Member postings for john halfpenny

I remember having this problem with my Clarke lathe. In my case it was solved by changing the length of the screw - I had to make a longer one. I recall the end of the screw pushed on the inner end of whatever was in the barrel, in my case a morse sleeve.

Thank you Jason. That is the answer. I wanted to use the pin, but didn't think of the tees for holding down/anti-rotation

I feel a need for a 100mm chuck on my indexer. The table is secured to the base by three caphead screws, and has small tee slots and two 5/16 fasteners. The 1/4 centre pin is removeable. The base has a shoulder about 4 1/4 od, and a shallow taper in the centre. I'm thinking about a register plate for table or base to allow quick fixing on centre. Ideas for a compact fixing gratefully received

You can see 'my' start in the centre disc. £10 extra for bespoke cut, regardless of number.

I've recently bought some 145/180 10mm rings, possibly same supplier. Happy with cost and material, which is structural steel. Machined nicely on my Clarke CL500 with a mid range insert; the somewhat rough tapered edge cleaned up much better than I expected. Drilled and tapped a few 3/8 bsf and 8mm holes just fine. I have the discs out of the centre for projects, and the same tool cleaned up the peripheral notch, without damaging the cutting edge. Parts now on a vintage 1926 car, but pic attached.

I've recently bought some 145/180 10mm rings, possibly same supplier. Happy with cost and material, which is structural steel. Machined nicely on my Clarke CL500 with a mid range insert; the somewhat rough tapered edge cleaned up much better than I expected. Drilled and tapped a few 3/8 bsf and 8mm holes just fine. I have the discs out of the centre for projects, and the same tool cleaned up the peripheral notch, without damaging the cutting edge. Parts now on a vintage 1926 car, but pic attached.

Don't overlook that insulation works both ways, so will slow the morning temperature rise inside, as the air warms up outside. I found this when I put a new insulated door on my workshop, which slows up the rise in internal air temperature as the sun comes up. Of course it also slows the temperature drop in the evening.

I've looked at the ebay listing, and apart from the damage noted above ( which would be worth examining), it is missing some simple guards, belts for the intermediate drive pulley and the set of gears for thread cutting - although sufficient gears for fast/slow leadscrew drive are present.

You should also search for CL500, which is the same lathe with mill/drill. A useful option but with the limited capability common to all combination machines.

These lathes have been around for 30+ years, and are current with spares availability. They have a good capacity and take Morse tooling. I've had mine for 25+, and it's accurate. But there are reports of more recent manufacture being of poor quality, though these seldom mention the nature of the problem(s). These lathes are often bought be novices, who may not have the skills to set the lathes up correctly, so take care. It most probably has had light use, so not worn out. It's an inexpensive start, and you are unlikely to lose money

You could make a simple holder for a Dremel, like this:

I think you could ega, but the tailstock screw is M12 left hand, so you would probably need a left hand threaded barrel extension. I didn't give it much thought because I also wanted to optimise barrel travel, for which I used a slightly longer piece of LH M12 studding, commercially available at low cost. The method I used did not require any extension to the tailstock housing, and the existing barrel was unmodified, but I guess several approaches are possible. In my case the dro scale eats up a little of the gain. These lathes are really very capable, lacking only a half nut on the leadscrew - but the Warco version has that feature.

Back in 1970/2, when I did an A level in computer science, Basic was the teaching language of choice, just overtaking Fortran, Cobol and Algol. I remember at college in 1974 that calculators were banned in exams (until 1976). A Datamath four function (+-÷×calculator cost about £50 - I didn't buy one; you could buy a very good car with 12 months MOT for that. By 1976 we could get a full scientific CBM calculator for £15, and mine still works.

I have a small hardback notebook in which is placed all manner of info, some of which was hard to acquire, and may be difficult to do so again. Eg, vee belt sizes, bearing part numbers; taps and dies in my posession and wanted; critical dimensions of lathe and mill (in case I see a bargain, but not sure if it will fit); brief instructions for numerous tasks such as converting a car from pos to neg earth, or identifying whether a 12v coil is for a ballasted system or not; dimensions of my workshop and garage; etc. I use it, and add to it, almost every week.

It fits in madam's handbag, so will usually be available if I don't remember it myself. I also no longer move workshop things to a new storage location - having several times looked in the old place, and not remembered the new.

Just to round this out (it's wet and cold outside). I sourced three 300mm led lamps from ebay at about £16, and removed the covers and one end fitting. The remainder fitted nicely inside the existing slim and robust housings. The light is brighter and half the power consumption. My garage pit is now thrice illuminated again, and I have enough bits to keep the outside wall lights going.

RDG sell them, but easy to make

I think my idea will also require an MT3/MT2 sleeve

I have remembered that Clarke do sell a collet chuck with Morse taper. It comes with a set of metric spring collets which look like ER, but are not. It's intended for the mill/drill, but would of course fit the chuck spindle taper - probably with the mill-drill drawbar

The Clarke spindle taper is Morse. No Clarke QCTP, but a chinese one fits -marked 250-100

Edited By john halfpenny on 29/11/2020 22:11:31

Thank you Robert. There appears to be only one or two suppliers of 4 pin led substitutes, and as you say quite expensive at two per lamp. The lamps are very low profile, so I have opted for complete led replacements, and will mix and match the remainder to keep me going. John