Member postings for lfoggy

My Myford lathe purchased new in 1997 came with a quick change toolpost manufactured by Bison to the same design as the Dickson toolposts. Some years later I made the mistake of buying some additional toolholders from several suppliers. None of them really fit properly. Fortunately Bison still make the same toolpost and can supply all spares as well as toolholders. I now buy them from R.D. Barrett. The toolholders cost around £45 each and are perfectly made...

Welcome. I am in Birmingham and have built up a reasonable workshop over the years. Still working full time in the NHS though....

Your list of projects should keep you pretty busy in your new workshop !

Ian Cooper who owns Rotagrip in Hockley has a few Chipmasters in his warehouse. Maybe worth speaking to him?

I purchased these recently. £90 for four. Much cheaper than Swiss horology tweezers but not at all bad. The tips are all perfectly ground and aligned and they work very well. Finish not as good as the best Swiss offerings though.

**LINK**

The tips are quite good shapes for general workshop use as opposed to horology....

The feedshaft has a clutch that will slip if the saddle hits an obstruction whist moving. The leadscrew fits into a clutch that just allows engegemnt/disengement of the leadscrew. The leadscrew should just slide into that, although it may take some fiddling to get the Woodruff key on the leadscrew to engage with the slot in the sleeve in the clutch.

Incidentally have sent you a PM...

I've had a 254 from new since 1997. I've done quite a few mods and improvements and have had all of it apart over the years apart from the spindle bearings. I have the manual which includes exploded diagrams of all assemblies.

Happy to provide any info I can

I purchased a Myford 254 in 1997 and remember seeing the chuck as an option (that I didn't get). Can you post a picture of it?

Many thanks again for all the tips.

I ground a groove along the bend line using a piece of steel as a guide as suggested by Speedy (the ground groove won't be visible). Then made the bend mostly by hand and with a rubber mallet and piece of wood. Seemed to work OK and the finished piece is more than adeqauate for my needs.

Many thanks for the suggestions and for the offers of assistance. Ironically I live in the West Midlands, metal bashing capital of Britain. I will attemp the job with a mallet and the piece clamped between two steel bars. Anneal first?

I want to make a straight bend in a 1mm thick sheet of stainless steel along the line in the pic below. The part is to repair a kitchen extactor hood. The bend needs to look neat but the angle is not critical, anything around 30 degrees is OK. I have the usual home workshop tools but no metal forming machines. I realise this job would take a few seconds with the correct tool but I've only got a bench vice and hammers.

Any suggestions? I am thinking to clamp it between two 20mm square metal bars and attack it with a hammer but it probably wouldn't be pretty. This might be an excuse to purchase a pan-folding machine but I really wouldn't use it much and don't have space for it in the shop either....

A fantastic achievement. The ultimate in model engineering really.

Will you be displaying this anywhere soon for us to see in action?

If you like that you need to try a Macchiato. You will need to get yourself an espresso machine though....

There is a sizable community of coffee enthusiasts out there with their own forums and You Tube channels. They will offer endless advice given half a chance.

My question is what type of coffee do you want to make? Filter coffee and caffetiere coffee are much less sensitive to grind quality, and an inexpensive burr grinder like the Dualit will work fine. If you want to make espresso you are in completely different territory. Espresso is very sensitive to the size, quality and consistency of the grind. Believe it or not studies using electron microspcopy have been done which describe the shape and quality of coffee grinds necessary for espresso. Bad machines crush and tear the beans, good machines grind into uniform undistorted particles. Machines like the Dualit will not do decent coffee beans justice and you will never be able to achieve the exquisite results possible with a better grinder. A good starting point for espresso is the Sage Smart Grinder Pro available from John Lewis. I use a Rocket Fausto which is pretty good.

Coffee enthusists will say that the grinder is more important than the espresso machine.....

Edited By lfoggy on 19/09/2022 16:04:13

I cut all my keyways in bores using the Hemingway keyway slotting attachment. It is pretty much the same design as the picture above but using castings. Quite easy to build and very useful. The beauty of it is you can bore your holes then cut the keyway without removing the work from the lathe.

I completed a Quorn, to the Mark 3 plans, recently. The workhead is made pretty much exactly according to plan. The two parts are made seperately and bolted together. Pic below. Should be very easy to modify your Quorn. Are there any holes to suggest that the part was bolted on and is missing? Hope that helps.

Sorry but rotating pictures seems to be very difficult on this forum...maybe more difficult than building a Quorn.

Edited By lfoggy on 31/08/2022 20:28:50

I really like Barry Jordan's machine tool models, particularly the Bridgeport....

Great model but also unique.

A clockmaker would drill to 1.4mm and then use a tapered 5-sided broach to open out the hole to 1.48mm. This can be done with a surprising degree of accuracy by hand. The resulting hole will of course be slightly tapered which may or may not be relevant depending on your application. Works very well for clock pivots. I use this technique all the time in my workshop. One advantage of the slight taper is that it will trap a bit of oil.

And therein lies one of the challenges of using up those short bits and bar ends that fill up your scrap box....

I purchased a new Myford 254 back in 1997. It was a quite modern lathe at the time. It has electronic variable speed and now built in DRO, camlock spindle and full metric or imperial options. Even by today's standards it is competitive. I was always surprised that this model didn't completely displace the 7 series machines....

Edited By lfoggy on 29/06/2022 13:48:04

Great repair. Would never have thought of using a circlip. That spring though, it looks disproportionately stiff. Much bigger than a typical maintining power spring. I guess the clock needs a lot of power to keep the tilting plate moving.

I have made quite a few of these. I start with gauge plate of suitable thickness, cut a rough disc on the bandsaw, machine the inside and outside diameter on the lathe then finish on a rotary table on the milling machine followed by hand tools. Then harden, and temper to blue. Here is one I have just finished for a bracket clock project.

I am guessing your spring was not tempered to the correct temperature?