Member postings for John Coates

Linux Mint 17.3

Wish I knew how to rotate those pictures. They are fine on my hard drive

After travelling for 4 1/2 hours down to Wiltshire on Saturday to collect the Barker lathe, on Sunday I tackled extracting it from the car and getting it into the garage. Considering three blokes and an engine hoist had got it into my estate I was tackling the extraction on my todd very slowly and methodically. The one good thing I had done in Wiltshire was to rest the headstock on a wooden sled arrangement and lashed it together. This meant I could slide the Barker some way out of the car so I could get my engine hoist onto it.

A bit further out and it was time to get some slings on and get it clear of the car

Getting closer to its new home by inches

Finally the Eagle has landed !! My back was pretty aching after all this so I went for a lie down

Here's my Elliott 10M. Love setting it going then hearing it swish swish in the background as I get on with something else

Well the bars are 1 1/2" OD and 38" between headstock and tailstock on my #1 Barker and I have the cabinet as well. There are three bars - one is hidden behind the one above the leadscrew.

Will write it up for "One blerk and his lathe" for you Neil

Edited By John Coates on 20/09/2016 19:01:32

Not quite today but on Sunday I managed to secure my second Barker lathe from ebay which I hope to collect this weekend. #2 will enable me to fix the broken bits on #1 to end up with a 100% perfect Barker I hope!

Hi Ketan

MEW246 and ARC catalogue received in Scunthorpe

John

The welding on that exhaust is exquisite

Oh that made me laugh

The number of times I have had a pingf*ckit

The Beeb have already aired an excellent blokes in sheds doing amazing things programme over 2 episodes - Speed Dreams - about guys making motorbikes to attempt speed records at Bonneville salt flats. A brilliant piece of broadcasting imho.

I was interviewed yesterday by a 19 year old journalism student. It was about waste and recycling but what stuck in my mind was when we were talking and she was supporting her arguments it was all backed up by comments from social media (Facebook) !!

The world is different now. In my youth knowledge was in books and had to be researched and collated. That very act made it stick in your head. Now it is a smart phone or tablet swipe away (providing you've got a signal!) and can be any random opinion from whatever deranged lunatic on the interweb. And is forgotten within hours. Knowledge at our finger tips producing disposable opinion.

I'm happy that I grew up with books and have retained that love, whether fact or fiction. They are not competing with the flashiest website or snappiest sound bite. They have substance and gravitas and promote the same in their reader.

As a relative newbie (2009) when I went searching for resources to help me get started with my lathe this site was one of the first hits on Google. I was searching for how to use a lathe to help me build spacers for my motorbike. I've been here ever since. I've bought the full back catalogue of MEW because I like to read magazines in places with no internet and love picking magazines out at random to read.

As a newbie this site reminds me of my local ME club which I have now left. There are the long standing members who focus on what is right and wrong and what the rules should be. There are those who attend but don't get involved in all that stuff. And there are those who stick around thinking "what is all this about? i just wanted to learn about/do XXX !!!"

I'm not going to leave. MEW is still a good read and better under Neil's stewardship IMHO. Forums are open to all and so suffer the random mutterings and meanderings of whomever wanders in. Every web forum I am on has posts about stuff going off topic. On motorbike sites it's about too much politics/religion which is deemed to be anathema to the happiness and freedom of riding motorbikes.

John

Current stable is Honda XRV750 Africa Twin which takes me round Europe and the UK, Kawasaki ZX7R which is the reason I bought a lathe to make spacers for a ZX10R swingarm and ZX14 front end, and a Hongdu GY200

John

Most useful is definitely my tangential tool holder and its sharpening block

Edited By John Coates on 15/11/2015 20:25:40

I have a Chester Champion round column and changed it to inverter drive. I machined an extension shaft for a single pulley as I couldn't retain the original cone pulley due to no 3ph motor having enough meat or length of drive shaft to fit. The extension shaft is grub screwed at the top to the motor output shaft and sits in a roller bearing at the bottom which is stud locked to the base plate. This keeps things nice and true and reduces vibration. So I don't change pulley ratios with just having the one I just crank up the rpm!!

John

Well on my 1999 Kawasaki ZX7R I want to swap the whole front end (yokes, forks, brakes) for a 2008 ZZR1400 so that's a new spindle and brake caliper spacers there. And the swingarm is going to be from a 2006 ZX10R so that's more spacers. And generally tinkering to move things about. Which is why I bought a 1947 Barker (my choice, not a recommendation, I just liked what I read about them and wanted to preserve an old unique British lathe)

John

Must admit I am very tempted at the price it is being offered at (including paying someone to fetch it) but the size and weight and where to put the damned thing are on the cons side of the argument at the moment (garage has no room so will have to sit on drive under tarp whilst my new shed is fitted out and machinery moved). Hope to arrange a viewing for this Friday. Currently only got a Chester Champion round column but looking for a universal (vertical/horizontal) to replace or complement it

Baz

That's the one! Thanks mate

John

Got the chance of buying this milling machine but first I need to know what it is before I drive over to have a look

Thanks for any help

John