Member postings for Clive Foster

Another satisfied Brother user.

I have the MFC J6930 DW with two paper trays. One for A4 and one for A3. It's a big lump but two trays make life easy.

Had the single A4 predecessor before.

Both have stood up well to rather intermittent use although I suspect almost as much ink goes in the cleaning cycle as on the paper.

Clive

Bore the end of a short piece of thick wall tube to take the base ring leaving a stop ridge. Put a slot in it so it can close up when held in the 3 jaw chuck. Insert the base ring, hold the pair in the chuck and put a centre in the end. Trim down with light cuts.

With a centre in the end it will be decently stable. The ridge in the tube stops it all disappearing up the headstock. I'd seat it as far into the chuck as you can whilst still leaving room to work as the holding power of teh jaws is compromised towards the tip due to clearance induced tilt and, usually, wear.

If you don't have apiece of tube to hand roll your own out of a short steel slug. 3 mm - 1/8" wall on the gripping bit and similar ridge depth will be fine. Just make sure you have corner clearance right at the base. Needs to be thin or the chuck won't be able to close it up.

Clive

Jason

Nice to see that we aren't at cross purposes.

Our pictures are virtually identical except that the part of the Warco tailstock body carrying the tailstock poppet doesn't extend significantly forward of its base forcing you into working with at least some tailstock extension when using QC post. There are times when a lantern or single slot block can be helpful. Memories of SouthBend driving days.

Being able to quickly change between two or more toolpost positions is a pretty good palliative for the issue. Obviously the stud holes need to be well aligned but even then machining a long single diameter without a mark at the join will be tricky. No problems with two diameters tho'.

The OPs idea of using wood will do as a quick way of seeing what works and verifying useful positions but anything other than the lightest cuts will prove disastrous. Maybe with a piece of delrin as a test piece. On metal. How lucky do you feel today?

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 26/02/2023 11:32:17

Jason

I fear we have gotten at cross purposes. Again!

As I understood things the issue is avoiding this situation:-

where the tailstock barrel is undesirably extended to clear the toolpost. There is a considerable gap between tailstock base and cross slide.

If the toolpost mount is moved outwards it can clear the tailstock casting like this :-

considerably reducing barrel extension and bringing the tailstock base close to the cross slide.

I think it inevitable, most especially with a smaller lathe, that one toolpost position suits all is pretty much impossible without work arounds involving undesirable tooling arrangements such as long stick outs or tool shifting mid job. Accepting that it seems sensible to not only provide several alternative positions for the toolpost and its mounting block but also make it easy and quick to move. If it's not quick and easy you won't shift it and struggle to do the job with things as is taking three times as long with worse results and considerable profanity. Human nature, Been there, dunnit, got the tee shirt and wrote the book.

I would use a simple stud of suitably hefty dimensions and just drop the block on relying on a locating pin to ensure it always goes back where it should. I'd also fix a locating pin to one of flat sides of the toolpost to either engage with the teeth of a flat gear affixed to the top of the block or drop into a one of a ring of holes drilled in the top of the block. Best to drill and tap the toolpost for couple of screws to either hold the locating pin directly or via a tube so it can be slid up out of the way when using the toolpost on the compound slide. Having the pin you may wish to consider whether some sort of rotational indexing can be arranged when using the compound.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 26/02/2023 10:24:25

Jason

I agree with what you are saying and what you have drawn.

 had assumed that fitting the carrier plate via the tee slots would let the whole set up be pulled towards the outside of the cross-slide sufficiently far to avoid the situation you have sketched. Ideally the toolpost needs to be far enough out to run past the side of the tailstock casting. A situation I'm not always able to arrange with my S&B 1024 so even high end machines can suffer.

Extra mounting positions, as you show in your third post are clearly a sensible option for dealing with this sort of thing. But down the centre of the plate may not be the best location. If the situation in your pervious sketch occurs then off centre towards the outer edge may be better.

CAD makes it so much easier to deal with this sort of clearance issue. 2 hours on the computer has saved me lots of grief several times in the past.

I still see no advantage to the separate fixings for the block. A single stud and locating pin will do just as well and make moving much easier. When dealing with a sufficiently similar situation I made the stud with a ring drilled with pin spanner holes partway up it and counterbored the top of the block so the ring was beneath the upper surface when tight. Applied to this case the upper part of the stud behaves as normal to hold the toolpost. If it ever becomes necessary to move the block the stud can be undone with the pin spanner.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 25/02/2023 21:16:27

Further to Jasons concerns.

