Member postings for Ketan Swali

Just for clarification:

The link in Ro's post is to board XMT2335 - which is for C3 mini-lathe.

The picture of the board in Marks picture seems to show the board XMT2325 - link which is for C2 mini-lathe, which makes sense for a Clarke CL300M.

In any case, out of stock at ARC.

If Marks son has had zero/low guidance/ training on the lathe before being let loose on it, the probability of him breaking things are high, to include hi/lo gears, control board/s, as the chances of him overloading the machine are high.

On the one hand, depending on above, it would be wrong to get upset on Marks son, and on the other hand, there is good reason why costs of certain components are high,

Ketan at ARC.

I dont know what that makes you either Andrew.

Ketan at ARC

As Hopper said, standard procedure is to retract the tool on the return travel. Some boring bars have more sping than others, depending on size/material of bar, and how far it sticks out from the tool post.

I too went to the last open day held by Myford in Nottingham. All the elite I met at that open day were/are respected people in the model engineering world, with a wealth of knowledge. If we are talking about the same event, and the same people, then it is possible that there was some misunderstanding in either the question you raised, or the response you received from those people with knowledge who attended. It would be wrong to refer to those people with knowledge as ex-sputs.

Ketan at ARC

Whilst a unimat 3 may be a good lathe, it sits in the broad category of a micro lathe, lathes which are usually smaller than a mini-lathe.

If you look at Warcos website, you will see that a mini-lathe is significantly larger. Link here which also refers to their statement that 'Warco invented the term Mini Lathe' under the section headed 'Buying a hobby lathe'.

Mini-lathe is a popular 'keyword' - in search engines. So many people/sellers in marketing use this key word to draw attention to anything they want to promote/sell, even though the product sits in the micro lathe category.

There is also a term baby lathe, which is used for lathes smaller than a micro lathe. Still, certain marketing people use the popular keyword 'mini-lathe' to describe such machines in search engines too.

Ketan at ARC.

That will all come out in the wash. Pointless to worry about it from now.

Ketan at ARC.

Depending on how things develop with EU, current suggestions as per this link

Put in first four digits of the commodity code, e.g. 8458, and this will give you an idea of current 2.7% duty, future 2.0% duty (excluding signed agreements).

Note: Although above are good indications for the future, there may be additional duty for EU, depending on how much negotiators on each side work with each other or annoy each other, in which case, it could go up to between 6%~9%.

So, cost of goods + road/sea/air freight + duty + clearance costs = xx.xx + VAT

Although the taxes may be less of an issue, collection/admin/clearance.costs imposed by couriers may increase.

Please remember that this works both ways.

Ideally, free movement of goods would be great, but this will be part of the negotiations, which have yet to be finalised, regardless of whoever says whatever on either side. Pointless to consider at this point in time.

Distributors on all sides are doing a little bit of scare mongering.

Ketan at ARC.

Hi Ross,

It is a SIEG C2 lathe, spare parts for which can be found on this page.

Ketan at ARC.

Nigel G2...

It comes down to what the particular courier delivery service is like at the receiving end of the parcel, how busy they are, how many permanent regular drivers they have to deliver the goods, and how well they know their routes.

Brian H...

Try to relax....(I know it is easier said then done)... in our experience, in most cases when parcels go walk about due to CV19, they reappear and get delivered within around 14 days of dispatch. This is regardless of which courier you use. Obviously, you will hear the most noise - re problems - for the cheapest couriers which will have the highest demands for their service, which in turn into the biggest load onto their systems.

Start worrying or having a discussion with courier/supplier/local depot after 14 days. This only applies to U.K. sender and receiver.

Ketan at ARC

Hi Steve,

ARC and AUSEE adverts were taken off at our request at around 4pm on Friday 5th June 2020.

We had originally requested for them to be taken off at the end of May.

There is a disagreement between us and MTM over a particular issue. Before end of last month, they requested us to give them a few days to resolve the matter. As the issue remained unresolved by 3pm last Friday, we requested MTM to remove our adverts. At present, I would like to avoid getting into details of the disagreement.

The email you received about the SX3.5 DZP was an automated email which I think went out last Thursday, as soon as we off loaded the container and put the machines into stock. You got the email because you put in your email address on the website, to be notified when the machine was back in stock. Your request to be notified would have been many moons ago, before you were steered into the direction of Tom Senior, which I am sure you are enjoying.

And YES, as far as I am aware, everything is okay at ARC, so far, as at close of business on Monday 8th June.

