Member postings for Clive Foster

Seems odd that the set has pairs of each size, presumably in 1 mm increments.

Standard practice used to be three of each size to allow stable set-ups on surface plates or inside bores to measure groove width with the aid of a gauge pin.

Short discussion here :- **LINK**

https://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/general-archive/what-precision-gage-balls-used-96384/

Professional version with more notes on applications here :- **LINK**

https://www.opus.co.uk/products/precision-spheres-balls/

For far more than you ever wanted to know on the subject :- **LINK**

https://www.precisionballs.com/all_ball_gages.php

Clive

Be prepared to tighten up the pivot points. Both rivet and getting a better match between the folded body and pivoting component in between. Often the body fold isn't perfectly parallel so the in between part only touches at the outer edge. Not good for stability. Take a good look at the one for the long jaw. Any slackness and such devices can be worryingly floppy. Enough to reduce the grip or make it likely to slide sideways.

I've not had experience with those particular devices and brands but all the inexpensive "modified jaw" Mole style locking wrench devices I've had through my hands got some attention. As received quality has varied from "so floppy that the jaws slide past each other when loaded", a small extended jaw version out of a LiDL three pack, to "works well enough that normal folk will be happy but I want it right", the big one out of that same LiDL pack.

Usually as delivered quality is in the OK(ish) to adequately functional range so they can be used straight out of the box but might need a bit of extra care, skilled tweaking or whatever under some circumstances. Bit of a faff making up devices to tighten the pivots but, in my view worth it. That clamp arm is a long way from its pivot! Firming up the pivots improves the locking action too. A forked welding clamp version was very squidgy and imprecise when locking as delivered. The business end was wonderfully firm tho'.

No need to overdo things. Generally only a little nip does the deed. Given the price differential between the inexpensive versions and the professional ones there is no way I'm complaining about doing a bit of tweaking. Especially as I rarely use any of my collection. But when I need them I need them.

Clive

Nice jobs Wayne

Some years ago I used a combination of Stuarts indexing peg idea and the X-axis DRO on my Bridgeport milling machine to produce lines of holes 4 inches apart on two 14 ft long 2 inch square tubes and four 2" x 3" (nominal) timbers of similar length. These were to be the hinge carriers of a large 9 ft high x 14 ft long American style horizontally hinged, vertical opening, bifold garage door. The 26 1/2" X-axis travel of the power feed Bridgeport let me do 5 holes at a setting.

Although the process worked well enough it was not as fast as I'd anticipated and handling the large, quite heavy, overhang as I got towards the end was not trivial. Anticipating the possibility of overhung jobs I'd designed my workshop so the secondary door and milling machine were placed so as to allow long jobs to project over the vegetable plot! But I'd not anticipated something that far overhung!

Although acceptable for a one (OK, four !) off job I'd not consider that type of method acceptable for commercial or regular use. The inevitably short table of a 2 axis cross slide would make handling long materials even harder than it was on my mill. One job was quite enough thank you.

If I ever do that type of job again I shall make a specialist "rail-bench" long enough to hold the complete part with a suitable indexing guide, either integrated or bolt on, and use a magnetic drill to make the holes. Maybe an RSJ or steel box section on legs for the bench. Mag drill running on spring loaded wheels so its easy to shift along. A fixed chain makes an effective indexing system if the link spacing happens to work right.

My door.

Hope this helps.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 06/02/2022 16:41:21

Another job where having access to a first class drill sharpener like my Clarkson helps.

Minor wear or even tiny damage to the drill on a scale essentially invisible to anything short of a really forensic examination can make all the difference between a true true running, on size, hole and one close but no cigar.

Now I have my Clarkson set up I routinely re-sharpen a drill before any critical holes. However good it looks. I used to manage pretty well before but did get the odd few that weren't up to scratch. With a resharpened drill I know it will do the job right unless I cock-up.

Best results if you can follow book speeds and feeds but that needs a properly sharp drill too.

MT taper drill will behave better than an ordinary straight shank one in a chuck. I've invested in one or two odd sizes that had to be right.

Clive

I'm with Jason on not being a fan of mounting flywheels or any other relatively large diameter component on a mandrel. Not only do you risk chatter but the constant tiny vibrations produced when machining can work the thing on until its really tight making it hard to remove without risk of breaking.

Although cast iron has high damping its inherently granular so the cutting forces aren't smooth. If you have something that machines nicely with a continuous chip the steady force tends to screw the component on tighter.

For parallel mandrels there seems to be a fine balance between tight enough to hold yet not so tight that it can work on hard. There is a reason why the professionals make them with a very fine taper.

A few cycles of gentle warming and cooling over a few cycles can release such stuck components. Best if you can arrange something to apply a little push or pull force in the right direction. Don't get rush-headed. Even if it takes as long to get the bits unstuck as it did to get them jammed in the first place you are still ahead.

