Member postings for Nigel McBurney 1

i kept receiving Calls about energy efficiently,so instead of telling them to clear off i recently tried a reply with, ""excuse me madam,this is the butler speaking ,her ladyship is not at home thank you for calling" not had a call from that lot since.

Unfortuneatly the uk has drifted into a situation where an awful lot of the population do not want to work,and a fewer number have no intention have working,it can be virtually impossible to sack anyone and very little disipline,Last weekends Telegraph had an article on the benefits system and showed how much money people on benefits can get it was obscene in my mind compared to the pitance OAP s receive, it eeds a big stick to get the unemployed working. Recent experience with the NHS is dismal,to relieve my wife from extreme pain we have spent an awful lot of cash(enough to buy 10 reasonable Bridgeports) to have private treatment though private treatment is not as good as it was,as they expand due to demand some of the poor staff from the NHS have got into their system. Visit any NHS establishment and there are various staff wandering around carrying bits of paper so that they appear to be doing something and so many are over weight in a system which tries to encourage the public to loose wight to improve their health,I do agree with the comments of why do nurses have to have degrees,why should someone who wants to be a nurse be barred because they simply cannot afford to get a degree,and the ones who do get degrees dont want to do the dirty end of the job , As for 111 they are a waste of time, quicker to go to A&E, my wife was in some pain following an op and one weekend all she wanted to know was could she safely take double the dose of tablets,after ages on the phone all she asked could a doctor advise her via the phone ,simple one might think,oh no the 111 operator insisted that and ambulance be sent with two crew,they examined her and then phoned a doctor and got the answer that it was ok to double the dose,the ambulance crew did their job, but as we are out the sticks,that simple answer cost a round trip of 25 miles for that ambulance and crew ,absolute waste of NHS funds, I often think that when I see government ministers and NHS chiefs on the tv the come over in their manner and speech as not up to the job,being in command of a vast incompetent empire with no risk of loosing their job unless they go to a party in no 10.

My Discovery which i bought new 12 years ago was a cancelled order and it had the option of privacy glass fitted,so I had no choice so I bought it, it does not bother me,yes thief can just about see whats inside and there is no boot so I keep old coats and other odd boxes so it looks like a lot of rubbish and put any valuables out of sight,though I do avoid leaving valuables in a vehicle. I read in the motoring press a while ago that when buying a new car if there is the option for privacy glass ,then take it a lot of customers buying used cars want privacy and you have a good chance of a better deal when the time comes for trading it in.Regarding rear vision the glass does not cause any problem,its the high rear seats with headrests that restrict vision, reversings ok as I have a rear camera,and it is also great when reversing up to a trailer and getting the hitch over the towball.

i would make a TE axle from en 8 and then machine all over to obtain a better degree of straightness ,roundness and finish, I buy my steel in 3metre lengths from well known commercial suppliers and defects in the material can still occurr.why cut corners when building a model.

I used to have a Mlmor,a lot heavier machine,around 1 and 3/4 tons with 50 inch table ,it would have your pickups front wheels in the air. I did aquire a hand book, not very informative ,no mention of the spindle lubrication,or bearing adjustment etc. My current mill is a Elliott 00 omni mill which came with sales leaflet and handbook, which had more info than the milmor but not brilliant ok for lubricating info and machine dimensions and detail parts breakdown,check the head tram fairly often ,the heads do move under heavy cutting.though these Elliott machines do have lots of travel on xyz axis and good clearance under the spindle,I note that yours has a riser block for more spindle clearance,similar to the Bridgeport.I would not pay a lot of cash for a handbook not really worth having,

with insulated double skin,block all holes in the exterior skin to keep mice out,they love the warm cavity and ruin the insulation.

one of my friends was a commercial shotblaster and I used to get my old stationary engine parts ,ie some steel (fuel tanks) and a lot of cast iron,blasted, when blasted I took the parts home and and painted immediately with a thinned down coat of red oxide and when dry a thicker normal coat,the friends work was mainly for commercial vehicles ie water pumps,steering boxes and these ere just sprayed matt black as corrosion protection was not really required as English lorries threw out enough oil to stop rusting. The thin coat ensured that any pits were coated and the thick coat gave corrosion protection. With bright loco parts why not store them in the airing cupboard and paint them indoors, utility room is ideal as the floor covering is tiles so there is very little dust,I once got the engine bed of a 7 Hp cCossley into our hallway,it sat on a sheet of hardboard over the carpet but this is not ideal as dust from the carpet rises as you move around painting and ruins the paint finish, I also keep the the high tension magnetos in the airing cupboard,one spare has been there over 40 years,I have tolerant wife as she also buys her own engines though i get the job of restoring them.

