Member postings for Andyf

Well, Gary, there's a thing. I live in Sale and worked in Wilmslow from 1976 until retiring in 2006, and had never head of the Anson Engine Museum until now. Looks worth a trip - shame it doesn't open on weekdays, because I still go to Wilmslow every Wednesday for a 5pm pint with old colleagues.

Andy

I see that the BV25 lathe first appeared in MEW issue 198, with a second article in 199, but despite a "to be continued" we have heard no more about it in the last two issues. Maybe it has been dropped because of the mystery it seems to have created. If so, that seems a pity to me. There are many articles in MEW about machines I have never seen and am unlikely ever to own, but are interesting to read and often contain ideas which can be adapted to my own purposes.

Andy

Scott, going back to your original plea for help. you said "There isn't one flat face on it and not one face is 90 deg to any other. What I would consider to be the most useful reference face is like a banana."

Which face was that? To me, it looks like the most important faces will be the angled faces of the male and female dovetails, and the flat surfaces either side of them. If those are OK in the sense that each flat surface is (a) co-planar with its fellow on the other side of the dovetail and (b) sits at 90° to the lathe bed when viewed side on, and the angled faces are OK, there isn't too much to worry about. I suppose it would be as well to check that the shelf on which your workpiece will sit is parallel with the lathe bed so that if you put a piece of square bar on it, the front face of the bar is vertical and not leaning backwards or forwards.

Whatever other work you do on the part that slides up or down, every time you fasten the contraption down to the swivel disc in your cross slide you will need to check with a clock that the work is at 90° (or some other desired angle) to the lathe bed as viewed from above, and swivel the disc around until the workpiece is dead on.

None of this helps with the problem of getting the cross slide back far enough, of course.

Andy

Edited By Andyf on 07/04/2013 23:52:42

"UCP bearing pillow blocks"

Can't resist pointing out that, when I were a lad and dinosaurs roamed the earth, "UCP" referred to any one of a chain of restaurants, mainly in Lancashire and run by United Cattle Products, which specialised in such delicacies as tripe and cow heels.

Andy

Andy chipping in:

The inward travel of the cross-slide can be extended by fitting it with a longer feedscrew. Mike (another contributor on here) did it the proper way, by making an entirely new feedscrew.

I did it the quick and dirty way by threading a bit of rod M10 x 1 LH, and bolting it on the end of the existing feedscrew like this. Not for purists, perhaps, but it seems to work fine. There's no reason why it shouldn't, really.

Of course, you need to check how much overlap will be left between the slide and its base when the slide is as far in as you want it to go, and that you aren’t left with all the gib screws except one in the overhanging part of the slide.

Andy

I’ve only made a couple, so others will doubtless know better, but I did it much as you describe, starting with a parting tool to make a groove. When it comes to angling the sides, I’m not sure how you would use the cross-slide when putting the angles on either side of the initial groove. I locked the cross slide and moved (then locked in place) the saddle between each cut. It helps if you have a handwheel and dial on your leadscrew to make fine adjustments, though if you have (say) an 8tpi leadscrew and put a 60T changewheel on it, each gear tooth will represent about 2 thou saddle movement. You suggest a dial indicator, but unless for some reason you want to be very accurate, that doesn't really seem necessary.

My pulleys-to-be were mounted on a mandrel, and once the angle on one side was done I reversed them on the mandrel to do the other, so the top slide angle didn’t have to be changed, and just shaved away the second side until the belt fitted in nicely with its top flush with the circumference of the pulley.

Andy

Aldi used to sell "Beaded Hand Cleaner" in 1 litre, clear plastic screw top jars with a 100mm wide neck. Ideal for seeing the contents, and getting my hand inside. But now they have gone over to hand cleaner labelled "Stanley" with a neck just too narrow to get my paw inside.

There are some on Ebay LINK with 100mm necks but they work out at over £2 each if you buy six, which isn't the same as getting them by recycling old containers.

