Member postings for Chris Gunn

Nigel, as Dave Halford says, make an end fitting for the exhaust, such as a BSP elbow, and then you can use BSP plugs with a hole in as the nozzle, and make one about 3/8" to 7/16", and see how it goes, then adjust as required. Open the hole in the plug up a little until it keeps the fire pulling when you ride around. I keep a couple in my tool box so can change them if I want the fire a bit fiercer.

Chris Gunn

Nigel, as Dave Halford says, make an end fitting for the exhaust, such as a BSP elbow, and then you can use BSP plugs with a hole in as the nozzle, and make one about 3/8" to 7/16", and see how it goes, then adjust as required. Open the hole in the plug up a little until it keeps the fire pulling when you ride around. I keep a couple in my tool box so can change them if I want the fire a bit fiercer.

Chris Gunn

If I were doing it, I would start with the long piece of bar stock, and mill a 12mm plus wide flat where you want the hole. put a good centre dot in the middle of the flat, then I would hold the section of bar in your vice, you will hopefully have a decent chunk to hold on to, and then clamp the vice down, drill the 12mm hole in one go, with no pilot hole, if your drill is big and heavy no problem at all. Then I would cut the blank off the bar, and then carry out the turning required. to make sure the blank runs true, make a split bush to hold the blank to avoid damaging the hole edges, and Bob's your uncle!.

Chris Gunn

John, Good luck with it, just to clarify my earlier post, on the assumption you would still screw cut the thread first, you could then bring it to size using a tap, which I can lend you.

Chris Gunn

Thanks for the feedback, and I agree with a couple of the issues/problems that could arise, but the sort of items I would put on would not really be missed if they did not come back, and yet are too good to put in the skip, they just need to be useful to someone, and if loaned out there is a chance more than 1 person could benefit.

I am a great believer in what goes around comes around, I have had some great help in the past from members of the forum, and have tried to reciprocate also,.

As far as the materials I will never use, hopefully destined for the surplus list, if members of the forum did not take it up, it will end up in the skip for sure, eventually.

Still no comment from a moderator, can we do it?

Chris Gunn

Rodger I have a standard 1 3/4 BSW tap, but that is 5TPI, I guess you are sure about the 6TPI so it is probably not much good to you. However now this thread has started, the right one may pop up.

Chris Gunn

Thanks Brian and Rodger, my proof reader is having a day off today. Just for the record I started as an apprentice in 1959, and the lathes were made in WW1.

I am not sure how this works, does a moderator need to approve this suggestion? Jason??

Chris Gunn

As my 77th birthday approaches, every time I go in the workshop I see bits and pieces I have accumulated over 60 years working in various engineering companies. I also realise that I will never get round to using some of this stuff, but it is too good to throw away, and all it needs is to find a good home. Most of it is not worth much and not worth the trouble of selling it.

I am proposing that there be a thread on this site where folks like me can list our surplus stuff, available for free, with the postage being paid by the recipient. This would avoid clogging up the classifieds with odds and ends.

Also there could be another thread where folks can list special, or oddball tools or tooling for loan.

For example, many years ago I aquired an old lathe that was reputedly made in quantity by the company I worked for during WW1. The crosslide leadscrew nut was worn out, and I was able to find a set of taps in the toolroom, which had been there for 50 years, to make a new nut. I was given these taps, and made my nut. I have had these ever since and will never ever need them again, but somebody might. The taps are 9/16" diameter Acme, 8TPI, LH. Out there somewhere there probably still some of these lathes working.

I cannot throw these away, hence the suggestion of the loan list, so maybe they will come in handy for someone else.

I suspect there are a few folks who bought taps and dies to make faceplates and the like for lathes they no longer own, who could add to such a list.

Chris Gunn

John, I have a set of 1/1/2" x 6TPI taps you could borrow, but you will need a big tap wrench!!

Chris Gunn

Viv, you could start him off with a simple o gauge locomotive kit, very basic assembly of pre-made components for about £250, Google O gauge live steam kits for some examples. this would not be too onerous or too difficult, but it should work which is important, and then go on from there.

Chris Gunn

Snap

Chris Gunn

Robin, you are half way there with your shortening idea, just get a short piece of round or hex material 12mm long or so, drill and tap an M2 hole right through. screw the screw to be shortened into one end, leaving the end to be cut sticking out, then screw another one in to the other end to lock the first one in place, shorten the screw, chamfer the cut end using a lathe or even a bench drill , then remove the backing screw, then the shortened one.

Chris Gunn

William, it sounds that it could be unlikely that this could happen again. Just in case you could feed the lathe through a timer with just the off flag set at the latest time you are likely to need it. the timer will switch it off.

I adopted this for my compressor, I used to switch it on, and if it was not actually running. i would head inside leaving it on. Later in the evening the lights would slightly flicker when it started up again. The problem was solved by the timer.

Chris Gunn

Phil P, you could be right about that style, especially the really cheap ones. The David Brown ones are a a different kettle of fish.

Chris Gunn

It seems adjustable reamers are getting a bit of an unjustified kicking in this thread, so to try and redress the balance, in my experience David Brown adjustable reamers were the reamers of choice at Timson's where I did my time, but as I recall just used in the lathes for reaming holes for ball bearings in gear blanks and the like. We had a tolerance of half a thou. We would drill, then bore, then take out about 10 thou with the adjustable reamer to size. The advantages of the David Brown type included the ability to adjust the reamer when it started to wear a little, and eventually sharpen the reamer blades, and eventually replace them when there was not enough to re-sharpen. I would imagine that solid machine reamers would not last that long machining the EN24 blanks, and replacement expensive while the David Brown reamers would be expensive to buy initially, but over thousands of holes would prove the most economical choice.

This is a different scenario to the modellers workshop I know, so I can understand why they are not used much there, but that does not make them a poor tool. I still use the few I have occasionally, useful for any odd sized hole that needs to be dealt with. If I did not already have them, I probably would not buy them.

Chris Gunn

Roger, I have some knurled screws that are 1/4" x 20 whitworth that would do nicely, they should fit OK, I will send some if you PM me with your address.

Chris Gunn

Alex, I guess the oilers on your Student are the ball type oilers like those on my Bantam, if you search for ball type oilers there are plenty available. They are almost certainly Imperial, with the diameter of the oiler body determining the size. You can lever the old ones out with a screwdriver and just tap the new ones in with a hollow drift.

Chris Gunn

Alex, I guess the oilers on your Student are the ball type oilers like those on my Bantam, if you search for ball type oilers there are plenty available. They are almost certainly Imperial, with the diameter of the oiler body determining the size. You can lever the old ones out with a screwdriver and just tap the new ones in with a hollow drift.

Chris Gunn

R Johns, thanks for that, nice to know I am not the only one, I bet there are more out there, i will try and get a more sensible answer about this from the fraud folk, they ought to be aware, as if all the scammers do the same thing, the majority of recipients will not copy and paste, they will not bother if it is not easy to report the scams, and the scammers will win.

Chris Gunn

I have had a lot of the BT scam emails, and usually forward these to report phishing who are in my contacts folder.

The other day I had another scam email, and attempted to forward it, but the computer said no. I tried several times and could not forward it. As a test I forwarded a couple of other emails with no problem, and went back to the rogue email, and again i could not forward it, so just deleted it. This is the second time I have had this experience. Has anyone else had the problem? Any one know if the scammers are responsible somehow? I did ask action fraud who did not seem to know or want to answer my question.

Chris Gunn