Member postings for Phil Lingham

I try and avoid tilting the head so that I don't have to set the tram again. Fortunately I have a very nice Jones & Shipman tilt and swivel vice

In my workshop I laid 50mm X 50mm tanalised timber battens on the concrete and flooring grade tongue and groove chipboard on top. Then covered it with cheap vinyl flooring. Much warmer and nicer to stand on than the painted concrete floor in the garage next door.

Exactly that Nigel - just like an old fashioned bicycle handlebar stem!

Interesting idea Jelly - I'm curious to understand how you make certain the drill bit is perfectly centred?

Finished my first project modelled in Fusion 360 and then manufactured. Bottom speed of my lathe is 70 RPM and I know I'm not the first to do so but sometimes when I'm cutting a fine thread or working up to a shoulder I turn the chuck by hand. Every time I do so I tell myself I could do with a handle to make life easier, so I thought I could borrow a handwheel from my milling machine as they are held on with a single bolt hence very simple and quick to swap.

Designing it in Fusion 360 wasn't strictly necessary but was a useful exercise.

By hand here too - because that's how I was taught in college at the start of my apprenticeship back in 1973!

Fortunately I'm blessed with a steady hand and pretty good "feel" so don't seem to suffer with some of the problems others have described. Think I might have a go with power feed now though particularly as I have been very impressed with the insert parting tool I now have - never too old learn a new trick after all. Having said that I seem to mostly work with stainless or aluminium which often sticks to the tool.

Not one of mine but rather amusing anyway.

Back in the early 1990's we were having a number of special purpose automated machines made by Philips in Holland. One of the engineers I was working with told me a they had one designer / draughtsman who was particularly arrogant and claimed never to make mistakes. We were still working with manual drawings in those days and said chap had transposed the dimensions of a bore and an outside diameter. The machinist making the part presented him with tongue firmly in cheek with a cardboard box of swarf and said here's the part you asked me to make. Obviously he was asked why he had brought a box of swarf to which he replied that he knew the draughtsman never made a mistake and that is exactly what the drawing specified!

Whether the portion of humble pie he was force fed had any effect I never found out.

Interesting job for my nephew who is competing in a bicycle race in Italy this weekend. The bracket that holds the front derailleur on to his super light carbon framed bicycle has broken for the 2nd or 3rd time at twenty odd pounds a go. (At the top in the first picture). Everywhere is out of stock and he was in a panic that he wouldn't be able to take part so asked if I could help.

I tried bending one up out of some aluminium sheet of the same thickness but it was quite difficult because of the opposing bends and everything angled by 5 degrees. When we tried it out it was obviously too flexible so I machined one from solid increasing the thickness to make it stronger and more rigid.

He messaged me earlier to say that the gear shift has never been as positive! I'm not surprised because obviously with the original flimsy bracket most of the effort was wasted by flexing the bracket. Might have cost him a couple of extra grammes but I told him he'll just have to pedal a bit harder!

In a similar vein. The company I worked for was based near the Channel Tunnel and had a satellite factory near Le Touquet in France for which we provided engineering support. We set up a Fast Action Response Team which was "discharged" when they needed help.

And I completely agree about Bazza, hard to believe it was 20 years ago the other day that he left us.

After spending the first year of my apprenticeship full time at college soon after my return to work I was given a job that required a 1" diameter reamed hole in brass. Obviously reaming the hole was one of the last operations after a considerable amount of machining in the lathe. For some reason we only had a hand reamer so I set it up with a centre in the tailstock and set to. In those days I was less than 10 stones wringing wet and soon tired of the manual effort. However, the lathe was the type with a permanently running motor and a clutch, so I set the tap wrench against the compound slide and with the lathe set to the slowest speed began to nudge the clutch and feed the reamer through with the tailstock. All was going splendidly until I obviously got past the initial taper of the reamer and it began to take more off, when there was an awful crunching noise as the reamer stuck in the job and the tap wrench and back half of the reamer fell into the tray!!!

The foreman was known to be a "bit of a bar steward" who could even be a bit punchy (it was 1975 by the way) so I was absolutely terrified when I went to tell him. To my absolute amazement as I explained what happened he just said "well you obviously left too much reaming allowance so you won't do that again will you?". And I have never done it again thankfully.

Speaking of the aforementioned first year at college there was one pupil in our group who was so inept the senior lecturer took him to one side and asked him if he really wanted to continue or perhaps he might consider an alternative career. Early on he completely destroyed an Adcock Shipley horizontal mill so badly I never saw it work again. The mill had a joystick with fast traverse functions (that seemed like a space ship in 1974), he drove a 3" slab mill into the vice so hard that it even bent the overhead arm casting. The final straw was when making an adjustable V-block with the V on top of a 1" ACME thread with a total length of about 6" he decided to try and grind the top face by simply sitting the end face of the thread on the magnetic chuck, despite us having been instructed never to do such a thing. Inevitably it was flung across the whole width of the workshop to land in the tray of another pupils lathe, shattered the wheel and damaged the surface grinder into the bargain. I sometimes wonder what became of him when we returned to our employers?

Edited By Phil Lingham on 10/03/2023 17:34:12

Stelling Minnis, Kent

Usually open on Sundays and Bank Holidays in the summer

Hi All

New member (although I have been looking at the forums as a guest for a while). Thought you might like to see a picture of my Triton I finished last year complete with lots of home made parts.

Thanks to all for the welcome.

I hope to be able to help others too.

Have enjoyed the CAD forum particularly as I have been teaching myself 3D CAD (Fusion 360) after decades of 2D CAD use. Challenging but I feel like I'm getting to grips with it and there's lots of useful resources out there to help, plus it's good to keep the grey matter in use.

Hi Chris

Thank you for the welcome, I'm in Canterbury in Kent.

I finally managed to complete my Triton and get it on the road last year - only took me about 4 years! To be honest I think I probably enjoyed building it more than I will riding it so was never in a rush. If I can work out how to do it on this forum I'll post a few pictures.

I had good results with draw.io

Seemed quite similar to the Microsoft Flowcharting programme that I used at work before I retired

Hi All

I've been browsing the forums for some time and finally thought I should sign up!

Not really a model maker although I have had plans to make a 15cc IC engine ongoing for quite a while without finding the time to get round to it. I was fortunate to undergo an old fashioned EITB mechanical engineering apprenticeship back in the early 1970's that included the first year full time at college with 4 days per week learning practical skills in the workshop. Followed by 45 years in industry although after about 10 years I became desk based.

Back in 2010 after borrowing a lathe in the toolroom at lunchtimes for some while I decided I should get my own and bought a Warco GH1220. This was followed a year later by a Warco GH Universal Milling machine.

Main interests are motorcycles classic and modern making parts for myself and friends. I built myself a Triton with lots of home made parts including the fork yokes, foot controls, engine plates etc. and have recently made lots of parts for a friends 1930 Harley basket case.