Member postings for Clive Hartland

If it is varying in size in both directions I question the Saddle and its fit on the bed. Check the saddle adjustment and then see if it does the same thing.

Also make a plug to fit in both ends of the tube with centers and use the dog and driving plate.

Clive

Easiest way is put the block in the 4 jaw chuck with center pop towards tailstock. Bring up tailstock and place another MT center on the tailstock center and the point in the center pop. The MT center will wobble as you turn job and you can by eye bring it into center very easily, then using a DTI complete the centering accurately. No need to buy any expensive one off tooling.

Clive

I raked around my cupboard of goodies and found a bit of grey felt 8mm thick which I was able to cut 3mm strips from, I then cut 4 slots on the woodsaw and superglued the strips in the slots. Job done and works a treat.

Clive

Looking for felt I found that the stuff you can buy in the shops is Acrylic Felt and not a natural fibre.

I am still searching for natural felt but dont want to buy a mtere at £16. Looking now at pads that go under furniture so the Pond shop will have a visit today.

Clive

Bear in mind that Diamond wheel is not a 'Jobbing' wheel, you should not try to take off a lot of metal with it.

It is for dressing an edge and the lightest touch should be used, if you smell the resin smell then you are working the wheel too hard.

As mentioned earlier, do the hard work on a green grit wheel and finish on the diamond wheel.

Clive

I already have a plastic MT2 internal taper cleaner and am making an MT3 internal cleaner from hardwood. Have made the blank 2mm undersize on the taper and am now asking for ideas of what to use for the wipers. I intend to cut 4 slots along the taper at 90 Deg. about 2mm wide. The MT2 one just has 4 felt strips glued to the taper but I have in mid to use Chammy leather? but am open to suggestions. Perhaps swarf will stick to the chammy? but felt may be better.

Clive

A swarf picker up device is simply a magnet in a plastic bag and then cart the swarf to the bin and remove the magnet from the plastic bag!

Simples.

Clive

IKEA are having a sale and the LED clamp type lights and the heavy base LED lights are now £7.00

Previoulsy £10 +£5 postage

I have one of these that i put on a magnetic base and they are good.

Clive

Edited By Clive Hartland on 09/07/2013 21:12:05

I for one have never assumed that the 4 jaw chuck jaws are square, I always use the face of the chuck to set up using parallels and using the tailstock center to push/force the job onto the parallels. The center usually centers the job good enough for me. This at least gives me 2 faces equal/parallel to a certain degree.

Perhaps the technique of using a 4 jaw chuck needs to be assessed.

Clive

I wonder if I could set up a business de-magnetising tools. Now theres a thought.

Perhaps a, 'Walk in' set up. Pay a fee and de-magnetise all you like. Perhaps a conveyor style, bung it in one end and run around and catch it at the other.

Clive

Hello Ian, No, I have not fitted or moved anything and as I said it is just an intermittant problem and affects the Verniers and the spanners and the lathe tools periodically. It also happens half way through a job and suddenly all the tools on the Mill will have shards of metal sticking to them.

The Mill motor is DC so there is a strong field near it but I certainly dont wave tools around it. It just starts on the Mill table and on the Lathe it appears on the wooden tool tray just in front of the bed!

The next day there is no magnetic effect, very strange and puzzling indeed.

Clive

The tool magnetisation is with me an, On/ Off effect. I will be working away happily and then suddenly I pick up a tool and its all festooned with bits of swarf! I give it quick bang on something solid and it is OK again though I dont bang the calipers. It seems its a quite random effect being there one day but not the next. It only happens on the machines and not on the bench tools. Away from the Lathe and Mill the tools do not show the magnetism at all.

I wonder if a real earthing spike might help with a cable from all the machines taken to a copper spike in some damp soil. Is it static electricity doing it or actual contact magnetism? It is only recently that this has started to happen and have not come across it at work over the years.

