Member postings for I.M. OUTAHERE

You could try kids motorbike or motorcross gloves or junior dragster / go kart gloves .

Bike gloves by themselves may not have the heat resistant liner but you can get flame proof inner gloves seprately

Nothing new the thunderbirds had these 30 years ago 😄

I would like to see the rest of the machine , i suspect the power supply would be a fair lump of equipment !

A good scrub and a bit of elbow grease with some scotchbrite will do wonders to it , while you have it apart give the front face a light stoning to make sure there are no high spots and the go around knocking off any sharp edges with a stone .

Ian.

Edited By XD 351 on 19/07/2017 02:28:49

Scrape a lathe bed - no ! It would need regrinding , turcite strips fitted to the carriage to replace the metal that has been removed then scrape the carriage to fit the reground bed .

You may have seen some machines that have had the dovetails supposedly scraped and they do have some flaking or chequering done to make them look scraped but not so .

There are some guys on youtube that have scraped the cross slide surfaces on thier lathe or thier mill table surface and it is just a wank feature that does nothing to improve the machine .

I have scraped the dovetails on one of my Chinese mills to fix a tight spot and it was a PIA !

If you want to try scraping get hold of an old cast angle plate and re machine it then scrape that , if you stuff it up you are not losing anything as you can always re machine it and start again .

Ian.

If you suffer from arthritis in your hands then scraping will be a qiuckly passing fad i can tell you !

I use CRC tac2 adhesive lubricant spray in my chucks , back gears .and leadscrew.

I used to use grease and oil but got sick of the stuff being flung out all over the place , the tac 2 is used sparingly and when it comes time to give the chuck a clean up the stuff cleans out easily with degreaser or kero .

Ian .

If you really must have a chrome finish on your handwheels it will end up being cheaper to buy new ones .

There is a difference between hard chrome and brite or decorative chrome - hard chrome is chromium plated directly to the parent metal and is typically used on piston rods , bearing and seal journals because of its low friction and hard wearing qualities and can be built up many thousandths deep , it is not overly corrosion protective as chromium is porus so for harsh enviroments a thin nickel base plating is used .

Decorative chrome is plated over copper and or nickel base plating and the chrome is only a few tenths of a thou thick .

The labour cost alone these days to strip , clean up and re plate will be pretty steep and its not just a matter of chucking it in a tank and turning the power on , they have to be jigged up and anodes sorted or made to get the chrome to plate in everwhere then you have to find a shop that wants to do it as used cast iron or cast steel will have oil impregnated in it and this can cause all sorts of problems in the plating process ,

If it were my machine and i wanted to improve the look i would maybe fork out to get them stripped then polish the rim and knob with 600 grit emery or wet and dry then paint the spokes and hub , many old machines had this and a little light oil on the polished parts will slow the rust down .

I can't say i like chromed handles i fitted some to my mill and find they are to slippery but at least they are better than the plastic junk that it came with !

Ian

And its in colour !

A couple of more youtube channels to check out :

Thatlazymachinist - Marc is a retired tool and instrument maker turned teacher , he has a comprehensive playlist of metalworking videos that i believe are among the best made .

Mrcrispin , not purely an educational channel but the work he is doing on his loco is worth a look .

Ian.

+1 for the mason and sparey books !

Another reasonable offering is how to run a lathe by southbend.

I don't know about Harolds prose being muddled or of any issues with his photography the book seems fine to me .

I think the book was more angled at some one with some basic experience on a lathe not the total newcomer .

Even if you had read every book ever written on lathe work it won't make you a good machinists it can only point you in the right direction - practise makes perfect .

Be cautious of any speeds and feeds in some lathe operation books as many of those are for industrial machines and not for the home shop machines as they are much lighter in construction .

+1 for what Mike said !

The only thing i would add to that is a beginner may be a 15 yr old , a 60 yr old or anything in between so whats the difference ?

The 15 yr old will have limited funds and will be limited to a space that has been granted by a parent which could be in a garage , a basement , under a stair well or even under a carport .

I have seen many articles aimed at the beginner and many like to breeze over this subject so they can get to the " what lathe to buy " section then onto what first project to make leaving that kid thinking that they need a proper shed with a big lathe and a million different hand tools to get started and very deep pockets to fund it all .

