Member postings for Steven Corston

Thanks Juddy, I will give them a go.

Many thanks Colin.

Many thanks for all the replies. Looks like it needs a mixture of research and guess work.

Steve

Hello All,

Does anyone know the identification of the inserts used in the Chester face milling cutter?

**LINK**

Many thanks

Steve

5C collets may, might, could be more accurate but this depends on how good the holders are. the disadvantage to them is a very narrow clamping range of a couple of thou from the collet size. ER collets have a greater clamping range of up to 1mm. ie. a 10mm ER collet will hold matewrial between 10 and 9mm.

If you are always using accurately sized material then maybe 5C is best BUT if you have a variety of odd sizes then ER may be best. You can hold imperial stock in a metric ER (and visa versa) as the greater clamping range will allow this where as with 5C collets different sets of metric and imperial will be needed as well as accurate stock.

I prefer ER collets and have ER11, ER16 and ER25 sets all cheap Chinese from ebay. Maybe I have been lucky but they are all more accurate than my admittedly very old 5C set up.

Cheers

steve

There are three allen screws on the base at the bottom of the column. The top and the bottom ones are the clamping screws. Make sure that the centre screw is loose as its job is to open the slot and so limit the clamping force of the other two screws. I have removed the centre screw completely and have had no problem at all with the head moving in 40 ish years of use.

Hope this helps,

Steve

We had a sign in the maintenance department which read;

"On this bench the most highly skilled engineers in the factory strip down the most complicated equipment. In future we hope to recruit another highly skilled engineer who knows how to put the blooming stuff back together."

Hello Martyn. From the manual the belts are 1.5 x 83 x10 for the lathe and 1.5 x 70 x 10 for the milling head. The only place that I found them was Banggood. The originals were steel belts but I got rubber ones, much cheaper.

The milling head belt was far too tight on mine, I got round this by making a new pully with one tooth less.

Let me know if you want further information on this machine.

Steve

Hello Martyn. From the manual the belts are 1.5 x 83 x10 for the lathe and 1.5 x 70 x 10 for the milling head. The only place that I found them was Banggood. The originals were steel belts but I got rubber ones, much cheaper.

The milling head belt was far too tight on mine, I got round this by making a new pully with one tooth less.

Let me know if you want further information on this machine.

Steve

Edited By Steven Corston on 25/08/2022 18:30:49

Playing with mine today I discovered that pressing the Z button twice quickly turns it off. I have always just left it to turn itself off though. Maybe I should have read the instruction manual 40 years ago! Or if I did I should have remembered it.

Bill,

That may well be your problem with the battery flattening. I last charged mine in February, it has been sat on a shelf out of use since then and has held it's charge. Provided your battery isn't duff yours should be the same.

My LED ones only hold their charge for a month or so.

Steve

Forgot to say that the Cadar ones turn off automatically after a period of being idle.

I have only just found this thread so hope this reply isn't too late.

On the LED M&W micro 2000's the on/off switch is the sliding switch on top. Yellow for the mm ones and red for the inch ones.

The Cadar LCD ones have a very similar design BUT the top sliding switch is a measurement hold switch, either just press it to hold the measurement or slide it forwards to hold the measurement.

to turn on press and hold the Z (left hand) button, once the micrometer is turned on a momentary press will zero the display. (provided the hold function isn't on)

The S button (right hand) changes between mm and inch.

The C button (middle) ???? it lights up a letter C at the bottom of the display but I can't remember what it's function is. I never used it.

Hope this helps.

Steve

When filling in forms that ask for e-mail and phone number I always put 33388888888 (three threes and eight eights). This is a free service from truecall38 which if rung gives a polite message saying please use e-mail.

See www.truecall38.co.uk for further details.

I thought a lantern tool post was just for light machining.

I understand that the centre in the headstock end is a live centre and that in the tailstock is a dead centre. The live centre is soft whereas the dead centre is harder, or if you prefer, stiffer. Is this because rigor-mortis has set in?

One of my lathes claims to be a precision lathe. What modifications do I need to make to do non precision work on it? And is it easy to convert it back to precision should I need to?

Have I been scammed by lathe manufacturers? On the front of my lathes there is what the makers describe as a lead screw. On close inspection I find that this component is in fact made of steel and not lead.

Why is it called a cross slide when it goes backwards and forwards? Nor does it seem any angrier than the rest of the lathe.

This next one affects all of my lathes and so it must be a common problem. If I run the lathes forwards they cut metal off with no problem, BUT if I run them backwards they just will not put metal back on. Do I need to fit the tool upside down or back to front-?

Hello Richard,

I have the imperial version of this lathe/mill with a full set of gears. I don't know if the metric version uses the same gear set but i assume not. Do you just want to know what sizes are in the set?

Best wishes

Steve