Member postings for ega

Annealing the silver steel should make it easier to machine.

This was a topical thread for me as I am building the Acute sharpening system - thanks Gary, and John Ashton - and the design calls for a number of flat-bottomed holes. The first was done with a small boring bar but, having reviewed and tested my stock of slot drills, I have decided to try the D bit approach as suggested by not done it yet. I realize that this will not produce a perfectly flat bottom but I doubt whether a slot drill will be much better.

ARC have some high performance slot drills which may be the answer.

Edited By ega on 10/11/2017 16:47:42

Chris Trice:

Thanks; it's good to know that my 1960s machine is still up-to-date in that respect.

I think your suggestion of gauge plate is just about ideal for anyone wanting to make a gib.

Edited By ega on 08/11/2017 14:34:53

The top slide, cross slide and saddle gibs on my old Super 7 are certainly not hardened steel, top slide and saddle having been dowelled and cross slide fitted with locks by me all of which involved drilling the gibs with ordinary tools.

Here is my GHT pusher:

Also in the photo is a Martin Cleeve-inspired bushing type steady in use with an ML7 cross slide co-opted as a top slide for its extra travel.

Bazyle:

Thanks for that. This was a job for a friend who wanted to keep the original handle; had it been a replacement job I would have taken the more straightforward course of splitting off the old handle and making a new one.

Gareth Jefferson:

Good to have you on the forum. I am in Kent, too.

Your workshop sounds pretty advanced for a beginner of whatever age. I think that there was a thread about the Biax - try the search box some way down the home page.

The simple but costly solution to wear in the cross slide nut and/or feedscrew is to renew one or both. The Myford nuts were relatively cheap, however, and I think may have been intended to wear more quickly than the screw.

Early in its life with me and possibly before I replaced nut and screw I fitted a bracket spacer to my S7 cross slide and it occurs to me now that this may have had the incidental effect of shifting the bulk of the movement to a less worn portion of the screw. I don't recall the specific reasoning but, obviously, the effect of the modification is to give more travel away from the operator (and less towards them). Here's a photo:

The job in the lathe is boring out the damaged end of an octagonal London pattern boxwood chisel handle in situ to receive a replacement knob in the same material; blade in 4 jaw, handle in "cathead" and cathead in fixed steady.

Edited By ega on 30/10/2017 14:11:58

I started a thread over on the Tormek wet grinder website about their "EzyLock" nut. This is a 12mm x 2mm pitch circular milled-edge lefthand nut which retains the stone on its shaft. In use, the nut is just lightly spun on counter clockwise with the fingers and the clockwise rotation of the stone then causes it to tighten sufficiently.

It seems that users had difficulty in removing the nut even with tools and despite the fact that they were attempting to turn it in the correct, clockwise direction whilst, I believe, holding the stone still. Tormek's prescribed procedure, however, is to immobilise the shaft by grasping the honing wheel on the other end and rotating the stone clockwise which causes the nut to undo.

This procedure is unintuitive at first sight but apparently works every time and I think depends on the coarseness of the thread and the leverage of the 250mm diameter stone. For anyone interested, here is the link:

**LINK**

Incidentally, the Tormek is aimed in part at woodturners, many of whom are ambidextrous.

The size of the corresponding counterbore also seems overgenerous and results in a rather ugly appearance.

PS Plus one for Tim Stevens' custom counterbores.

Edited By ega on 29/10/2017 18:52:58

Isn't there a well-known convention that starred fields are compulsory or "mandatory"? I agree that providing personal data for public view should not be compulsory.

I am glad to see some of the positive reasons for knowing a member's general location being aired, however.

not done it yet raises an interesting point; does anyone know the answer?

Edited By ega on 29/10/2017 11:23:54

Michael Gilligan:

I was trying to indicate that I don't know what my gib was made of but that it might have been brass. This is the kind of information we would like but that manufacturers often fail to give; the Multico literature just says "precision dovetail slides" (to their credit, they say "mortiser" rather than morticer - cf practice and practise).

Apart from the fact that the forces in a lathe slide act differently, a solid gib is, of course, doing a different job from the OP's strip gib.

For what it is worth, my little Multico morticer has a solid yellow metal gib on steel slide.

Jon Cameron:

I think you just go to Settings at top left.

Neil Wyatt:

Doesn't Jon's post make the point that members may well be willing to give some information and that the facility should, perhaps, be more apparent? Your posts seem to advise against having a public profile; needless to say, you have one yourself and the facility is presumably provided by the website for good reason.

On the occasions when a member posts a problem it could be very helpful to know roughly how far away they are. Biogs are interesting but not compulsory.

Mike:

Your post put me in mind of one of the RAF "Nice Types" portrayed in a book of that name. The last of these was Aircraftman Plonk:

The authors imagined that Plonk might have landed on his feet:

However, his "real-life" end was to be employed in a large store where his job was to be summoned to be publicly dismissed before complaining customers. As the firm's official culprit he was retained at a large salary - not such a plonker after all!

Mark Whelan:

I have a good used 4" ML8 backplate. PM me if you are interested.

When you get going you will be machining this sort of thing yourself and wondering why the commercial items are so expensive!

I wish everyone would give some indication.

The Eccentric Engineering Acute sharpening system table is an expensive but effective grinding rest (the table kit, which is apparently available separately, is very quick and easy to put together). It does not have the range of angular movement that some do, however; on its own, grinding on the side of the wheel is only at 90 degrees.

I have had several amateur-use bench grinders over the years and have always been struck by how poor the supplied rests are.

Edited By ega on 25/10/2017 10:04:22

I believe they were also called "rabbits" because when the foreman appears they go back in their holes.