Member postings for Michael Cox 1

If you go on ebay and search engine oil extractor or diesel oil pump there are many small low voltage (eg 12 V) pumps that typically pump about 5 litres/min available. They cost circa £10 and are rated at 60 watts.

Chrome plating is much harder than nickel plating and usually much brighter. Compare a few items that are chrome plated using a fine steel scribe. Do not press hard and try to scratch the surface. The difference between that and normal steel and nickel is striking. Do not press hard because the plating is thin and if you press hard then the metal underneath will deform and it may appear scratched, Practice on a few chrome plate items and mild steel to see the difference.

Whiting is finely ground chalk that is used as a pigment in paints and in papermaking. It is practically pure calcium carbonate. It is a fine white powder.

For information chalk used on blackboards is not calcium carbonate but calcium sulphate so do norrt be tempted to grind up these.

I have been melting aluminium and casting for a few years. It is relatively easy to make a propane gas fired furnace to melt aluminium from simple readily available materials. Old aluminium castings are the best source of material but I frequently mix old aluminium extrusions into a melt and this does not seem to be too detrimental. I usually make lost foam castings and these can have complex shapes. For stock for machining I usually cast in old tin cans for the larger diameters (50 mm -75 mm). The can after casting is simply cut and peeled off the solidified aluminium when cold. Smaller diameters are just cast in green sand using a bar of the right diameter as the pattern. The cast material usually machines very well. I once cast a rod from melted drinks cans but this was very gummy and it did not machine well.

To get a good clean casting without inclusions or void it is important to use a flux. I use a product called LoSalt which ios mixture of sodium and potassium chlorides as flux. This is readily available in supermarkets as it intended for people that need low salt diets. I desert spoonful of this in a one litre melt of aluminium brings all the dross up to the surface where it can be readily scraped of usinf a spoon.

I wrote an article that was published in MEW some years ago describing making the furnace and burner and describing some of the casting techniques. There is also some information on my website covering this, see:

**LINK**

I did my own belt drive conversion, see:

**LINK**

I hope this helps.

Mike

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the post and the link.

Mike

Thanks for your post. Is this an original idea? What is the maths behind it?

Regards Mike

Hi Neil,

You can look up the outside diameter of standard pulleys in manufacturers literature, see for example:

**LINK**.

When I have machined timing belt pulleys I use the given outside dimension for the number of teeth and then cut the grooves to give the require angular pitch.

Should be possible to use the same method to 3D drawing and then print.

Mike

The most useful chuck I use on my rotary table is an ER32 collet chuck on an MT2 morse taper. This also fits into my lathe using an MT2 to MT3 adaptor. THis is especially useful for gear cutting because you can turn a part to size on the lathe and transfer to the rotary table with no loss of concentricity.

Mike

I made a lever to clamp the quill that does away with the need for a hex key, see:

**LINK**

I am, I believe, the author of the author of the article you are searching for. It was entitled " Re-purposing on old bench grinder" and I think It was published during 2016.There was also a follow up article published a little later entitled "Further modifications to an old bench grinder", I have spent a good part of the day unsuccessfully trying to find my copy of the article in order to give you an exact reference to the articles. I am also having trouble viewing the MEW digital archive so this provided no help.

There is a short write up of the project on my website, see:

**LINK**

If I can be of any further assistance please send me a pm.

Mike

For many applications, such as the one being discuss, I prefer to use slow cure epoxy adhesive rather than anaerobic adhesive. This gives plenty of open time and it forms a very strong bond with steel (and most other metals).

Mike

Potassium sorbate is widely used in the food industry to prevent mould growth. Borax (sodium tetraborate) is widely used in aqueous timber treatments to prevent mould growth.

Hope this helps

Mike

Bore out the 6 mm plate just bigger than the nut and then make a smaller panel out of 3 mm steel to cover the hole on which the gland can be attached.

Mike

I use a windscreen washer pump to provide coolant on my minilathe, see|:

**LINK**

The pump has proved very reliable and the simple fabric filter is very effective at removing small particles.

Mike

Hi Chris,

I only have a minilathe and I apopted a different approach using a flexible drive shaft to take power to the cross-slide, see:

**LINK**

I only fitted a 4 mm chuck but if I made it again I would fit a 6 mm chuck as there is more than sufficient power.

Mike

Hi Danny,

Having seen the videos of the situation in Oz I wish you, your neighbours and all Australians success in combating the fires. I feel for you.

Mike

I have a Micromill similar to yours. I found there were two annoying problems with it. One was the noise from the gear selector fork that vibrated badly . The second problem was that even a slight overload would cause the default light to come on and sometimes it would blow the fuse. Fortunately the motor control board was never damaged by these slight overloads.

I converted my Micromill to belt drive, see:

**LINK**

The absence of the gear selector eliminate the noise but the main benefit was that since doing the conversion I have had no problems with slight overloads triggering the default light and blowing fuses. I think the stretch of the belts and or belt slippage in overload conditions eliminates shock loading of the motor.

Mike

Hej Alf

Velkommen. I used to live in Sweden for a few years and visited Denmark often. Copenhagen is one of my favorite cities. Visited Aarhus a couple of times too.

Mike

There are some very cheap stabilised power supplies available from China. This one seems perfect for you application.

**LINK**