Member postings for Russell Eberhardt

If you want a better editing software and don't want to spend a fortune download GIMP. Iy's free and will do everything that expensive packages will. Takes a while to learn though.

Russell.

Shouldn't be necessary. Check that your code meets the agreed standards here and it should work with any correctly designed browser.

Russell.

Great work Jason.

Russell.

P.S., How do you find time to do all that and make so many posts here and on other forums as well?

Edited By Russell Eberhardt on 10/06/2012 11:17:04

I must disagree with that. Although my first British car, a 1937 Austin Ruby, was unreliable that was mostly down to my inexperience. My most reliable car was a 1927 Morris Cowley which I ran for over 20 years with the only breakdown being due to my young daughter tidying the garage and putting sawdust in the petrol tank! Other carsincluded Austin Frazer Nash and Talbot (not sunbeam Talbot) 90. My first postwar car, a Ford Escort estate was however a rust bucket.

Russell.

I don't know what sort of motor you use but the biggest improvement I have made in surface finish from both my lathe and mill has been to replace the single phase moters with three phase and inverters. The torque of q three phase motor is (virtually) independent of the shaft angle.

Russell.

Start with a small drill and open up in stages to 11 mm before finishing with your 12 mm drill. The hole diameter will be accurate enough then.

Russell.

This is how I did some for a 5" loco:

..but any of the methods you mention should work. Just choose one to suit your equipment and go for it!

Russell.

Assuming you have a lathe with an *8 tpi leadscrew and a 16 tooth pinion on the indicator, the indicator is likely to be marked with four numbered lines and possibly an intermediate division between each whole number. For any even numbered pitch you can engage on any whole number. For odd numbered pitches engage on opposide numbers, ie., 1 and 3 or 2 and 4. If you are cutting a threadwith half pitches such as 12.5 tpi you must always engage on the same number.

The half divisions can be used be used if the pitch is divisible by four but I rarely (never?) bother with them.

Hope that helps.

Russell.

You can get proper gasket paper down to about 6thou here.

Altenatively af few turns of plumber's PTFE tape woven between the studs works well.

Russell.

Due to laziness I often use the same knife tool for turning and facing. Should I keep swapping the names of the faces?

Russell.

Yes, quartz clocks and watches use involute gearing. This is because, with cycloidal gearing, you shouldn't let the pinion drive the wheel. The disadvantage though comes when you need small tooth counts on the pinions.

I agree about conservatism. Much of clockmaking practice has been derived from trial and error using what was available at the time. It still works well but could probably be improved using modern theory and technique.

Russell.

Hi Dick

Absolutely but, ignoring elastic distortion, friction is caused by rubbing. The teeth of properly designed and meshed clock gears have a rolling action against each other without rubbing. By far the greatest source of friction in a clock should be the escape wheel rubbing on the pallets.

I used to use hard rubber in the cutless bearings of my boats but, as you say, lignum vitae is excellent. A good source is old lawn bowls.

Russell.

All this talk of friction between the gears is confusing me. Perhaps I am missing something but as I understand it with correctly depthed cycloidal gears there is a rolling motion on the teeth and no rubbing so there can be very little friction. Any wear is caused by dirt? The only wheel with rubbing on the teeth should be the escape wheel.

In the 1720s John Harrison famously made a turret clock from oak with lignum vitae bearings and it is still running. I'm sure aluminium alloy should be more durable!

Russell.

Yes, they are available with a wide range of speed ratings. The speed rating is quoted as kV which confused me for a while as that is the abbreviation for kilovolts, however for these motors it is the number of rpm per volt so for 3000 rpm maximum and running off a 12 V supply you need 250 kV.

They will work OK on 12 V so you could use a 12 V car battery connected to a charger.

Russell.

This thread might be of some use.

Russell.

There is more information on your lathes here

There is certainly a market for them they are high precision instrument or clockmaking lathes. No idea of the value but you could put them on Fleabay and let them find their own level.

Russell.

You can get engraving wax from Meadows and Passemore.

Russell.

Simple but not necessarily true.

Browsers are designed (or should be) to comply with the standards as published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). These standards define how a browser should handle valid code, however they do not define how they should handle incorrectly coded pages so if a page contains coding errors it may well respond differently in different browsers.

I have just checked the page your post is on with the W3C Validator and it came up with seven errors and two warnings.

Russell.

Edited By Russell Eberhardt on 22/05/2012 11:34:04

Perhaps the banding is there all the time but the finer finish with coolant makes it more visible. I've noticed banding occasionally but it is always at leadscrew pitch. I have also noticed it can appear on an otherwise good finish when polishing after turning.

I' ve always assumed that it is caused by a slight rocking of the saddle on it's ways but stand to be corrected.

Russell.

Does anyone else think it's time to close this thread?

David is aware of the problems now and I am sure he will do his best to correct them if we leave him to get on with it.

Russell