Member postings for old mart

An ER32 collet will not fit an ER25 collet chuck and vise versa.

You might run the tip a couple of thou high to compensate for the bar deflecting downwards. When taper turning or boring, the tip must be dead on centre or the taper will not be the correct angle, or straight.

Organic compounds of mercury are extremely toxic, methyl mercury that was the cause of the Minimata disaster.

I was told by a doctor that the danger from the old style clinical thermometers was from the broken glass if the patient bit it. The mercury would pass harmlessly through the body before it had time to break down into something easily assimilated.

I had a few panicky minutes when I blew a mercury manometer over an aircraft oxygen regulator that I was testing. Fortunately for me, it was the anodising that protected the aluminium regulator.

We kept mercury in cast iron pots or polypropylene containers.

Looking at the lathes UK site, it would seem that your M1 has the same head assembly as the light vertical.

The first thing to do would be to remove the motor, just the wiring to attend to, the locking adjuster and the pivot screw and derail the belt so it doesn't get caught up.. Then the two caphead screws holding the head onto the M1 adaptor, and gently work the head off of the spigot by pulling and rotating slightly. Lastly, the M1 adaptor. This breaks down the weights into three more manageable loads.

If I was starting from scratch, not having any of the ER, I would also go for the larger sizes such as ER32 or ER40 with plain shanks to fit in an existing 4 jaw independent chuck. The shanks can be cut shorter with a hacksaw if they project too far out of the chuck. Using a 4 jaw chuck allows for adjusting for minimum run out every time.

One of the backplates I use has been adapted to take a 4" chuck which was lying around and alternatively, the ER25 collet plate. 

I also can recommend Arceurotrade, they are also very quick delivering.

Edited By old mart on 03/06/2019 10:15:45

I have one of those little 7 x 12 Chinese lathes in my garage, and if I decided to get a QCTP, it would be one of the super cheap ones with the aluminium post. I have the advantage of being able to make a replacement one out of steel on the museums mill if I wanted to.

Since I hardly ever use it, I probably won't bother as I can use a Smart & Brown any time I want.

Having a lathe level is less important than aligning it by taking out any twist that it has. After all there are commonly lathes on ships which are expected to perform despite never being level.

Nylon is commonly used for heads.

I fully agree with the advice rendered, and would add that in my experience that doing the cutting in two or more stages gives a better finish, a better fit and possibly a longer life for the tap.

Welcome Ian from another newby. 

Are you going all the way from Staffordshire to Surrey for Warcos' open day? I used to live a couple of miles from them.

Edited By old mart on 02/06/2019 19:11:23

I can't see anything wrong with the address "Santander.co.uk", and the "phishing@" is just a department.

They are probably dead straight as well as hard, maybe useful as test bars.

N D I Y , being able to fine tune at any time is an advantage as although the holder may run true, individual collets might have eccentricities. As for a loose register not being strong enough, the collet plate which I have is secured to the backplate with three 8mm shcs which are more than man enough for ER25. You must be terrified of using a mill when everything on the bed is just relying on friction to stop them moving.

I am also starting to get ready to upgrade the MT2 spindle to R8 and have posted on that subject on The Home Shop Machinist forum.

I am getting very mixed up posting on two forums at once on a similar subject. 

 I have got a lot of helpful advice from reading the extensive coverage on Tom Senior mills on this forum, which is the reason I have joined it.

Edited By old mart on 02/06/2019 16:28:53

I use 5W40 semi synthetic engine oil, any oil is better than none.

I have fitted an ER25 collet to a backplate which has a loose register to allow fine tuning for runout as S-O-D has. I also have one with a 20mm straight shank to fit in an existing chuck,3 or 4 jaw. The fitting straight to the spindle taper is potentially better if you are lucky, as there is no way to correct any runout there might be, and the drawbar might get in the way sometimes with longer work.

Since renovating the museums Smart & Brown model A's apron, the built in pump not only lubricates the gears and shafts inside, but also the leadscrew nut, cross slide and ways. It gets topped up about once a fortnight. I t gets semi synthetic 5W40 motor oil and also for the 70 year old spindle bearings which have no measurable wear.

Edited By old mart on 01/06/2019 20:03:02

I have started the refurbishment and modifications to the Tom Senior Light Vertical which was left in a will to The Helicopter Museum.

We have some parts of the mill at the museum, and will collect the rest on Wednesday 5th June.

The bed is the long version and has quite a lot of cutter abuse on it. The measured depth of the marks is 0.012", so by skimming about 0.015", 95% of the damage can be removed. The bed has been skimmed on the Drill mill using an 80mm Hertel fix perfect 6 tipped shell mill with inserts for steel/stainless. As the bed is almost the same size as the drill mills bed, we had to drill 5 x 8mm holes on the centreline to hold it down. It sat on 4 1-2-4 blocks for the milling. Because of the size, the milling was done in 6 sections.

Missmatches of up to 0.001" resulted from this method, and we have started to get the bed looking nice and running true. I degreased the top of our surface table, laid out double sided tape and applied 180 wet and dry paper carefully, having degreased the backs of the sheets first. Mike and I spent some tome today rubbing the bed down. Lots of high spots showed up, but depth mic checking shows less that 0.0005" on any of them. To speed up the process, I have been hand scraping the high spots. The rubbing is along the X axis, it will take another couple of hours to complete. I would recommend that anyone trying this method use 120 paper, dry and use a vacuum cleaner to remove the dust.

I was confused because the sectioned drawing of an early S-Spindle I have shows an oil port for the quill with nothing to stop oil getting into the spindle bearings at the same time.