Member postings for thomas oliver 2

Contact me at 0191 5846732 and I may be able to help

Just one tip to offer - do not chuck casting sand straight onto pattern. Use a fine seive and seive sand onto pattern until it is covered. Then use the sand to pack the box. This will give a much better finish to the casting. T. Oliver.

I once had a Myford ML7 and it used up the oil supply about every weekv. I changed to EP90 back axle oil and found that it only needed a drip every few weeks after that. I used the lathe for five years with no ill effects. T.O

How do I access a PM?

I have a lot of alloy to dispose of around 2 1/2 x 2 1/2. I can let you have these very cheaply ( Plus postage ) if you are interested.. T. Oliver

Ashley, Tapers can be made by measurement. For your lathe the widest diameter is 0.340ins and the smallest diameter is 0.285 in. at a distance apart of 0.960ins . I have a Wizard lathe which is a slightly superior clone of the Adept in that it is cast from spheroidal cast iron, so I have checked these measurements form my own centres. Set your topslide at a small angle and take a few cuts. Measure the two diameters at the distance apart of 0.960ins. Keep resetting the cross slide so that the plus diameter is the same at both ends ie. 0.340ins plus x and 0.285ins plus x. This should fix the correct angle. Then slowly take further cuts until the stated dimensions are achieved. This should enable you to reproduce the taper for centres. You should be able to feel a snug fit if accurate with no wobble We all started the same as you knowing very little so get started and have a go. "Practice makes perfect" I hope the above is clear enough.

Plenty of small keyed drill chucks are available cheaply for around £4 on ebay and usually have a 3/8in UNF thread or a small taper fitting, 3/8in bolts were used on British and US cars prior to Metrication and should not be too difficult to obtain. Presuming your lathe is otherwise in operation, it should not be too difficult to turn the correct taper to fit the tailstock. If you have never done this a trick is to put a solid centre in reverse along the side of the topslide and set so that it brings the centre line in line with the lathe centre line. Otherwise you can use Blue compound the test the fit. It is always a great advantage to have more than one chuck to use so buy at least two. If you can manage to produce the correct taper, make a tapered arbor and drill it 1/8th inch. Fit an 1/8th centre drill with Loctite or Superglue and this means you always have a centre drill at the ready. . T. Oliver.

Here is my method for what it is worth. It is very difficult to drill through the screw dead centre. Drill a hole about 2/3 size right through. Use a parallel diamond burr in a dremel type tool to centralise the hole as near as possible. Then open out the hole with successively larger drills until it is almost out to tapping size. It should then be possible to lever out what remains of the thread fairly easily, say with a bent scriber. Another way is to use a fine tipped diamond burr in a dremel tool to cut a slot across the end then use a screwdriver to turn the screw out.

Blunt dies are relatively easy to sharpen. Fit a grinding burr into your Dremel or drill which is slightly smaller than one of the holes. Figure out which is the cutting edge and run the burr through a few times. You can see the fresh surface which is ground and continue until it reaches the cutting edge. Repeat for other edges. Tapas can also be easily sharpened. A conical burr is best - fractionally less in radius than the flute radius.or the same. The trick is to run the burr in each flute TOWARDS the tip, then if it jumps it will not damage the cutting edge..The other way up, one slip and the tap is ruined.

I have been sharpening drills for eight decades ( believe it or not) I have the Eclipse, the Picador, and various other drill sharpening devices and they mostly require setting one edge then the other. I bought the sharpener from Lidl store for about £15 a year ago and all my troubles ended. The drill is mounted in a carrier and set to a gauge, one edge sharpened on the diamond wheel then the carrier is reversed and the other edge sharpened without need for resetting. It works fine and my local store has them in stock right now and gets them in regularly. It is also a multi sharpener and can sharpen chisels, garden shears, planes, and knives.

I have been sharpening drills for eight decades ( believe it or not) I have the Eclipse, the Picador, and various other drill sharpening devices and they mostly require setting one edge then the other. I bought the sharpener from Lidl store for about £15 a year ago and all my troubles ended. The drill is mounted in a carrier and set to a gauge, one edge sharpened on the diamond wheel then the carrier is reversed and the other edge sharpened without need for resetting. It works fine and my local store has them in stock right now and gets them in regularly. It is also a multi sharpener and can sharpen chisels, garden shears, planes, and knives.

I would advise all to look into the powers of the local Social Security Services regarding your Savings and house. If you succumb later to dementia or ill health and need to be placed in a care or nursing home you will have to pay if you have more than £14500 in savings ( Not £25000 as you are usually informed by the government) Current cost of care is around £550 per week. When your savings are used up they can confiscate your house and sell it. The authority can access your bank details going back seven years and if they think you have fiddled your money away to say your family, they can still claim it back. If you get dementia your solicitor will be unable to arrange for one of your family to have "Power of Attorney" to conduct your affairs. So investigate this and make all arrangements before it is too late.

