Member postings for clivel

I worked in a tannery during my student years, and hair was removed by soaking the hides in lime pits which loosed the hair - it was my least favourite area in the tannery.
After soaking, the loose hair was scraped off using a large two-handled blunt knife.

Burning hair off a hide would have probably damaged the hide, been far more labour intensive, and emitted clouds of acrid smoke smelling even worse than tanneries already do.

Clive

Thanks, Gray,

That is very helpful and makes perfect sense.

Regards,
Clive

Gray,
Some years ago in a posting about your calliper knurling tool you mentioned that it was specifically for diamond knurls and that you preferred a push type tool for straight knurling and explained why.

Unfortunately, not only have I been unable to find the original post but I can't recall your reasoning either.

So, for benefit of those who did not see your original post, or, as for myself, those that have forgotten the details, I would appreciate it if you could repeat your reasoning.

Thanks,
Clive

I don't think that the problem is unique to RDG chucks.

My secondhand ML7 came with a Burnerd 3 jaw chuck which was mounted on the spindle, as well as a Myford catch-plate and faceplate.

A few weeks later I purchased a secondhand 4 jaw Pratt Burnerd chuck in good condition. I was horrified when I first tried it to find that it would only go on about a quarter of the way before getting stuck.

Trying the catch-plate and faceplate for the first time neither would go on all the way. I was convinced that there must be a problem with the mandrel nose. But I then spent some time with a small brass brush and some strips of brass making absolutely sure that all threads were as clean as possible. Yet, although this improved the fit, none except the 3 jaw chuck which was originally fitted would seat all the way.

In desperation, I ordered a Myford spindle tap from Chronos - shipping to Canada was more expensive than the tap.
I first tried it on the catch-plate, and although I didn't see any filings when I ran the tap through, afterwards it was a perfect fit. Same with the 4 jaw and the faceplate after receiving the same treatment.

Clive

Actually, the answer is quite simple, it is subsidised by Royal Mail to the UK or by Canada Post to Canada, etc. etc.

This is thanks to the UPU (Universal Postal Union) that has designated China as "undeveloped" and should therefore be subsidised.

This takes the form of vastly reduced "terminal dues", which is the amount payable to the receiving Post Office for actually delivering the package.

In many cases, local businesses are disadvantaged by much higher delivery costs making it difficult for them to compete with products shipped from China. As a result, a year or so back, the US was threatening to leave the UPU if the Chinese subsidy was not withdrawn - I am not sure what the eventual outcome was.

Clive

And now, before I completely derail the thread, getting back on topic, many Myford owners find the Press Parts PP632 oil gun works very well.

Press parts also have a US office which is where I ordered mine from - Press Parts PP632 oil gun

Clive

Bill thanks, excellent idea, I just tried ebay.co.uk and that works. One minor disadvantage is that it also shows listings that don't ship to Canada which I don't normally see, but that is relatively minor

John,
Thanks very much for taking the trouble to investigate, and absolutely no need to apologise, I really appreciate the advice.

Clive

Another option is "Ellie" The Steam Tram".

This looks to be an ideal model for the beginner. To quote the publishers:

The two major attractions of this design are its suitability for beginners, including younger builders with supervised access to a model engineer's workshop and, for the more experienced builder, the design lends itself to modification both in appearance and mechanically.

The book is available in either digital or hardcopy versions from Camden Miniature Steam along with some laser cut parts to speed up construction.

Clive

Unfortunately not, as I am in Canada and not the UK. The options I can choose from for location are: Canada only, North America only, or worldwide.

So, if I want to find Myford items which for the most part come from UK based sellers then I have to choose worldwide which unfortunately includes hundreds and hundreds of items out of India, many of these are identical items from different sellers which makes scrolling through the results very difficult.

Clive

If you are referring to the hex headed nuts and bolts, then they are British Standard Whitworth:
Spanners (wrenches) are marked BSW or WW. To add to the confusion some are dual marked in BSF as well as BSW - enough to drive anyone to metric!

As far as I know Myford uses four size:

3/16 WW (1/4 BSF) = 11.3 mm AF

1/4 WW (5/16 BSF) = 13.3 mm AF

5/16 WW (3/8" BSF) = 15.2 mm AF

3/8 WW (7/16" BSF) = 18.0 mm AF

You can mill smaller SAE or metric spanners to size or do like I did (I am in Canada) and search on eBay - make sure to set your search to worldwide to get UK results with search terms like "spanner bsw" or "wrench bsw" some full sets come up, but the four sizes listed above should be sufficient. I found these fairly reasonably priced, shipping from the UK to North America can be a little high, although, don't be put off by the shipping price on the listing as it is often incorrect, so it is worthwhile contacting the seller to confirm the shipping before committing to buy.

eBay, is also a great source for Myford parts and accessories. I have found most of what I need there - sometimes it just requires a little patience. Unfortunately, with search set to worldwide, one has to wade through hundreds of listings of cheap and poor quality accessories out of India - dozens of sellers touting the exact same products which really swamp the results - it is a pity that eBay doesn't offer a way of excluding certain locations.

