Member postings for mgnbuk

Worth noting that the gents light roadster cost more than 2 months average pay

But the price was carriage paid to your nearest station & the prices shown were payable in 12 installments (10% discount for cash).

The top of the range gents bike at £17 10s is equivalent to £2160ish today according to an online inflation calculator.

Nigel B.

(taking delivery of a "new to me" Royal Enfield motorcycle on Friday - Chennai built rather than Redditch, though)

Captain Tolley

Captain Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure is a longstanding recommendation in motorhome circles for sealing "hard to find" leaks. Might work here ?

Nigel B.

We use these at work to produce 4MT holes in graphite components & used similar form taper pin reamers at my previous employment.

Just drilled a bit larger than the small end diameter of the roughing reamer to start. The roughing reamer requires retracting frequently to clear chip build up & we used Rocol RTD liquid as a lubricant for the taper pin reamers into steel or CI (dry for graphite). Leave a small amount to clean up to size with the finishing reamer.

My recollection of using the taper pin reamers is that the rougher took a suprisingly long time to clear out the hole before a few turns of the finisher get a good finish. IIRC we used a magnetic base drill to both drill and rough ream, then finished by hand.

The graphite components were produced on a vertical machining centre & were only around 40mm thick, so were quite quick to machine - still needed to retract the roughing reamer frequently to clear the flutes & prevent clogging. Graphite is abrasive though & the HSS reamers needed sending out for regrinding after every batch of components.

Nigel B.

Which prompts me to ask why does anybody manufacturer tanged MT2 End Mills?

Spot facing ?

Nigel B.

Why would the Italian and Austrian customers expect to reclaim the VAT?

Vat is payable by the customer in their home country - the French should not be charging it on goods in transit where France is not the destination country.

As customers should not be charged Vat twice, and as it is due to be paid in their country of residence on delivery, they should be able to reclaim the Vat incorrectly collected by the French after paying in their own country - but there is apparently no mechanism to do this.

While the example of importing from the EU I gave was not directly analogous to Fizzie's situation as an exporter, it does illustrate that the situation is changing - earlier this year most European Ebay sellers I was looking at would not sell to the UK at all. Now they will, my item delivery time was little different to before & there were no additional hoops to jump through. The way Ebay itemises Vat and a general increase in prices for Chinese products by the amount of the Vat since January suggests that the Treasury will benefit for the Vat collection changes (which I appreciate are a separate issue to the import/export situation).

In time, I would expect that the exporting situation for smaller exporters will change as well . If Fizzie were to send his boilers now (and would fully understand why he would be reluctant to do so ! ), the situation may well be different to a couple of months ago. In a couple of months time it will probably be different again - we are in a bit of a learning period at the moment that is proving a bit more difficult than some would have expected. Plus there is the apparent desire of some "over there" to be especially awkward at present to show us the error of our impertinet decision to leave the EU.

At work we send 4 or 5 full truck loads of product to Poland monthly + another to Norway & that continues largely as before - more paperwork up front, but otherwise no delays.

Nigel B.

Ebay seem to be getting things sorted for items coming in to the UK.

I ordered a 400w ER11 brushless spindle, drive & psu from a seller in the Czech Republic last Friday. Estimated delivery was next Wednesday, but it has just been delivered - so less than a week from order to delivery. The Vat collection was handled by Ebay (cost of the unit was around £95 + Vat ) & no other fees applied.

Plastic model specialists Hannats have been documenting their problems exporting to the EU - latest cause of items being returned was apparently due to items transiting France to Austria & Italy having the Vat demanded by the French, with no way for the Austrian or Italian customers to claim back against the French.

The French appear to be operating in a very hostile way - presumably because they are French and they can.

Nigel B.

Is Chestnut Product's "Nyweb" the same as Scotchbrite?

This appears to be a similar product to Scotchbrite - the red (600 grit) or orange (1000 grit) pads should work fine.

Using WD40 or similar as a lubricant works well - my "go to" solution for cleaning up tarnished / rusty ground surfaces.

Nigel B.

Fine (maroon coloured) Scotchbrite pads after degreasing.

Nigel B.

They sound like untrained 'animals'

Doesn't seem to matter where they were trained - UK, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia. International default for operators when it comes to tightening anything is to heave on it and, if in doubt, heave on it some more !

In general terms, though, the East European operators have had a better (i.e. more thorough) training than UK trained guys, starting younger in technical high schools.

Nigel B.

6 out of the 7 CNC milling machines at work have "bites" out of the tables due to milling cutters working out of ER collet chucks - and that is machining graphite, not metals & we have bench mounted ISO 40 toolholders to get a good hold on the tools to tighten the collet nuts with the correct spanners. The machines do have a bit more power available, but against that most CNC operators are animals when it comes to tightening things - if all else fails, use a 3 foot pipe on the spanner !

