Member postings for old mart

I remembered some of the details of the tubular cutters. We only have the 7/16" and 1/2", the 3/8" is missing. The 7/16" has a bore of 0.442", od of 0.5" and the doameter at the tips of the teeth is about 0.513". The effective length is 2.95".

When the museum inherited the workshop and tools a couple of years ago, there was a wallet of Pickavant tubular saws of several different sizes made to remove the corrosion products from between cylinder heads and the studs from the block. They are very thin wall, to pass over 3/8", 7/16", 1/2" 9/16" and 5/8" studs. I had never heard of them but they do seem a very good idea.

Storm Eunice has not been quite as bad as I feared, I have just been down to the front at Weston Super Mare, and there is no evidence of any overtopping of the low sea defences during this mornings spring high tide with the storm surge. I live 2 1/2 miles inland at 6 metres, and local tides go to 14 metres. Pressure here at present is 1002mb.

Edited By old mart on 18/02/2022 15:33:27

I would make the bolts about 3mm shorter than the bottoming out length. I would forget oiling, or greasing except after dismantling to clean. If you have a mill, you can make sets of soft jaws in mild steel and aluminium

I had another message about the missing item, they are despatching a replacement, which is a good easy outcome as it is not urgent.

 Just as one problem is solved, Hermes seem to be having trouble with a tracked item from a well known supplier of metal for model making.

Edited By old mart on 16/02/2022 21:26:05

I seem to remember that Ragoline was an anti sieze assembly compound.

Every one knows the 1987 storm was caused by that weather forecaster, Micky Fin.

There is a website, mini-lathe.com, which might be helpful.

Welcome to the forum Phillip, you will need to checkout the method of posting photos, then somebody will probably be able to help. Failing that, have a look at the ARCeurotrade link top right on the page, they have spares for this type of lathe including electricals.

I used to love splicing rope, not now as my fingers are arthritic.

I have been feeding the plain steel/bronze spindle bearings of the museum's Smart & Brown model A 5W30 synthetic motor oil for years now with no adverse effects. I believe that modern oils are lightyears ahead of the oils available when the lathe was new, and easy to get hold of.

I have a variation of the postal problem. I ordered a small item on ebay from China and it is 2 months late, despite being tracked from China. The other day I contacted the seller about it and got a polite reply asking me to contact my post office to find out whether they know about it. This sounds like stalling to me as the tracking originates in China and the post office here would be unlikely to know anything about it. I have tried before to check up on tracked items which were sent to me and got nowhere with the post office website, that seems to be only available to the sender.

When I was a kid, we had a book called "Knots, ties and splices". I have just googled the name and there are lots of hits including much newer editions than our one which was probably pre war.

The mill is back together, and I have confirmed that the X and Y travel is unaltered. Both have 0.1mm backlash which is down to the leadscrew thrust bearings axial play, they will need a complete rethink of the original Taiwanese design.

The design probably dates from before the RAF, the fancy shapes on the sides look like they were originally for ceremonial army uniforms with lots of extra brass.

If the end of the taper or tang is not too hard, you can drill it and glue/Loctite a turned extension. I used a milling cutter to make a slot in the new lathe tailstock quill to enable use of the taper ejector rather than strain the leadscrew and nuts. The slot got extended slightly as live centres do not have a tang and are shorter. The opposite happened with my 7 x 12 mini lathe at home, the length of the MT2 limited the tailstock stroke before ejecting. I cut the tang off two chucks, the original 1/2" and the more suitable 5/16" chuck, and drilled a hole down the Morse taper just clearing the leadscrew diameter. Then a plug of brass was put down the hole just long enough to eject. this enabled the full length of quill movement practical. If you have a mill and solid carbide endmills the same diameter as the slot, you could make it a bit longer.

Oh bother, the cranes have gone home and the top half is facing the wrong way!

We have almost finished the re assembling of the mill. Here are some pictures of the old nuts next to the new ones.

If you get some WURTH HHS 2000 synthetic thick spray oil, you could lubricate everything in the gearbox without having the problem with leaking. The box would need to be dismantled first and all the old lubricant removed and a means of access to the insides for occasional spraying extra lubricant made. Some holes in the casing which could be sealed by rubber plugs would do. This Wurth oil is the best lubricant I have tried and works on gears as well as bearings, it clings very well.

What I find hard to get my head around is rather than 8tpi, which is a nice round figure of 0.125" pitch, the Smart & Brown has an imperial leadscrew of 6tpi which is not a nice round figure,0.166666----------". The 24 digit threading dial cannot be disengaged from the leadscrew. That has a slight advantage, as before engaging the nut, you can quickly glance at it and be sure which way the saddle is going to move.