Myford itself, although as mentioned elsewhere in this thread are now owned by RDG, still offer some useful parts and accessories. They also supply manuals, although these do seem a bit expensive

**LINK** PDF versions can be found on the web, but I no longer have the link.

And lastly, if you would like to know how old your lathe is, Myford list age ranges by serial number: **LINK**

Clive

Edited By clivel on 14/06/2021 06:27:06

Somebody else asked in this thread two days ago.

Pete Rimmer replied that he still had a few 33 & 34T Myford gears. You could try sending him a message.

Clive

Fascinating video.
Interesting to hear that Ballaarat is based on Dolgoch, especially as Dolgoch was renamed Pretoria from 1900 to 1914 in celebration of the taking of Pretoria by Lord Roberts during the Second Boer war.

I doubt though, that this was a factor in your choice of prototype.

Clive

3D printers can be purchased for a fraction of the price of either a lathe or mill, the raw plastic is far cheaper than the metal used in traditional weapons, and, unlike a machine tool, once the design files have been downloaded from the internet a 3d printer requires minimal skill and almost no training to operate.

So the problem is that for very little outlay any thug or potential terrorist with enough intelligence to drive a car has the ability to produce a continual supply of lethal weapons in the comfort of their own home,

Clive

Don't despair New Zealanders, they will arrive.
I am also on the West Coast of Canada and received 299 last week Thursday, followed up by #300 the following day. The last ME I received was also 4655 which arrived on Jan 15th,

What is amazing, however, is that I also received a letter from the UK on Friday, only four days after posting, it is many years since I have experienced this kind of postal service.

Clive

You are not alone, I am another Canadian waiting for 299 and 300. the last issue I received was 298 on Dec 30th!

Clive

Coming full circle to your original question - a tender loco for beginners, and even though you have already made your mind up, others may come across this thread looking for advice on a beginners 5" gauge tender locomotive, so I thought that I would throw my tuppence in.

Don Young's 5" gauge 0-4-0 Rail Motor, serialised in ME between April 1968 and March 1969 is considered by many to be an ideal beginners loco. Compact, yet powerful for its size, castings and drawings are available from the usual suspects and it is a relatively straightforward build.

The ME build series describes tender and tank variants of the design. I spent ages vacillating on what of the many designs to build as a first loco before settling on the tender version of the Rail Motor myself.

Clive

As others have noted, what Michael is seeing is cached data and not cookies. Cached data is used to minimise network traffic and also to reduce page load times.

For example, when viewing this site, I regularly see the same adverts and images over and over, so rather than my browser downloading them each and every time, they are downloaded only once, only to be downloaded again after a preset expiry time or when they change.

As far as I am aware most browsers allow the user to control the maximum cache size, but this is often an advanced setting and should be left well alone.

Cookies, on the other hand, are small. They are restricted to a maximum of a few kilobytes each, and a browser will only store a limited number of cookies for each site.

Cookies are not the malignant force that so many seem to think they are, but can instead be very useful. For example, I like it if I visit a shopping site, don't complete my order and come back a few days later to find my shopping cart still contains the items I have added. Or when I visit a forum such as this which has saved my login information to save me typing it in again.

Of course, cookies, like most things, can be used for nefarious purposes, but do I really care if a site shows me ads related to my interests or not, I tend to ignore most ads anyway. It should be noted that only the site that placed the cookie can read it. Cookies can not be used for transferring data from one site to the next.

I routinely accept all cookies, and rarely delete them unless I am working on a computer that is not my own, The time, hassle and inconvenience really isn't worth it.

Clive

There is very little difference in appearance between the European conformance CE mark and the "China Export" mark which seems to be a deliberate way to fool consumers.

Although the manual said made in Germany, did you notice whether the lamps themselves were so marked?

How To Distinguish A Real CE Mark From A Fake Chinese Export Mark

Clive

Edited By clivel on 25/01/2021 02:15:10

Like others have mentioned in this thread, I can highly recommend a tangential tool. Although it is possible to make one's own, as a beginner, buying would be easiest.

Although not particularly cheap, I have the "Diamond tool holder" as supplied by Eccentric Engineering who advertise on this site on both my Unimat and Myford ML7 lathes.

The cost is somewhat mitigated by how versatile the tools are. In my case, they are almost permanent fixtures, used for nearly everything other than boring and parting. So there is a saving in not having to carry a range of tools and with fewer tool changes, there is less advantage in having a QCTP. Especially as the Diamond Tool has a built-in height adjustment.

Using the supplied jig, sharpening the Diamond Tool is trivially easy. It is almost impossible to get it wrong even for the clumsiest of us, and if anything, it gave me the confidence to experiment with freehand sharpening of HSS tools on the rare occasion that I need a different tool form.

Clive

Edited to add:
Sorry for the duplication with the previous posters, but I wrote this post and then forgot to post it before going for lunch. Posting it when I came back, I hadn't realised that the thread had moved on in the meantime

Edited By clivel on 23/01/2021 23:10:27

I purchased the Emco 200 250 collet chuck for my Unimat from Pro Machine Tools a few years ago and have been very happy with it.
Unfortunately, the Pro Machine Tools website is currently undergoing maintenance so it is not possible to check if they still have stock but it might be worth contacting them to see if they still stock it.

Clive