Member postings for Nigel McBurney 1

I also had a look at that Boxford,with the inverter,,at first it looks a bit pricey but it does have the Tesla drive which must have cost £500 and it has the invaluable t slot cross slide,and ,there cannot be many Boxfords in that condition,provided that it is as good as it looks it should give years of good work,At my first job the Boxford worked at least 4 out of 5 days per week and I worked on it a lot ,a good reliable machine, Why have I got a Boxford at home?well over 50 years ago A Boxford was far far more expensive than a Myford.

I have used multigrade Castrol motor oil on my S7 for 50 years ,on bearings slides and gears,without problem.Most of these oils with various weird names,were intended for industrial use,were usually cheaper than motor oils as they did not need additives for high temperatures etc in i/c engines,and probably to stop employees using the oil in their cars and motorcycles. Of course these industrial oils in small quantities are relatively expensive and there is no real advantage in using them.The only machine where I use the correct hydraulic oil is in the headstock of my Colchester,as the spindle bearings are very expensive and a 5 gallon drum of hydraulic oil is cheaper than top quality multigrade oil,

I have owned a square head head triumph 2000 and both round head and square hd masters, most round heads are now at least 55 years old ,one problem with well used Colchesters is that the tailstock base wears where it slides along the bed which lowers the tailstock centre and unless you are skilled and have at least a decent sized mill any accurate repair is very difficult. and a lathe with a low tailstock centre is a pain in the backside,A big lathe can be very useful particularly as a back up to say a smaller lathe like a Boxford. £2500 is too expensive for any round head. i sold my1972 triumph for that price and that was in good condition with exception of the saddle feed kept dropping out and that is a heavy and difficult repair I also had a warning from the doctor that lifting heavy weights was causing some eye problems, and I had a buyer who owned one of the UK s largest hauliers and it went onto the lorry with a 17 ton hiab lift so I had no moving problems. I still manage ok with a square head Master 2500 which with 40 inch gap bed handle all my current work and is a very good lathe as it has f/rev clutch. I would advise as you lack experience going for a new lathe,though a 6 in/61/2in lathe with a long bed is a very useful size lathe more manageable and easier to use than a 7.5 inch lathe particularly the older you get. For experience try a smaller lathe,avoid mini lathes,I would recomend a Boxford,they were a good industrial quality lathe capable of hard work ,though many were sold to training establishments and got a few harm less dings and dents but did not get lots of wear and come a lot cheaper than a Myford.

I would use gauge plate for the table, 12mm or 1/2 would be more than adequate,its ground flat and parallel,though expensive,tapped holes in gauge plate would last a lot longer than in aluminium. I do not see any problems using a vertical slide, I used one on my Myford to do the milling when I was building an Allchin traction engine,though I was apprentice trained so did not expect too much ,ok the Myford was new and I found accuracy was no problem and the Myford vertical slide was adequate. In the 1960s very few home engineers had a mill ,later on when I had more space I bought a milling m/c as I had moved into restoring i/c stationary engines and needed capacity plus a mill came at a reasonable price.

My Eclipse 20T with oval frame was bought during my apprenticeship,and was in work use until1967,for a lot of model and motor cycle work I found the Abrafile blades were very good for cutting small parts and radii ,in ten years use the diecast handle had started to distort due to tightening the blade,I then bought a new Eclipse the handle still a diecasting ,and improved ,the steel pin to hold the blade was now inline with the bottom of the handle,that handle has never distorted,it still saws straight and the blade has about a half inch deeper throat,my policy is never let anyone else use it, misuse,overtightening etc can cause distortion,The first saw is still relegated permanetly for my diminishing stock of Abrafile blades . I keep a really old eclipse hung on my shed door anyone in the yard can use it. I somehow aquired an Eclipse round tube frame,were these an early version,?I use it ocasionally for sawing tiles. I remember the Ding Dong blades,a plant fitter I knew fifty years ago had a box of them in his Austin pick up,supplied by his boss, his comment on them was "B" useless ,"its a case of Ding Dong and they break.My training was to release blade tension after use,and I still do, The possible cause of the early handles distorting badly.

