Member postings for Clive Farrar

Restoring a friends 1961 tractor and i want the valves out to inspect and de carbon.

Normal valve compressor will not touch it so i have turned and milled up a "C" section mandrel for my 3T arbour press.

i can then use that to compress the springs and extract the collets through the C opening with a magnetised screw driver.

Test day is next Friday , i hope it works.

Lots of stuff talked about but little seems to relate to your initial problem.

Leave the tube out of the head and insert the nozzle finger tight until it bottoms out.

Then back it off half a turn.

Make sure the end of your PTFE feed tube is cut perfectly square , there are specialist cutters to do this if you can not sort it with a scalpel.

fit the tube to the head and push it down as hard as you can against the nozzle.

Make sure the pipe locking flange is pulled up tight and fit a micro clip to stop it moving.

Tighten the nozzle fully up to the head and this should give you the good seal to stop the blow by you were getting.

I learnt this a few years ago , from i think Filament Friday, it instantly stopped the mega ouze i was getting from my new nozzle.

regards Clive

Tagua nuts ( seeds ) from the palm of the same name are known as vegetable ivory.

Seen them on ebay for £8 each I am sure there will be other sources.

However they will not be big enough to do a knife handle.

Months ago you may have seen my thread about trying to source ready made cross drilled clamp bolts for the mini lathe fixed steady. I was trying to avoid making.

As expected rocking horse dropping are easier to find so today i found some 19 mm bar and turned the shank down. Threaded the tip M8 and then gave up due to cold .

Still to cross drilling tapping and machine the flats. That can be tomorrows task.

I had been doing other tasks with glow engines and lighting before hand. So i was not being a 5 minute wimp.

Happy New year to you all.

ARC have responded. unfortunately in the negative.

So at some point i will be digging out my 19mm bar stock and constructing a couple.

May as well make two whilst i am at it as there is not a lot of meat on them after the M5 cross drill.

However i have now learnt that they only need nipping up and not tightening.

Regards Clive

Well being a bit heavy handed I have just split one of the special shaped studs that lock the brass shoes into place.

Wondering if any one knows if and where spares are available?

I have e mailed ARC tonight but thought i would ask here as well.

Yes I know I could make one but prefer top do other jobs if I can.

I can temporarily rob one from the travelling steady to finish my job but thought i would start the process of trying to find one now.

Regards Clive

m-machine metals , Darlington. is my go to place for all I need.

reliable and fair prices.

regards Clive

Not today but yesterday I pressed my Mini lathe to the task of starting to make a 225 mm x 45 mm David Brown twin plate clutch alignment tool.

Its a beast of a lump of metal to go in that machine . I had to center drill it off the machine , but when mounted and clocked true in the 4 jaw and the other end in the live center I had been out by 0.25 mm.

Refacing it to the correct length and re drilling it took some working out and nerve to do at that degree of overhang. my 3 point steady is not big enough.

Still I got it done and the new TIR was 0.005mm barely a flicker on the needle. That may be common to a lot of you guys to me it was a flippin miracle.

I Then managed to turn the Major diameter part down to quite a nice surface finish and at 44.97mm.

The workshop manual drawing says 44.98mm ( conversion from original imperial ) and gives no tollerance. I think 0.01 mm or 0.5 thou " is good enough for a tractor don't you?

Just need to re mount it now and do the two minor diameter to the correct length.

Oh for a bigger lathe with more grunt. Never mind this is all i have space for and it is getting the job done slowly.

Regards Clive

Pleading e mail sent . If not then Buck and Hickman at 50% of the price of a whole new punch.

Clive

Hi Michael,

Very compliant and very helpful thank you. I had found Spear and Jackson as the brand holder , but not that page.

It does appear a lost cause as a retail item, maybe a pleading e mail to customer services will get a result.

Jon it looks the same and it could be the catalogue No is more complicated than the number they emboss on the punch. Thanks anyway.

Regards Clive

I found a thread on here that touched upon the subject but drifted off into merits of the 172 over the 171 etc I could not see the original question answered.

As I am now also in need of the same spare tip I thought I would ask again if any one has a specific source they can quote.

Please note I am very happy with my punch.

I am not interested in alternatives or a discussion of the x/y/z of any thing else.

Please only reply if you know an actual source !

Thank you

Clive

I am surprised that no one has mentioned charcoal or fire briquettes.

As I have a coal fire there is lots of the latter in the coal bunker. Put a piece in some folded over old jeans, whack it plenty of times with a lump hammer.

