Member postings for Harold Hall 1

Having read Capstan's comments I am confused. For me, foot-pounds relates to Work and pounds-feet to Torque, if I have got it wrong then I will be happy to be told. However, I will have been wrong for a very long time.

Harold

As there appears to be some confusion at the start of this thread readers may like to hear about the method I used at collage to remember, regarding work and torque, which was which in terms of their unit of measurement. Very many years later I still remember it.

The statement is, I go to work for pounds(foot-pounds). Work, as in earning a living, pounds as in money. Knowing one makes it easy to realise that Torque is pounds-feet.

Harold

You do not mention Greame the size of the lathe you have, but on my website there is a very detailed explanation of how to machine both Stuart H10 and V10 engines using just a lathe plus a drilling machine, and even gives a suggestion how to manage without a drilling machine.

The lathe being used is a Hobbymat MD65 having a 65mm centre height. It does not have a T slotted cross slide or a vertical slide available for milling. The pages can be found here

If you wish to use a vertical slide then you should go for a toolmakers style vice. The reason for this is that you can uses the vice's mounting method to move the workpiece into place for machining the part, leaving the full vertical slide traverse for the machining operation.

The vices offered for use on vertical slides are in my estimation ridiculous as they only hold very small parts and can only be mounted in a limited number of fixed positions. See my pages here In particular, see photographs 4 and 5 on the third page which shows the situation even exists on the long standing vertical slides for the Myford. It is about time, in my estimation, that some common sense was applied to the situation for the owners of vertical slides and very small milling machines. If one has purchased a very small lathe then you do not want the accessories to limit its capacity ever further.

Harold

Thanks Michail I have found it now on the page source code, too much to search through. Not knowing the font I was looking for I was reluctant to use the Find facility. The first one on the list however, Lucida Grande, is not listed as web safe and is not either on my PC.

I have therefore changed my home page to Tahoma, (second one listed) as a test case, and must admit it looks much clearer.

Perhaps John you may like to look at my home page and see the result.

Unfortunately, with over 2000 text areas on the site, Including link buttons, etc. it will take some time to do the lot. But will start to make progress with the task a little at a time.

Thanks Neil, I was obviously working on this contribution when you posted yours.

Harold

Edited By Harold Hall 1 on 20/02/2015 20:54:46

Does anyone know what the font is that this website uses, have looked at the page source code but cannot see anything resembling an instruction as to what font to use. On the page source code for my site it is very obvious.

Thanks John (RJW) for your comments

Harold

I agree Neil, hardly a week goes by without someone from China offering to do business with me, either for me to buy something or to sell their products via my website.

Thanks Russell, you will now find I have corrected the errors.

Thanks for your comments John regarding the font I chose when starting my website. There are about 10 what a called safe fonts in that they are almost certainly to be found on the vast majority of PC's. If one is missing then the viewers PC has to chose an alternative which can cause complications. When I started I just chose the one on the top of the list of safe fonts.

Whilst my eye sight is quite good for my age, 81, I do have very poor hearing so can appreciate the problems that advancing years produce.

However, I will change the font on one or two articles to see what problems result. I know that just changing a font size will not be the answer as even though the pt size is the same the letters will not be the same size either taking up more space, or less. In which case it is required to change the pt size also and even then the space taken may not be exactly as the font being replaced. Even so, I will as I say above give it a try on a few pages.

Of course, the website now has over 600 pages with at least, on average, 2 blocks of text on each one. If I find it quick to change a block of text then I could allocate a small amount of time to do a few each day, starting with those articles that are the most viewed

I will give it a try.

I would ask, have you tried the PC's Zoom facility to increase the print size?

Harold

Edited By Harold Hall 1 on 20/02/2015 18:53:22

Her's another piece of useless information, but interesting.

Having mentioned the number of visitors to my website I thought I should look how many visit my MEW index, something I do not do very often.

In December  799 visits were made to the index looking at 2035 pages. However, the country that viewed the most pages, 656, about one third of the total was China who appear to be in the top three most months. How many readers of MEW are there, if any, in China, what then are they looking for.

Harold

PS. Thanks Thor

Edited By Harold Hall 1 on 16/02/2015 22:23:55

I have now added a further two items to my website based on electrical subjects

Basic Electronic Theory **LINK**

and

Basic Motor Theory **LINK**

You may also like to know that visits to the website are still rising with January having both the largest number of visits in a day, 645 and during a month, 14350. These not including visits from search engines.

Thanks for your part in this as this forum is almost always the site that provides the largest number of visits in a month via the links on it, around 1000 visits in January.