I prefer to use a spindle collet and faceplate set-up for such things. Nice sliding, shake free, fit mandrel in the spindle collet to align the part. Strap it to the faceplate to hold it for machining. Aligning things on face plates is well off the bottom of my "liked jobs" list. Most especially if I have more than one the same.

But, having spent far too many £ over far too many years, I have the gear.

Assuming a morse taper in the spindle a blank end arbor turned to size or sleeved up as appropriate is as effective as a mandrel and collet.

Considerably more wallet friendly than my full sets of imperial (by 1/64 ths) and metric (by 0.5 mm) 5C collets too.

A blank arbor or two of appropriate sizes immediately to hand for modification into semi-sacrificial tooling is an essential part of any normally impecunious Model Engineer or Home Workshop persons toolkit. Building up to size with weld or sticking bits on when its gotten too small is perfectly acceptable!

Clive

Roger

The trick to minimising the locking cam effects is to snug things up a touch so the holder doesn't rock as you adjust the tool position upwards using the screw. The smoothness or otherwise of movement when doing this is a good test for the quality of manufacture of the set. Piston types are generally easiest to get smooth with a sensible drag but they also tend to be a little less secure. But cheaper. Wedge locking types tend to be most fussy about setting to get the right drag but they are more secure than the piston ones.

Dickson styles have a nasty habit of self adjusting when the locking device is turned if you don't snug the adjuster up properly. Dickson styles are also major league fine swarf magnets. Any locking issues developing in use are almost invariably due to fine swarf building up inside. But dis-assembly to clean out is a total doddle.

I've not seriously used Multifix styles so can't advise on those.

There is a reason why professional standard QC systems are so expensive. It takes serious precision to bridge the gap between "right every time, 24/7 and still working OK when the lathe is worn out" which is what the professional needs and "works fine but need to be aware of its little foibles" which is just fine for folk like us. At 10 to 20 % of the professional price a foible or two is fine by me.

There are numerous types of tool height gauge.

I'm a fan of the simple optical type.

Basically a transparent plastic blade 1/4" - 6 mm or more thick sat vertically on a base small enough to sit easily on the machine and heavy enough to be stable. Use a sharp fixed centre in the lathe headstock to scribe a line at centre height on both sides of the blade. Looking through the blade the tool tip is on centre height if both lines merge into one and are aligned with the tip. Or you can just use one line when working from the tool side.

I have two sets of lines on mine. One for the base sat on the bed and one for it sat on the cross slide. I also have a mirror attachment os I can set things remotely by looking down onto the mirror to see the lines and tool tip. My blade is only 1/4" thick. A thicker one 3/8" or 10 mm would be more sensitive to errors if not looking dead level to merge both lines. Re-making mine has been on the list for over 20 years now!

Clive

Wayne

Is that the blue one that can be got from several suppliers?

If it is I'd be worried that the "same" thing can be found at prices from £110 (ish) to £270 (ish) with the rotating base and down to £70 (ish) without. Even the pictures are the same.

My guess is its likely to be pretty good value for money at under £150 delivered but "some fettling" required. At least the basic castings and design look workmanlike sturdy. Some of the other affordable ones are just too much made down to a price so a degree of flippity flop has to be accepted.

Clive

Peak4

Looking at similar tiles to do my garage once I've found someone to lay some extra concrete on the floor to get my car and bike lifts flush.

Will yours stand up to motorcycle centre stands. In my case around 500 lb of Norton Commander rotary and 630 lb of Yamaha GTS 1000 "funny front end". Dont really want to add load plates because the whole idea is to reclaim all the garage space.

Clive

I still have a part used O ring kit in a red box got from RS Components many years ago.

Agree that it was pretty much only good for gasket type applications. Stretching over something to sit in a groove in a shaft was possible but very hit and miss. Even with a washer in the way slipping over a bolt was almost certain to break the joint. I had some success in countersunk holes but the O ring usually came out broken on dis-assembly. Held together long enough to squidge down to form a seal tho' which was good enough for me.

Clive

Chris

Is this link of any help :- **LINK**

https://fuse-box.info/volvo/volvo-v90-2017-2018-fuses-and-relays

Clive

Colin

Seeing your extended beam scaffold hoist set up reminds me that I considered mounting my loft hoist upside down on top of the beam with a couple of pulleys to guide the cable out to the end. More headroom at the cost of extra complexity.

Pretty much immediately decided that it would be more trouble than it was worth to sort the cable guides so I abandoned the idea without proper consideration. Which may have been a mistake.

Clive

I used the green moisture resistant "P5" tongue and groove boards for my workshop floor. Laid direct on nicely tamped down concrete, not screeded and leveled.

18 years and counting.

Bit faded and a few marks but still eminently sound. Serious machinery on top, Smart & Brown 1024, Pratt & Whitney B, Bridgeport in the ton and over class.

I do some stick and MIG welding. No burn mark troubles working at "bench height". Working at floor level will most likely produce burns as the splatter won't have time to cool.