While the older beginner may have the funds and the workspace sorted and is ready to buy a lathe i think it is important that any beginner series starts with a place to work as all the tools in the world are of no use unless you have somewhere to use them !

I think it was a book by Bob loader ( could be wrong ) where he had his workshop set up under the stairs in his house and the lathe ( unimat i believe ) could be easily set up outside for alfresco machining ! Just goes to show where there is a will there is a way !

Ian

Must have really long extension leads in China !

You will probably have to recharge it several times befoere you get out of the driveway !

A dc - dc charger is the same as what sterling list as a battery to battery charger they basically boost the 9 - 12v input up to 14.4 v to power,an internal smart charger , you can use another battery or solar to power them and they are usually hooked up so they also draw their power from the main start battery system so once the motor is running the alternator supplies the power for it .

It appears that your alternator controller does a similar thing but you need to be carefull of how long the cable from the alt controller to your fridge battery is and what cross secton it is as long thin cables = voltage drop , a dc - dc charger is mounted right next to the fridge battery so there is no or minimal voltage loss between the charger and the battery .

Maybe you could hook up a multi meter on your battery and check the charging voltage just to ensure you are actually charging them fully .

Do you check the electrolyte level often ? It doesn't take much of a drop in fluid to weaken a battery .

Ian.

You could make a jig up and mill them in the lathe .

All you need is some hex bar with a hole drilled and reamed through it to accept the blank broach and a couple of decent grub screws to lock it in , if your toolpost is big enough to accept the hex bar mount it up in there and set the toolpost to the 91 deg you need then mount a milling cutter up in the chuck .

If your toolpost is not big enough you could set it all up on an angle plate on the lathe cross slide and set the angle plate to the 91 deg . You would have to set up some fences or stops on the angle plate also

The hex bar holder becomes your indexing device as well ,

You could also leave the a few thou oversize and then set up a grinding wheel in the chuck and use that to give them a final sharpen up after hardening .

Ian.

For a little while i was getting a message supposedly from the tax office notifing me that i had been over taxed by a few hundred bucks on my last tax return - just click the supplied link to claim your refund ! I have heard many things in my life but never the tax office giving money back !

I won't go into the paypal ones i get although i do find some of them highly amusing !

Ian

I am curious as to why you don't want gel or agm is it because the ones you have are used as starter batteries as well ?

i run an ultimate brand (usual disclaimer applies ) in my boat that sees intermittent use and it is set up with a smart charger to keep the battery charged , been going strong for over 3 years without a problem .

I previously had a lead acid deep cycle unit and it died inside two years - sulphation issues .

Alternators will not fully charge a battery , you need a dc - dc charger as it can fully charge a battery from an alternator supply - used a lot in 4wd circles .

What sort of low battery voltage warning or cut out do you have ?

How old is the fridge ? You may find a newer unit more eficcient .

Ian

Forget the mango just replace it with another beer !

Ian.

Once you took it from the forum to a PM you made it personal , keep it on the forum so the moderators can keep a check on it .

I think this sort of thing has happened before to MG 

I personally will miss his input to the forum and it is a loss to all forum users especially any newcomers .

Ian.

Edited By XD 351 on 30/06/2017 08:03:09

Edited By XD 351 on 30/06/2017 03:29:48

They have not improved trust me!

Now that they are digging up most of the major roads around the CBD for the light rail the roads are nothing more than a series of potholes separated by road plates that are designed to get your vehicle air born and the person in charge of installing these roadplates needs a career change to monster truck track designer !

Remove the roof , floors and seat then take it out through the door - sounds like my old series 2 landy i used to have many years ago !

Ian.

Or have the electricity charge combined into the rent if the owner lives on the or the same property as the garage .

Still going to cost you to get a sparky to wire it up thought .

It also depends on what you need there - just some lights ? Light and basic power ? 3ph power?

If it is just lights for occasional usage a cheap 4 stroke generator is what i would use .

Ian

Thats all fine and well until the bastards shoes give you blisters and you can't run any further !

He is going to catch up with you sooner or later and he aint going to be happy !

Ian .