There seems no reason why the idea wouldn't work just as well with a single tapped hole in the bas plate to simultaneously hold both spacer and toolpost. Does that way It would be relatively simple to add another tapped hole for the stud close to the centre of the base block so the assembly can easily be moved on the (rare) occasions it might be necessary.

Although the 4 bolt mounting via the Tee slots makes turning the whole base round simple I suspect this would just shift any access problems from tailstock end to headstock end with no net gain.

Clive

Consider arranging some form of angle registration to the toolpost so you can repeatably swing it over where necessary to improve tool access. Such rotation may suffice to answer the concerns raised by JasonB.

The Multifix QC system users seem very happy with the 40 rotational positions provided. Perhaps fixing the QC post via a 40 tooth gear with a suitable location plunger fitting between a pair of teeth would work well.

Further to what Jason has said a CAD system is very useful when contemplating this sort of job to rapidly run through the positional permutations to verify that you have enough movement and sufficient clearances everywhere. Generally the smaller machines tend to run out of tailstock gravel when coping with a QC toolpost. There is a reason why long nose rotating centres can be very handy in such situations.

My S&B 1024 has an unusually long tailstock travel for a 10" lathe but even that struggles at times with the bulk of a Dickson toolpost. One day I'll weaken and get an extended centre.

Clive

An M6 x 1 Timesert won't help as the tapping drill size is the same as a helical so it can only go back in the same place.

Consider using high strength loctite to hold a special thin wall bush with an M6 x 1 thread down the middle. Last time I did such I was able to use 1/8" BSP for the bush thread. Being able to buy a solid blanking plug from the plumbing shop made it all much easier.

Sounds like there may not be enough room for a thread that large, almost 10 mm Ø, but M9 x1 and M8 x 1 exist. One time job standard taps and dies can be found relatively inexpensively on line.

Once you have the hole straightened up consider using a counterbore to take out the off angle part at the end so a suitable stub of aluminium alloy can be fitted with loctite to properly support the end of the bush. As you have hole depth to spare consider going deeper so a longer screw can be used. If you choose to do that make your bush just long enough to correct the off angled helicoiled portion then extend the thread into the parent metal guide by the thread in the bush.

Welding is a last resort. Not only is filling holes in old metal is tricky for all sorts of reasons it's also not a job that folk get much practice at. The professionals usually prefer to find another way or decline the job.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 25/02/2023 15:28:06

Sacrifice a little bit at the end with an angle grinder to see if it's all hard or just case hardened. I'd make some angles 4 or 5 mm long to expose the core and try it with a file or hacksaw to verify whether it's hard or not. need to take the corners of the angles out too to expose the core.

From what I've seen the base material is generally pretty obdurate an any serious hardening is concentrated on the top where the holding bolt goes. Base material is still tough enough to give an end mill a hard time. I find my Elliot 10M shaper does better.

A good carbide end mill should handle it just fine. If the angled cut test mentioned above shows it is case hardened starting the cut where the softer material shows will give the cutter an easier time.

Clive

Jacobs hasn't existed as a real firm for some time.

They were bought by one of the tooling conglomerates whose policy is to use the reputation of purchased brand name to charge high prices for, at best, barely adequate for the market products sourced from low bid Far Easter suppliers. Especially at the retail end most purchasers won't understand the difference between properly engineered lasting quality and something that will, probably, work for a while. Most folk inn the target market won't be set up to properly inspect and test a chuck beyond basic concentricity, and how many even do that. The cost of refunds and returns is cynically built into the business model. It's a lot. I'd guess around 30% is allowed for.

Generally the difference between low bid suppliers and proper, high engineering quality ones is in allowable tolerances and quality control. Low bid works to wider tolerances and much loss QC inspection rates. Unlike the real cheap end of the market things are made from OK materials on decent machinery so the probability of producing at least acceptable goods is high. Mix'n match of wider tolerance band components means at least some will be good enough to help support the brand reputation.

Has to be remembered that large firms are purely finance driven. It's interesting to examine the company and plant buying and selling machinations of VW Group. Thats where they make their money. Car production is basically an add on that makes the finance stuff possible!

Once an engineering based company is run for the finance it's basically dead. May take a long time to die. General motors has taken half a century but its now entered its dead spiral as part of Stellantis.