Ketan at ARC

Edited By Ketan Swali on 08/06/2020 22:00:28

No problem Martin. Happy to put it to bed.

Ketan at ARC.

Breaking down a machine option for smaller machines has been tried for Switzerland, but they still get damaged.

Regarding the comments in your second paragraph, how do you know if Wabeco is a 'genuine' item and/or SX2.7 a clone, or if it is any better or worse than what Mark is considering to buy?. If you don't have anything useful to say, please avoid making prejudicial comments. I don't think that you or your comments are funny.

Ketan at ARC.

Hi Mark,

Here is what we said in our email to you:

-----------------------------------

' Unfortunately, after speaking with our freight providers, we are not able to deliver machines to Switzerland.

We are able to consider orders for machine accessories and tooling.

Please accept our apologies that we have been unable to assist you on this occasion.'

--------------------------------

ARC failed to elaborate on 'after speaking with our freight providers'.... so here are some more details..

We do not ship machines regularly to Switzerland, so we invited two quotes. One declined, and one quoted GB£450.00 + GB£60.00 for processing through Swiss customs. These quotes for Switzerland are excluding VAT. Also, there would have been local import duty/taxes (whatever they may be) to be paid by you on entry into Switzerland, as Switzerland is not part of EU for 'free circulation' of goods. We queried this quote as it seems expensive, and were told - it is correct.

Keeping this in mind, the matter was brought to my attention. I felt that it was too expensive. Plus, based on past experience of things going 'pair shaped' specifically for machine shipments to Switzerland:

• certain issues with Swiss customs delays due to customers understanding/mis-understaning/expectations of Swiss customs procedures
• transit damage to certain smaller machines which were sent through premium carriers such as TNT/Fedex, specifically to Switzerland
• Last machine shipment was held up by Swiss customs for two weeks without any good reason

For ARC, the above problems are unique to Switzerland. We do not have the same problems to any other EU destinations, including Romania, Norway and Sweden - destinations to which we ship these and other machines - big or small, regularly.

For Switzerland, we have to check what the situation is, at the time of enquiry. Based on all of the above, I decided to decline your order, so you got the email as you did. Perhaps the sender of the email from ARC should have clarified with more detail, but chances are that either way, you would have been unhappy with the response.

As you say, life is too short. Apologies once again for the inconvenience. I hope you enjoy your new purchase of WABECO.

Ketan at ARC.

Hi Andy,

In your opening post, you say: ' I’ll have loads of questions to ask about the mill '.

If the digital version of the MEW magazine works, I would strongly suggest that you subscribe to it.

Once subscribed, you can look at the back issues of the magazine, starting from issue MEW 261.

Issue 261 starts off a 'Milling for beginners' series based on the SX2.7, written by Jason, who is one of the moderators on this forum.

The series continues in alternate issues of the magazine, 15 parts, which ends in issue 289. Jason has a thread on the forum based on the series. See link .

In the absence of a 'hands on' coarse, I would suggest that most of the questions you have about the mill, along withe the associated tooling will probably be answered in the series.

Ketan at ARC

Now the only thing we need to work on Andrew is 'the delivery', or perhaps a bit of diplomacy without sticking the challenges back up and I wasn't referring to me.

Meant as a joke. Sorry I couldn't resist

Ketan at ARC.

Edited By Ketan Swali on 25/05/2020 11:22:04

Thank you all for your kind comments.

Reading all this now also makes me feel a little embarrassed and silly for creating this thread.

Initially my intentions were to just give polite advice to beginners to be respectful and grateful to the collective for freely sharing knowledge, rather than getting carried away as I did.

At the time of making the post, it felt good to release what I was thinking. However, after further discussions with one or two forum elders, Michael G in particular, and after reading some of the comments on here such as the thought presented by Hopper, I now have a better understanding of how things got miss-understood.

By the response, different from what I was expecting, I can see that I let my ego get the better of me by overthinking negative thoughts. A new lesson learned - thank you all.

Ketan at ARC.

Hi Charles,

Steven Tao runs Ausee. He is the nephew of the General Manager of one of factories we work with under the SIEG Group. He was sent to ARC for training over a period of six months, before setting up shop in Melbourne.

Ketan at ARC

No spat at all Mick. It’s all good

Ketan at ARC.

Thanks Bandersnatch. The only reason I remembered that was because it was a reality check for me at that time, for how the market was changing.

Coming from a person who once suggested to me 'if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen', I cant tell if your post is meant to be a joke or sarcasm ...