I would not consider using a 80mm facemill on such a small machine,its cruel, if you do need to face off a workpiece 70mm wide workpiece do as Jason says face it off in a four jaw chuck , or if it has to go on the mill why not use a flycutter ,with Hss toolbits the rake and clearance angles can be adjusted easily by hand grinding and finishing the cutting edge with an oilstone and it costs virtually nothing,I have never bought a commercial fly cutter,just make one,

a good fly cutter can be made using a disc of steel with a shank to suit your largest collet, dril/ream a hole in the face of the disc and secure the toolbit with one or two skt head grub screws,the weight of the disc acts like a fly wheel and smooths the cutting action. I have a couple of top quality industrial face mills ( these came free) and as I am a bit tight with my cash if I do need to cut something tough I use just one cutter it may take a bit longer and why buy 5 inserts when one will do the job. when instrument making long ago now the companys practice was to fly cut all instrument straight scales using fly cutters to get superb finishes which required very little further finishing by straight graining,some scales were a metre long.

When making the disc and shank flycutters the best ones are made in one piece from a billet of steel ,quite a bit turning and swarf production but well worth it.

the thin brass method is ok tfor the gear the teeth do not need to be of a gear form,nor be helical, a series of pointed pins would work . thats ok for imperial leadscrews, now if its a metric leadscrew ,its a bit different ,from my experience with an all metric Colchester triumph 71/2 in centre height. this lathe has a set of pick off gearwheels for the thread indicator,there were either 4 or 5 gears cant remember the exact number, each gear could only work on certain pitches so to cover a full range of metric pitches a series of gears was required. the actual gears were thin brass about 3 or 4 mm thick looked a bit frail on such a large lathe but they work well as there is no load ,only a small amout of friction to be overcome.

I made some years ago a cross slide screw using en1a leaded steel, the very good finish achievable with this grade of mild steel results in a reasonable long life, a screw made in a tougher material will probably have a slightly rougher finish and will no doubt cause more wear in the nut. The nut should be made from leaded bronze,plain brass is not suitable for bearings or nuts.

Reading all the comments, It appears that the workholder er collet is very good,these collets grip and dont slip if tightened to spec, the material ie 1a leaded should produce good threads easily without the need for specialised lubricants ,the commercial die holder looks ok though I would prefer the type where the body holds the die firmly,i am not keen on separate inserts. the 45 degree lead is ok on this material a 30 degree is preferable on tougher materials. I think the problem is a rubbish die,it may be marked hss but its the manufacture thats the problem.Get a good ground thread hss die from a known manufacturer and the problem will disappear. Cutting a thread by hand with the work in a vice is difficult and takes a lot of practice and is to be avoided. Holding the die in the tailstock is the easiast method to cut a thread for the amature modeler, modern commercial tallstock holders are a bit too complicated and cost a lot of cash. During my training I spent a lot of time on a Boxford, the commercial tailstock die holder was simple, short length of 1/2 inch dia rod,possibly hardened to reduce wear was held in the tailstock chuck,the die holder about 4 ins long just slid onto the rod,no key ways or any method to prevent rotation, it had a heavy knurl along most of its length and a cross hole for a tommy bar , the die was held and adjusted by the usual 3 pointed screws. In use BA threads were cut with the lathe running and the holder gripped in the hand and pushed towards the work,when a shoulder was reached you just relaxed your grip on the dolder and then spun it off by hand ,on larger threads the tommy bar was used with the lathe spindle stationary. This type of holder can be home made using either mild steel or aluminium for the body and silver steel for the rod thatgoes in the tailstock chuck,no need to make morse taper shafts. I have a lot of these home made holders which cost nothing ,the largest holding 3/4 bsp as I thread water pipe when restoring full size stationary engines,I thread under power using a decent sized tommy bar which is prevented from turning by a steel bar held in the toolpost,Dont use the lathe bed.When I started my engineering work over 60 years ago ,there was never any problem with either carbon cut thread or hss taps and dies,though in the last 30 years i have sent a die and a number of taps back to suppliers as they would just not cut ,with duff taps some just start cutting and then just jam solid.Nowadays I rarely need taps or dies but if I do have to buy one I bite the bullet and pay a lot extra for ground thread HSS. A comment was made about why does a toolpost stud need to be relatively precise,well the nut needs to be square to the axis of the stud in order to maintain a firm grip. How would I do this stud,both my lathes have imperial lead srews so I would use a die , if it was imperial over say 1/2 inch i would screwcut with a chaser.