Andy

As to an external fan fighting the internal one when running in reverse, I found that the one I fitted to my lathe won the battle every time. Even at high speed, the internal fan produced a very weak draught. Anyway, I don't think milling machines are often called on to run in reverse, but that opinion may be coloured by the fact that mine has no provision for it.

Sadly, computer fans won't go backwards; if you reverse the supply polarity, they don't run at all.

Andy

A pal of mine who restores brass microscopes, chemical balances etc, swears by a dunk in Harpic to shift the tarnish, before the Brasso and elbow grease.

It's probably the hydrochloric acid in the Harpic which does the trick, so brick cleaning acid would probably do equally well.

Andy

I second Gray's comments about dowels into the gib strips. As to spherical ended screws, I had to go even further with a Chinese lathe gib where the dimples weren't quite in line. The gib twisted so much during adjustment that one end of it was forced down into contact with the slide base which, combined with the twist, made adjustment impossible. I ended up gripping the strip by its top and bottom in the milling vice so it was at 30°, flat-bottoming each dimple with a 3mm slot drill (and moving the out-of-line dimples over slightly) and making up new M4 adjusting screws with flat ends, turned down to 3mm over the last 3mm of thread. With a dowel at each end, the problems with adjusting the gib were solved.

Andy

My milling machine sits diagonally across a corner, as does George's. This allows enough room for table travel, while leaving a bit more of the walls either side available for other stuff. There is dead space behind, but as most millers are relatively narrow at the back, it is pretty minimal.

Andy

Edited By Andyf on 24/03/2013 13:48:22

Looking at the "Subscribe to digital edtions" page as I see it on my computer (link below), it gives the impression that all you get if you subscribe to digital ME is editions from 2001 to 2007, and 1990 to 2006 if you subscribe to digital MEW.

Might this give prospective subscribers the impression that they will only get a limited number of editions? As far as I am aware, the digital versions of each magazine run right up to date. Being a subscriber to the hard copy MEW, I get access to the digital editions which do indeed go back to no. 1 in 1990 and don't stop in 2006. I can't speak for ME, but though I don't know how far back the digital versions go, I'd be surprised if nothing from the last six years is available.

The page I'm talking about.

Andy

Definitely looks like the broad arrow signifying what was then called the War Department'. My Dad was in REME during the war years, so I'm rather familiar with the WD arrow/year stamp.

How did a bank clerk in his mid twenties end up as an instructor in radio theory and practice? Other guys liberated Europe, but all he seems to have liberated were tools and radio parts.

Andy

Otley,

PM sent

Andy

I must say that I too found a lot to interest me in issue 201. Not necessarily things I want to make for myself, but a good read., and I'm waiting for 202 to read further episodes on some of the projects. My thanks to the contributors, and to the editor who chose their articles for publication.

Andy

I think 1.25mm is the smallest common metric Allen key, and would probably substitute for 0.05".  1.25mm = 0.0492", so less than 1 thou undersize.

Andy.

Edited By Andyf on 19/03/2013 18:44:36

I was looking for a bit of Tufnol this morning. Here's a piece on Ebay which you could cut into strips. Only 2.5mm thick, though I suppose you could double it up.

Andy

I am not familiar with the Sieg HM-10, but it looks like one of the machines which Grizzly Tools sell in the US. They have an online manual for their machine, written in in American English, rather than Chinese English. I don't know if this might help you.

Andy

If silicone tube would stand up to the coolant, then there's an 8mm ID, 12.7m OD peristaltic tube in this seller's list.

Andy

My 1941 Machinery's Handbook has a few combinations in it. Could Machinery's be the book you were thinking of? Some of the combinations involve wood and leather, and those given for metal on metal only involve bronze, cast iron and wrought iron, though a more modern Machinery's might be more comprehensive.

Andy

PS There is a table on this page, if you scroll down. It also cites a few reference books.