45:55

Edited By old mart on 18/06/2020 15:47:02

That "circular wedge tool" is part of a bearing puller, and the tapered edge is designed to pull a ball race off something like a motorcycle crankweb.

I bought a steel backplate in 1 3/4 X 8 on ebay, it was only 4" diameter, and it is now on the back of a 9" faceplate which had the Myford thread, but not enough meat to modify to the larger thread. It is held on with 6 titanium stepped studs, from a Westland Lynx gearbox. The 8mm ends screw directly into the faceplate and the 6mm ends go through the steel backplate and use aircraft locking nuts with integral washers. The biggest advantage of steel is the lower ammount of mess made when it is machined.

By far the easiest way is to open up the chuck and select a drill which will pass between the jaws without touching them and drill into the void in front of the arbor. Then use the biggest punch that will go down the hole and knock the arbor off. I did one the other day, and still haven't found the arbor amongst the junk in my garage. The wedges are mostly a waste of time and money. Wedges would have to be used if the chuck is keyless, you cannot drill them without destroying them. 

Electric drills which have reverse have a chuck which is screwed on. The screw down inside the chuck has a left hand thread to stop the chuck unscrewing when in reverse. The easy way to remove one of these after removing the screw is to put a large allen (hex) key in the chuck, tighten up and strike the end of the key with a mallet. Put the drill in low gear if it has one.

Edited By old mart on 18/06/2020 14:34:58

Have you tried it on a surface table? The fact that there are two sides to the dial is interesting, and that the dials are split.

That form of clamping only causes problems if the two parts don't fit together well.

The Smart & Brown model A uses half of that system which would certainly lift if there was slop. The drill mill and the Tom Senior light vertical use an exact replica on their quills, and I have tested them both. Using an optical sight in the spindle focussed on a target mark, I tightened up the locks and there was no noticeable movement in either mill. The line spacing is 0.025mm, and movement of a tenth of that is visible.

What's the other chaps name, is it pgk, or pgk?

Now now, Roy, you could get a tap on the head for that (and water on the brain).