Even a cursory examination of the de-industrialisation of Britain shows that it's been driven by our finance plays. Whether the steady company consumption of GEC under Weinstock followed by its spectacular final implosion attempting to become a "fibre telecoms" company. The cynical Staverly acquisition of most of Britains machine tool companies. Or the many lower level failures and sell off of lesser names. Such as Jewett, Napier et countless al. The machinations of the finance heavy board of Westland Aircraft during the run num to WW2 are sobering.

Out of curiosity a friend recently dismantled a Bosch battery drill and it's apparently identical, except for the colours, low end (LiDL?) counterpart. Identical right down to the control printed circuit, components and all visible part numbers. Including the motor. Quoth he "£100 is a lot to pay for a different batch and colour scheme."

Clive

Richard

Car heater or coolant hose ought to work pretty well if a suitable size can be found.

I've built softer faced rollers using both with reasonable success in the past. Albeit running on ordinary surfaces, not the business side of sanding belts

Abrasion will be very slow so long as the belt surface resilience is such that the abrasive grains "cog" into the material rather than slip. If the sanding grit slips across the roller surface it will wear rapidly. If it "cogs" into the soft faced roller it is basically just deforming it a bit around the sides of the upstanding abrasive grains so the wear mechanism is mostly due to differing shapes and spacings of the grains interfering with the cogging action.Think rack and pinion with rather worn and not particularly accurate pinion still turning easily on its bearing. Normal abrasive action is more like what happens when the pinion bearing is pretty much seized. The pinion teeth get wiped out quite fast.

Clive

Low pressure is probably the most important thing. Just enough to lift stuff out of the cut but not enough to inadvertently drive the swarf deeper into the machine.

I have a little in line regulator on an air tank outlet dedicated to blow-gun duties to save adjusting the main one each time I switch to the blow gun. About £5 on impulse from LiDL (where else) but I imagine similar things can be gotten for similar prices from the other usual suspects.

The same impulse buy picked up a similarly cheap manifold with 6 tapped holes which made life far simpler. Two "permanent" QC connections for the sand-blaster and coolant misters as well as the in-line blow gun regulator. Two spare female QC, one for PCL and one for Euro connectors so I can hook up anything easily.

Clive

For anything thats A4, or close, I buy the cheap transparent punched pockets, shove the pages in and stuff in a ring binder. Last lot of pockets were "5 Star" breed, the thin ones with a rough surface, which were remarkably good value for 5 boxes of 100.

I also use them to double the capacity of ME and MEW binders. Junk the wires and wire holders. Bolt a thin U section to the "spine", U needs to be a couple of mm narrower, and fix three suitable diameter cross tubes to hold the pockets via the round holes. I use kunifer brake pipe 'cos I had most of a roll left over from a car job way back. Self tap the ends by force driving screws in. Got a baccy tin fulls worth of "right size" screws in a bargain box from Mr Whistons famous Cat-a-Log mumble-mumble years ago. Getting low so I need to measure the size before I run out.

I use about 30 pockets per binder, so I have room for indexes and some spares, and call it good.

Complete set of ME since 1970 ish and all the MEW issues in binders need serious shelf space. Even when doubled up. Now I need a good use for all the spare wires!

The punched pockets are great for oily finger proof manuals too. Modern factory "run it on a computer" manuals are a pain out on the drive. Print outs are so much easier to handle. Big tho'. RAVE for my Range Rover P38 needs about a yard of shelf!

The spiral bound, notebook style, pockets are useful for smaller things. Pricy tho'. I picked up a bunch in 20, 30 & 40 pocket sizes when the local W H Smiths had silly price clearance sale. Bought 8 all told, used 3 and more than broke even. The spares will come in. Eventually.

Clive

ega is correct in saying that the pages have to get narrower towards the middle if the booklet is to have a square edge. One reason why proper bound books are done in several individually bound sections subsequently bound to the spine is to make such cutting easily practical. Simple glued spines, like paperbacks, don't have that issue. But they don't last well.

Cutting the edges to make a neat book after binding, as Nicholas does, is normal practice. But Inspector Meticulous may quibble that the text and picture blocks are not in exactly the same place on all pages. They get closer to the edge as you move towards the centre. The program I have kicking around on my Mac for turning sheet organised pdfs and text into booklets has an optional correction function allegedly able to shift the texts and picture blocks so they are the same distance from the edge on all pages. One of the (many) refinements I've never got working. Like so many simple, just works well enough programs, it got too clever for its own good around the third upgrade!

Clive

The Sparco Long Reach Stapler suggested by Peter doesn't seem too be sold in the UK.