My 35 year old 1900 watt (max) honda generator has just run for 45 hours from fri to monday, it will power the oil heating boiler and some lights,plus freezers and fridge selectively,and I have changeover switch and run the honda in the garage which is detached from the dwelling, plus we a have a log burner stove in the lounge,so we have one source of heat which requires no power.but due to the risk of fire and the small fuel tank i could not use the honda to run the central heating overnigh problems with this set up, 1900 max 1700 continuous , watts will not power the micro wave , the electric garage doors a recent installation are supposed to have an emergency release ,in practice for an 80 year old was difficult ,so I went in through the side door fire up the honda and it did struggle to opearate to raise the door, i did not use the micro wave as its a bit too close to the generator limit,so we did not have an oven, only a 2 ring camping gaz burner, so ready meals are out. I would not risk using bt router and computer in case this old generator blew it all up though I did risk using the TV, so cooking and communication was not easy, Mobile phone signal is weak, Now speaking to a open reach engineer ,BT is changing all uk land line phones to digital by 2024 so in future when the power is down and old style phones which need no power will not work,so it will be a case of using an emergency battery pack ,or inverter type generator with regulator control to power modern electronics, the honda equvalent to my existing generator is around £1300 though there other makes cheaper oriental makers which raise the question of long term reliabilty.My location is rural and isolated and power cuts are common . current thoughts to improve the situation are buy a 3000w generator with fuel tank capacity to run all night and regulated current that will safely drive electronic devices and telephone. or get a 2000w inverter generator to run the house and get the lowest power microwave and use the existing generator to run it. Another problem did occurr ,the old Honda has been an execellent starter provided there is fresh petrol in the tank, use this modern e10 petrol and leave just a drop in the carburretor and it gums up into a green sludge and blocks the main jet. The mains came on yesterday in the afternoon ,so I put all gear back into store then at 6 pm it went off luckily I found out that it was only for 2 hrs for a reconnection a mile down the lane.

Hi I live near Ropley,so only about 18 miles from Wincester, I can show the basics of lathe operation ,currently I have a Myford and a Colchester. I had an apprenticeship as an scientific instrument maker and spent my life in engineering,I have never been without a lathe since 1960 . If you are interested contact me via a pm.

watched last night,not impressed,with the content or the presenters.

Have a bit of sympathy for your Mill ,why put such a load on a relatively small machine,hot rolled plate is for fabrication not machining,quality of this material varies ,and if I do have to deal with black hot rolled steel I use my Colchester as first choice, its easier to turn hot rolled rather than mill.

Had a landline call 2 weeks ago, my wife took the call ,lady enquired if we were expecting a parcel from Amazon value £79 ,my wife answered dont think so i will pass the phone to my husband as soon as I took it and said hello the line went dead, since then i have wondered what it was about as I was a expecting a parcel of a lot higher value.By the way has anyone had trouble logging on to BT broadband lately ,bt supplied a new router last week,but service has got worse, at the moment I try to log on ,nothing hapens then a blank screen comes up with three black dots flashing and will stay like this until I log out of Safari.Engineer visiting next monday.

pre ww 2 some gearboxes were lubricated with grease do not know the grade possibly near fluid grease ,post war my 1952 6E Villiers 197cc 3 speed gearbox was lubricated with straight 140 gear oil (not EP) later on my 9E and 32 A villiers gear boxes used straight 30 oil.Do not use any extreme pressure EP gear oils as the additives attack bronze. The oil on the belts probably comes from where the input shaft which held the clutch goes through the sleeve gear which held the rear wheel drive sprocket. cant remember how the sleeve gear was kept oil tight in the inside dia, the outside of the sleeve gear usually had a lip seal.

my workshop has 3 to 4 inch concrete floor (no reinforcing) laid on a foot of rubble, with a membrane in between,then 18mm shuttering ply with top layer of 18 mm chipboard,ordinary diy quality. No problems with cold feet and the floor supports a 6 inch Colchester,and in the past has supported a 35 cwt turret mill. In cases with large long bed lathes ie 7.5 ch eg colchester triumph I would use in future 6 to 8 ins of reinforced concrete,and the lathe directly mounted on the concrete,as over a year the concrete will move depending on ground conditions ,my triumph was mounted on 4 ins on concrete over a 9 inches of crushed concrete and the movement in the ground conditions did affect the accuracy,it has now departed as I have got to old as a big lathe can be hard work.If I want my workshop warm I use a 3 kw fan heater,the walls and ceiling are insulated and windows are old double glazing

when I got my 25p last year,my thought it must have cost a lot more to notify me of the increase!

consider making it a bit more burglar proof ,bars on windows,and make the doors and hinges a lot stronger,line the doors with plywood,its tougher and stronger than other composite boards,lot of shed theft around our way,its easier nowadays to break into a shed than a house.and use close shackle padlocks.

Grind up an HSS toolbit and it costs next to nothing,if you already have a hss bit ground up as a cutter,then use the other end.

I would not worry about disimilar metals and corrosion you will possibly have more problems getting the rivet heads to look correct,use softer copper rivets which also may also require annealing, I cracked the cast alloy front rim on an Allchin trying to get decent rivets for the spokes,in the end turned the front rims from solid steel blanks,

Cycles,mobility scooters etc ,should have a registration plate and their riders,/drivers have third party insurance and all pay road tax. plus an audible means of warning ie a bell,modern cycles can be ridden at high speeds and are inaudible to the average pedestrian . This latest highway code must have been written by some government office loony who walks everywhere. I live on a country lane minimum or no verges,last year I saw a horse rider leading another horse on a rein held in her left hand for exercise ,and using a mobile phone at the same time in her other hand,with no real control of her own horse,just idiotic. And last night there was a bit on TV news suggesting that if the new driverless cars are involved in an accident ,the manufacturer of the guidence system would be liable rather than moron supposedly in charge of the car.

