Member postings for Nigel Graham 2

College Engineering Supply is another, from whom I've purchased materials at their exhibition trade-stands.

Looks good!

I am not an expert on telescope mounting but worm-drives like that, too low-angled to reverse under load, should operate silkily-smoothly without much effort and very little actual friction in them, the bearings and when released, in those spindle locks.

Assuming the bearings and locks are all up to scratch, and everything clean and lightly oiled; heavy friction suggests to me the worms are very slightly too deeply meshed. You might find a thou' or two relaxation in the way the bearings are fitted to the frame though. They appear not to have very positive locations, e.g. sliding in rebates on the frame; but rely simply on 4 chees-head screws. The two lugs holding the elevation worm particularly, look a bit out-of-place with the rest of the mount, as if replacements made by a previous owner, and not too accurately.

Short of someone giving more definite information, perhaps by comparing with another mount of similar size, I'd suggest completing the overhaul of what's there, fitting the telescope or an equivalent dummy load, then experimenting with a temporary handle to ascertain a suitable radius before make ones that do the rest justice.

I'd think hand-wheels or cranked handles, possibly no more than about 2" radius.

The limit looks anyway as if set by clearances between the handles and other parts of the frame.

I think modern soluble oils don't taste nice to bacteria, but I know the problem with the older "suds" type that makes a while fluid.

A lathe at one place I worked was not used very often - the company made special electronic equipment to order - and the suds in that used to acquire a brown gelatinous bacterial "skin".

As others indicate, the answer is either a different emulsion or neat cutting-oil.

Anyway, I completed the WCTP for the Harrison lathe today - the finishing touch being two spanner-flats on the lower location bush so it is also the tool-stud's securing nut.

(I suspect the stud might be a bit of studding to replace the original, as it is threaded for its full height and apparently screwed into the top-slide then peened on the underside.)

Taking Robjon's advice I coated all parts in petroleum jelly on assembly, and it all went together most satisfactorily!

Celebration cuppa, then I discovered the next problem. The fixed steady won't fix! Goodness knows what lathe it's for, as it's un-named, but Harrison L5 it isn't!

Thank you all!

Oh, I wouldn't use an abrasive as such on a machine-tool!

I'll go with Robjon's hint to use Vaseline.

I have a tool-post to assemble, on a Harrison L5, so there's a good starting point.

I'd acquired a Dickson ( or similar) QCTP for it to obviate the old Hunt The Shims game, and this evening made a pair of locating bushes to hold it reasonably centrally on the rather care-worn 1/2 " BSF pillar already in place. I'd considered making a new pillar but could not see how to dismantle the top-slide itself to gain access.

[Pauses to watch the progress of a spider descending gracefully halfway between my eyes and the monitor - I'm not sure where it's gone now! Web-browsing probably... ]

I've still to put spanner flats on the lower bush, which I threaded so it also acts as a nut holding the slightly loose pillar rigidly in the top-slide, and once everything's assembled I don't envisage removing it often. Hence my asking the question.

Good Luck Plasma!

I had my first proper physio session last week. It was actually the second appointment but on the first the physiotherapist was concerned about possible complications. Well, so was I!

Fortunately a blood test and ultrasound scan came back clear.

I don't think I could watch a video of the operation, but I was drowsily conscious for the operation this year, and there was enough sawing and hammering to remind me of some of the engineering-restoration projects I've been involved with. Last year I'd had an ultrasound scan after my first knee op, and the scan was observed by a student nurse (I think) from America, who said in her country they make you watch a hip or knee replacement to help you make up your mind if you want to go ahead.

I asked about driving, last year, and the consensus from the insurers and medic was it was for me to judge when I was fit enough! The main point is performing an emergency stop. The physiotherapist suggested just sitting in the car, engine off, and trying the clutch and brake pedals.

The "joint face " concerned is between the rear tool-post and the saddle on my Myford 7 - and indeed between the 2 steel blocks of the post itself.

Removing the tool-post today for the first time for months, to gain more access for the next set-up, I was disturbed to find dark stains on the contact surfaces.

I had assembled them with grease or oil (I think the former) in the first place, but is this just staining from old oil?

Or is it corrosion? If so, is it from breakdown products in the oil, or possibly from soluble cutting fluid that had leached into the joint?

'

I have noticed this on other machine tools, too, such as under accessories I'd left bolted to the milling-machine table for some time, and below the top-slide on another lathe.

The Health & Executive became so fed up with being wrongly blamed for all manner of silly local restrictions and excuses that it mounted a publicity campaign to persuade people to understand the basic Law - and use Common Sense!

Among its posters was a cartoon painting of two children dressed in all sorts of PPE, to play conkers. This was just after some headmaster somewhere reckoned the game broke H&S legislation. The poster's text remarked that wilfully hitting your opponent with the conker might be dangerous - but that's a school disciplinary matter!

Sometimes I wonder if over-eager isolation of children from genuinely hazardous situations or equipment actually has the opposite to intended effect. I fear preventing them from understanding the nature of the hazards and risks so they can face the situation or use the equipment safely under supervision, means they are far more likely to have an accident when let loose as unsupervised adults.

Reading between the lines here, there is a taper in the spindle but does the lathe have a carrier that can be used with the chuck removed? Is that the problem?

A tip I've seen (actually in the instructions for a Hemingway kit) for setting a steady is to set the bar central by dti at the chuck, and adjust the steady there, not down at the far end - though still verify the centering with the steady in its operating location.

I think I over-did things a bit yesterday, with some garden trimming as well half-sitting, half-standing at the lathe, so took things a bit gentler today.

