Member postings for old mart

I mentioned earlier that I was thinking about bluetooth headphones to use with my tv late at night, and this thread has pushed me into getting some. For convenience, I bought some Sennheiser HD 350BT headphones at the nearby Argos. They cost £65 ane since then, I have found that you can get them cheaper by shopping around. They don't have any other connection than bluetooth, so I was committed. One reason for wanting to give up on a wired connection is the poor quality of the 3.5mm socket in the tv, a problem I had with the previous Sony as well as the current Toshiba 55UL5S63DB. I had to fiddle about with the plug nearly every time that I made connection to get the sound to come through. It took me about an hour to figure out just how to access the menus in the Toshiba, as the instructions are vague, but as soon as I had understood how, I had the headphones working. The tv speakers go off by default and the volume control is only working on the headphones, not the tv remote, either the Toshiba or the Virgin one. When the tv is switched onto standby, it goes back to normal speakers when being switched back on, but it is then quicker to set up the bluetooth if required than to couple up the cable for the old headphones. At this price range, being higher than I would normally pay, but well below the high end products, the build quality and sound are the best I have ever experienced, and the 30 hours battery life seems plenty to me also.

I have never tried bluetooth headphones, and wonder if they would work the same way with a smart tv as a wired connection with the 3.5mm jack. That switches off the main speakers when it is plugged in. I believe my Toshiba which is one year old has bluetooth built in and I like to use the headphones late at night when the main speakers set high for my deafness might disturb the neighbours.

BSP is still the most widespread pipe thread on the planet, all of the thread angles are 55 degrees whether straight or tapered. The 28 tpi is only used on 1/8 bsp which is the nominal bore of the pipe not the od like non pipe related thread sizes.

We have a chuck guard on the museum's Smart & Brown model A which has a microswitch added and it works very well. It saves my back when switching off the lathe and everyone who uses the lathe has to use it with no exceptions, after all this is in a museum, not a private shed, and we have to pay at least lip service to H & S.

At the museum, we are slowly gwtting towards finishing the Atlas 12 x 24 lathe which was left to the museum in a legacy. When it is eventually sold, it will be in full working condition with up to date fully certified electrics. I t will be ready to use including tooling. The alternative is simply selling it as a non working project for somebody. We will not be putting a lick of paint on it to make it look pretty, we will be selling a working machine to turn metal, not a pretty looking heap of s--t.

Use a lithium high melting point available from any car spares shop. The moly grease is not recommended for rolling element bearings as the molydenum can make the surface brittle chemically, as already mentioned it is best for plain bearings. The original grease might have had graphite in it making it black colour. Only fill the space 50% maximum to allow the grease to be displaced from the bearings as they move.

Edited By old mart on 03/11/2021 19:06:08

Remember not to buy the surgical ones which are sterilised by gamma radiation, they cost more. One of mine is retractable which makes storage a lio safer.

Also, with a sewing machine motor, you can get the matching speed control pedal and modify it for other than foot operation.

If you have a pc which qualifies for the update to W11 from W10, it will be obvious from the message when you go into "settings- windows update". Unfortunately, older generations of processors and hardware cannot be updated to the higher level of security to combat the ever growing problem from internet attacks.

I like W11 because it runs quicker than W10, but it has differences which do take some getting used to. My laptop is compatible with everything except the processor, an Intel i3 is only 6th generation and lacks something in the security area. That one will be staying with W10 which has another 4 years of supported life.

From my limited W11 needs, there have been fewer bugs than when W10 was in its infancy.

Edited By old mart on 02/11/2021 17:28:30

I would guess that most of the grease gun threads would be 1/8 BSP.

Here is a link to the Motalis website which is very useful:

**LINK**

Edited By old mart on 02/11/2021 17:13:18

I,m with SOD on this, scribe the exact line, cut as near to it as possible and finish by grinding or filing. It is slow, but gives time to get it perfect.

Good result, a strange early system, not what most of us expected.

I would very much like one, it has the same spindle fitting as the Model A, for the earlier versions, but as Stueeeee mentions, only as a second machine.

Edited By old mart on 02/11/2021 14:43:57

I rather like it , having been using it in the insider program for about 6 weeks. I have put together a second desktop with new motherboard, processor and ram which comply with Microsoft's minimum requirements which has W10 pro 64 and having the TPM and secure boot running, it is now waiting for Microsoft to get around to offering the update. It would be possible to update a standard desktop pc for about £180, maybe a bit less. There are firms selling Athlon 3000G with A320 chipset motherboards for about £120 and there is plenty of cheap DDR4 2400 ram on the market being sold by people who are installing faster ram. If your copy of Windows started life as a full version, then you should be able to put a downloaded ISO of W10 64 bit on the new system and get it activated. Then the TPM and secure boot can be activated in the BIOS and when Microsoft get around to you, the update to W11 should go ahead. For those using high end systems, updating would be more expensive. I found that the low end Athlon 3000G actually runs faster than my Phenom4300. I don't think W11 is available in a 32 bit version, which may be a problem for some users.

There is a lot more information on the W10 and W11 forums.

Edited By old mart on 02/11/2021 14:34:44

Edited By old mart on 02/11/2021 14:36:21

It will take a lot to displace the "hoover" common used name.

However good your setup is, you will tend to get slightly oversize holes when drilling. I use solid carbide drills for the best size and finish where possible, but because of the cost, my selection is limited and used mostly for hard materials. For a good hole it is best to finish the size by boring and if the hole is smaller then you can bore, then a new stub drill will help. Stub drills are stiffer and if you use one as a pilot to its maximum depth, it helps to keep the larger drill as straight as possible. I had to drill a 12mm tapping size through a steel bar 50mm long and used a new, top quality split point drill. When I managed to get the whole length tapped, the first half of the tapped hole was quite concentric, but from the other end there was about 0.5mm eccentricity.

 Drill chucks may not always be holding the drill in line with the tailstock. If you can get a piece of steel turned to the max holding size of the tailstock chuck, and leave it in the chuck, you can clamp on the tailstock chuck and check for any runout in the MT shank. I have tested several drill chucks for the lathe and mills and remember which ones are most accurate, they vary from excellent to mediocre

Edited By old mart on 01/11/2021 10:10:07

The Smart & Brown model A has MT2 in the tailstock and there are times when I wish it was at least MT3. When the museum was left a Tom Senior light vertical in a will, I was in the fortunate position, having a lathe and mill, to convert the spindle from MT2 to R8 when it was refurbished. That Clarkson ring to stiffen it was deemed important as that size can hold 5/8" and 16mm shank cutters, and some of mine are 20mm diameter.

A good source of info on Boxford is on the "lathes UK" website, they may have parts lists also.

One thing to remember if using the threaded ring, you must back it off so that there is an air gap between the quill and the ring when you tighten the drawbar. It would not be good to have the drawbar pulling up against the ring before the taper was tight. To use the ring as intended, it would only need a couple of foot pounds torque to work properly.

Before trying to use the ring as an aid for removal, be sure there are plenty of overlapping threads between the ring and the chuck body. I don't see why it cannot be used to assist the normal tapping on the drawbar to break the taper, but would hesitate to use it on it's own, Clarkson only intended it to stiffen up the wet noodle MT2 in particular.