Use the ensuing dust for either dipping or packing..

I tried the dipping method with 3 repeats and it worked for me.

Regards Clive

don't know about the frame but the engine looks like a Villiers 197 to me.

Worked on one many moons ago. Which coincidentally went into a James trials frame with telescopic forks.

Although having quickly checked some on line images that engine doe's not have an eliptical side case like the OP picture So I am wrong.

Regards Clive

Robert, send me a PM with your e mail and i will send you the PDF with drawings that i found and used for my conversion.

regards Clive

I do not use the mill much. Its fits and starts as jobs require.

I made sure it was well greased at the beginning and have not needed to top up so far. All runs as smoothly as the day assembled 4 - 5 years ago.

Clive

Edited By Clive Farrar on 01/01/2022 12:24:27

I did the exact same conversion as shown in JH post and from the same source.

It is not too difficult to do and has been very reliable and quiet ever since.

It was noisy as hell on the gears and as i was a true novice when starting with mine it did not take to long to get overambitious and frag the gears.

FWIW when i did mine I took the opportunity to change the bearing for taper rollers. Its exactly the same type and conversion as used on the mini lathe. I think it will be in the same group.io mentioned above , if not look at the ARC Eurotrade site for their article on the same.

It pays to do the bearing first so that you can triple check the dimensions and adapt the original design dimensions if required.

Good luck.

Clive

Am I the only one to be rude enough to comment.

Your table only looks to be 200 mm long and not the 2000mm in the title?

I only read the thread because i was nosey as to what an earth you could need a 2m linisher for.

That would be some build item for sure.

Cheers Clive

I have one and a bad back. Despite the Atlas types out there saying just carry it. I agree with you it is too heavy and too awkward a shape.

Mine was rubbish in the front to back Z axis so i took it apart to work on the base of the column and to add the rigidity plate similar to Neils.

To make it managable for me I removed the bump stop at the top of the column and removed the head complete and put to one side. heavy but managable.

I took the column off the bottom stand because i wanted a separate look at it and the mating faces. Like you it would not come apart. However the main pivot bolt on mine was obviously removable so I put the nut back on and with a protective bit of wood drove it out to release the column. Probably un-neccessary but I was determined to get a good look at every thing whilst I was doing a major strip down and re alignment.

I then released the base from the bed casting.

The next bit may not be relevant for you but i also removed both slide tables as i had excessive back lash to cure.

Note ARC table lead screw nut's DO fit this Warco machine and ARC are much easier to deal with ( IMO ).

Whilst apart I

trued up all V slides.

checked column base to column fit with engineers blue, ok

Checked column base to base casting with engineers blue and hand scraped it level whilst taking out the Z error. I improved the contact area between the 2 from about 10% to 80+% which is good enough for me.

added the stiffening plate and appropriated packers to the base of the column.

After dozens of reassemble checks I ended up with about 0.02 mm max out over a 160mm radius.

Good enough for me .

Take care, don't be persueded to lift beyond you capabilites and good luck with the move.

Regards Clive

Edited By Clive Farrar on 10/05/2021 12:43:37

Edited By Clive Farrar on 10/05/2021 12:45:24

Boston is the Brand name.

They were made in England, well Wales actually by REXEL at Llantrisant, just round the corner from the Royal mint.

Been there they to became part of the ACCO group , just like the pencil company did.

Clive

I used to work for the Cumberland Pencil company and have seen a few of these in my time.

I have to admit I have not sharpened any. However the Boston sharpener you have the silver disc with the holes in "should " be spring loaded, The grippers at the top edge are pinched open and the pencil fed in to JUST touch the cutter let go of the grips and then crank the handle.

I am not accusing you of doing this but a lot of people are too impatient and push the pencil in hard by hand which overloads the cutter making it hard to crank.

The cutter should be making a fine planing cut as it rotates / slides past the stationary pencil.

Has the sharpener seen it lot of use, particularly on graphite ? If so then it is probably blunt. graphite leads are all fired in a furnace so you are in effect cutting rock. its just that 9B is a soft rock and 9H a very hard rock.

We always used to tell people to buy cheap hand sharpeners frequently and as soon as you start getting splinters, instead of a nice apple peel ribbon, throw it out its blunt.

Quality Pencils are far more expensive than a hand sharpener. After all you don't cut steak with a butter knife.

I hope you get it fixed. it should sharpen though as the carrier it sits in is just that, a carrier to hold the pencil in place. It does not form any part of the cutting action.

sorry if I have tought you to suck eggs.

Good Luck Clive