I only use die holder and vice for jobs like extending the thread on coachbolts or cleaning up damaged threads, I have a WD set of whit taps and dies 1/2 to 1 inch whit made in 1940 and typical goverment,no expense spared,solid metal case with hard timber insert in army green, a polished all over sliding block tap wrench and a die holder which has separate iserts to hold the dies,so the dies can be set to size and the setting held,each die holder has a built in guide to keep the thread square ,though it would take a strong soldier to cut one inch Whit threads ,it cost me £40 and I think the tap wrench alone was worth that as that is the most used part of the set.

I recently found brand new engine retaining bolts with 17mm a/f heads and mating nuts which were supposed to be nyloc type!! 16mm a/f ,the nylon bush in the nut had a too large internal diameter so had little grip on the bolt thread and could be removed usings ones finger,never known that problem before,no doubt chinese origin.

I use thick knitting PURE wool it MUST not have any synthetic fibre in it, on all of my stationary engines requiring wicks,it was common practice years ago to use brass wire to support the wick as brass will not cause any damage should it come in contact with the rotating spindle. Some years ago wicks used on locomotives were not feeding oil and it was found that the wool had a proportion of synthetic wool in it, if the bearing got too warm the synthetic content melted and ran in amongs the natural wool ,blocked up the strands and stopped feeding oil,it gets expensive with white metal bearings, There is some info on the web about how to make wicks., just a case of searching.One thing I have found that natural sheeps wool spun at home did not feed as well as pure knitting wool,never found out why.

If the boring in situ is used,its best to set up a length of suitable sized steel in the lathe chuck ,drill and bore that to 2mt to ensure that the lathe set up is boring the taper correct to size ,then when the test piece is correct ,remove the chuck and bore the spindle taper back to 2 mt. saves the risk of boring the taper too deep with too many setting up cuts

Several years ago I went for a electrically operated Horman door,just over 6 metres,very good door.Its made from hinged panel,insulation is an option ,watch out for the cheap ones,a neighbour has one that is just one sheet with lots of folded creases which rolls onto a drum,dont know how long it will last. When you are older the electric door allows you to drive up to the door ,you open it with remote control drive in park the car ,walk to the house and then close it by remote. I built my garage away from the house, safer regarding fire risk etc.

Before drilling,face off the end of the bar or work being turned,turning tool should be at centre height so that no central pip is formed,a centre pip will force the drill off centre, when centre drilling with small centre drills use a lubricant,a drop of ordinary lubricating oil will do ,though on tougher material a Rocol type lubricant is better,the problem with a centre drill,is that the small drill flutes are straight ,which do not remove swarf compared to a twist drill, with a very small centre drill ie 1/8 or 3/16 inch dia I run the S7 on top speed ie 2000 rpm ,and a bit slower ,say 1000 rpm when drilling a tough material like silver steel ,feed in gently and wind the drill back 3 or 4 times to clear the swarf. My lathe is in good condition,on a worn lathe if the drill runs off centre it will break,the only way to overcome this problem would be to start drilling with a lot larger centre drill to achieve a shallow dimple which runs true,then use the small drill to achieve the small centre you require,then face off a few thou to remove any traces of the large dimple.

