Member postings for Nigel McBurney 1

Just curious has anyone trammed with a dial indicator how square the table is to the spindle on these cheapo machines,? though these drills should be much better what can one expect when only paying £39 23 years ago! I just wonder do the orientals make a batch of drill parts,then apply selective assembly to the drills to obtain say 80% reasonably accurate, then assemble the remaining parts quickly and sell them off cheap,its more profitable to sell cheap rubbish assembled drills rather than scrap the defective parts.

If you want to drive around on the steam rally field,then a 3 inch traction engine is the smallest size that is practical,rally fields are not very smooth and although 11/2 and 2 inch models are seen on the rallyfield the rough ground cannot do them any good. I started on an allchin over 50 years ago ,at that time the allchin was one of the few models with dwgs and castings available,but after visiting rallies and chatting to other owners it was obvious to me that the allchin would be more suitable for running on a very smooth lawn.So I gave up , and built a bungalow and started collecting and restoring i/c stationary engines and still do it,I have had experience with a miniature traction engines as I bought a 6 inch Burrell and ran that for some time until age got the better of me,though I did eventually get a live steamer which I had wanted since I was about nine years old when I went to the ME exhibition after the war anbd saw a model TE. If i had my time again I would go for a 41/2 model though a 3 inch is still practical. My advice would be select a model then set about building the 4 wheels,apart from the hub castingsthough these can be fabricated the financial outlay is not excessive,if you can build the wheels and make a good job of them then the remainder is a lot easier.

A mild shrink fit,then secure with taper pins driven home hard, too severe a shrink fit does not improve the fit as the metal surrounding the shaft or crankpin just stretches. a full circular crank disk having a central shaft can have a tighter shrink fit as there is a lot of metal surrounding the shaft and the disc will not stretch. A friend made a couple of crankshafts for the Model Gardner engines out of solid using en 24 no problem with those,though he is a good machinist. Graham Corry of Alyn foundry silver soldered his cranks for the Gardner and other models,I made 4 of the Robinson hot air engines and with such a low power Loctite made a good job of it and requires no cleaning,Graham used a high temperature silver solder flux to get a clean joint .

My workshop is two separate areas with a dividing door, one shop has the precision equipment the other is where all the dirty work is done ,ie bench grinders,angle grinding ,welding, tool and cutter grinding,linishing and cleaning off rust with a heavy wire brush etc.keep any metalic and abrasive dust from machine tools.

I was involved many years go in using cast iron lapping plate to lap in optical slits for spectrometers,the plates used abrasive powders (not diamond) ,the laps ,set of 3 were prepared by lapping them in the Whitworth sequence, Every work bench also had 12 inch circular cast iron surface plates,the company owner said they too had been made by lapping in sets of three,of course the lapping particles had to be "killed" so they would not act as laps,to carry this out the surface was rubbed with a good flat india oilstone,so the hard lapping compound particles were flattened so they no longer acted as laps,the compound was not removed,in those days castings were easily obtained and it was a good method of producing a very flat low cost surface plate,for everyday use.

At that bargain price I would quickly do the deal,I have a Hoffman universal dividing head and it is a top class piece of equipment. regarding size with rotary tables within reason the bigger the better in order to get more clamping space, I did have a French made really substantial 12 inch rotary table,ex Dufor mill ,very heavy,so with old age I did decide to swap it for a 10 inch Taylor Hobson table,again a top class uk manufacturer in its day, and it is still maneageable and suits the smaller 00 Omnimill i now have.

Motor size using Myford as an example ML7 uses 1/2 hp, Myford Super 7 (2000) top speed uses 3/4 hp , both motors 1440 rpm. A lot depends on the top spindle speed the higher the lathe spindle speed the more power required to drive it,Generally the more modern the lathe the higher the speed ,and the larger motor requirement. I would suggest 1 hp. Also bear in mind most single phase motors have a max number of stop/starts per hour rating,

Until the 1970s uk industrial practice was to make a high content of a product inhouse,I worked for a subsidary of a typewriter maker,all they bought in was raw material,castings, and plastic mouldings ,though were setting up a plastic moulding shop. and the company was proud that they made the majority of components. very often other industries only bought in goods that needed a vast tooling investment or special knowledge, EG high pressure zinc and aluminium die castings,Allen screws, steel castings, Of course there were cases where some industries bought in components a lot earlier in the 20th century, the car industries generally bought in electrical components,tyres,etc alot depends on the the size of the company ,the capital available,factory space etc.I later worked for a multi national whose manufacturing practice was to " buy in "components where ever possible.

A steel shaft running in a cast iron bearing will last for a very long time provided it has plenty of lubrication,run short of oil and the steel shaft will pick up and score.I had a Volvo 240 ,the camshaft ran direct in the aluminium head,no wear after 110 k miles, a lot depends on using correct oil,new filters and change oil at the correct mileage.

The 3 Colcester squarehead lathes I have owned (early 1970 models) had metric pitch racks ,irespective of them being metric or imperial machines, I dont know when Colchester and Harrison came under one one ownership so there could be a chance that both makers used a common metric rack pitch. The metric rack allows a dial to be fitted to the handwheel to indicate the amount of saddle travel.

I agree ,certainly not easy to machine very soft and stringy,I had experience of it as polepieces when converting electric typwriters into solenoid operated automatic typewriters,one solenoid for every key operated function.

