Member postings for ega

Martin Cleeve's gearbox enabled him to switch quickly from screwcutting to fine feeds.

I suppose it depends what you mean by mad, but he earned his living with his lathe.

For small work the little Bosch 12V 3" angle grinder is excellent and so much quieter and easy to handle than the 4.5" corded version.

Niels Abildgaard:

Out of curiosity:

What was the original use of the second-hand stone?

What is the 21.8mm dimension?

More power to your inhumanity to lathes!

Or aluminium as the great man himself did although one feels this would not be as good.

Hopper:

Someone commented that the "gap" is as long as the bed! I think quite a few were sold, partly on the strength of their safety features attracting educational users (I think mine came originally from a local college).

Another unusual feature was the roller-type cover to the feed and leadscrews as seen in the image you posted.

As a Willson user I am delighted to see this lathe receive some attention and interest on the forum.

My slant bed came with the safety catch plate mentioned and it was successively converted to a small faceplate and then to serve as a chuck backplate.

The standard faceplate came into its own when I wanted to shorten a pair of cycle cranks from the common 175mm length to 165mm:

The new eye is on centre for screwcutting and the far arm of the spider just clears the bed by dint of removing the sheet metal cover. This would have been impossible on the "straight bed" version of the lathe.

Edited By ega on 22/01/2023 11:50:49

Interesting that a doughnut is also recommended for preventing a chuck from coming off in reverse.

Are castors going the same way as drawers?

Sound advice (and my own practice).

Another suggestion I have seen is to drill the ends for hard steel balls.

And at the other end you can mill squares on hex recess screws so that either a square or hex driver can be used.

I take the point about hard contact between the flanks of the thread but making this feature the dominant source of accuracy puts a severe burden on the user who makes his own backplate or other component to fit the spindle.

Presumably, the respective flank angles would have to match closely. Also, in practice it is easy for a minute fragment of swarf to lodge in the thread which, on or in the register, would more readily be detected and removed.

I admit I had always understood that concentricity comes from the plain, parallel register and the spindle shoulder and that the thread should not be a close fit.

They would not have needed one to take the back off the Fairphone (unless they bite their nails).

Incidentally, the word is unknown to the OED.

Edited By ega on 16/01/2023 11:31:57

The Barker lathe (with geared head) will do this and has a pin for resetting.

Whilst I agree with the first part of this, the backplate must make firm contact with the spindle shoulder before the lathe is started ie don't tighten it under power.

If the chuck is correctly seated it should be possible to use reverse for some purposes eg winding off a die or returning to start position when screwcutting.

Nigel Graham 2 and MichaelG:

Thanks for pouring cold water on my Peltier! And for those unusually fine drawings.

It appears to be finished in duck egg blue - so much more pleasing than the more usual battleship grey!

Would I be right in thinking that the OP's illustration is of a Peltier wheel-based device?

Some years ago mains water-driven pumps for evacuating veneering bags were in use.

The bisected screw head suggests that it may be a (nicely) shop-made item and SH its maker - or is that Uncle Sam's dollar?