The best oiler which would look neat and realistic on a steam engine would be improve the plain brass oiler shown in the initial set of photos of this thread, a brass turned oiler with a central tube and a single strand of pure natural knitting wool with no synthetics, then machine up a brass cap which has lip to fit over the oiler body,plain fit ie not threaded ensure the central tube does not come up to the top of the oiler or the wool will get squashed and not feed the oil. a small hole in the cap will let air in to allow the oil to flow. If such an oiler is used on a big end or eccentric the the cap is threaded to prevent it flying off.if the oiler is made in a really small scale then the wick feed may not work in this case do not use a central tube just fill the oiler half full of wool to slow the flow of oiler. the disadvantage of wick feed oilers the only way to see if it works is to remove the cap to see if the oil level is going down. The sight feed oiler with the large glass to hold the oil,a needle valve to control the oil,and the lower small glass to view the rate of oil flow is far more common on internal combustion engines. full size I/c engines generally run faster than steam engines and regulation of the oil supply is more critical to prevent seizure,and somewhat affected by the weather,on a hot day the oil flow is far faster and needs slowing down. Looking at the 4 volumes of DK Clarks the steam engine written about 125 years ago,with extremely fine detailed dwgs of steam engines of all types ,the general crank lubrication for engines of the type the Stuarts were modelled on was for an oil pocket to be cast in the top bearing shell with a oil feed tube and syphon wick.Very efficient in use and low cost,all the cap casting required was was a drilled hole to feed oil and hold the syphon tube plus a cap possibly just cast with no machining, My 4 hp National and Gardners have this arrangement,Hornsbys used pressed out caps from blued steel, some engines had cast caps with hinges to prevent loss. this avoided the manufacturing cost of a separate brass oiler with the easily broken glass parts,plus possible theft by the brass thieves. And of course the the syphon has the additional advantage that the wick acts as a filter to ensure clean oil gets to the bearing ,the best glass sight feed oiler have brass gauze to filter larger dirt particles out of the oil but not as good as a wick plus for full size engines such as portables the cast in pocket with cap is far more waterproof when on a winters day of thrashing out in the rain, I have a dozen full size stationary 1/c engines and on some rain water easily get into the oil. For lubrication from the smallest a Stuart 600 to a Hornsby I use Halfords 10/40 multigrade semi synthetic and find it provides far better lubrication than straight mineral oil specified for industrial use,and veteran cars. Castrol is bast but nowadays its harder to find and purchase,cannot even get Castrol grease in Halfords.

watercooled i/c ,engines can have a tighter gap than hotter running air cooled engin, on a Lister D twhich has a 3 inch bore the handbook states ring gap should be 8 to 12 thou of an inch,so bottom limit is just over 2 thou per inch.On a steam engine with all cast iron parts and a fairly even temperature .001 ins per inch dia of bore is adequate.

8in by 12 inch I beams are massive and they would easily carry a 4x4 and trailer over a 20 foot gap, I would be more concerned about corrosion particularly in areas which cannot be seen,particularly and in in areas where the beams rest, also what do the beams rest on,are there brick built built piers? or do the beams rest on rocks or worse rest in the dirt of the bank, The question must be will the girders stay in place after repeated bumps from a vehicle/trailer combination as it goes from a dirt track onto a semi rigid structure, I would tie the girders together with a couple of tie bars and then ensure the timber decking is secured to the girders with bolts and clamp plates,never drill I beam flanges. Plus some guide rails to stop wheels slipping over the edge of the deck. When I get something like this bridge I have a look round at what other people have done and if that structure is sound then copy that, when I needed a two ton capacity gantry spanning 12 foot for lifting stationary engines and machine tools I looked at catalogues of commercial gantries and copied their specs,as they had already done the calcs. Though nowadays with shall we say awkward neighbours ready to make claims one has to protect your backside,and really a structural survey is required rather than just calculations of the beam strength. This could prove expensive though better/cheaper than an accident/negligence claim.

Long time ago company practice was to grind the thread cutting tools by hand on a grinder with a well dressed wheel,though we had the avantage of an optical projector to finally check the tool angle,though its easy to file up a guage from 1/16 steel pate, the tool was a 3/8 square HSS toolbit used on a Boxford, Apart from getting the angle correct,the clearance on the sides of the tool must be ground to clear the helix of the thread,when cutting a RH Acme the side of the tool on the chuck side requires more clearance as the helix on small dia coarse thread is relatively large, I nowadays have learnt that its better to use a round HSS toolbit clamped in a holder this allows the toolbit to be rotated so that the cutting form can be aligned to the thread helix by setting the old feedscrew up in the chuck to esnure there is clearance on both sides of the tool,then the top cutting edge can be ground to be horizontal with the lathe axis. Always cut with lubricant at a slow speed,on long threads use a traveling steady to stop the workpiece from deflecting away from the tool,otherwise you will find the thread will be tight and oversize in the centre.