Google finds several breeds and suppliers, priced from £5 to £40 (ish) catering from around 10 to around 50 sheets. Need to make sure you can easily get the right size staples if you indulge in one tho'.

Being made to work with the booklet flat they won't work well as the professional cast iron one Soee copied or as well as his lighter duty version.

It's rather harder to get things properly aligned for folding when stapled flat. Pre-folded sheets laid on a Vee are easier to align. Pre folding is essential if thicker booklets are to work well. 10 sheets are about as many as can easily be assembled on the flat and folded after stapling. 15 is possible but likely to need practice. I'm told more can be done neatly by the seriously skilled. I managed 15 when I had access to a long reach one but it all came out a bit messy.

For my own, very rare purposes, I use Martins felt method with an ordinary stapler opened out. Had I realised how inexpensive these things have gotten I'd have splurged a fiver or two. Back in the day when only pukka office suppliers had them they weren't cheap!

Clive

Link belts are asymmetric and all have preferred direction of rotation for maximum power transmission and smoothest running.

Given that they are still wedge belts that sit down into the pulley under load to increase friction and drive capability its possible that a slightly slack belt won't sit down into the pulley groove so smoothly when running "backwards"

Looking at the Fenner Power Twist type it's fairly easy to visualise how such effects might happen. The directional arrows on the link show normal running to be with the tails trailing so it's plausible there is some sort of push effect on the tails increasing tension which isn't present when running the other way. If so its plausible that there is a directional effect as the belt settles into its groove and takes up the drive.

Clive

Rich

In principle one of the 380 volt output VFD boxes ought to work OK but it would be prudent to buy a seriously oversize one. I'd go for 2 hp (or more) rather than matching the 1 hp motor specification. I'd also try to buy from a UK supplier, or at least address rather than direct from China as there is more chance of after sales service / technical support. Its very re-assuring if the supplier can say "Yep, we sold one that worked just fine on the same machine.".

Two potential issues.

First one is that Dahlander connected pole changing motors are notorious current hogs during run up, how much so depending on design details. No great issue with umpteen megawatts of National Grid doing the supply bit but VFD boxes and rotary converters have strictly limited current supply capability and may not have the drive capacity to bring the motor up to speed. For example the three speed 3 hp motors used on Holbrook and other older British machines are notorious for needing a 7.5 or even 10 hp phase converter to reliably bring them up to high speed!

Second one is that the 380 volt VFD boxes inevitably have a lower DC bus voltage than a proper 440 volt system along with lower full voltage current drive capability. So they can easily run out of drive on a demanding application. Buying oversize gets you more current drive capacity.

As ever its price / performance ratio issue.

These devices are fundamentally economy range units built to give a useful performance to the undemanding and impecunious user at an affordable price. I seriously doubt if any of these devices, when matched to motor size, are capable of delivering full torque and power at 50 Hz let alone higher speeds. Which much matters not a jot to folk like us who are pretty much never going to drive the ex-industrial 3 phase machine we usually hook them up to at anything like its full power. Even 1 hp can shift impressive amounts of metal!

I found out about the limitations of 380 volt VFD boxes the hard way around 15 - 20 years ago when I bought a so called 440 volt output 4 hp VFD in a very professional looking box to run my S&B 1024 VSL lathe. That machine has its 3 hp motor connected directly to the spindle via a Reeves type varispeed belt drive using expanding and contracting pulleys. The VFD proved incapable of driving the lathe at its maximum 2,500 rpm. At anything over 2,000 rpm the unit couldn't supply enough power to accelerate the empty spindle up to full speed

Internal investigation showed the nice new box to contain a second hand ABB industrial VFD with its input rectifier re-arranged to give a nominal 380 volt output in most likely the same manner as will be used on the modern imports. Reeves drives are notoriously mechanically inefficient. My drive probably sucked up something like 3/4 hp, maybe more, at top speed and the rather crudely modified VFD box was unable to provide the power needed to accelerate the machine against that much load. Careful probing around with a meter showed the drive voltage basically collapsed.

The supplier proved uncontactable so the box was sold, at considerable loss, into a less demanding application where it worked just fine for at least a decade.

I wised up on VFDs along with the difference between a fancy web-site and actual professional products after that!

Clive

It's a two speed constant torque motor, almost certainly of the Dahlander pole changing variety, so sorting out the windings and connections is likely to be challenging. Especially if you've not done that sot of thing before.

