Member postings for William Ayerst

Duncan, that's a good point - I hadn't considered using solid wood under the feet!

All, do you think it would make sense for the mill to face the door (orange) or into the workshop (yellow)? My expected concrete pad outline is about 3' x 3' - may be shifted inboard depending on not done it yet's answer)

Not done it yet, how tall are you? I'm 5'8"ish and found once I got my ML7 to a good height (41" to the carriage wheel, 44" to the cross slide wheel) it was a revelation - and I guess now is the time to make sure! If you have one may I ask for a bit of cheeky information i.e. the distance from a wall or the rearmost projection to the rear feet, and to the rear of the table when it's as far back as possible?

John H - are you suggesting to use something like a hole cutter through the floor to put the feet down into the pad below and keep the machine raised up onto those rods?

pgk - I guess a 3' x 3' x 4" concrete pad will be plenty stable enough without being bonded to the pad below - I was thinking exactly what you mentioned about potentially being able to be removed in future. What do you mean about mesh weld please?

Old mart - I was leaning heavily towards ply but after reflection - it's more than four times the price of concrete and would be less stable, right?

jimmy b, peter1 - thank you for your anecdotes - all in support.

Edited By William Ayerst on 03/07/2021 17:04:48

Jimmy, I think it sounds drastic but the more I think about the the more reasonable it seems - cheaper, more stable, etc.

With regard to permanance, right now there is shelving along the short wall next to where 'mill' is shown in this diagram, but it seems like the only logical place:

I can't really put the mill opposite the bench or the lathe, as it only leaves about 2' room between them, so it has to go opposite either the drill or the grinder - and I want the grinder away from the other machine tools if possible, so even if I get rid of my bench drill at some point the grinder is likely to end up in that spot, or on a bit of wood chucked under the workbench.

I guess if I make the pad larger than the base, i.e. 3' x 3' - then I have a bit of flexibility in future, but it does peg the machine in that corner "forever"....

My shed is a standard 8 x 16' wooden affair, but has been insulated, powered, lit and guttered with some heavy duty security. It is on a thick concrete pad, with wooden joists on 17" centres topped with planks. If you jump up and down on an area above a joist, it's very solid, but in the middle of each span there is a little movement. I need to ensure that the machines are as rigid without going bananas on it.

I have an ML7 on a welded base - (say, 120kg) whose feet sit awkwardly in the middle of the joist span. I had thought for this to spread the weight using ply or scaffold boards screwed into the floor, across the joists.

Regardless of how that turns out, however - I am hopefully going to get a milling machine (350kg) soon, the feet of which should roughly align to the joist spacing - and I can't really manage shifting around a milling machine on my own in the same way I can with the lathe, so I need to get it pretty right the first time around.

I see there to be two options - strengthen the floor, or create a new one, but I'm not sure which will be just 'good enough':

• Place a sheet of 1" plywood or 38mm scaffold planks beneath the lathe and mill, screwed into the floor and joists, and screw or bolt the machines down into that.
• Cut a hole for a pad in the floor about a 8" bigger than the machine footprint, remove the planks and joists, brace the new ends of the floorboards at the cut, shutter in and pour in concrete to bring it up to floor level.

My only concern with the latter is how permanent it is, and in general I have a few questions about how it would work, i.e.

• Do I want it to bond to the layer below?
• How do I handle damp proofing?
• Should I be thinking about drilling holes into the concrete for fixing studs? I don't know how any of that works....

How seriously should I consider doing this under the lathe also? Clearly the concrete pad method is the most desirable but I'm concerned that should I want to rearrange the workshop in future I'm going to be a little stuck and start running out of floor!

Any thoughts or opinions gladly taken.

Edited By William Ayerst on 03/07/2021 14:43:30

Edited By William Ayerst on 03/07/2021 15:11:20

So it looks like a deal on a Centec 2B could be done - the only problem is that it's in North Wales and I'm in West Sussex. Renting a van for two nights (for an early start on the first day) plus petrol and anciliaries will probably set me back about £250.

Not undoable, but my gut feeling is that wrapping it and ratcheting down onto a pallet is the simplest solution? Any suggestions for machinery removals firms in the area would be gladly taken, for something in the £2-300 mark for curbside delivery?

Many thanks all for your help and advice, it's been (and continues to be) invaluable.

Thank you Calum - they had the 2B with head quill but it's since been sold. I spoke to the gent there and they said they'd give me a heads up if anything new turns up.

You're quite right, a kind gent has contacted me - one small hiccup is that he's in North Wales and I'm by the south coast. I'm looking into pallet shipping it down, but if not it looks like there might be a long roadtrip ahead of me

I'm not sure who or what Cherry Hill is but I am happy with the recommendation.

A bit of a left field suggestion, someone from my local model engineering club has offered me am Amolco standalone mill. It seems overall about half the size of the Myford VMC - but it is less than a quarter of the price. It seems to get a fairly good write-up, but clearly it feels like it would end up being too small and too underpowered? I dont know how far beyond the pale my thoughts are - the Amolco has a 7x3x5" milling envelope which seems like it could handle anything bar a loco frame in one setup?

I think unless something world changing comes up, I am looking for a Centec 2B with a Mk3 head in good nick. It has good vertical clearance (that can be easily extended with a spacer) for indexing/rotary heads, a quill for drilling and knee for milling.

Steviegtr, the quill head Tom Senior's are like rocking-horse poop it seems, not even a sniff of one except one going for >£3500 on eBay at the moment. Is it worth picking up the one I mentioned that was in good nick band keeping an eye out for the quill head in future?

