Member postings for martin perman

Stuart,

The ones fitted to my lathe are mounted above the lead screw and are attached to the traverse casting either side and are held in place by one screw each, they are a length of metal sheet about 5" long covering the leadscrew, they are not shown on the drawings, something else for me to remember I will photograph them on Thursday and PM you them, part time job and other duties dont allow sooner

Martin P

Oops

Edited By martin perman on 04/01/2021 18:03:41

Stuart,

The cross slide uses the same adjustment, I regularly squirt oil along the leadscrew, do you have two metal gaurds fitted to the traverse casting covering the leadscrew these keep most of the muck off the thread.

I've just noticed you asked for the name of my VFD, I will pm the details.

Martin P

I worked for a company that supplied ventilation cabinets that were a couple of hundred kgs each and portable as they were moved from Lab to Lab and they had to be PAT tested, one unit failed so I rang the manufacturer my Italian bosses and they asked how long the power cable was, when I told them the answer was shorten it by 1.5 meters and get it re tested, I did this and it passed.

Martin P

In my last job before retirement I used to spend a lot of time on building sites installing industrial washing machines, we installed the machines and the builders constructed the buildings around them, if you were caught without gloves on you had a formal warning, if you were caught doing it again your company was requested you were removed from site, you try wiring up control panels with gloves on its bordering on impossible.

Martin P

Stuart,

Re threading, from experience I would suggest you do the following, obviously select the correct gears for the TPI, set your chuck speed to the minimum rpm of 200 and when you place your metal in the chuck give your self plenty of space between the end of the thread and the chuck because your going to do three things very quickly 1. stop the lathe 2. wind the crosslide back away from the job, remembering how many turns you wound the crossslide back and 3. put the lathe in reverse and send the saddle back to the beginning remembering not to disengage the saddle feed.

Betwwen 1 and 2 you will be amazed how far your tool will travel towards the chuck whilst coming to a stop.

I have gone down the VFD route because 200 rpm is to quick, I've not fitted it yet but its fairly straight forward.

Martin P

from your picture you are taking apart the compound slide which as you say you can adjust 360 deg, the cross slide is the one the compound slide sits on and moves away from you.

Another source of backlash of sorts is the actual dial assemblies, each one in the blue blocks with the oiling points has a grub screw underneath which engages in a slot in the lead screw shaft, the grub screws work loose which allows the dials to move away from the blocks, I put loctite retainer on the grub screw to stop it undoing.

Martin P

Stuart,

Re the crossslide, may I suggest you take it off to gice the slideways a good clean, to do this loosen the Gib strip screws and the wind the cross slide to the rear of the bed until it stopsthen the slide will move easily off the lathe, be aware the crossslide nut may drop out from the underside of the slide, its a good fit but maybe loose, its not fixed and allowed to float, give all of the parts a very good clean including the Gib strip. Give everything a good dose of oil and reassemble but before you do screw the cross slide nut onto the thread and check for slop, there is a small screw to close the thread and reduce the play, this will reduce the backlash. the reason I suggest this is the slide way does not have a lot of protection from swarf and some may get in to the ways.

Martin P

Gentlemen,

I worked in the injection molding industry for a while installing robots onto Moulding machines, one factory I worked at made televisions, they supplied the likes of Curry's etc and good named manufacturers but they were all the same cabinets with all the same interiors, like cars and vans it was and maybe still is badge engineering so how do you know, maybe the top end ones had different functions which were blocked at the cheap end, who knows.

Martin P

Stuart,

I bought mine second hand from a company I worked for, it was bought for light machining but never used, it had a few extras like steadies, face plate and four jaw chuck, it also came on its original stand, I moved from my van into my garage using an engine hoist, I've had it at least 15 years and used it for making and repairing my stationary engines and recently for making parts for fixtures on clocks.

Its more than accurate for my purposes and I dont see the need for upgrading it for something "better", I'm currently about to start fitting a new motor and a VFD as its slow speed is a bit quick, as suggested adjust your gib strips but first replace your grup screw for longer ones so that you can fit half nuts to lock the screws in place.

I have never used the mill only because I have a mill drill and small horizontal mill in working order.

I've made several things on the machine and happy with its accuracy and finish, I never put anything on display here as none of it runs on steam and is shiny

Martin P

thanks for that, I'm not a plumber but as someone who used pipe cutters as part of his job I just assumed we all had one.

Martin P

I've a feeling this is a daft question or I've missed something but whats wrong with a normal pipe cutter to cut a square edge.

Martin P

My perception of the above must be where you live, in the last six weeks I've ordered from several sources including a small open crank engine from China, due to arrive in January, I've now had it a week, various items from Arc Euro ordered last Sunday and received it Tuesday via postman, I use the tracking they all offer and invariably, particularly Amazon, can watch the van truddle towards me on the computer so I can be at the door when it arrives, nothing is arriving late.

Martin P

+1, ordered three items sunday night and they arrived yesterday morning via the postman, currently looking at ordering other items.

Martin P

Jason,

Thanks to that, the brass ones look similar to what I use on full size engines.

Will measure tomorrow and send an email.

Martin P

Gentlemen,

I've treated myself to a small hit and miss open crank engine, it has a tiny spark plug similar to those that are fitted to model aircraft engines, can anybody point me towards a plug cap that I can use instead of the current method of jamming the wire to the plug by plastic tube.

Martin P

I display stationary engines at steam rally's, I dont own a hit and miss engine but have like you watched many and as you say the miss's can be random. I would like to suggest your problem is more down to the fact that your engine is new and the mechanisms need to bed in and are likely to be sticking, have you tried running it without the governor working so that it fires every stroke or give it a decent load to make it run continuously.

Martin P

For me its just another expensive toy that I've no use for.

Martin P

I to have a CL500M, I use it regularly and have bought a VFD to improve the machining speeds, its the first time I've read this thread and it annoys me that the first post after your lead wasnt well done nice work but somebody with the need to knock a perfectly good machine, I like your mods and have a few I've collected, one in particular was to replace all of the gib strip adjustment with longer grub screws so that I could fit lock nuts as I found that the gib strips would come loose, I have made a a drawbar so that I can use an MT3 ER32 chuck in the headstock.

Martin P

I to have a CL500M, I use it regularly and have bought a VFD to improve the machining speeds, its the first time I've read this thread and it annoys me that the first post after your lead wasnt well done nice work but somebody with the need to knock a perfectly good machine, I like your mods and have a few I've collected, one in particular was to replace all of the gib strip adjustment with longer grub screws so that I could fit lock nuts as I found that the gib strips would come loose, I have made a a drawbar so that I can use an MT3 ER32 chuck in the headstock.

Martin P