Objectively the simple way is to feed it proper three phase, whether from property set up rotary converter or a 440 volt output VFD run at a fixed 50 Hz, which will be a close facsimile of what it was designed to run on. It's possible the the relatively inexpensive import 380 volt output VFD boxes will be capable of running this motor on both speeds if set to 50 Hz but by their very nature such devices have performance limitations. Primarily due to the love DC bus voltage.

If you are determined to disentangle things it's advisable to have a reference diagram for how the motor wiring and switch gear is connected. Presumably you don't have a diagram for the Raglan. The two speed motors used on 2 1/2  hp Bridgeport J heads do bring out all the wires which can be re-assembled by the electrician if the factory connection is disturbed so the necessary information is on the Bridgeport wiring diagram. In rather less than crystal clear fashion! Maybe someone knows of a better source for the machine - motor connections.

About 5 years ago I answered a similar question, relating to running a two speed  Bridgeport motor off an ordinary 220 volt VFD, so I have cut and pasted the relevant text.

------

The common Dahlander connection two speed motors cannot be run off an ordinary 220 V output VFD because they don't have alternative low voltage (220 V) Delta and high voltage (440 V) Y connection capability. They require 440 V input for both speeds with the coils laid out Delta style for low and Y style for high.

There are six windings in the motor. For low speeds the windings are connected in a series loop with power applied to every other connection. So 440 volts is applied across each pair and the individual windings see 220 volts each. For high speed the windings are connected in parallel pairs. One end of each pair goes to a common point the other end receives power. So each winding sees 220 volts.

You can run a Dahlander motor in high speed setting off a 220 V VFD by connecting the windings in parallel pairs and running them in a series loop with power applied to each corner. Effectively each parallel pair is equivalent to the single windings on a normal three phase motor in Delta connection. Not something for the novice to try. Its very, very easy to get things muddled up with paired windings out of phase or not correctly paired. Not something I'd try. I could do it but wouldn't if you see what I mean.

Wikipedia has an adequate, albeit small, diagram of the coil layouts :- **LINK** . Google search will show up plenty more pictures but most aren't linkable. This is quite a good one showing the switching involved :- **LINK** for speed changing.

-------

its not something I'd care to fiddle with.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 15/02/2023 19:41:02

Jake

I notice that a rather distressed capstan attachment is on E-Bay at the the moment (for rather too much money!).

**LINK**

Item 154308218335

Probably too large as the turret is 5" diameter but might be worth an ask. You'd need to do the dovetail base it slides on in two or maybe three bits to get the length as it will be too long to do in one go on your mill but its not an impossible job. Frankly for the size of work you plan a partial length dovetail may well be fine.

There is a nice looking Myford one :- **LINK**

Item 175612996112

That looks pretty much ready to go, albeit a bit spendy. A Myford bed is of simple square edge design so, if the centre heights work, its far easier to make an adapter.

Alternatively consider making something similar to the tool carrier off a tailstock turret as the basis for a cross slide mounted version. Or buy a cheap one and cannibalise it!

If simple manual rotation will do an angled block to hold it at the right tilt having some sort of spring loaded registration stop inside fixed to the cross slide will suffice to mount it. Use a multi-position bed stop as I suggested in my previous post.

Still need to sort a cut off slide or substitute tho'. I suspect for your mall jobs a simple hand pull down, or up, device pivoting on a rod behind the lathe bed might work. Sharp too and stop spring to work against.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 14/02/2023 14:45:24

In that context tungsten basically translates as crap. As Andrew says long form of "crap tap".

Oversimplifying the metallurgy tungsten tends to toughen steel but reduces its ability to take a sharp edge. Good carbon steel, if such can still be found, can take really sharp edge. Which offsets its relative lack of durability compared to HSS because really sharp tap doesn't have to work as hard.

I managed 3 deep threads with a 12 mm x 1 so called tungsten steel tap set before they deteriorated past the point of cutting reasonable threads. Two in a not particularly obdurate steel and one in aluminium alloy. Maybe 1 1/2" of thread in total.

E-Bay "bargain" at half, or a bit under, the price of the progressive sets I normally buy when I want a hand tap in a size I've not already got. Not the very cheapest, which were obviously useless, and descriptive blurb suggested it might have been half reasonable. So I'd hoped for something reasonable. Uncommon size, Tracy were out of stock and my other usual sources expensive for what was going to be a one time job.

Penny wise, pound foolish. As usual another couple of jobs where it could have been useful have turned up.

I'll use it for practice when I finally decide to try tap sharpening on the Clarkson.

Clive