Thank you - my partner has broken her ankle and as such I have to sit on my hands for a bit. A kind gent has contacted me about a Centec 2B with a quill feed - but we need to figure out how to make delivery work...

I heard back about the VMC - The gent has advised it's in good nick, no marks, etc. and single phase. - I don't really hear much about them so are there any other idiosyncrasies I should be aware of before I take things further? I can find very little other than the lathes co uk info and nothing much at all about performance/limitations/benefits/drawbacks?

Hi Earny49 - if the articles are those which I think, it is you who inspired me to look at vertical/horizontal mill combos in the first place!

I am sure I will be converted to a DRO fanatic in due course, but the truth as they say, is just a maxim until it is felt upon your own pulse.

Re: Needs - what's the best way to frame my requirements?

I would like to have the capacity to reliably build 5" gauge locos and maybe 2" scale traction engines as well as sundry stationary engines - nothing ginormous, and nothing with jet engine precision.

I believe I am already fully equipped for the immediate future of 2-1/2" Gauge loco building - so there's no great rush.

Dear all, thank you so much for your replies.

re: Metric (Circlip, JasonB) - All of eveything I'm building is in imperial, so I would prefer to not have that extra step every single time I want to measure something. As stated initially, I'm not interested in a DRO at this point - although I may be convinced in future.

re: Newer/import machines (Chris Crew, Pete B.) - I am just not interested in a modern machine right now - not to mention I cannot find any new machines with an R8 taper, imperial dials. I don't want plastic, LCD screens, CNC, computer control, etc. at ALL. I deal with high-tech all day every day and probably will do until I retire - the last thing I want is to have it as part of my hobby. As per one of my first posts:

My aversion to chinese equipment is not because I think the quality would be bad, but rather because I don't want to support the export of labour to third world countries, nor the shipping process or the unscrupulous business practises of that part of the world. There (I would have thought) are enough milling machines in the UK that can do good service without having to buy something from Shenzen.

re: Usability (circlip) - one of the reasons I'm not after a Centec 2A is the knee handle being at the back corner!

I've enquired about the Myford VMC for the sake of completeness.

Hi Steviegtr - I see you have the S-type quill head which I gather is a totally different kettle of fish to the knuckle head when it comes to utility. Were the M1 Im' looking at to have one I would snap it up immediately - but without, it's much more difficult to justify.

I guess I'll just have to keep my eyes open for a TS M1 with an S-type head or Centec 2B with a quill head - that seems to be the sweet spot?

Well, there's a vertical Harrison on evilbay at the moment that I have considered but it's in metric. With regard to new gear I did reach out to Warco and they have no intention of stocking the imperial/R8 version of their VMC ever again...

Good evening all,

After mulling over this, I think it's slowly coming down to what is available at a given time - there being both benefits and drawbacks to each of the machines under consideration. I want to buy ONE mill that will last me the rest of my life!

Recently, I have seen a Tom Senior M1 in excellent condition with all the mod cons except the S-type quill head. It is about the same price as a Centec 2B with a Mk3 quill head.

The only thing that is making me a little nervous is the clearance on the M1, with the knuckle head. I make it about 9" to the table, 7" to the bottom of the machine vice - reduced down another 2" with a collet chuck installed - a working space of about 5" - and that's without any cutters, boring bars, drills, tapping guides, etc. installed. Am I able to bore a 5" gauge loco cylinder on an M1? Ream a 1/2" hole?

Am I going mad here? That seems SO SMALL!

If I have to do boring/reaming operations using the horizontal mode, that's even more of a pain that the lathe...

Edited By William Ayerst on 29/06/2021 22:57:31

Ah so I think my first problem is that my dowel is 1/16" SMALLER than my cylinder - and all the advice so far has suggested turning the dowel DOWN to the relevant size - do I need to get a larger dowel? (at this point I'm eying up one of my brooms...). As it stands I have two of those 11/16" dowels of about 8" each and the cylinder is only about 1-1/2" long.

With regard to chucking the lap vs the cylinder - given the harsh warnings about using emery paper or cloth near the ways of a lathe, I would have thought that lapping compound INSIDE a chuck would be much worse?

To be 100% clear, am I slitting the END of the dowel, about half way, and inserting a narrow wedge into the end? Or am I splitting it in the MIDDLE of the dowel (with both ends somehow held together?)

Good morning all,

It's very shortly going to be time to lap the cylinder of my little steam engine - and rather than buying a honing tool I thought I'd use the old trick of a hardwood dowel and lapping paste to finish the cylinder bore.

So now in my hand I have a dowel of about 11/16" and some fine and coarse grit lapping paste (silicone carbide + lithium grease) and I'm suddenly at a bit of a loss as to what to do.

I believe I need to split and wedge the dowel so the cylinder is a tight fit over it (and thus reasonably likely to maintain the concentricity and parallelism of the bore) then apply the paste to it, put it in my lathe chuck, cover the ways with some towel and then move the cylinder back and forth over it until a good finish is obtained. Is that about the sum total?

Any tips on splitting it and what to wedge it with? I've only got basic woodworking tools!

Many thanks,

Thank you Jason - triple checked and it is the cylinder top that was not perpendicular, so in this specific case I thought I would use what else I learned from this thread regarding milling rather than setting up an arbor. I wil review that thread though, it looks like it will come in very useful!

Either way I got a MUCH better result by using a 1/4" end mill with 3/16" passes and locking the cross slide:

Thank you Jason - do you have any link? I can't seem to find the thread...