Member postings for Adam Mara

Final preps in the workshop for my SX2.7 arriving tomorrow from ARC! Excited!

It was in the May MEW, I just pinched the idea. Hopefully I have posted a photo, it was taken while the job was in progress, still a little more to finish off

Finished of conversion of my bench. I read Sean Floods article on his floor stand for a lathe in Model Engineers Workshop, liked the idea of mounting the lathe on a beam. A search in the workshop revealed 2 short lengths of 50x50mm steel tube, and a length of 80 x 80mm. Dropped the existing bench top 130mm, and bolted the 50x50 at each end, and the 80x80 bolted though the 50x50 and the bench. Made a 700 x 400mm drip tray this morning of grooved and folded ACM, just some odd bits and tidying to be finished off tomorrow.

Even Prestel got hacked in the early eighties, and only 90,000 of us on it! Happy days. 300 baud if I remember right, a bit different to todays speeds.

Anybody had problems trying to email the advertising contact '[email protected]' I have tried twice and it keeps being rejected.

Ordered a new mill today, so want to sell my old one.

I'm impressed, made my first major purchases from them today, ordered a Sieg mill at 10.45, a phone call at lunchtime arranging for delivery on Wednesday.

I covered my windows with frosted vinyl, my machines are in full view of any unwanted visitors. Also have heavy mesh and a grill over the wooden door. Paranoid, that's me!

Richard

re roofing. I built a brick workshop in the seventies, big six asbestos roofing at the time. In 2010 a big unit was built at work and roofed with 100mm Trisomet insulated panels. Left on site were 3 and 4 metre lengths offcuts of the sheeting. I used them to replace the asbestos sheets, making sure the overlaps were well mastic'd! Not had a leak at all, which is more than can be said for the unit roof!

Thanks Howard

Hope to come over on one of the days, and will look you up if I do.

Richard (Adam is my 'online name'!)

Come into Boston UK on the A16 and you will smell it!

All about creosote here! http://caldersandgrandidge.com/treatment/creosote

Always been practical, mum and my aunt wanted me to go to a technical college when I left school but my father wanted me in the family High St retails business. My mum was a member of the Barford family, so it’s probably where I got my love of all things mechanical.

Long story, but I bought the other shareholders out in 1993 and moved to the edge of town and we eventually we metamorphosised into a sign manufacturing company, with lots of lovely machines to play with! I stopped enjoying it last year (TOO much red tape!) so decided to retire fully.

Had a Unimat 3 in the 70’s, but never had a lot of time to use it. When I semi retired 5 years ago I bought a Chester DB7 lathe and a Alexander SX2 milling machine , which have had little use, but now will hopefully get more. First major project is my version of Harold Halls sharpener, which is nearing completion.

Ultimate aim is to build a model of a Barford & Perkins D4 Motor Roller that is being restored at Beamish, have not found any plans yet, but hope to see ‘in the flesh’ in due course.

I was a avid home brewer in the 80's, and still have a couple of bottles of home made sherry left from 1982, and its quite drinkable! Later on we added a homebrew section to our cookshop, and still have a few bottles of home made wine customers gave us, haven't dared open them yet!

Thanks for the advice everyone. I assume by a light oil 3 in 1 would do the job.

As a matter of interest, I have a gallon tin of 3 in 1 oil, left over from when we closed our ironmongers shop down in 1993, price ? £3.60 !

I have a plan Stationary Engine from the seventies, and am considering it for my first proper build. It specifies using Gunmetal for the Cylinder and steam box but I have suitable brass 'in stock' to do the job, is that OK? I will only be running it on compressed air.

It annoys me that councils have different policies for disposal, the colour of the bin you use for the rubbish varies, my son lives 5 miles outside town, in a different council area, and the non recyclable bin is a different colour to ours, yet our council empties them! Daughter lives in Yorkshire, different again, and when we go to a holiday let in Dorset it is at least the same colour for non recyclables.

We cannot put waxed cartons in our recyclable bin, but when you go to the local tip/dump, sorry recycling centre there is a container for them!

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Part two!. Not used to posting on this forum yet! At work our CNC router has a Perske high speed motor fitted, and we successfully rout the 'hard' foam for making shadow boards for tool trays, The one shown on Utube seems to be a home made answer.

Something like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQUNryT8Awk

Looks like I am one of the oldest on here, retired from part time work last year at 77 (gave up when I stopped enjoying it, to much red tape these days!)! I have been using computers since the BBC microcomputer days (Early Eighties) and have used various drawing programs ever since including Designcad, TurboCad and CorelDraw from the original version. At work (a sign maker) I used a specialist program which also drove a CNC router. In my 50's I did a couple of City and Guilds courses on VersaCad, which was similar to AutoCAD Never went back to a drawing board after that The last machine we bought at work was a laser engraver, for which CorelDraw was the suggested software, so I tend to use that for any drawings these days.

Had a Unimat 3 in the eighties, but when I started up business on my own I did not have time to use it, so it went. After semi retiring 4 years ago bought a lathe and milling machine, but only now beginning to use them seriously, first major projects to make is a sharpener, as I have lots of used cutters from the router!