Member postings for Swarf, Mostly!

Ditto for me.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

Was it something I said??

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

Good morning, Nick,

Try using white spirit.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

Good morning, Richard,

Welcome to the forum.

This site has a rather idiosyncratic procedure for adding photgraphs - if you explore a bit, you'll find a 'how to'.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

I'd be interested to hear (read ) how this right or left handedness thing affects how folks use a shovel. Which hand do you use to grip the shovel handle to push the shovel into the sand/gravel/soil/coal and which to grip the shaft close to the loaded scoop to lift the weight?

I've called it a 'scoop', what's the proper term for the 'business end' of a shovel?

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

Sorry to post off-topic.

Simon, was your 'bit of jarrah' previously part of a railway sleeper?

My workshop originally stood on a raft comprising five railway sleepers and some second hand scaffold boards, all purchased from a garden centre in Rainham, Essex. I was told that the railway sleepers had originally been part of the track of one of the London Underground lines and were jarrah wood because of its vibration-damping properties. When I moved the workshop to its current location, I upgraded to a concrete slab and used the railway sleepers to form a retaining wall to control the spoil from the excavation.

More recently, I wanted to make a new mantelpiece for our living room but didn't want to pay timber merchant prices for hardwood. So SWMBO and I selected the best looking sleeper from the stack, carefully de-nailed and de-gritted it and cut it into suitably sized slices.

I finished the completed mantelpiece with Osmo oil and am very pleased with the result.

Apologies again for posting off-topic.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

P.S.: I was going to add what 'Timbers for Woodwork' by J C S Brough says about jarrah but as it's an Australian wood, I'll defer to Hopper.

Edited By Swarf, Mostly! on 06/02/2023 11:07:27

I prefer to do my silver soldering out of doors rather than in the workshop. I had hoped to do a little silver soldering job today but it's so cold outside I don't think the propane will want to come out of the bottle.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

Good evening, Dt,

This forum has a particular method for posting photos. You have to create an album and then upload the photos into it, then call them down into your forum post.

There should be a link pinned to the top of the home page somewhere. It's quite simple once you get used to it, say by about the third photo. You can have as many albums ('alba'? ) as you like for different subjects.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

P.S.:  ALWAYS type a space before typing a right bracket - this avoids waking-up the smiley gremlis!

Edited By Swarf, Mostly! on 19/01/2023 19:03:52

Edited By Swarf, Mostly! on 19/01/2023 19:05:57

Edited By Swarf, Mostly! on 19/01/2023 19:06:51

I recently bought a 3D printed gizmo that comprises part of an internal gear that engages with the ML7 bull-wheel. Another part of the gizmo (sorry, no photo at the moment ) rests on the head-stock casting. Any torque applied to the spindle nose is passed to the bull-wheel via the woodruff key, then via the gizmo's many teeth to the head-stock casting, not via the back-gear teeth.

I haven't yet had to use it in anger but it looks like it would do the trick.

Of course, the ML7 bull-wheel profile is more commonly known (to 3D printers ) than is that of the Mellor bull-wheel.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

Hi there, all,

I don't think anyone's mentioned it so far but the ML7 saddle hand-wheel doesn't engage directly with the (inverted ) rack, There's an intermediate gear ratio to ensure that the saddle moves towards the head-stock when the hand-wheel is turned anticlockwise, i.e. the top of the hand-wheel is moved towards the head-stock.

However, that gearing is fairly well enclosed and I would be surprised if any swarf could get in there.

I presume that Beeston Myfords designed the ML7 with an inverted rack to minimise the likelihood of foreign matter lodging in the rack teeth.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

A colleague of mine used to reckon that 'preventative maintenance' was taking the equipment apart every 2000 hours to find out why it was still working!

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

Good afternoon, Roger,

If the chuck is a genuine Jacobs item, you ought to be able to buy a repair kit. That will contain a new set of jaws. Using a repair kit, provided you ensure that it is for the actual model of chuck, gets around the business of identifying the taper because you'll be putting the same body back on the drill-press arbor.