As far as I can measure it, it appears to be 22mm x 1mm pitch.

Your drill sharpening troubles are now all over. I use drills every day and I have 5 sharpeners all of which suffer from the same problem, even my Picador which I used successfully for many years in my old shed - the need to reset the other edge every time I even have a hand sharpener made by Eclipse which is worked on a sheet of carborundum back and forth - the backing off attained by eccentricly mounted wheels Lidl stores sell a multi sharpener which includes chisels, planes, scissors, garden shears to name a few,, For drills, the bit is mounted in a separate holder and set for length in a v-jig then clamped. The edge is sharpened and then the holder is inverted and the other edge sharpened. This ensures that both edges are the same length and angle. The wheel is diamond and a spare included. I sharpened umpteen drills perfectly in no time, They cost only about £15.00 whereas on ebay the cheapest alternative clone is £42.00 ans one as much as £60.00 Incidentally, even if your local store does not stock them, they can be ordered quite easily on line.

I don;t know if drawing standards have changed, but all drawings used to be done according to British Standard 308, of the Brtish Standards Institute at least they were generally. There used to be available a cheap Students copy which condensed it all into a very clear reference Booklet. I have no Idea if this still exists or whether the booklet is available but you never know. There were 2 systems of viewing and drawing the views - 1st Angle and 3rd Angle, the first being used the most, In first angle there were 4 views 1, the view from the front put in the middle.called the Front elevation 2. The view from the right drawn to the left called an end elevation 3. The view from the left drawn to the right and called an end elevation. 4 The view from above drawn below the front elevation and called the plan view.

Dimensioning and all other information added were all strictly laid down but alas not always followed to the letter.

Understanding and remembering it is not difficult. It was the production of neatly spaced and projected views and neat dimensioning which was the problem facing students. Tomol.

It should be mentioned that it is only necessary to heat the operating end of the tool to temperature, shielding as suggested which concentrates the heat, then quench Also to temper , do not heat this end but heat the other and allow the heat to conduct down the tool until the desired colour is reached, then quench immediately.

Stewart, The keyword in machine work is RIGIDITY. The thinner metal becomes the more flexible it is, so small lathes are not quite so rigid as larger ones. I would go for something bigger than an Adept. An old Myford in fair condition will handle a 3 1/2 in loco. The Boxfords and Viceroys are very good and many schools throughout the country were equipped with them and there are plenty about. They should handle a 5" gauge also. The Chinese lathes are much better now and can be had for around £500 for a basic lathe in either metric or imperial. Beware however of the gears, many of which are plastic, but metal replacements can be bought. If you buy a new machine you will probably only get a 3-jaw chuck and maybe a drill chuck. You could be luckier by buying a lathe from someone retiring, with all its extras like a 4-jaw, tools, measuring gear etc. but if you do not feel competent to judge the quality of a lathe on offer, take along someone who is. Whatever it costs for the lathe will have to be doubled at least for all the drills, taps, dies, reamers.etc. Locos have a proliferation of valves and unions which need D bits, but these can be self made with a little practice at hardening and tempering. To make these unions and things, a few spare drill chucks are useful to keep often used taps or drills ready mounted. Mount a centre drill in a Morse taper arbor to save on a chuck. Start visiting any local car boot sales to see what you can pick up. Many stallholders have no idea of what they are selling or the value, and bargains are to be had. I have built both the Walschaerts gear LBSC Tich and the Juliet. The latter would pull you with ease and would be less demanding than say the 5" Simplex. Plans for a 5" gauge Tich exist, which is as simple and powerful as you can get. You should manage most work with a 4-way toolpost. Quick change tool-posts with a good few tool holders come pretty dear. Then there is the issue of high speed or tungsten carbide tooling. The latter were introduced for high speed production on heavy lathes. TC is brittle and edges could get cracked so the edges were actually rounded minutely. This was not good for amateur work but TC tips can now be obtained for even alloy which are sharper. However you will definitely need TC for iron castings and tough steel. HSS tools at much easier to sharpen I myself knew little about lathe work or locos when I started but it comes slowly and steadily, so get cracking.

I have been following Lars on YouTube and he is OK, but his No1 beginners video was a bit hard to follow . He later apologised with another video for missing out vital commands, so make sure you watch that one if you are interested.

For brazing - in my experience the cherry red should be orangy red, not dark red, to get the filler rod to flow quickly, The quicker the metal is heated up the better as there is less chance of the flux deteriorating, so big nozzles are best. Prolonging the heating with small nozzles can lead to failure. and a complete cleanup and restart.

Similarly for hardening tool steel, dark red will not allow the necessary crystal change to take place and the steel will not harden when quenched.