It has visits from over 100 counties but with the UK and USA making the most visits, both very similar numbers, and far more than any other. Australia and Spain come in 2nd and 3rd

Harold

I should have added that I am not judging the judges, I am sure they were working to the criteria of the day.

Harold

I have been prompted on occasions, even when I was editor, to comment on the awards given for workshop equipment, but to be honest have chickened out. Even this year, with both magazines commenting on the small number of entrants, an ongoing situation for very many years.

However, it was this thread that made up me finally make up my mind to offer some comments. Even so, I do not intend to comment on what has already been said but to offer my thoughts on the subject.

Deciding to enter two non tooling items into the 2012 exhibition which I thought were just possibly candidates for a bronze, I also considered it was about time I took note of my plea, as editor, and enter three from the many workshop tools I had made. I had no excuse, I had to go to take the two I wanted to enter. To be honest, I entered the others just to see what happened, I had little hope in receiving a medal, perhaps a bronze for one maybe.

The items were a Dividing head, Rotary Table and Mini boring head gaining Very highly commended, Highly commended and Commended in that order, no medals. This is not sour grapes on my part, I was very pleased with my results as my two other items both got silver medals and in quite diverse classes Horology and Horse Drawn Carriages.

Comparing the Tip Cart with the workshop equipment entries cannot be done reasonably as they are so very different, the Cart being mostly hand made. The clock though not that different to my workshop equipment. What then are the differences. Lets just consider the Dividing head

The clock made to a provided design.
The dividing head made to my design.

Making the clock was much like making most other clocks. Note I do say most.
Making the dividing head had its own problem areas.

The clock was very time consuming.
The dividing head much less so.

The clock was made to a high standard of finish.
The dividing head did not need a lot of attention with regard to finish

The clock works well
The dividing head works well even providing more divisions than the Commercial Semi Universal dividing head and with very much greater scope for direct dividing, typically. using gear wheels, both from the lathe and elsewhere.

Where does this get me regarding the judging criteria, well here are a few pointers.
1. Was the exhibit designed by the exhibitor.
2. If so does it follow closely to other designs, or is it unique.
3. Is the item commercially available, if so how does it compare.
4. How well will it perform its intended tasks. Is it robust enough for example.
5. How easy, or difficult, will it be to perform its intended tasks.
6. What machines did the exhibitor have to make the item.
7. How difficult, or easy, would it have been to manufacture on the available machines.
8. Is it using the best, or at least adequate, materials for the exhibits purpose. No dovetail slides made out of aluminium for example, and I have seen it.
9. If there is some appreciable non metalworking aspect to the exhibit, a wooden storage case for example, should this be scored or not.
10. Would it have taken a long timeto make the item, needing patience.
11. Now to a debatable subject. FINISH.

If done on a points system how many for each consideration. All 1-10 or say Finish getting more than design.

Here I may be getting myself into deep water. But, typically, I consider that most stationary steam engines (and I've made five)are much the same, in terms of the difficulty in making them, with of course the little extra problem area here and there. Most workshop items are a one off, OK with a lot of standard machining operations but setups can be very very difficult to chose and work to.

It was in this area that the awards I had for my workshop items puzzled me. The Mini boring head, fitted into a well made finger jointed box, the head finished to a good standard and the machining required being much more complex than most would tackle without guidance and certainly much more difficult than the other two items which most would tackle. This was awarded just a Commended certificate. Incidentally, I did send details of the complexity with the exhibit.

If you would like to see the mini boring head and the setups for making it see my website here--**LINK**

I will close to say again, this is not sour grapes on my part just some comments to see if something can be done to encourage more to participate in this class. Could not the standard for a bronze medal be dropped a little so more could consider they were in with a chance. A medal is nice but a piece of paper much less so.

Harold

Chris

You may find the pages on my website about using soft jaw helpful. However, it would be nice to know how big (internal and external diameters) the ring is to see if it is a practical method.

The pages are athttp://www.homews.co.uk/page100.html

For anyone who may like the challenge of making a set, or two, see here **LINK**

Harold

Edited By Harold Hall 1 on 02/02/2015 16:54:53

Pleased Alan that you are making good use of the idea. I like your suggestion that they can also be made to take rectangular material. I will add that idea to my web pages if thats OK, that is of course if I can find time!

Harold

Sorry to learn of your problem Barry but pleased to see the forum have been able to provide a solution. As the lathe is new to you, you may find my pages on using one for making Stuart V10 and H10 engines interesting. Not saying you should be considering making one, or the other, but the pages will give you a good idea just what it can achieve beyond just conventional turning. As you will see, the process was backed using only a very small drilling machine, no milling machine. The pages are here- **LINK**

I have not experienced the problem you have had but almost as soon as I purchased the lathe I made (as you will see in the above) a four way tool post.

