Member postings for old mart

I can recommend the Glanz also, I have some, and the ARC 95 degree type, but not the 45 degree ones.

I agree with JH, if the pinhole is rust related, simply rubbing the surface to get it ready for a patch may start new leaks. If the oil can be drained to slow the spread after degreasing, I would have a thin steel patch ready coated with quick setting epoxy and press it on quickly on. The biggest patch that can be fitted the better.

We have a prototype Bristol Belvedere at the museum, not much more than a shell, and sometime next year will be getting a complete one from the Manchester museum.

They have fixed rear wheels and castering front wheels, so provision has to be made for steering both front wheels when being towed. The towing arm is in line with one front wheel and a linkage similar to Ackerman steering turns the other wheel. This design was probably used to make steering easier than just steering one wheel and having the other follow.

When I saw how it was set up, what worried me was that the suspension height affected the width of the track and the two helicopters might not match. The link between the two wheels was not adjustable, ours was made from a bit of scaffold pole and not original.

I decided that a turnbuckle adjustment in the link would be a good idea, and Mike, Alan and Greg helped me make it. The nuts were from steel laying about, but the rod was EN1A 1 1/4" by 500mm long. I managed to get it uncut into the Smart & Brown model A which is a 9 x 20 lathe, and made left and right hand 1 3/16" x 8 ACME threads, with a bored out 1" UNF nut pressed into the centre which was left slightly bigger than 1 3/16". The nuts have 1 1/2" of thread in them. The link can be 4 1/2" shorter and 10" longer than originally made.

Edited By old mart on 18/12/2021 20:29:50

Edited By old mart on 18/12/2021 20:31:43

I remember seeing film of a full scale rolling road in use at a locomotive works, I have no idea how the spacings were adjusted for different engines.

It is well up to date, thats an electric soldering iron although the other tools are timeless.

I wonder what the effects of sunlight on the sleepers would be if the tracks are outdoors? Some plastic can get brittle with exposure.

It has been interesting to read details on modifying drills for brass. I was taught to reduce the angle of rake at the front part of the drill with a couple of strokes with a fine stone, and no mention was made about reducing the helix of the flutes. I will be trying out the method. As already mentioned, increased friction in the tailstock quill by using a bit of lock can help, especially if the tailstock threads allow backlash, not unlike climb milling. Some lathes have adjustable nuts in the tailstock, the Smart & Brown model A has this.

Having the biggest tooling that fits is the best idea, but a few smaller ones with shims would be good for the smaller work which crops up. Boring bars are best sized from the maximum your machine will hold down to as small as you can use, as they work best when they have just enough clearance to allow for swarf. You will probably be able to use a boring bar of greater nominal size than ordinary tooling, because of the flats top and bottom and the fact that the tip height is likely to be half the size. I can bore holes down to 5mm but also have up to 25mm bars which would need a start hole of 40mm.

Edited By old mart on 12/12/2021 16:38:56

Try gently scraping with a Stanley knife blade with a little oil, or oiled steel wool, it is unlikely to have affected the dimensions and it is a lathe not an ornament so slight surface discolouration will not affect accuracy. Avoid abrasive grits or papers.

 Welcome, by the way.

Edited By old mart on 12/12/2021 16:27:02

That had occurred to me also, but probably not as vital as in the days before the internet. At least I will be able to use the envelope provided with a slight change of postcode.

 If I had filled the form to renew by post, I would have had to include the current licence anyway, so the online method proved to be less efficient than snail mail.

Edited By old mart on 12/12/2021 16:21:09

I have just got the application form for my second over 70's driving licence, the current one expires next March. As I have no special licences on top of my car and motorcycle ones, the form would have taken only 5 minutes to complete, but I decided to do it online which actually took longer. The main problem was remembering how long had I lived in the present house, and finding that rather than saving sending the form by post, I still have to cut up my present licence and post it to them.

I hope all is well with our North East members after Storm Arwen. I was living in the South east back in 1987 when we had a similar storm. What I remember was the help from Northern and Scottish electricity board crews who travelled right down South to help with the recovery. So far, I haven't heard of anything similar happening now, or am I mistaken?

Back in 1979, I bought a new DT175 MX Yamaha trail bike. It was a two stroke single cylinder with a reed valve just downstream of the carburettor. The reeds were similar to the ones described, made from some sort of spring steel with curved backing plates to limit the bend in the reeds to give them a long life. There were tuning kits which replaced the steel reeds with thin fibreglass plates exactly like printed circuit boards only about 1/32" thick. They worked very well and may have even have increased the bikes performance. I later bought a set for my PE 250 X Suzuki enduro bike which combined piston port with direct crankcase induction via a reed valve. This is not a material which you would normally think of as a replacement for steel reeds, but it worked.

Welcome, Simon, you will get a huge ammount of help as soon as you mention steam engines, what about the type with the oscillating cylinder for a start?

Petro1head's calipers look very good for the money. My last Lidl ones were not as good as earlier versions, but I like the CR2032 cells used and keep a supply at the museum where they also fit the quill dro's of the mills. My Mitutoyo is old and uses the small SR44 silver oxide which lasts longer than the cheap alkaline LR44 which might leak if unused for some time. The Mitutoyo's used to get a new cell every 6 months when I was working as they do need to be switched off manually. I couldn't resist buying a Tesa Twin Cal IP67 early this year, but they are so pretty that I haven't yet taken them to the museum. They use a CR2032 and have automatic switch off, they are in the same class as Mitutoyo for smooth action and quality.

That bolt in the middle brings to mind a story about the original jeans made by Levi Strauss which had a rivit in the crotch until complaints were heard from cowboys who got burned sitting around their traditional camp fires.

Jason, on my screen, the seat shows woodgrain and looks to me like three pieces. To make a replica, I would use a dremel size flap wheel.

With the right lathe and carbide single point threading, the OD of the er32 could be threaded ok, but the extractor would interfere with the spanner flats. Perhaps a sleeve could be fitted to the er holder which had spanner flats at the lower part and threads at the top. It would have to be short enough to leave a gap between it and the spindle nose and be smaller diameter than the nose for a nut to work. Some measuring would be required before any metal was cut.

 This is the way I made a captive drawbar as there was room inside the spindle to do so.

Edited By old mart on 06/12/2021 18:45:00

The 6" Soba that I bought needed a little work to make it run properly. I soon noticed that the table bearing was very loose, allowing about 0.010" radial movement which really affected the accuracy. I replaced the needle roller bearing with a turned up aluminium bush which has 0.0005" clearance dry and none with lubrication. At the speed the RT turns, it will last forever.

Having a MT4 spindle has the advantage of being equivalent to R8 in stiffness, but there is not as much tooling about. The er32 collet set would be very useful and would not need changing often except for drill chucks and shell mills. As I said earlier, there could be a possibility of adding a captive drawbar, some are held at the top of the spindle and others like mine are utilising an internal step in the lower part of the spindle bore just above the upper part of the tooling.