The prospect of fitting such a kit may seem a bit daunting but there are several 'how-to' videos on the net. Your search engine ought to be able to find one or two before you commit yourself.

I fiited a repair set once, to a Jacobs ½" chuck. You do have to 'hold your mouth right' but it wasn't too difficult.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

I'm reminded of the story about Nubar Gulbenkian, the oil millionaire. His personal transport when resident in London was a customised black taxi with a Rolls Royce engine. When describing it to friends, he often said 'It will turn on a sixpence, whatever a sixpence may be!'.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

I would open the file in Paint.net and then do a 'save as' selecting the .pdf option in the pull-down menu.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

Good afternoon, Philip,

I agree with DC31k's advice to do your research thoroughly before performing any irreversible cuts!

Some time ago, I bought a Myford-Dickson rear tool-post that was labelled as being for one version of the Myford 254, the 254S if I remember correctly.

Like you, I planned to reduce the height of the base casting to make it suitable for my ML7. But a shorter base appeared on eBay and I bought that. I can't get to the workshop right now but, when I can, I'll try to measure the relative heights of the base castings and report back here.

I would also suggest that the Myford-Dickson rear toolpost is intended for use only with a special inverted parting tool-holder whch holds the blade with a significant downward slope. That is the only tool-holder I intend to use with mine - I am not at all sure that the device is intended to take tools that don't have that slope.

Take care before making a premature and irreversible modification!

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

Edited By Swarf, Mostly! on 07/11/2022 17:03:55

Swing the lamps, lads!

In 1954, between leaving school and starting college, I had a holiday job at a firm that held a contract to refurbish an Army radar, AA3 Mk7, if I remember correctly. I was the only short term employee. The various units were removed from the caravan and our job was to perform any repairs found by the incoming inspection, perform any scheduled modificationa and clean up any field modifications, paint the upper surface of the chassis with grey paint, the undersides with oil and anoint all the cableforms with a mixture of something and carbon tet! All the steel chassis were cadmium plated. I've forgotten what the 'something' was, it might have been lanolin!

Each front panel control had its individual label, engraved on the material shown in Nick's post, it was called 'Traffolyte'. We had to refill the engraving with white wax, made temporarily soft by moistening with white spirit. The labels were refitted to the front panel using bifurcated aluminium rivets which could be a swine to set by hand!!

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

The yoke and core of the old 'Post Office relays' (used in electromechanical telephone exchanges) are a potential source of 'soft iron'.  The use of soft iron gives a lower 'reluctance' magnetic circuit, in turn giving more magnetic attraction for the same number of ampere turns of the coil.

Here's a web-site showing what they look(ed) like: P.O. 3000 Relay

I may have one somewhere and will post dimensions if I can find it.

There may be some still available on the surplus market (if the surplus market still exists! ).

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

Edited By Swarf, Mostly! on 05/11/2022 10:41:00

Edited By Swarf, Mostly! on 05/11/2022 10:41:46

Many years ago, I was told that one should never wind a clockwork clock (or watch) backwards.

Was this an Old Wives' Tale or an urban myth?

I have a battery watch, it has hour, minute and sweep second hands and a date window. Last Sunday (the reversion of BST to GMT) I wound the watch forward eleven hours rather than back one hour.

I subsequently noticed that the date was changing at noon rather than midnight! So I have wound it forward another twelve hours and now all seems to be OK.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

Just in case it will help, here is an exploded diagram of the ML7 lever-operated collet chuck:

This diagram isn't very good at illustrating how the operating lever is connected to the lathe head-stock.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

Edited By Swarf, Mostly! on 31/10/2022 20:18:09

If the tablet is running Windows, try control+alt+one of the arrow keys.  Play with the arrow keys until you get the display the right way up. You should then be able to find the keys required to shut down gracefully.

Some people with twisted senses of humour do this as a 'joke' on colleagues who are rash enough to leave their computers unattended. Our cat does it just to show his independence!

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly.

Edited By Swarf, Mostly! on 25/10/2022 15:49:26