Member postings for Ajohnw

It probably wobble 'cause they didn't machine it all in one setting,

John

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The ruled off plaster hasn't gone too badly but will need another coat so be interesting to see if a thin coat and pressure works out. Worst part is where the plaster underneath bulged out so the feather edge more or less scraped it off. If I ever do anything like this again I'll take all of the plaster off. I did on one side but being determined to get a decent finish with plaster I didn't on one side. It's taken a day for a section to dry - sections 'cause I under estimated the amount of plaster. Twice! I was sure the one before the last would do it but the wall must have been way more out than I thought.

I just stuck some of the corner tape down with PVA. Had a problem. A 2.8m length is difficult to handle so had to cut it in half. The ends didn't behave well but managed to get away with it. I should have asked some one to hold the other end. I used the waterproof PVA with just a drop of water added to stop it drying too quickly and coined the paper down flat with the metal strip first with my finger nails. Also the edge of a scraper when it was up. It seems to have sucked down a bit while drying and looks nice and tight.

I'll make sure there is some one around when I do the other edge. Just did the one in case it didn't work out.

Not sure what to blend in with but am tempted to use board skim plaster rather than easi fill cause that is more of filler and plaster can be sanded too. This is also why I'll stick to Wickes jointer for joining tidied up with easi-fill.

I've bought a role of fibre paper having noticed a comment that it soaks up paint well. So the lot will get covered with that plaster board and all and then diluted paint or pva. It can be used directly on plaster board.

The gas work took up some time watching them. Finally one of our 2 meters is disconnected, one circuit no longer used so the meter can go. Sod then stepped in. We had a gas leak. For some reason one of flexible leads to the meter decided to leak. Rather badly. They came and fixed it within an hour of using the gas leak phone line. I did have a feeling at times that we could smell gas before the work was done. Interestingly when the meter was changed to one of the smart ones we did have a legal leak. Looks like that was the work done changing the meter and it decided to get a lot worse.

I wont be able to do any more for most of this week. Other things call that can't be avoided.

Might get to actually fitting an Ikea unit at some point. We have one to get an idea of what they are like but several will be needed for a trial fit. My wife said a while ago that she doesn't mind if the kitchen is in a mess over Xmas. It probably will be.

John

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Edited By Ajohnw on 12/12/2016 00:03:52

I don't agree entirely as I would put it a different way. It's more a case of getting down to the inherent accuracy of the machine when needed and if that isn't acceptable doing something about it. That may mean hand work of some sort. Getting there means taking reliable measurements too. Also usually some thought about the best way to make something.

The taig / peatol I had did turn very round parallel work - until I asked too much if it and then it turned a couple of thou taper over about 4" as the head had warped. Cured by turning it to size in sections. Maybe not everybody's idea of how to cure a problem like that but in that case it was MY best option. It finished up correct to less than a couple of tenths. Ok for a mandrel.

John

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LOL If I bought one it would probably be the GH1236 or same without DRO.

Colchester. I used to visit a bloke with a Triumph. He left the company to set up his own business and took the lathe with him. It was selected from several as they vary - for best finish and accuracy.

I used a DSG for a while and remember the spec. Not sure of the centres but think it was 60". I did have 3ft lengths of steel on it and there was still plenty of room. DSG guaranteed that it could be installed to give a centre accuracy of 0.0015" or better.

Myfords are known to vary. Doesn't matter what make or machine is bought they will vary.

In terms of the quill moving when clamped what would you expect as there will always be some clearance.

Boxfords were reckoned to be well made on a budget of sorts. This shows the limits they used and the results on one particular lathe.

That lathe to make now would cost as much as the "better" versions of their new models.

It's a SouthBend clone. Pity the Chinese don't do one however with the screw cutting gearbox and power feeds etc would push the price up. They might lighten it too which wouldn't a good idea really.

John

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I can't find a thread called Chinese torture. I did read all of the comments in the album. Of interest. If I bought a chinese lathe it would be from that range. What the comments indicate to me is that if I do buy one I will take a good look inside it. I probably would anyway as there have been comments before about sand in castings.