Don't seem to have pull out issues with sidelock or Clarkson holders.

Nigel B.

I have the Boxford ACL which I think was the toolroom equivalent of the TCL.

Rather different animals - the ACL was CNC modified version of the geared head "industrial" lathe where the TCL160 is a small bench top educational machine ?

As the machine has been refurbished, I shouldn’t have any reliability issues?!

Define "refurbished" ! " "Refurbished" to some traders is removal of visible rust and a badly applied coat of paint.

You would need to ask / see what has been done and how well. Same goes for the Mach 3 conversion - quality componets used and installed to the same standard as the Boxford original equipment, or cheapest no-name stuff off Ebay lashed up with bell wire. Both may "work" when demonstrated !

Nigel B.

Royal Enfield Bullet motorcycles used a semi liquid grease in the original 4 speed gearboxes, available here

This is a Grade 00 grease that is akin to thickened gear oil in consistancy - it will drain out of the motorcycle gearboxes (eventually - I left mine overnight when I had one ) through a 1/2" or so drain plug.

Nigel B.

Unfortunately the machines are Price on Application

MillHill Supplies have Sherline prices on their website, Dave - machines & accessories. Not clear from the list if the prices are Vat inclusive or not - the difference between "just expensive" and "how much !".

Mrs B got me a second hand Sherline deluxe long bed lathe and a lot of accessories for my 40th birthday - it has not had a lot of use since it came to me & I should make the effort to use to more often. I did make the (stainless) valves & (bronze) valve guides for a Westbury Seal (the kit for that was my birthday present to myself that year) on it without any dramas - though turning longer items gets a bit tedious with a 20TPI leadscrew & the accessories included didn't include the "power feed" kit.

Nigel B.

A subsequent short video of recovering the aircraft by dragging on shore with a strap around the tail looked a bit brutal.

They don't need 3.1 amps, that is the maximum!

It will need 3.1 amps to develope it's rated holding torque, though - you can run below this if you can manage with the reduced torque that will result.

I have had a play with a couple of the cheap Ebay drives (can't seem to get Ebay up at the moment to confirm which ) variously described as "TB6600" after a Toshibe drive ic. Some are TB6600, some are not !

Most listings give the absolute maximum ratings, as opposed to recommended absolute operating conditions. Both worked, but both had resonance issues at various speeds using either a 24v or 36v power supply (depending upon drive rating) - the one that has a TB6600 (or clone - same ic package) performs better. A more expensive Stepper Online digital drive is much quieter in operation and does not appear to have the resonance problems of the cheapies - as ever, you get what you pay for.

"Testing" here being with hand held motors not driving any load & the input pulses being generated by an Ebay step/direction generator.

Nigel B.

I need to now work on the actual positioning and locking mechanism

The usual method of positioning on industrial turrets is with a Hirth / Curvic coupling between the disc and the body. With that, there are two basic solutions - the disc + half of the coupling moves forwards to clear the body coupling teeth before indexing, or the body part of the Hirth coupling can move axially within the body (but constrained radially) to allow the disc to rotate without "lifting".

Hydraulic operation of clamping is easier, but indexing is a bit more awkward - the Taiwanese all hydraulic turrets on various lathes at work use a complex Geneva indexing method using a hydraulic motor & rapidly "step" between positions. Control is quite simple, though, using a couple of proximety switches to count stations as they pass + a reference position switch & clamp / unclamp switches. A counter in the PLC gives a representation of the disc position, being incremented / decremented by the count switch depending on disc direction. The counter is a "ring counter" preset in the PLC with the number of disc stations that has no zero value. Usually the disc is indexed repeatedly to find the reference switch on the first tool call after powering up - at this point the "ring counter" is preset to the current station number (usually station 1), though some manufacturers make referencing the turret part of the initial machine reference procedure & some others use battery backed registers in the PLC memory to remember the disc position set at the point the machine was powered off, so no referencing required. One Cincinatti machine at work saved the cost of the reference switch by making the operator manually index the turret to station 1 & then confirm the position was set via the operator interface - many ways to achieve the same end !

All electric turrets use one motor to clamp/unclamp using a cam and a belleville washer stack arrangement, then index steplessly after unclamping. This type (variously made by Sauter, Duplomatic, Baruffaldi & Pragati) are mechanically complex and use a lot of precision ground hardened parts + a special absolute binary or BCD encoder for disc position + a solenoid operated plunger assembly for the locking arrangment. They also require quite a fast PLC to run them, as the timing of the locking plunger solenoid operation is critical. Locking is by reversing the motor after the locking plunger engages until a proximety switch actuates. There may also be an electromagnetic brake to lock the motor shaft after the "clamped" switch makes.

