Member postings for old mart

It's nice to get a good result with an easily sorted fault. I had a similar problem with my 7 x 12 mini lathe years ago when the speed pot failed. It had a switch built in and I got another from Maplins. That turned out to be the wrong type, NO or NC and when I eventually figured out what was wrong, I took the switch part to bits and changed it around and it has worked ever since. No getting a correct replacement from ARC back then, I had not yet heard of the firm.

My local group of surgeries uses the "my surgery" website which could be difficult for some, seems to work for me, and the prescription is relayed to the pharmacy of my choice for me to pick up about 4 working days after I make the request.

I'm with Martin Kyte on the benifits of using 2 tee slots for greater stiffness. The rear toolpost I made for the Smart & Brown model A has to be bolted directly to the cross slide as there are no slots, but I made it as long as possible to lower the profile for stiffness.

Now I am beginning to understand how the nuts (I originally thought there was only one) are moved. The pins are attached to the nuts which slide in a vertical plane. You should remove the handle with the cam and see how the pin spacing is when the nuts are manually closed, and compare that with the spacing when using the cam. The pivot should have some tension/friction adjustment or the weight of the lever could slacken off the nuts.

The picture of the threading marks is suspiciously like misreading the threading dial as each mark goes evenly throughout its length. Maybe some practice taking a just visible cut may be useful, especially to demonstrate what happens if the wrong dial marks are used, there is nothing like actually doing something to help understand what is happening.

Have you checked out the "lathes UK" website?

I prefer to make the nuts longer than the bought ones by at least 50% and a much better fit in the slots. Some like to undercut the inside corner to make sure that there is no contact at the weakest part of the cast iron tee slot, only at the ends of the tee. I have used mild steel, stainless steel and aluminium for nuts.

If you get the ARC versatile, the swivel base comes as standard but doesn't have to be attached. Having the base available which may only be needed once in a blue moon might be a bother to some, but I personally would never dream of getting rid of the 2 swivel bases at the museum even if the rotary table gets used a hundred times more often.

My thoughts are that if the engagement mechanism is not backing off when under load, then the leadscrew is flexing downwards because of the shape of the worn nut threads. The Smart & Brown model A also uses a part section nut, but any flex in the leadscrew is stopped by a bronze slipper opposite the nut. I wonder if you could fit something on your Zyto?

You may be able to get some Spheroidal Graphitic Cast Iron (sg iron, also called ductile iron) It machines very nicely and you don't get the horrible black dust. It is not brittle like most cast iron.

If you carefully check the internal dimensions of the spindle relative to the fitted length of the tooling, you may be lucky to find that there is an internal shoulder and space to make a self extracting drawbar. In my drawing, the black part is threaded onto the drawbar and loctited in place. I used it on an R8 spindle, but there is no reason why it would not work on a Morse taper as well. There would need to be at least 2 diameters of thread engaged in the tooling to accept the strain, but even more strain is used when bashing the top of the drawbar anyway. The top end on the drawbar will also need threading and nuts locked in place but no loctite as they will need to be removed easily if required. The drawbar will have to be fitted from the bottom of the spindle. I would like to also modify the drill mill also some day.

I would buy the ARC set, the stepped blocks are slow to make unless you want the practice, and I would only make up some longer and better fitting tee slot nuts.

I bought a locking electrical box on ebay for the Tom Senior at the museum and added top and bottom shielded ventilation. It is mounted on an arm which can be moved up and down and swung back and forth.

Edited By old mart on 14/11/2021 18:09:32

Edited By old mart on 14/11/2021 18:10:57

Unfortunately, IDS don't seem to include one of their "quickstart guides" with this inverter. All I can say is that anyone thinking of getting one of their inverters is to only buy one that has the quickstart guide listed, not all do. I was very careful to study the manuals available before committing myself and would only recommend a model that included the quickstart guide unless you are an electrical engineer.

Look at the ancient wall paintings found in recent years in churches, they weren't covered up to preserve them.

My mother used to like putting up wallpaper where ever we lived, and I remember all the rude words she wrote on the plaster for the benefit of the next generation of paper hangers.

I had mine locally after booking it online, I had a choice of at least 2 local sites within 1 1/2 miles of home. I live about 1 mile west of J21 on the M5. I mentioned this to another volunteer at the museum who lives in the centre of Weston Super Mare, and he was not amused at being offered Bristol or Bridgewater.

Microsoft have got rid of flash player on W10 because it was not kept up to date from a security point of view. I have lost the use of my entire set of National Geographic on DVD because of this. Only using an earlier version of Windows which still has flash player would help.

The two mills at the museum use different sizes, the drill mill uses 1/2 UNC but the Tom Senior is smaller. I got a set of 3/8" but soon changed the studs to metric 10mm and put 10mm helicoils in the nuts. 10mm studding is easy to get hold of and can be any required length. The rest of the set was ok, except that we made some 10mm tee nuts that fit much better in the tee slots.

I have poor hearing and tinnitus and sometimes have difficulty separating the "background" music from the dialogue. I use headphones when I can and also any subtitles if available. I very much doubt if programme editors have any idea that some people would like the dialogue to be clearer. I have been known to give up even when a newsperson has a regional accent, or mumbles without any background music. People might think that the old fashioned newsreader with the crisp type of English is bad in this world of equality, but at least every listener in the country could understand them whatever their local dialect was.

What about some shim brass or bronze? That would glue and comes in plenty of different thicknesses.

Edited By old mart on 07/11/2021 14:01:00

Welcome, Ian, tell us what you intend to make on your machines. There are bound to be lots of like thinking people on this forum.