It does sound like Warco shouldn't have sold the first one to anybody unless is was ex demo and at a reduced price.

The rust is interesting. Small Chinese lathes did come in heavily coated with preservative. May still do so. Stripping and cleaning it all off was a lot of work. I'd suspect that cropped up where the parts were made.

Hand fitting as I understand it is pretty normal on items like this. Maybe they should have found some other way of locating the part where the drill went through an O ring.

He's fixed some aspects that he didn't like the look of. Might have needed doing might not. The feed pattern problem would probably be down to something wobbling while it rotated. Sort of reduced level of problem Brian had with the lead screw support on his Opti that may or may not be a one off. Could be that some adjustment was needed on the saddle, maybe hand work on the bed as per Brian's again.That's bad really if that is needed as it should have all been done in one setting on a slideway grinder but even those have marginal errors.

What struck me is once he had cleaned it up he seems to be pretty happy with the lathe. Then comes the low cost Harrison mentioned. Likely to have done enough work to have a noisy gear head and wear in the slides and head stock bearings plus any others in the gear head. Another lot of work to get it back to ex factory fresh. A lot more I would say some of it being impossible and or rather expensive.

All in all it wouldn't put me off but I happen to have found a pretty old Boxford that has done very little work. Even so the cross slide stiffens up when wound fully out and the headstock bearings should ideally be replaced. There is a bit of oval wear in the front one. It's not easy to find lathes like this and often they can be a lot worse and there is far more that will wear out on gear head lathes.

Pity he didn't publish the accuracy reports and compare them with his own measurements. The few reports I have seen indicate that they all aren't that bad really what ever they are compared with except what might be called very high precision lathes - when those were new and came out right.

John

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I just had the tracking info arrive - on route from Hamburg. Makes a change because I wondered if it was one of those that mysteriously sell out and an email arrives saying they will ship one from China but I wont be paying tax and sorry etc.

John

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Lots and lots of people have bought off him for rather a long time. I've not heard of a single problem. Can't say the same about drives direct. However the person who had that went in completely blind without having any idea of the problems associated with using them.

The pulley answer may be to find one of the right size or close with the correct bore or one that can be sized correctly. I have been known to buy a reamer to do that especially if it's going to be hard to check the fit when the hole is bored. I use the reamer for final sizing, maybe even a hand reamer if I'm concerned about the machine it's done on.

John

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I was interested to see that MEW had done a project based on a casting. If no one does they will disappear off the market. Many things have. With something like a slotting attachment a casting makes some sense as metal is in the places where it will be needed. Fabrication some times takes more time and may turn out to be only a little cheaper or even more expensive. In this case the casting is likely to save on time. I don't think that is always the case though.

One idea Neil might like to think about is making an index of MEW available and allowing people to buy specific design articles rather than subscribe. I'd guess that there are a number of people who don't see getting the magazine every month of interest as much of the content wouldn't be relevant. The ones that could be bought could be arranged to be rather old ones so if anyone want's anything from say the last 5 years or more they would have to subscribe.

John

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Edited By Ajohnw on 09/12/2016 11:36:21

Maybe Neil will throw up a freebee. The design that uses the College Engineering Casting was in MEW Aug/Sept 1991. The casting doesn't look much different to the one I have which I thought was much earlier.

The basic idea is that when the base has been machined the bore for the ram can be done by mounting the casting on the cross slide. That way it's exactly on centre and it's possible to slot keyways that will have a very sexy fit pretty easily. The problem with the hole and file idea is getting the hole on a true radial position. The keyway usually finishes up somewhat wider than needed, width depending on the skill of the person that does it.

I used mine to gash an RMS thread tap. Fine for that bit getting a sharp edge after screw cutting it needed some delicate dremel grinding. In the end I bought one but it worked well in brass.