18 mm chipboard,with natural colour hardboard tacked on top,cheap and cheerful, used for engine restoration work and rougher work,and lasts for long time about 20 years ,gets oil petrol and paint spilt on it, in my engineering workshop the timber framed bench has a plain untreated chipboard top, about 40 years old, if any machined parts ,precision tools etc are accidentally dropped on it they are not damaged,same as the floor, I have an old kitchen floor unit which has a formica top,to which my Fobco drill is bolted, drop anything small on that surface and it will bounce and disapear into oblivion.

in general industrial practice hss turning tools were ground on grinders which had fine and coarse large diameter wheels, with more than adeqate motors to power the wheels,hot tools were dipped into water in a bucket,where I worked an empty can from the paint shop was used,wheels were dressed using the star wheel dresser type A in the photo,they were relatively cheap and do a good job in dressing and truing up a wheel At work diamond dressers were only used on grinding machines and tool and cutter grindersI, have followed these practices in my home workshop,I do try to avoid getting HSS tools up to "blue" The micro cracking was often mentioned in our technical college books though in practice I never saw it occurr, though we were told not to get a tool red hot and then quench.A problem with bench grinders with small wheels,is that they are usually underpowered and the small diameter wheels produce a hollow ground effect to the cutting edge which wears quickly and looses cutting clearance,large diameter industrial wheels greatly reduce this effect and tools last longer, When I started my home worshop in the 1960s tool grinders were very expensive,so it was a case of live with small grinders or do like I did and make a 6 inch grinder using a motor cycle cranckcase with a home made spindle held in the m/c mainbearing housing and a belt drive passing through the aperture for the con rod,lasted for years until cheap grinders from the far east became available and I now use two two 8 inch grinders with a variety of wheels. With theadvent of 1mm thick disks for angle grinders I now rough out HSS tools ,particularly those with lots of top rake with an angle grinder and then finish grind on the bench grinder,, in the days before health and safety there was just a notice above the works grinder "goggles must be worn" nobody ever wore goggles for tool grinding , the only time that the foreman insisted on goggles was when dressing wheels as the grit did fly. And I would advise not to dress a wheel anywhere near a machine tool, I have an inner and outer workshop and all the welding,abrasive dressing ,and tool grinding takes place in the outer workshop, and I would never use a toolpost grinder on a lathe.

A lot of my turning training was carried out on a Boxford and a plain lathe, the Boxford had a 4 way toolpost ,and work was usualy between 0ne and 200 components in brass rod and castings ,aluminium castings ,nickel silver and some steel,lathe tools were eclipse 3/8 square ,so everyone aquired a tobaco tin of brass shim of varing thick ness,and a tin of tolbits which I still have 60 plus years later.On brass and nickel with no top rake,a tool could be reground without the need to change the shim,tools needing top rake needed a thicker shim after re grinding,though if a tool was used for facing and did not need to right across to leave a pip, ie work with a centre hole,then a very slight drop in the tool did not really require a re shim.The ability to have up to four tools in use was time saving on larger batches ,though a pain in the backside to keep adjusting shims when doing one offs, i never forgot this and when I bought my Myford for home,I did not buy a four way toolpost, I had seen in the ME a Drummond type adjustable adjustable toolholder which was mounted on a short round steel post on the top slide ,I made two of these and and did all my turning for years with them and cost me nothing to make and they are a bit more rigid than a Dickson type holder. though do not have any repeatability regarding rotation.When I bought my first Colchester I it had a genuine Dickson tool post, I then added Col triumph 2000 to my workshop and promptly removed the four way toolpost and put on a spare Dickson that I aquired, I am now down to the Myford and a col master 2500, with a Dicksone and 17 toolholders and would not be without it,and since I found how useful the Dickson type toolholder is ,I bought bought a quickchange toolholder for the Myford and again that only gets removed if I have to cut tapered pipe threads and the shanks are too large for the myford Dickson holder, I dont have a taper turner on the colchester. I had for some time a Smart and Brown plain lathe and I tried the the Myford Dicksom toolpost on it ,it made turning a lot easier,as the S&B only had the simple tool clamp,though for any numbers I had the capstan turret and cut off slide,which was really rigid ideal for parting and form tools. when I started work most run of the mill lathes only had bed stops, some with a multi position stop there were no dros,so every one learnt to turn with rule ,micrometers and proper calipers with a vernier scale and we all managed ok.I did get a chance when I long left the shop floor to use a DRO on a near new Colchester student,it was ok probably saved time ,but was not impressed,it was not accurate enough for accurately turning bores to within tenths for ball bearings. An awful lot of lathe work can be carried out with a basic lathe and a set of centres,faceplate catchplate,3 & 4 jaw chucks ,fixed and travelling steadies ,tailstock chuck,cutting tools then after that i would go for a Dickson toolholder plus a range of measuring tools and good set of twist drills, after that its a case of how much spare cash there is available. And buy a lathe with a decent sized bore up the spindle, Myfords biggest fault.