Member postings for Phil P

I was given some 4" dia billets of aluminium a few years ago, it too was hopeless to machine.

It turned out that it had come from a place that made divers oxygen cylinders using the deep drawing method.

Obviously the properties for drawing and machining are not compatible.

Phil

When you make the steering linkage you need to be aware of a problem.

As designed it does not work correctly, the drag link needs an additional axis of movement where it joins the bottom of the drop arm from the steering box. It needs to be able to swing from side to side to follow the radius of the steering arm on the hub.

Most of the ones you see are wrong in this respect, and the joint will have been made very loose fitting to allow for the misalignment.

Phil

I moved house in 2008 and sold my collection of M.E. they too went back to the early 1950's

I was staggered when a guy in Australia bought them for £450 and then a further £96 for shipping.

Phil

Probably best for you to join your local club if they have a stand at the exhibition.

That is what I have done and one of the members kindly takes and collects my models for me.

Phil

Here you go.

I am in the process of making some guards for it, they were not considered to be a requirement on the original grinder so I have machined some registers on the spindle casting to allow them to be clamped in place.

It would "probably" be OK as it was but I get very nervous standing over grinding wheels spinning at 10000 rpm plus.

To give an idea of size, the grinding wheel is 2" diameter, the spindle can also be fitted with a 1/8" collet to allow mounted points to be used for internal grinding.

Edited By Phil P on 18/03/2014 06:32:00

I recently bought a little Dumore "Tom Thumb" toolpost grinder for less than the price of those castings ( I was watching those as well just out of curiosity). I have not used the Dumore in anger yet as it needed the motor re-wiring with a new mains cable and the spindle had been bent slightly at some stage in its life.

Having made and fitted a replacement spindle with new bearings installed I ran it up tonight and it seems OK now.

Tomorrow I will test it on the Myford lathe, I have high expectations of it as they are supposed to be the best you can get in the small sizes.

Phil

Be careful about buying the 16mm collets that are advertised, they do not have the correct thread diameter to fit a Deckel high speed head.

The correct ones have a Lownherz thread approx 14.5 diameter but the new ones you can buy have a full 16mm diameter thread. I have been hunting Deckel 16mm collets for years and they do not turn up very often.

Here is my imperial set which I was very lucky to find new. I would love to find some similar metric ones but so far I have only managed to find a very well used second hand set.

And also a drawing of the more common Deckel 20mm collets.

The drawings and information for that style of tool post are in the book "Building A Small Lathe" by L.C. Mason.

Phil

Gordon just beat me to it.

Edited By Phil P on 16/02/2014 23:21:05

That is rather nice.

I don't suppose there will be any drawings available, do you have access to a full size prototype to measure up ?

Phil

You have indeed got the drawings for a Throp/Fleet/Southworth Corliss engine.

Arnold designed it and built one himself, Fleet Models sold it for a while before Peter Southworth took it on.
I have an original Fleet Models sales brochure showing the different configurations of this engine.

Southworth Engines is now owned and operated by a friend of mine in Sheffield called Bob Potter.
Bob will give you further details of the engines if you wish to make contact:-

**LINK**

[email protected]

01142 818595

Here's a couple more.

Another one here:-

I use Solidworks in my day job as a design engineer, so it makes sense to build all my models in 3D first.

I very rarely have any problems once I start cutting metal.

Here is the unfinished 3D model of my Pollit & Wigzell mill engine "Agnes"

Aluminium does tend to clog the blade and then jamb it up before it finally breaks.

I spray mine ocasionally with WD40 or something similar when cutting ally.

Phil

You must be very proud of such a magnificent achievement, well done and thanks for sharing your photo's

Phil

I have just been given a set of brand new 1 in 50 taper pin reamers, they were chucking them out at work because they never use them.

Anything that needs a pin of any sort gets a "seloc" type pin now. Its a time thing, all they have to do is drill a hole and bash it in.

I agree with JS you will not detect any real problems when mixing and matching taper pins and reamers until you get up to some of the much larger sizes.

Phil

From memory I think imperial are 1 in 48 taper and metric 1 in 50.

Phil

I would say 99% yes, but I have not actually tried it myself.

Phil

Also

Tufnol in sheet form has a different weave direction to that of sheet form.

It depends in what you are making as to which has the best strength, flat discs and gears are best made from sheet in my experience.

Phil

I hope no one minds a link to another site, but there is some information on pipe insulation here.

**LINK**

Phil

Phil

Edited By JasonB on 04/10/2013 07:47:52