John

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There is some one that sells inverters as more of a package on homeworkshop.org. They come with a pendant for controlling them. More or less prewired. I have never noticed anyone selling a package that includes a motor with the pulley on it or anyone that does specific packages for Chinese lathes which I assume it is.

The pendants do have an emergency stop but no facilities to allow things like door switches to be connected in. I suspect the majority of people on here don't open them while the lathe is running unless they need to study some problem. Some may remove the chuck guard but why "open" it when the lathe us running? The inverters will have facilities for wiring this sort of thing in.

You don't mention which 9x20 lathe. If it's variable speed it may well use a DC motor and you might have a lot of problems trying to fit an AC motor to the lathe. Not just fitting a pulley to it but actually fitting the motor in the lathe.

John

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It always amazes me that people think that things like Python have a committee. There is a sort of guiding light with Python but the truth is that just about all open source is worked on by people who want to do something. That may mean doing something from scratch or modifying something that already exists. The man who came up with Python has the title of benevolent dictator - for life but I doubt if he has much control in practice. People who work on this and other things come and go. Even on Linux itself where changes are looked at rather carefully.

People generally regard structure as just being the use of certain constructs and if used all is ok. They might dismiss languages on the the basis that they don''t have them. Bad mistake because as the constructs became flavour of the month just about all languages gained them even Basic. There might even be a Fortan about with them. The same constructs can be used in assembler. They don't look precisely the same but serve exactly the same purpose.

One thing for certain though is that there has only been one wide scale usage language designed right from the word go for modern systems such as a PC and that's C++.

COBOL actually was a business orientated language. I didn't like it as it wouldn't let me do all sorts of things. Seems it went object orientated in 2002. I used a variant called DIBOL that would let me do these things. They are all things that pundits reckon shouldn't be done yet seem to appear eventually in all languages. Personally I didn't enjoy what could be called business programming at all. Fortunately I didn't have to do much of it and was moved onto something far more interesting.

John

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Edited By Ajohnw on 09/12/2016 00:49:39

Can't agree with some of that in respect to Basic Dave. It's perfectly capable of doing all sorts of computations. The catch is that there is a need to know the basic math that what ever it is uses. Writing decent code in it does need rather a lot of self discipline but that is true of many.

Having said that though my initial use of "computing" was pure dartmouth basic. Not my favourite by any means but for computational purposes my conclusion is that it's the most concise instruction set on the planet. While it may not say have type complex or do polar to rectagonal conversions or anything else like that or worse it's not a problem if the person writing it knows the maths - that can really be a problem as can the increased code complexity.

I've had lectures off all sorts of pundits. Serious ones in their field. The message is simpler really. It often boils down to programmers do this and they make mistakes so stop 'em from doing it and all will be well. It never is but advances in languages have de-skilled the task to a certain extent by forcing a certain style of structure on people. Still leaving the problem of the over all structure - what's done when and how. C++ came about because of structure issues and compiler problems - these days it's mostly a method of increasing productivity rates - inheritance and etc. The basic ideas behind object orientated programming have gone. It's too hard for many people to do and not an easy idea to grasp.

LOL - you may have gathered it's a subject that interests me.

I bought a copy of Visual Studio once. It included a training video. They used word as an example adding that this isn't what they chose to write it in. While I don't like it I must admit I do admire Gates idea of a business model.

John

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Edited By Ajohnw on 08/12/2016 20:29:56

I don't know Frances. I've written professionally in several languages. This includes basic - several styles, fortran, cobol, c, several different assembler languages and others. There are bad "styles" in all of them. Having had to find bugs in other peoples code at times I reckon the problem is usually down to the over all structure not the language it's written in which ever it is.

Seeing another post since I started this one and the mention of cobol. One interesting aspect of that language is that it stuck to it's guns and was implemented in a way that prevented programmers for doing the "tricks" that can be done in some other languages. Few do over long periods of time as it interferes with productivity.

Basic - well if that's all a machine or a piece of equipment has there isn't much choice other than to use it. I would also wonder just how many applications are still written in visual basic. It used to be a lot in certain quarters - cheap - and probably still is.