Having a Myford S7 my Hobbymat rearly gets used, for which I should be admonished, it's a fine little lathe.

Harold

Thank You, King Rod

Thank you Rod for your complements, but I have had the queen waving to me most mornings since the new year. My wife, who is a keen royalist, had a fun present for Christmas in the form of a model of the queen which waved when placed in bright light. This is powered by a solar panel in the flap of her handbag.

Sorry I have not replied earlier but have been attempting to place a video of it on a temporary page on my web site, but without success as being a large file it would take ages to download. Realise now that I have got to come to terms with video streaming. This, because, I do not want to use YouTube if possible for some videos I wish to put onto my web site. Typically, my Quick Change Tool holder being used

Still, second best, here is a link to the queen waving. **LINK** Not my video.

Harold

Adding this so as to give this thread just one more chance of appearing at the top of the list of recent threads on the sites home page.

Following an earlier thread when I indicated that I was in the process of adding to my website pages on subjects not directly related to metalworking, I have now added details on the use and conversion of hard woods. These typically, as will be used for plinths for models, cases for clocks, boxes for precision tooling made in the workshop, etc. Also, for some like me, who find the occasional diversion into cabinet making rewarding.

It details the two methods of log conversion, "Through and Through" and "Quarter Sawn", the later producing the best boards but is a more complex process and produces a lot of waste. As a result these boards are much more expensive and not so readily available.

Even if you have no use for hard woods in the workshop I think you may still find this interesting.

The pages can be found here

Timber Characteristics **LINK**

Also, if you missed my original additions on basic electrics they can be found here

Basic Electrical Theory AC **LINK**

Basic Electrical Theory DC **LINK**

Harold

Ray

The following web pages deal with AC to AC and AC to DC conversion, the latter, particularly using a transformer, rectifier bridge and possibly an added smoothing capacitor. You may find this useful. **LINK**

Harold

Being the Christmas period I feel it would not be out of place to offer a few words of thanks for all the forum members who have made favourable comments regarding my books and website and have done much to encourage me to continue with these for which I give a big thank you.

Being Christmas and as an alternative to a card, and if you can find the time, listen to the short musical offering on my website on the following page.

**LINK** Click on the link bottom left.

Some of you will be aware that for many years live sound recording, as engineer that is, was my main pastime. The recording is the first of a few recordings broadcast on the BBC and being on a Christmas morning I considered it to be a Christmas present that day.

It is very short, so short, that the compere said "encore" and played it again. I cannot remember the compere's name but Thora Hird also had a little to say at the start.

Harold

Thanks Jason, you have resolved a feature mentioned on the Warco site that was puzzling me. This was that the control you are referring to is labelled on the photograph as Feed Rate, which I took to be the fine feeds for finishing. I could not see how they could easily bypass the changwheel output to provide a fine feed control.

It would appear however that it becomes more useful when the changewheels are set to provide a fine feed as it will allow for the feed rate to be changed depending on the machining taking place. So perhaps Warco's definition of its use is not that far off course.

The combinations listed on my website could still be used as published if the number of teeth on the fixed gear is a multiple of five. If not, then it can be compensated for by a simple calculation. Perhaps I should have foreseen this and detailed it on the website. It would be interesting to learn how many teeth are actually on the gear.

Harold

I have had a look at the VM250V on the Warco site and I cannot see anything that looks like a screw cutting gear box. In this case you will have to set up the change wheels for each thread you are attempting to cut. That, unless I have missed something.

On the basis that I am correct you may find the changewheel combinations listed on my website of help.

The lists assumes a lead screw having a 2mm pitch and changewheels in increments of 5 teeth

26 TPI equates to a metric pitch of 0.9769mm

My list shows 7 combinations at 0.9768mm but 6 do use a 21 tooth gear.

However, if you accept a very slightly greater error at 0.9778mm there are 21 combinations, many do not use the 21 tooth gear, 3 of which only use two drivers and two driven. These are obviously the ones to use if you have the required gears.

Do you realise George that when lathes are quoted as being able to cut an imperial thread on a metric lathe (or visa versa) that there will be errors in the result, that unless a 127 tooth gear is provided and few do to my knowledge

If the Lathe has other that a 2mm leadscrew, or gears in increments of other than 5, the web page explains how with a simple calculation the required result can be obtained.

Some may wonder why I list so many combinations. This is to cover the situation where a lathe owner does not have a set of changewheels

The web page can be found here-- http://www.homews.co.uk/page31.html

Incidentally, the pages also cover for metric threads on an imperial lathe.

Harold