Member postings for old mart

What confused me was seeing both the windage and elevation scales in the same plane. But when the small one is turned 90 degrees, its scale is then correct. The actual aperture is missing.

The last time I shot 303 was at Bisley on the 400 yard range. The club that I was a member was the Ewhurst rifle club, an indoor range for 0.22 rifles and pistols. The club was a home guard post during the war and we had a large box of mostly 303 ammunition in the safe. Eventually the police officer who inspected the facilities told us that we had no buisiness having full bore ammunition at the club and would not want to see it still there the next time he called. So we sat around the table and sorted out the ammunition, from 416 Rigby to .22 shorts. Most was 303 dated 1943, over 500 rounds, so we went to Bisley and hired two Lee Enfields No 4 Mk 1 with target sights and didn't have a single misfire. The sights were a more modern design than that BSA No 9.

I made two stops for the model A for either side of the saddle (carriage) with 20tpi screws in them and wheels with 50 graduations around them for 0.001" adjustments. The fine adjustment screws never get used. Making them is easy if you have a mill, otherwise not. Before the fine feed was working correctly, the saddle would push the locked stops along without disengaging, anything solid will immediately cause damage to the shafts and gearing inside the apron.

By all means use the fine feed, but disengage it manually before hitting anything. Try the facing first, nothing bad should happen if you go past the centreline. Always check first which way the saddle of cross slide moves before setting up a cut. There are no stops on the cross slide, so manual disengaging with the lever must be done. If using the fine feed with the saddle to a shoulder, set to cut away from the shoulder is safer than towards as there is no danger of a pile up. Hitting a shoulder with the tool before trying to disengage the feed lever will end in tears.

Edited By old mart on 17/10/2022 17:51:43

The ends of the shafts look unworn, I had to make some new ones as well as rebush everything. The trip mechanism to the lower right is a nightmare to get working properly, our lathe at the museum actually works after 15 years. The adjustment is very old school, all knowhow and no easy adjustment. You ought to remove and clean the pump while the lot is dismantled, it is lower left, with a cover plate underneath.

They are designed as shepherds crooks for very strong Lillipution sheep.

Some of the old makers made non standard proprietry threads specifically to force users to buy their spare parts. This is common with the large indexable insert producers, yuo buy a nice toolholder and find that only the same make of inserts will fit.

That part between thumb and forefinger looks like an aperture which can be rotated 90 degrees. There looks like a vee indent showing in the axis of rotation to hold it steady.

A much better option than risking the gear teeth. If the back gear SHCS broke, it would be unlikely to be difficult to remove and replace. It wouldn't be wise for a super 7 owner to try a similar fix. After I saw the first of the 3D printed spindle locks on sale, I got a 20mm thick nylon plate and made a copy on the mill for the Atlas lathe, not as pretty, but very strong and it has to be slid sideways into position as the forces are spread over 13 teeth.

Welcome Martyn, as you already have 3 phase, you will benefit from the lower prices for machinery as most hobby users only have single phase.

Hi Michael, you will find this forum very different from the PM forum, very delicate and refined, no dog eat dog here. I am also a member of the Home Shop Machinist forum which is a halfway house between the two. Clarkson cutter grinders are relatively common here so you will be able to get lots of advice on them.

Michael, if you are into grinding screwed shank cutters, maybe I could do a deal with you. The museum has a box of blunt cutters, mostly inch sizes which might as well be throw away. If you could sharpen them and the finished diameter does not matter, I would be pleased to get 15% back sharp in return.

By the way, I have bought several things from the Tony English ebay site and have never been dissapointed.

Edited By old mart on 11/10/2022 19:27:08

Notice that the tightening of the headstock bolts might affect the alignment and if so, you might have to set the headstock very slightly off before tightening them. Patience is very important when carrying out these adjustments, never give in if it is difficult. The other check is having the DTI tip on top of the headstock, hopefully it will be ok without any bother.

I bought a 160mm three jaw chuck from XYZ Tools at Tiverton with a camlock backplate when they were fitting Bison chucks to their lathes, and sold the backplate for what I paid for the chuck.

I read the Dasqua thread before deciding to get one from RDG. I am very pleased with the calipers, 1/3 of the price I paid for the Tesa. They will be my best calipers at the museum. The Mitotoyo's would get a replacement reading head if I could find one to fit. The head would probably have a smaller cell, the current 2032 size heads will not interchange.

 I looked at the link in your post, Michael,  and the ones that RDG are selling are not quite the same model.

Edited By old mart on 11/10/2022 18:20:01

Complete adjustability with the added ease of restoring damaged threads.

Welcome Shaun, we look forward to getting help and advice from you. Looks like the only thing that you might add to your comprehensive workshop might be a heat treatment oven.

Trying to span two threads at once, the Lidl Powerfix and the earlier Dasqua one, I have some photos of the last Powerfix that I bought in the last 2 years, the Tesa, the Mitutoyo, and the brand new Dasqua. The Mitutoyo is 33 years old and has recently developed electrical problems making it somewhat unreliable. I have dismantled the board and gently lubricated every contact with Servisol switch cleaning lubricant, there are about 40 very delicate spring contacts, plus the switches, but have not entirely fixed the unreliability. This resulted in my buying the Tesa which is of comparable quality, but not a cheap instrument. The earlier Powerfix digital calipers were much better mechanically, smoother running than the most recent. I have swapped the reading heads between the recent one and the oldest to get the absolute reading option. One of the pictures shows the poor finish on the slideways on my latest Powerfix.

The Dasqua cost £31, but is much better finished and smoother than the Powerfix, comparable to the high end calipers, it came with a test certificate, serialised and two 2032 button cells, is IP54 protected and the box is excellent, and what will be of interest to older people is the very large display, including fractions, and the digits are 14mm high. I think it is worth the money.

I haven't seen them before, are they full hard? I do have a 16mm screwed shank that I made to hold slitting saws, as the arbor for them is MT2 and having captive drawbars in both the museum's mills renders it unusable. It is made from 16mm ground stock, not hard, though.

Good result, it's nice to hear of success.

Good advice from Ketan as usual, I was thinking about a plain bar, but might attempt to make one out of a ground test bar made for a helicopter, but I will have to cut it and produce a centre in both ends. To do this I would have to buy a carbide centre drill as the bar is too hard for hss.

A shell mill which can cut a square edge is usually close to the stated size, but the 45 degree type with square inserts is measured to its extreme outside diameter. This means that, for instance, a 63mm size will only cut about 50mm wide when skimming a face.

The two mills at the museum have a 1hp three phase motor and a 1 1/2hp single phase motor. We can use 80mm shell mills, but the depth of cut is limited by the power. It depends what you want to do with a mill, either hog off masses of metal or cut wide swathes. If you want to do both, then get something with at least a 40 size spindle fitting and 10 hp motor