Member postings for the artfull-codger

Got a pleasant surprise when I saw your filing machine Bob,I too made one similar about 45 yrs ago, mine was an old 4 stroke lawn mower engine & ,with the piston having clearance [slop] I bolted a plate on top of the barrel & soldered a large bronze bush to it to take a 1" dia shaft with a flange on the bottom bolted centrally to the piston,& made side cheeks so the table on top can tilt up to 45degrees,I cut a large "tube" of foam rubber to go round the exposed part of the shaft & bush well oiled so no filings reach it & wear it,it'll never wear out as the crankcase has oil in it, I used to do a lot of intricate brass work which is why I built mine,I have a opus 120 now,great machine but still love the home made one for really fine work.

Having phoned RDG on thursday afternoon to order some chuck jaws & spoke to a very helpfull gentleman,they arrived on saturday mornings post, really good service.

.I do quite a lot of spraying,mainly plaques & signs & also models & use a paasche typeH external mix airbrush,the beauty of it is that it has no seals to damage or really fine jets to clog as the paint is externaly mixed & I always clean it out straight away with celly thinners,I rarely use humbrol now as I was told it's no good for external use not sure if that's true,I use smith & allen vehicle enamel [don't live far from them ] it's about £16 per litre & always thin with celly thinners,of course for a model you probably wouldn't need that much but humbrol is about £140.oo a litre!!.

I've had a couple of letters saying we are going to fit you a smart meter [really, I don't think so] & the attendant guff about how it can save you money, I told them the only way you can save me money is by lowering your tariff, Ask my grandkids about leaving lights on & telly with no-one watching!! [grumpy grandad!!hehe]

Thanks for the reply Martin, I'll look it up.

Regards Graham.

Im puzzled what abuse the bed has by not putting strips under the clamps? we were never taught to do it at college & both my mill beds show no sign of abuse in all the years of use,perhaps a larger footprint strip if you're clamping over the tee slot maybe.

Graham.

Hi Martin,is there still a smart & brown owners group please? I tried to find it but no luck thanks.

Graham.

I think we should all give a big thank you to Lily Pup for having the decency [& guts] to bring this to our attention,it's certainly made me a lot more cautious now.

I usually wear gloves when angle grinding,my cousin [a horse breeder] jumped up on a tall fence to check the horses then jumped down & her wedding ring caught & ripped her ring & skin off [yes it's called de-gloving!] didn't help when her husband photographed it & showed it to us all for a laugh,I was in our club one evening & the lads were laughing about one of our lads not being able to thumb a lift anymore puzzled I asked what they[& he] was laughing about & he held up his hand with no thumb!! he'd been polishing something on his industrial polishing machine with gloves on for a mate & it caught up & ripped it off,he said he didn't feel a thing,I never wear gloves when polishing now or the lathe .

Why do our American Cousins allways pronounce solder as "sawdor" or is it just my hearing!!

Hi Bosun, we had an alloy flamefast crucible furnace which I helped 6th formers to produce castings for their major projects & then they machined them on the lathe & milling machine,[they loved it], the steam engines were made in our lunch hour [not part of the curriculum] unfortunately when I eventually retired I offered to leave my jigs etc for the steam engines but alas not wanted, ps I'm the technician not a teacher & as a model engineer it was like getting paid for doing your hobby, I loved the job,

Graham.

That's ok Bosun as long as you got fixed up, they're good robust egines,I bought my copper tube from a local plumbers merchants as it's a commercial size,cast base cost nothing as we used the schools foundry,when you have your own foundry people get to know & all sorts of brass/alloy bronze & iron turn up free or for the odd favour,brass cast at home & sheet steel from autojumbles,I got the price down to £18.00 good luck with the build.

Graham.

Hi Bosun,did you get my pm about the te haynes book? I've built 4 of these & taught 12 lads to build them at the school I worked at,I made a pattern to cast the bases in alloy instead of the pressed metal ones,& had an article published in me a few yrs ago about the lads building them,I have a [bit tatty well used!] photocopy of the book your welcome to if you haven't got fixed up with one

Graham.

Graham.

Your welcome Paul,thats the beauty of "our forum" there's always someone to help when you need it.

Graham.

It's a saw set, I have ther identical one & use it regularly as I cut lots of wood for out rayburn cooker I like it better than my eclipse for circular saw blades

Graham.

Looks like a genuine Keats Philip, made by exe engineering,I have the same model.they did a smaller one as well,I have a smaller one but not a Keats, it does the job but genuine keats are real quality.

Graham.

Haha yes it is Mick,as my old one gets more worn I keep my eyes open at autojumbnles for older ones in good condition.

Graham.

Thanks Russell I'll put that on the workshop wall along with 640

Graham.

Some of the more modern zeus books don't give the diameter of ba threads just the tapping drill sizes, if your threading whit/bsf & bsp threads in the lathe use the constant 640, ie divide your tpi into 640 & you get the thread depth within a thou but on ba it's within a few thou.

Graham.

Hi Stewart,thank you very much for your kind offer,I've messaged you with my email address,

Graham.