Member postings for Nicholas Farr

Hi, I suppose it really depends on how flat you need a surface to be for your needs. I bought this first table shown below, from a car boot sale about twenty years ago, for very little money. It wasn't exactly flat, as it had a very slight bow in the mid-section, about a quarter of the length of the long side. This is 6.9" long by 3.9" wide, and for many uses it was good enough. Not so long ago, I decided to mill the surface, which I'd often though of doing, but couldn't think of a suitable way to hold it on my old Chester Champion milling machine, as any vice I have would not allow full coverage of the cutter. However, I do have a large vice for my Warco Major machine and was able to true up the sides and then hold it just above the vice jaws and just gave it a cut a few thou deep. checking with my straight edge on it in various directions showed an enormous improvement to the whole surface and using my mini surface gauge holding a DTI while moving it over as much of the surface that I could, the needle only moved a whisper away in either direction from the 0 point. OK, it's probably not a super precision way of checking flatness, but it is good enough for what I need.

This other table I bought from a stand at the recent Midlands exhibition, again at a very reasonable price, it had a few slight rusty areas on it, but these were cleaned off with some fine scotch bright and fine metal polish. This one is about 6" across the flats, using my straight edge, shows a tiny bit of day light in various places, but again not any real amount for me to worry too much about, Using the same method as before, it was found that most of the surface was below the top left side edge by about 1/2 of a thou and only wavered a whisper each way.

Both these are cast iron and have three-point level positions on their underside, despite their small size.

Regards Nick.

Hi, when something is marked below the current price that it should be sold for, they only have to sell it to you if they wish to at checkout time, but if you don't accept the current price, they can just refuse to sell it to you. I had this happen to me in Matalan once, where a coat had a ticket price on a rack of them which was about £10.00 lower than it should have been. I challenged the price with the supervisor, and she argued that someone had probably put it back onto the wrong rack, so I said, "They did that to the whole rack then" as the coats were all the same type. I had to show her where the rack was, and she promptly removed the price ticket in a flash, to which I said, "well your supposed to sell it to me at the price I saw it at" she said, "No! we don't have to sell it to you at all if we don't wish too" So I replied, "Well you do have to sell it to me at the price I saw it at, or I won't buy it" To be fair to her though, she recognised the shops mistake and said that she would honour the incorrect price. I got a very good bargain that day.

Mark, it's easy in hindsight, but yes, you should have bought it at the lower price before they noticed.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 22/11/2022 18:50:26

Hi Clive, CPC is free shipping with an order over £20.00 before VAT is added, this probably for UK mainland addresses.

Regards Nick.

Hi David, that's useful information.

Regards Nick.

Hi, LBSC's Pansy design is a 5" gauge, but he did give some guidance for building a 2-1/2" gauge one also. If someone has built a 4-3/4" one, it's an oddball one.

For information, the scan below shows dimensions of the 5" gauge wheels, axles etc.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 22/11/2022 09:09:17

Hi John, thanks for your link, i can't remember if I knew about that one, or if that was undergoing some refurbishment at the time, but the one we were going to see is in the Paris Panthéon and is a copy of the original, which is in the Musée des Arts et Métiers, however, we didn't have any time to change our plan of the places we would visit, as we only did our tour on foot in the few days we were there. I don't know when, if ever, that I'll be going to Paris again, but I can keep both places in mind if I do.

Regards Nick.

Hi Nigel, my mum used to use both of those sayings when we were kids, and also to her grand children.

Regards Nick.

Hi as MichaelG has mentioned, Foucault, I took this photo below of the one that was in the Science Museum in London ten years ago.

I was hoping to see a really large one back in 2013 in Paris, which I think was in a cathedral, but it had been taken out due to renovations that were going to take three years, and I haven't been to Paris since then.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 20/11/2022 16:11:52

Hi MichaelG, I have download that from your link, but haven't gotten round to reading any of it yet but should find time in due course.

Regards Nick.

Hi Kiwi Bloke, I think you are correct, Wikipedia says he noticed a swinging chandelier that was caused by air currents, which is what was said in the programme that I watched. I still can't remember what programme it was though, as it was quite a few years ago, I just remember them showing these chandeliers swinging in time with each other and the explanation why they did.

Regards Nick.

Hi, where the penny was place in the Juddy's link, is just as I saw it in the program that I watched many years ago, and it had the same two stacks of pennies there as well.

I knew that altering the weight of the bob didn't make any difference, as I also saw a program where they showed large candle holders suspended by chains from the roof in a church. There were several of these and some were bigger and heavier than others, but they all were hanging at the same height, and someone noticed that they were all swinging in total synchrony. I can't remember who it was that was watching them and was puzzled as to why they remained in synchrony, but I think it was someone who realised the fundamental law of pendulums.

