Member postings for Baz

Assuming you have two wheels fitted to your bench grinder slacken one wheel and rotate it about 30 degrees and retighten if no improvement rotate another 30 degrees and so on. It is possible you have two heavy sides together.

Perhaps the reason for others doing small holes in softer materials has something to do with the forum title MODEL Engineering, perhaps we should refer the OP to a full size engineering forum, he will still have to realise though that the protrusion or null point is critical regardless of the size of the broaching tool. Bigger broaching tools do bigger hexagons / squares and bigger forces are created and bigger prices for tools, seems that the cheapest tool is around about a grand in the UK, I will not comment further but there are many other ways to produce what he hopes to achieve by broaching.

You only want a couple of drips of washing up liquid to a bucket full of water, it’s a p*** in the ocean amount, the couple of gallons of water will do more harm to your machine.

Plenty of charts on internet detailing sizes of 5C style collets, they will help you figure out exactly what you have.

Totally agree with Tony, a totally proven technique, if it doesn’t work you have a c*** tool. Hemmingway do a small broach kit and drawings, it works superbly well I have made a couple of them and had absolutely no problems broaching 5mm hexagon on a Myford lathe.

I would be inclined to make one of Stuart’s designs, they are proven to work and buying his book will give you everything you need to be successful, I am not a great fan Julius de walls designs, he seems to bash out a couple a month and there are some errors in them, the last thing a beginner would want, nothing is more soul destroying than spending time making a couple of bits only to find they don’t fit. No connection with either gentleman, just an opinion I have formed from reading various forums and magazines and talking to people.

If you contact the manufacturer and give them the barcode and details on the other label I am sure they will tell you everything you need to know about your new motor.

If you can find a professional outfit to do it I think the cost would be prohibitive.

Many years ago the bloke at Camden books used to be a stockist or agent for Live Steam Magazine, don’t know if he could help, but worth a try.

I have some reservations about turning all the thread off and presumably screwcutting a smaller diameter thread. The original thread was made that diameter for a reason, is it safe to reduce the diameter?

Fulmen 30 odd psi inside would not have made any difference when you have got a few thousand psi on the outside. Please correct me if I am wrong.

A lot to be said for good old traditional paper books.

You cannot beat good Old British iron. The Colchester was built to be thrashed every day in production shops, as Bernard says they are built like brick toilets, for me it would be a no brainer, Colchester every time.

No good looking for spring spec in book or on drawings, Evans never specified anything for the springs. Lee springs will have something suitable in their on line catalogue, only downside is that they are not particularly cheap.

Agree with Andrew about boring heads not being able to run fast enough to get the benefits of carbide, HSS still has its place for certain things.

Absolutely beautiful model, not totally sure about the lining though, a bit to jazzy for my liking. I like his mill, it looks like a two thirds size Bridgeport, can anyone identify it?

Andrew that looks to be a nice bit of kit, nice to have the provenance as well, good quality tooling like this is getting harder to find and when you do find it you have to pay well for it. I also like to own and use nice tooling but mine usually costs me double because the wife wants sewing machines or patchwork material to the same value!

Cornflakes packets are ideal for blotters if you need to make any and do as Noel says, stand out of the line of fire when you turn it on. If it is badly out of balance you can loosen one wheel and rotate it say 90 degrees, re tighten and try again, keep rotating the one wheel at 90 degree intervals and trying it, hopefully you will end up with the heavy sides of the wheels opposite each other which should reduce vibration. In the good old days abrasive wheels were made to much better standards than they seem to be now.

I have seen many Far Eastern six and eight inch bench grinders with pressed steel flanges so I personally wouldn’t worry about using ally or brass but no doubt the purists will say they should be steel of a certain grade, I cannot see any reason to replace the one on the other side, as for tightening the wheel, it must have blotters either side and just nipped up enough to stop it slipping. Please note that this is just my opinion not a recommendation and it’s up to you to decide if it’s safe.