Member postings for Gordon A

Using the dishwasher for non-domestic items is a hanging offence in our house...or worse!

These devices sound a bit like the "telescreens" featured in Orwells 1984.

Search for "Rollie's Dad's Method" on the internet. I've used this several times and it appears to work, gets the initial alignment of the lathe bed "within the ball park" even with a worn chuck. Can then be confirmed by turning a test piece (hopefully) just once.

Gordon.

Boiled linseed oil takes a while to dry, but leaves a nice protective coating. I was told by an old gardener many years ago in order to protect garden tools over winter storage in a damp unheated shed, coat the metal bits in boiled linseed oil and the wooden bits in raw linseed oil. It appears to work.

Gordon.

As someone who has found it difficult and expensive to obtain insurance cover for flooding, I can only comment on my local area where the trend appears to be that of paving over front gardens in contravention of the SUDS regulations introduced 1st October 2008.

The problem of an ML7 top slide being no longer flat on the upper surface is probably due to the long-time use of the original "elephants foot and boat tool holder. This can be easily rectified using the lathe itself if you have an angle plate or vertical slide and a fly cutter or large endmill. If you look up Steve Jordan's channel on Youtube where he reduces the height of his topslide, his method can be used just to skim the upper surface flat.

It will save you the cost of grinding unless you know a man who will do it free of course.

Gordon

Resistance soldering unit for etched brass loco kits etc or a demagnetiser perhaps?

Gordon.

Having bought a cheapie version of the type above to fit to an existing magnetic base, a quick strip down of the device revealed the method of locking the stand. I cannot however understand the principle of operation of the hydraulic type. Is there anyone out there who could enlighten me please?

Gordon.

Happy New Year everybody. (we live in hope!)

Rotagrip are in Hockley, Birmingham. I've visited their premises a couple of times in the past. Can't fault their service or the items purchased.

Gordon.

5G network perhaps?

During a previous life as an x-ray service engineer I was tasked with changing a high voltage "tank" in a hospital x-ray room that had developed an internal switching fault. (This was basically a large steel tank filled with oil and containing a high voltage transformer and switch gear.) The installation was ancient (valves and relays etc) and consequently the company had to source from somewhere in the Balkans.

I followed the standard procedures for setting the correct waveforms for the tube output and had set the oscilloscope to trigger on the final test at maximum current and voltage. As I pressed the exposure switch there was an incredible bang and a blinding flash from the control console that I was kneeling behind. The full output of 30kW @125kV had shorted inside what turned out to be a faulty tank with the result that part of the control cabinet was damaged.

My eyesight returned to normal quite quickly and the ringing in my ears subsided, but my bowel problems persisted for some time!

Gordon

A simple cheating method for the small end ball is to seek out an old style computer mouse (with the ball that picks up fluff and stops the device working until you remove the ball to blow out the detritus).

If the mouse is no longer needed, carefully peel away the rubbery plastic coating from the ball to reveal a metal ball of about 2cm diameter inside. Hold the metal ball in a chuck and face off to the diameter of the small end of the handle and drill and tap a blind hole to suit a thread on the lever. The ball may be slightly rough but this can be cleaned up with a fine file/abrasive whilst being turned on a piece of appropriately threaded rod in the lathe. Then just screw onto the handle and the joint is barely visible.

Alternatively for a quicker job drill a blind hole in the ball and push onto a matching short parallel turned spigot on the tapered handle with a dab of adhesive if required.

Both ways work as I've tried them.

My brain hurts!! The downward spiral continues.

Gordon.

Search for Joe Pieczynski onYoutube. He has a clever way of setting rectangular stock in a 4 jaw chuck.

Gordon.

I use a combination of a 127T and 50T gear on a Myford ML7 to cut metric threads as this gives a ratio of 2.54 to 1.

The setup has to be run without the gear guard though!

Gordon.

My experience of this type of spray gun is that they are adequate, bordering on suitable for coating sheds and fences with preservative, but you will be very very lucky to get even a reasonable paint finish. Some years ago a friend of mine attempted to spray a white car with a gun of this type. The result was a car that looked like it had been coated in rice pudding !!

Gordon.

The advice from an original Myford manual is as follows:

"When removing a chuck (or faceplate), do not 'yank' the chuck off with the headstock locked with the back-gear,, but set the headstock for normal back-gear drive, and after placing a piece of hardwood on the lathe bed, pull the spindle round by means of the belt so that one jaw of the chuck or slot in the faceplate strikes the wood sharply. The most obstinate chuck is released in this way, and a great deal of the load is taken from the back-gear teeth".

Myford ML7 Notes on Operation, Installation and Maintenance (No 720G , M. 3M /11/64)

A method I do not recommend is that if you have a 3 phase inverter drive that is to set a short braking time and run a 9" faceplate (anything else heavy for that matter). The spindle stops very quickly but the faceplate doesn't which necessitates some nifty footwork!! Needless to say the inverter is now set to coast to a stop. Minor damage and no injury but lesson learnt.

Have a look on Youtube for DIY belt sanders. There are some very resourceful people out there.

If I remember correctly, during the water shortage of 1976 the UK government issued the advice to "Save water and shower with a friend" !

The government has announced that all homes in the UK will not be heated by natural gas by the middle of the century. Is the alternative electricity? . Where will it all come from?

To quote Private Fraser, "We're all doomed".

Gordon.