Regards Nick.

Hi Kiwi Bloke, it might be something to do with Cutbacks.

Regards Nick.

Hi, I the program that I saw about the Westminster clock, (Big Ben) the pennies used, were always kept with the clock and had been there for many years, and I was aware they used pennies back in the early sixties.

The program that I saw was several years before the recent major overhaul of the clock and tower.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 18/11/2022 10:07:48

Hi David, I've seen much the same programme, and yes, they did add or remove pennies to keep the clock in time. I don't understand it truly myself, but as you say the period remains the same, but I think it's the stroke that is altered. On My carriage clock, the length of the pendulum is altered by the weight being let up or down with a nut on a screw thread.

Regards Nick.

Hi Nigel, I found Alexandrea Palace was easy to drive to, but a few years ago they started having either the darts or snooker championships there at the same time as the model engineering exhibition, which made finding a suitable parking place very difficult to find, so I resorted to going by train, which is easy for me and no real difference in transport costs. Sandown Park wasn't particularly difficult, going via the M25 over the Dartford Crossing, but much more traffic Heathrow way, but was a long-winded drive, although I've not been on the M25 for several years now. Harrogate is virtually a three-hour drive for me each way, which is not something I wish to do now in a single day, and I don't wish to have an overnight stay, so if it does move back there, I'll not be going. I haven't found the Doncaster venue difficult at all to get to. I did find though, that Harrogate and Donnington venues were better for holding and navigating round the exhibitions, but I like Alexanrea Palace best of all, and Warwickshire exhibition centre is also fairly good, and not too bad a drive for me.

Regards Nick.

Hi Nick, I think you have this thread mixed up with another, the lathe in this thread has a price tag of £2359.50, not £799.

Regards Nick.

Hi, well one of the usual main traders told me so at the Midlands show last month.

Regards Nick.

Hi, "Bob a Job week" could be almost anything, but my elder brother got to run with a dog in a park, just so the local rag photographer could get a story. There are other meanings for Tuppence, but I'll let you all search for them yourselves, although the twopence coin has a connection.

Regards Nick.

Hi MichaelG, the concept of the design is good, and some people may well find the tool a useable one. The safety aspects are of concern, and I do think it should be up to You Tube not to allow such things to be shown. As to the person doing the work, I suppose it is his figures that he could slice with a cutting disc and burn in more ways than one with his arc welding, not to mention being clouted with a vice pulled out of his hand by the drilling machine, or getting his figures caught on the milling cutter spinning close by, while showing us his work. On the other hand, it can help others to see what an unsafe method of work it is, by the likes of us commenting about it.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 16/11/2022 12:09:48

Hi, I've used industrial machines my whole working life, and even some of them have had a shortcoming or two, but do get the job done, and some of them have been second hand which needed a little rust cleaning off when they have been in storage, but still work very well.

My first Warco machine is a 220 lathe that I bought second hand for around £300.00, and it had a fair bit of use, but I've made many things to a moderately very good standard and is still in very good condition. My second Watco machine is my Major milling machine, which I bought brand new and that is also a very good machine and there was no evidence of any rust on it when unpacking and just needed a clean-up of the protective grease and a little adjustment to the table X travel gib. The last one I bought brand new just a while ago is a bandsaw with the vertical option of use, and although it is clear that it is a budget machine and can't really come up to industrial types that I have used, it seems to be capable of the use that I will ever give it. In contrast, my Chester Champion mill/drill that I bought brand new back in 1997 had a fault, in that the gib in the Table X travel was too thin and with it adjusted to the maximum it would go, wouldn't take out all the slop, and also the motor pulley wasn't in line with the mill spindle pulley, so the motor and guard assembly had to have a 3mm shim put in-between that and the quill housing. I didn't realise these until it was too late to complain, but I just added a suitable thickness of steel shim stock between the gib and the base and it has been working perfectly well ever since. I also have a Clarke floor standing drill press which I bought from Myford's sell-up, which doesn't come anywhere near as good as any industrial machines I've used, but it is adequate for my needs.

So, most hobby machines will have shortcomings of a sort, but of course the price of these compared to like industrial standard machines is very wide as these are expected to be able to work, day in and day out, some of which will do or have done a three-shift pattern every week.

If I'd have been in John McCulla's position, I would have accepted the offer that Warco gave him and just clean that little bit of rust off, you can get some decent tooling with that offer, and it does save all the hassle of a replacement, but I do understand that's not everyone's opinion.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 16/11/2022 11:13:34