Member postings for Adam Mara

The easy answer is a expandable rubber stopper, a search on Google resulted in commercial ones available from 1/2" upwards.

I use a DC adjustable step down power supply module off Exxx to reduce 5 vdc to 1,5vdc, seems to work OK. Saves a lot of batteries!

I bought one off a well known auction site, it was actually broken but was able to repair it. Could not get on with it, and also prefer freehand! Many years ago I was taught to sharpen shears, scissors knives and drill etc by a itinernterant knife sharpener, who called once a week at the shop and did whatever had come in. He did appear on 'What's my Line' at the time!

Fosters of Lincoln were one of the leading maker of threshing machines. The army requisitioned our house in 1940, and we lived in a farm cottage near Grantham. I can still see my dad helping out with the threshing in 1944, just after he returned from 3 years in Egypt!

Another vote for a step drill, never had a problem with drilling Perspex at work with them.

Around the 70's, in my former life as an ironmonger, we bought job lots of taps from Drapers, my cousin and I got first pick, so we had a good selection of ex WD taps, by well known UK and US makers. I have a great selection of BSW, BSF and BSP taps , sadly no metric ones! They also sold off a range of single ended metric spanners, still used my workshop.

For those that may be interested, a WW2 Hawker Typhoon is on show at RAF Coningsby until September.

Acording to the news, the process to bring the Typhoon over from an aviation museum in Canada wasn't an easy one though.

It was disassembled and then put back together - much like an airfix kit - when it arrived at RAF Coningsby.

It sounds like a Garfitts Speedy 17 lawn mower cylinder sharpener. I Used one several years in the 60's and 70's, as for the machine with the concave bed, It could have been the old one we sold when we got the Speedy 17, it was rubbish!

I bought a similar size summer house from Dunster House in 2013, its the solid timber planks around 40mm thick, and have been very happy with it, It would make me a lovely workshop, but management would not agree! They do a whole range of garden buildings, and were very happy with their service.

My company does this all of the time, we have hand, computer and laser engravers. We do a lot of work with Army regimental crests on silver plates. We do lots of memorial plates for seats so it should not present a problem. I have retired fully now, but my youngest son runs the engraving side of the business, if you PM me the details I will see if he can help!

If its numbers only, our first telephone number, just for digits, BT have completely changed it over the years, and is nothing like the origin

If its alpha numeric, its my first car registration number, one I can remember! Trouble is now days, they want numbers, letters, lower case and upper case and a 'special character', how is one supposed to remember these without writing it down.

So they are on a Excel spreadsheet, but just hints i.e. 'first car' , 'num' telephone number etc. Saved on a hidden sheet in an obscure file!

They have been practicing the flypast at RAF Cranwell today, lot of activity today in Lincolnshire! Love to see the B17, FIL was a upper turret gunner in one in WW2, had a tough time and never talked about it much.

Just sat down for lunch today and a BBMF Spitfire did a low level display for the local primary school. Living 10 miles from Coningsby we are used to seeing the BBMF planes fairly often, but not as low as this one was! Guess it was around 500 feet, but its a long time since my ROC days! Made my day!

My ancient gallon can of 3 in 1 (priced £3.80) just list ' a blend of refined light oils' and ' a polar rust additive' . Kept in company with my jerrycan of 'Pink Paraffin' and a Buck and Hickman tools catalogue all from my ironmongery days!

The order email is

[email protected]

if that helps.

A pantograph machine would cope with a flat or domed top, we used a Gravograph IR3 machine for engraving bowls for a nearby sports shop among other things. We and many others were reluctant to take on 'one off' jobs, particularly on the customers own property, there's nothing like slipping out of the brass copy on the last line of a multi line engraved brass plate!

I do have a Gravograph IT4 machine, a restoration project for the future sitting on my bench, sadly no copy and the cylindrical engraving parts are missing, otherwise, I like a challenge!

Jason, I am making an aluminium box at present, around a 125mm cube, if I have drilled a piece of flat strip, then want to drill a hole in the box its quite a few turns to reach the required height its a lot easier on the SX2! I have only had it 6 days, and a complete amateur, so its a long slow learning curve. I also have a large garden to maintain, and I don't get as many hours practice as I would like!

This is how amateur I am, the SX2.7 arrived last Wednesday at 9.50am, great all day to sort it out. The driver placed in my garage using his electric pallet truck, that was easy. Great excitement as it was unpacked and inspected and knobs twiddled, son in law was due to come round and help move it pm. With time to spare connected up to try it out, switched on the lights on the panel came on 0000 speed, great. Pressed go, nothing, re read instructions and no joy, quick phone call to ARC and spoke to Ian, who said it could be a loose connection, Unscrewed the panel, pressed all the connectors, still no joy. back panel off, and a wire had come out of the crimp on the push on connector. Crimped it, but it still would not work, so started to check all connections, it was then I alighted on the chuck cover interlock, a light bulb moment, the cover was open! Closed it, and it worked.

My excuse is that there is nothing in the instruction to tell you about the interlock, and my SX2 has no such feature, I felt a right wally! Bet they had a laugh at ARC about it!

Thank you Jason, now I understand how it works!

Nige; mine's also a R8 but had an existing MT3 - ER20 collet chuck with collets, got an adaptor off Ebay and it works fine. Its a very different machine to my SX2, and I have a lot to learn, I was going to sell the SX2, but after consulting management decided to keep it as drilling on the SX2.7 is a bit of a bind. The DRO will have to go on my birthday present list!

Getting my head round my new Sieg SX2.7 mill, I noticed that that there are no traditional 'gib' strips and adjusting screws. The maunual lists them in the spare parts as bevel wedge and a wedge locking crown bar, the manual is very sparse and no mention of how future adjustments are carried out. Never come across these before, can anybody enlighten me on how it works and how to adjust them?

I have a spare 1/16" cutter ex cutting plastic on a CNC router, PM me if you are in need! I have found they may not cut plastics cleanly, but seem to cut metals OK