I use a ER32 hexagon Stevenson collet block in the lathe chuck from Arc Euro Trade,to hold round rod when cutting threads in the lathe,the ER collets when firmly tightened have very good gripping power and do not slip even when cutting coarse whit threads,similarly taps can be held in an ER collet and holder with MT shank. The problem of work slipping in a 3 jaw chuck and taps slipping in jacob chucks went away when I started using ER collets, To my mind if a drill or lathe chuck has to be tightened to such a degree that the key has to be inserted in all the positions then it is putting undue strain on the chuck jaws,,and good three jaw chucks are a lot more expensive than er collets. I have found that ER collets will hold securely a 11/8 inch whit tap when making nuts for a f/size traction engine,though at this size the strain on a tailstock would be far too much,I have made a 4 mt holder which is bolted to the saddle of a 6 1/2in lathe,which also allows the use of 4mt drills .During my apprenticeship I never saw anyone tightening a chuck by multi insertions of a chuck key.

To cut a long thread using a die on a lathe,hold a tailstock type die holder in the three jaw chuck with the appropriate die ,then hold the material to be threaded in an ER collet with a MT holder to suit the tailstock taper to obtain a firm grip on the rod, then with plenty of lubricant set the lathe to a low speed and cut the thread true,oil the lathe bed so that the saddle will slide easily.

having restored some English motor cycles and lots of stationary engines,I would advise a Brigdgeport and a 6 or 6.5 inch centre height Colchester,good capacity is really essential,as Andrew states one rarely needs spares for old uk machines, and lI read of lots of queries on spares /repairs on relatively new modern machines,particularly electrical/electronic problems ,plastic gears etc. My l/rover Discovery Three sensors replaced in the last year,which cost nearly £1k .is another example of poor quality electronics.

I think the inserts should be zero rake,with flat faces,and no chip breakers,and spun at 400 rpm for a 50mm dia cutter, the cutter is protruding way too much from the spindle quill,and the quill should be fully retracted. Andrews Adcock and Shipley with 40 int spindle is the ideal machine,they weigh more than 1.5 tonnes,I used to own one, though should not be compared to ligwtweight hobby mills. When I was involved with maching cast iron donkeys years ago, the Clarkson deadlock cutters had large 45degree chamfer on the cutting edge ,it stopped chipping of the faced edges of castings,and was supposed to improve finish.Where I worked a mill smaller than a A/S 2e would never be used on cast iron and cannot remember small mills being used on cast iron in the various sub contractors I used to visit. So if one has only the space for a small mill treat it with respect and do not expect too much from it.Even with my Elliot 00 I would probably machine a c/i block of size in a four jaw on the Colchester.

95 petrol did have 5% bio alcohol ,now it has 10% in it ,i suspect its the green lobby advocating this awful fuel and force drivers to go to electric cars,this fuel mix causes all sorts of problems,on my full size stationary engines I currently us the 97 petrol which is supposed to have less bio in it. During the recent storms , my Honda generator refused to start,first time in 35 years,had to clean out the carb,jet was blocked and there was a green slime in the bottom of the float chamber, engines with intermittent use require the fuel to be turned off and the engine left running until all the fuel is used up and the fuel tank drained,As you have a model which should have an economic fuel consumption,you could try petrol with no additive in it which sells for £20 for 5 litres at garden machinery suppliers, either as neat petrol or with oil for use in two stroke engines,it also remains stable for a long time. Its called Aspen fuel. The comment about the spark plug being close to the driver,not knowing anything about the full size tractor ,I just wondered if they had igniters and low tension ignition which would not give the driver a shock.

The first place where I worked 1958 to 1964 used soluble oil on the capstan ,so tapping,threading on that machine was all done with the soluble with no ill effects,tapping by hand ,tapping attachments on drilling machines and lathes we used a mixture of tallow and flowers of sulphur which worked well on most materials usually applied with a toothbrush,the commercial Trefolex is similar though probably the factory made tallow mix was no doubt cheaper. All the centre and instrument lathes used soluble oil in a glass jar and a brush,ordinary oil was sqirted from an oil can when reaming steel and sometimes tallow when reaming cast iron. later on in my life at another company had a vast auto lathe shop these used neat cutting oils which lubricated cutting tools for maximum production but the oil is awfully messy if used on conventional lathes, I found on milling machines soluble and mineral cutting oils were used on milling depending on the material being cut. though soluble oil was preferred,no doubt cheaper and easier to keep machines clean.At home I use Trefolex,and both soluble and paste forms of Rocol they were all found very cheap at autojumble,these work well but are sticky and will cause chips to stick to taps and dies,well i advise remove the chips and the goo with a toothbrush, after all we are in the light end of engineering and expect a bit of mess,seems to me that the younger generation wants do all sorts of things but expect not to make a mess or get dirty.

Myford,I have the standard face plate and the larger 9 inch face plate plus the largest Myford angle plate,which has one face with a rad to suit the angle plate,its about 6 ins long.Very useful,used lots of times,over the last 55 years, learnt to bore components with faceplate and angleplate during my apprenticeship. I also have a Colchester master with both sizes of faceplate plus a selection of angleplates,.the reduction in use of the combination of angle plate /faceplate is possibly due to milling machines now being more common,though when machining boiler fittings for a full size Marshall s/roller this method was ideal where there are bores and faces at right angles and large threads that needed screwcutting ,not easy to cut threads on a hobby mill,or swing a casting on a dividing head for thread milling.A genuine Keats plate which has more features than some of the copies have ,can be very usefull on some jobs,mine only cost a pound at an autojumble,though I did have to make the clamp and u bolt. Its interesting to note that the cast iron Keats plate was entirely machined on lathe and shaper.

Thanks for the info I have signed and also passed the info to our Neighbourhood Watch, also look out for thieves who have started on the valuable oil. Oil in my rural part of Hampshire reached £ 1.01 per litre this week!

Thats a nice Harrison,unusual to find one with the saddle handwheel at the right hand end of the the saddle,where your hands are away from hot swarf. I suppose it will be a Bridgeport next.