Either way, the answer is NO. Various people on this forum have PMed Jason, Howard Lewis and others about machines, before purchasing from ARC. No one has received any commission.

Ketan at ARC

During lock-down, we have seen an increase in number of beginners entering the hobby.

In many ways, this is a good thing. We see a lot of questions on here relating to set-up/use of new tools, used and new machines.

All these questions are great. There is a lot of enthusiasm with beginners, but the knowledge is limited, because of lack of previous hands-on experience. Sometimes this results in questions over fitness of purpose, especially resulting from bargains obtained through auction sites. There is nothing wrong with that. We - the collective - are all here to help, even if one members opinion is different from anothers.

Keeping this in mind, ARC commissioned a beginners series in Model Engineers Workshop, relation to using a modern day lathe or mill. These series dealt with how to use the respective machines and tools associated with them.

This series started with issue 260 onwards for using a lathe - by Neil Wyatt, and 261 onwards for using a mill - by Jason Ballamy.

Judging by the questions we see on the forum, as well as over the phone and emails, can I please suggest and encourage beginners to subscribe to the digital version of the magazine?... which in turn will give beginners access to the back issues.

The machines and related tools were given to Neil and Jason, precisely to write the series for beginners to address many of the questions which are being asked so regularly now.... more so during lock-down.

If you do not have time to read, or if you don't want to, that is up to you. Under such circumstances, please be considerate and respectful of the time the collective on this forum spend to help the beginners.

Many on here have years of experience. I would particularly like to draw attention to regular references to ARC products which Neil and Jason in particular make. The reason why they make reference to ARC products is because they have used them. Many of the YouTube videos to which Jason refers are directly linked to the beginners series which he wrote. Yes, this shows off the ARC product in question. He does not get extra commission for this. He is trying to show the process to a beginner, and yes this promotes sales for ARC. It does not mean that the beginner should only purchase ARC products.

Both Neil and Jason along with others give their time for free on this forum. ARCs contributed to the hobby by establishing a beginners series on the subjects in question. We paid Neil and Jason by giving them the products. In real terms, if I had to pay for the series in terms of time invested by Neil and Jason, instead of paying them by product, it would have cost ARC a lot more.

I am aware that this 'investment of helping people' has gone down like a lead balloon with a minority of members on this forum, which is a wrong and sad interpretation. Two members (not Neil or Jason) have PM'd me notifying me of two other members of this forum who say that Neil and Jason are 'very palley with ARC' because they get things for free (I have used polite language to what was actually said). This is the wrong interpretation.

Both have been imparting their knowledge freely on this forum, along with others, long before the two members chose to make the comments they did, and long before ARC commissioned the series for beginners. The reasons why ARC chose Neil and Jason for the series is precisely because of their knowledge and ability to write articles which a beginner can understand.

Both Neil and Jason pay for what they want from ARC.

Neil and Jason only get 'things for free', if ARC wants them to test the products and give a report. Again, 'for free' is not really, considering the time and effort they have to put in to carry out the tests, which ultimately benefit the end user. I have given products in the same way to other users to test. Many are on this forum, and they choose not to write on here, or there is an agreement between the tester and ARC for the project to remain confidential.

Before anyone says it,...

YES ARC - i.e. me have a bee in my bonnet about certain auction sites, especially when we know the quality of certain products being promoted on there, combination of good, bad and ugly. Separate from the two members in question, I also think it wrong of two other people (one of who is still a member on this forum), to degrade a the memory of the late John Stevenson under comments on a product which was on You Tube promoting a product sold on Banggood - which i personally find disgusting.. after a person has passed away, just because they had a grievance with him. JS was another person who helped us, and it is a shame that those to people were reluctant to say things to his face when he was alive.

YES, such auction sites selling products direct from China eat into ALL U.K. based businesses. It is a fact of life we live with. However, if new comers wish to make comparisons, we kindly request you to be careful and avoid generalising, especially if you have limited knowledge.

All U.K. sellers work hard to service the end user and to survive.. in any climate, and no, we - as in most reputable U.K. sellers are not out to diddle anyone.

If you got a good or bad bargain off an auction site, that is well and good. But please be respectful too of the knowledge being imparted on this forum, and remember to thank the collective - forum community who provided you the assistance.

I have often seen long threads where many have helped, without any expectation of thanks, and then suddenly the receiver of the knowledge comes back in on another thread giving the impression that 'he knows everything' on a subject, and is suddenly in expert.

Ketan at ARC.