John

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Edited By Ajohnw on 08/12/2016 19:47:40

I reckon the gear that ran along the rack on my Raglan was broke doing it that way Jason. I've heard from others at times that have had this experience.

Maybe this is one up for China and down for Myford and Raglan.

John

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The design for the casting College Engineering sell works well. The centre height comes out correct for myford 7's. I use one on a Boxford but it needed packing up on a spacer. The fact that they match the centre height of the lathe is a good idea really. Some make things up to fit in a toolpost. The principle is the same on most of them really. A shaft that fits nicely in a hole on centre with the lathe and a lever arrangement that stops it rotating and provides the cutting force that is needed.

Using the rack feed etc on the lathe to do it can be a very bad idea - something is likely to break.

Can't find a photo of the one based on the casting as lots of people fabricate them. Few shots here

**LINK**

Also some on youtube.

John

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Statements like that always cause me some annoyance. What he should say is his style of programming. His is bound to be the only one that should be used of course and no others under any circumstances what so ever.

In the real world say embedded systems things aren't always so simple - C etc has helped a lot in that respect 'cause it's been ported to be used on just about anything. The truth is though that assembler still leads on size and speed and once that is used people tend to stick to the same techniques for a while even when there is a complete change of architecture. One answer to that has been near full risk processors that are so fast that C can still be used but writing code in assembler on these can prove to be nigh on impossible.

I've used a tiny pic on a job for the simple reason that it's cost was a few pence in volume. Also a 4bit thing for similar reasons. Cheap and could do the job - in assembler.

Really it's simple - pick a part to suite and use it. Arduino does seem to have a big cost and things available for it advantage so I'd guess many would lean that way. If your a PIC man blame the Chinese and other market forces. Search pic on ebay and just about all of the distinct pic things are processors.

John

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Here's one cutting. There are a number of video's about some on problems

Seems to be more on the 416 than 316 which I assume is a more powerful version.

John

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As it's unlikely to be used much - fit for both providing it works and sparks come out of the end.

I like the end of the mini review on youtube that Paul posted. Fit for DIY. I have all sorts of kit kicking about ranging from the cheapest to what might be called pro stuff. Much depends how much work it will have to do and how well it does it. Often there is no way of knowing if anything is any good without buying and trying. Other than this

I've already ordered it Al. If I can cope with my transformer stick welder 55v to strike should be like being in heaven on stick anyway.

Bit of a problem. How do I know what to buy in terms of bits and pieces for the torches. When I used TIG at work a long time ago I'm pretty sure that it used plain tungsten electrodes but then there are collets etc of different sizes and no idea of what will fit. Plus the parts for the cutting torch look to be completely different. I assume both fit the torch that is supplied with it.

As mentioned it doesn't seem to come with any tig electrodes so wondering what to order. It looks like there are some collets and some cutting torch parts but ???

John

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Personally I think that the BS spec should be augmented to include a type approval sort of current rating test on all of them. If the pins start pulling out there would be need for other tests and probably a physical look at the actual design. Sort of thing TUV do. The manufacturers have been slowly but surely skimping on the materials in them for some time now. The ones supplied on equipment are often far better quality than the super cheap ones that DIY stores especially sell. I suspect many of them should really have a 5amp fuse in them in case some one tries to draw more. One weak point is often the fuse clips - too thin and not springy enough so prone to overheating.

I have a lidl extension lead where plugs can't be inserted as shown earlier. 2 rows with the earth running down the centre. Bit of a problem if certain plug top power supplies are plugged in as they mask one of the sockets in the other row. So I ask myself why do some manufacturer choose to make the supplies that way where as most don't. Probably because hear rises and it keeps it away from the plug.

Still I suppose few run 3kw electric fires these days and if they do they probably include a decent plug which might leave the socket as a problem. Skimping in those too.

John

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Edited By Ajohnw on 08/12/2016 11:13:37