It should be possible to do a hybrid - hydraulic clamping with electric indexing - without undue difficulty, I think.

Live tooling drive to rotating tools in the turret is another can of worms to consider ! We have one machine at work with a Sauter all electric turret that has live tooling, but that uses the VDI tool mounting system not square shank tools. I have the manual for that turret that has sectional drawings that I could copy & post if that would help ? I would not like to try and make one, though !

On the turrets here that use a wedge to clamp square shank tooling, there are two counterbored holes & a tapped hole in the wedge rather than the plate you show - the counterbored holes line up with tapped holes in the disc & the tapped hole in the wedge is used to extract it. I think the face mounted wedge clamp shown would be restrictive & prone to collision with the workpiece / chuck. You need eyes everywhere when you have boring bars and turning tools mounted on a tool disc to be watchful of collison risks - you could do without introducing another one.

HTH

Nigel B.

Two reasons were identified.

Rather more than those two reasons in that case, Dave.

The steel used was that used for building ships at the time - what changed with Liberty ships was that the original (British) design was for "traditional" rivited construction & the Americans redesigned them to be all welded to allow construction of subassemblies and speed construction. With the riveted construction, if a plate cracked the run of the crack was limited to the plate concerned. With the welded construction the cracks ran through welds and ajoining plates. Add in to that poor quality welding perfomed by poorly trained, unskilled, welders (it seems that many if not most cracks started in poor welds or weld preps - that would appear to be the case in the example you quoted), the lack of knowledge at the time of the effect of welding the type of steel used & design shortcomings that put welded joints in stress raising positions due to the prefabricated construction were as much to blame as the material used. One "workaround" used to alleviate the problem was to rivet (not weld) a substantial steel plate belt around the ships below deck height.

I find the whole mobilisation & mass production of war materiel in the US during the war fascinating & I doubt that such feats could be accomplished today. The whole shipbuilding program was an amazing feat - largely starting from scratch, rethinking building techniques & many hard lessons were learned that laid the foundations for what we largely take for granted today. Interestingly, the only remaining part of one of the larger Liberty ship builders, Kaiser, is the company healthcare scheme set up at the time.

Nigel B.

I don't think you get to set parameters like current with these devices

I have yet to come across an inverter that does not require the input of the basic motor parameters (voltage, FL current, frequency & base speed ) - these seem to be the basic minima to get up and running ? FL current would be particularly important in your case of operating a drive with a motor a long way below the drive capability.

No experience of a Cowells, but are they not plain bearing spindles so maybe higher drag than rolling element bearings ?

Nigel B.

Stainless steel spokes are original equipment on my RE Interceptor 650 and my wife's Moto Guzzi V7 Special & I rebuilt one of my MZs wheels many years ago with a set of stainless spokes from Central Wheel Components (at one time the supplier of Triumph's spoked wheels). MZ OE spokes were chromed steel.

I recall many years ago there being an on-going spat in the letters pages of the original Motorcycle Sport magazine between two suppliers of stainless aftermarket wheel spindles getting increasingly vitriolic WRT the "correct" grade of SS to use in such an application. Always stuck with OE parts for tcritical parts, but note that at least some wheel and swing arm spindles (BMW & MZ come to mind ) appear to be hard chromed.

Nigel B.

I bought a Brother mono laser printer (not 3-in-1) when it was on a Bank Holiday offer from PC World (less than £60 with a newspaper coupon IIRC ).

It was fast to start up, fast to print & decent quality. The "starter" toner cartridge didn't last long & a replacement was almost as much as the printer. This didn't get used up, as another part that the toner cartridge mounted on died, giving longitudinal lines down the page & this part cost more than the printer did, so it went for recyling and was not replaced. I don't think I had much over 2 years use out of it, so not really a bargain.

So back to an inexpensive Canon 3-in-1 inkjet for me - Canon because the print head is built in to the cartridge & they don't seem to be plagued by the terminal print head blockages that afflict Epson printers. Yes genuine cartridges are pricier as you buy the print head every time, but I use less than a pair a year & it always prints fine regardless of how long it is left between prints.

Work tried moving from a Brother 3-in-1 A3 inket to a Brother colour laser printer as business increased & the initial inket unit died - again great while it lasted, but then the main pcb failed just after it had had a full set of cartridges fitted (over £100 + Vat there) &as it was out of warranty it was scrapped. We run 2 of the Brother A3 inkjets now, using pattern cartridges, they last over 5 years in a busy office environment before dying and are a lot cheaper to buy than the laser. Duplex printing machines, with auto document feed on the scanner & two paper trays that we keep set as one on A3 and the other on A4. Better photo reproduction from the inkjets than from the colour laser, if that matters to you.

Nigel B.