Member postings for Thor 🇳🇴

Hi Paul,

Welcome to the forum. The mini-lathe should be able to handle larger work than making pens, I know of one who uses a Unimat 3 to make pens.

Thor

#12-40 is listed on eBay.

Thor

Hi Nigel,

Welcome to the forum. Even with the mini lathe you should be able to do much work.

Thor

Hi Jonathan,

Welcome to the forum. What are your main interests?

Thor

Hi Barrie,

Welcome to the forum. You seem to have a well equipped workshop.

Thor

Hi Martin,

Welcome to the forum. If the gasket material is porous it may have had some humidity in it when you mounted the gasket, if you used paper as gasket material some papers are slightly acidic. When I use paper gaskets I always impregnate the gasket with oil.

Thor

(How to post photos here)

Edited By Thor 🇳🇴 on 26/08/2022 17:45:07

Hi Eric,

I too run my small milling machine in the low ratio, you get a bit more torque and as Mike says, less load for the motor.

Thor

Hi Chris,

Yes, you can as long as the cutting edge can be set at the lathe centre line. There will be a limit to the size of the tool.

Thor

Hi Matt,

All the modern gears I have come across are 20 deg. PA. DP or module is up to you, the gears I have made are all module based. The DP (or module) size depends on what the gears will do. I have made extra change gears for my small lathe - module 1 (DP 25.4), a clock would use a smaller size. You can make your own gear cutters if you want to save money.

Thor

Hi Richard,

Welcome to the forum. As you say, buying a stand saves you time, so it depends if you have the tools and time to make your own and save some money.
When I got my 290 lathe I made my own stand from square steel tube welded together and some pieces of steel from my scrap box. The home made stand is far more sturdy than the stand I could buy for my lathe.

Thor

Hi John,

Welcome to the forum. I assume you are familiar with Rollie Dad's method so you know the headstock isn't aligned with the bedways. If the headstock is misaligned there may be some screws that can be adjusted, although I haven't seen a misaligned headstock on a prismatic bed lathe.

Thor

Hi Neil,

I don't know why faceplates have such large slots, they make clamping more difficult. I have made a couple of faceplates, and on the first I made the slots much narrower, just over 8mm wide. On the second I made T-slots. Even on the faceplate of my 290 lathe I have never needed M16 bolts for clamping.

Thor

If you know how many turns of the handle to turn the spindle one revolution, there is a handy calculator here, it has two predefined heads or you can enter custom values. This will at least give you the tables needed for dividing.

Thor

Well done.

Thor

Hi Reginald,

Welcome to the forum.

Thor

Hi Mike,

I have sent you a PM.

Thor

Hi Garr,

Welcome to the forum. I agree with Jeff, Elmer's simpler engines should be a good start, I have made one of his oscillators. Stew Hart (a forum member) has designed steam engines that are suitable for befinners. In addition to the link Jeff provided; here are a few other links to free plans:

***Link*** (simple oscillator)

***Link***

Thor

Edited By Thor 🇳🇴 on 04/08/2022 06:44:56

Well Bryan, it is not only in the UK fuel is expensive, our fuel prices this summer are the highest I have seen. As business returned to more normal levels after Covid-19 increased demand has driven the price of crude oil up. I guess the war in Ukraine has had an impact also although prices increased before the war started.

Thor

There is one solution at Mike's workshop, that may be of help. Another here.

Thor

Edited By Thor 🇳🇴 on 29/07/2022 11:08:38

Well, coincidences happen I guess, a few weeks ago when I was out for a walk I met my former boss who I hadn't seen in a decade.

Thor