Clive

The scaffold cranes are excellent value for money but they need serious headroom. Maybe 18" above the jib for the support bar and another foot or so underneath so you don't carelessly head the motor winch assembly. Hurts!

How do I know?

I have one mounted on a scaffold pole in the loft to swing over my hatch but could only get the jib just over head height and have forgotten to duck when swinging the motor winch over the hatch. Equal first, along with my over double sized hatch, as best idea ever when it comes to lofts.

I've often felt that fixing the motor winch assembly and using remote pulleys on a jib or rail is worth investigating as a substitute for a crane.

Clive

Having looked into, and abandoned, a similar idea I found that the long ram and column style typical of engine cranes needed lots of space to swivel and generally got in the way. The type with angled back columns, often also sold as truck bed cranes with a simple flange base rather than long wheeled legs, were worst. Capacity was too hig anyway.

Something like the compact truck be crane using a bottle jack rather than a ram for lifting seems to fit the bill much better. But there no longer seem to be UK sources. Here is a link to an American one.

**LINK**

https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200672540_200672540

If I really wanted one I'd be quite confident of producing something safe by "monkey see, monkey do" methods backed up by some simple stress calculations.

Maybe Sky Hook inc can offer some inspiration.

**LINK**

https://skyhook.cc

The work cart mount version has long been on my I'd like something like that list. But I don't want it bad enough as I have two I beams and 3 ton chain lifts.

Clive

I have welded a patch piece into a cast iron pulley wall and filed to shape with acceptable results but it was certainly a last resort job. Got things up and running until I could make a replacement. I suspect the patch piece was a lump of steel. It was never going to be a permanent job.

Clive

How does the cost of printing your own storage compare with commercial offerings of similar size.

Obviously print your own means you can make exactly the sizes needed but if near enough to be acceptable is less costly and can be got right now at a similar or lesser price its hard to justify complete custom. I suspect that if I had a 3D printer I'd only do custom for the things an off the shelf one really wouldn't do for. Probably have to accept some dimensional constraints to mix with the commercial ones too.

For me being able to make custom dividers to suit tricky things would be the big advantage.

Hafta say I've never managed to get a "really good right now" storage set-up to last more than afew years before running into trouble and needing to re-think.

Clive

Given the different spacing of the two "points" from the centre I'd guess its for either:-

marking out two concentric rings as a guide to further machining

or

cutting a large diameter but narrow washer from thin sheet material

The points present don't look like cutting edges so making seems more likely.

But its the sort of thing that could be a modification of a no longer needed device to do another job.

Clive

The household stuff bodge de-ruster idea is primarily about using what you have to deal with the odd rusty thing.

Getting any half way kosher nostrum has always been a bit tricky and invariably leaves you with a lot left over. Which will be a pain to store and quite likely to have gone off when you next need it again 5 years or so later. Having several DC power supplies around I picked up a bag of washing soda nearly 20 years ago "just in case". I may not live long enough to actually use it.

My blast cabinet does get run up on a fairly regular basis but few of the things I do would be worth putting in a soda tank.

Impossible to have the "proper everything" to hand.

Clive

PS Back in the day I got very acceptable results from overnight( ish) with the salt in vinegar saturated solution. No idea what i did differently to Dr_GMJN.

The Mattel compressor is essentially the same design as a hydrovane so I imagine similar rules concerning care and feeding apply.

For a hydrovane rules 1 and 2 are "Don't neglect the oil.", Rule 3 being "Don't neglect the oil, we really, really mean it."

Rule 4 is always run it long enough to get it properly warmed up to drive off any moisture contamination of the oil. Hydrovane advise 15 minutes. By which time my 502 is seriously uncomfortably warm to the touch.

Rule 5 is don't keep it in the damp.

In your position I'd bite the bullet and get the full service kit. There are reasons for the seemingly extraneous bits in a hydrovane kit so I imagine Mattel is the same.

Given the state of your oil I'd reckon on 4 changes. After the first change run it up until its good and hot then drain and run for an hour or so before changing again. Hopefully the second lot will be pretty clear of crap so you can leave the 3 rd change in for a while whilst giving it regular runs up to good and warm. For the fourth time I'd do the filter again too and switch to the regular cycle. Every two years I guess for home shop use in a decent environment. No chance of hitting the must change hours.

For all practical purposes the smaller vane compressors can't be reconditioned so it makes sense to look after it.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 29/01/2022 17:46:49

My source for the vinegar method called for a saturated solution of salt in vinegar.

Tested with overnight soak of some rusty nuts it worked fine. That was my go-to for nuts, bolts and similar things to small or PIA to do mechanically for a fair number of years.

Drifted away from using it shortly after I built my new workshop. Couldn't be bothered with the precautions needed with a cid in the shop. Nowadays I do de rusting in the blaster or mechanically with the good wheel on my bench grinder. Nuts'n bolts I buy new, or make if weirdies, guess I've grown out of the "scrooge too far" mentality.

Generally anything to be painted gets a coat of Krust to pick up and dela with any left behinds.

Clive