Clive

Tool racks, I bought one of those garden kneeling mats and then made a tubular cutter with a very sharp knife edge, with this I was able to trepanne holes at regular spacing. Enough to accomodate all my MT3 collets and slitting saw holders. In fact I made two thicknesses and then placed them in a nice sturdy box. The kneeling pad is a quite dense foam and with different size cutters would suit other rotary tool applications for storage.

Clive

Luckily I have a Cromwell outlet very near my workplace and call in about once a month just to pick up the monthly cut price catalogue. They are selling 2 flute and 3 flute and 4 flute center cutting Carbide milling cutters in a set of 6 at a time for £29 or so. Rippa cutters also are reasonable in sets of 3. It takes me a couple of hours to read through and digest the contents and find the bargains. Agreed there are some expensive tooling in the catalogue but it is all named tooling like Ghuring and Mitsubishi. Just now and again I catch sight of bargains that are worth looking at further.

Clive

Got a Cromwell catalogue today that lists Thread Milling cutters, metric and pipe and other British threads. The prices , well, they are special!

Several bargains also appear in the milling cutter part.

I am not associated with Cromwell.

Clive

Blockboard would be better than MDF as a base. Also mount the machine on anti vibration rubber bases, they are quite cheap.

The delivery driver will only deposit the crate on a pallet to the garge door. No other help from him at all. He just wanted to be on his way again as mine was the last load of the day. Dismantling the X3 is quite easy, you could take the 2 slides off as one unit and the smaller bits like the motor and drive and gearing will only take a little bit of weight off the mass. I would not seperate the column from the base. It is a really heavy bit of kit as I moved mine alone into the garage from the pallet and then lifted it using blocks of 2" x 4" , screwing each one to the other as I tilted and lifted it to bench height. It took all of 5/6 hours non stop. Then of course I had to unscrew and dismantle the pillar of wood I had made. I dont think my wrists have recovered yet.

Clive

Edited By Clive Hartland on 01/07/2013 21:45:38

Spent a couple of hours making up bee hive frames and putting in the wax foundation as I need three boxes soonest as the bees are going like the clappers now. Then had an email asking me to make up three swarm boxes from the bee shop so set to and cut up the plywood sheets to the box sizes and also cut the end blocks to hold it all together and then made up th three carcases of the boxes, cannot go any further as I have run out of ply. Will have to visit that expensive place, B & Q for another sheet. Also went to the Apiary and placed one box on a hive and made sure all was well with the bees. My main crop of Blackberry is now coming into flower and they will work that until its over.

Modelling wise I am just keeping everything covered up from the sawdust and looking at things that need doing soon. I also repaired a window handle, nasty diecast thing that is swaged over a washer that then comes loose and breaks. Turned a new sleeve with a shoulder and locktited it to the body and it works better than new.

Clive

It would not be too bad if you could buy the ME in Smiths when it comes out, I have now missed one issue and am not going to pay for a replacement again as it gets expensive.

I would have liked to have read about thye Radial engine on the front page of the one issue I have missed. Talking to Smiths locally means nothing as they do not remember getting it in anyway!

I dont mind what the content is as long as its interesting and a good read.

Clive

I had some watch oil that was reputed to have been extracted form the jaws of a Porpoise! It certainly did not 'creep' like some oils do. Later I bought some synthetic oil that went every where and soon dried out from the bearing.

The Whale oil, while doing my apprenticeship we had a Whale oil bath and I used it to quench some HHS lathe tools I made and boy were they hard.

Clive

As I have got older my eyesight has gone to far distance / long sight and of course the eyelens hardens and will not focus to short distance, this one of the faults of old age!

I have varifocals and a pair the same that darken in the Sun, but these, I cannot use when working the bees as they darken everything and I cannot see the bees properly so i wear the non darkening for the bees.

Being an Instrument tech. I need to work very close sometimes and I find that Solder flux fumes cloud the lens. A quick dunk in the ultrasonic cleans them up.

Clive