So, after a slow morning, a very satisfactory hour screw-cutting the 3/8" BSB thread on the end of the cam-shaft on the Worden tool-grinder. It took a lot of patient tickling of both threads, both 1/1/4 " long, to make them work together satisfactorily, but that's another step forwards. And I didn't use a die! The tool was an insert type, bought from JB.

It took me a while to find the thread depth. The Brass Thread series isn't in my model-engineering references, but luckily I found the very close Cycle Thread series in a set of very old professional engineers' data-sheets I'd inherited from Dad. (BSB: 55º; BSC 60º, and fine enough at 26tpi for negligible depth difference.)

(Hemingway do like a variety of metric and Imperial measurements and threads on their kit plans, spiced with mixing vulgar and decimal fractions. One drawing instructs you to reduce two M5 X 25mm grub-screws to something-thirtytooths-inch long each, and turn a spigot on one of them, 4mm dia X some-bits-of-inches. It would have been more to the point to quote all of the inch-dimensions in decimals, since almost all of the work is turning and milling.)

'

Rewarded myself with dinner in my local pub. Massive serving - fish, chips (fried spud wedges rather than chip-shaped chips) plus peas and salad. I'm afraid the chips defeated me but I ate all the greens so decided I could still have ice-cream for pudding. Browsed the latest copy of ME while waiting for that lot to settle, helped by a pint of RNLI Ale, brewed specially to celebrate Weymouth Lifeboat Station's centenary.. by Marstons, in Burton-on-Trent, about as far from the sea as you can be in England!

'

That was me wrecked for the afternoon apart from another session of gentle physiotherapy exercises, but I managed another hour or so in the evening starting on another two grinder components. I don't know what that "pre-loved" steel presently in the lathe actually is, but EN1A leaded, it certainly isn't!

Setting up the steady on it was problematical. This too was pre-loved, so loved it has lost two of its original screws and one of its original nuts. Which all adds to the frustrating confection of other nut sizes on this Myford 7's accessories; like the bought-new rear tool-post's ISO-M main stud and Whitworth T-bolt nuts. Then I had to reverse the fingers to fit over that billet, meaning some judicious filing of the back end and slot on one of them so it would retract sufficiently. The non-original fittings on the other two allowed straight reversal!

'

Also found help to solve a strange TurboCAD problem that had had me on the verge of giving up CAD for ever. I'd unknowingly switched off one of the many obscure and unintuitive controls that infest the programme.

I couldn't bring myself to do that Larry - burn them alive!

I'm too squeamish and too humane.

Mind you I'm a bit worried about Rik's and Mrs. Shaw's culinary penchant, with their phrase, "tasty little hedgepigs. "

Do you have a set of 55º and 60º thread-gauges? Those and a micrometer - plus of course the thread charts - will determine what fixings were used.

BSW and BSF are certainly pre-War, and so are the American equivalents, though I think the Unified version may be later. The hexagon sizes differ markedly for same thread diameters, between the two nation's specifications.

If this machine is a one-off as seems likely, you'd be very lucky to find a suitable milling-head and may have to fabricate one.

Bearings: I'd thought it possible to obtain replacements. Whoever built it would have almost certainly used stock bearings. Probably worth fitting new anyway unless the original ones can be cleaned up and are in serviceable condition. Caked-on grease is not a problem but corrosion will have destroyed them.

John -

Imperial or Metric?

A good guide would be to measure the easier dimensions on the gears, like thicknesses and shaft diameters, and also establish what system the machine generally was designed to. I'd think it unlikely the manufacturers would have mixed measurements systems, though I suppose it's possible.

Could you use a Taper-Loc bush if feasible to machine the pulley to suit? I think they are made down to that sort of diameter.

I once had a House Snail!

Goodness know how it had got in but the nibbled paper on the door-mat gave a new meaning to "snail mail". I don't think I ever found it, despite trying to trace the mucous trails.

Around the same time my girlfriend's cat was most put out to find slugs coming into the kitchen through whatever secret tunnel they had, and eating her (the cat's, not GF's!) food. I thought slugs were vegan but these obviously liked meat-based pet-food.

Great big toffee-brown things they were, with little tiny white mites ambling about on them, which didn't seem to worry the slugs, but the gastropods generally tend to be rather inscrutable animals. I evicted them though the cat-flap, then spend some time and effort cleaning the goo off my fingers. It seems quite water-proof, must be some use for it in engineering!

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Nick - I can understand your frustration at being so patronised by the school's "Safety" botherers, but could you not use gas firing?

I seem to remember horizontal surfaces in my house, as well as workshop... I see glimpses of them now and then!

I have four of those multi-drawer storage units, saved from the skip at work. Very flimsy steel pressings with brittle plastic drawers, but I nested four in a wheeled stand I made both for a Warco sheet-metal former with these storage units below. The units are lettered A to D, the drawers numbered though by the corner ones only; 1 to N in each unit.

The idea.... assuming similar longevity... Rather than individually labelling each drawer, prepare a printed, alphabetical index, using a spread-sheet and MoD-style nomenclature*, so that it's easy to locate particular items, but also to facilitate moving or changing drawers and contents. The number refers to location, not specific drawers.

* E.g., " Nuts. M6, St/Stl . Nyloc ". [Unit & Drawer] "A .15 " (1 row, 6 columns on the list)

Round Tuits, Spare Moments.... I think I had some. Now, where did I put them?

It does, Tim.

Hang on, where's the mouse gone? Oh there, under.....

Colin -

There is a huge raft of stainless-steel alloys developed for all sorts of different properties and applications, and their designations if not the alloys themselves vary a lot around the world.

You may well need more than just one country's standards tables to identify any of these alloys. The USA is only one country and favours its own specifications, so if it's not listed in the AINSI it may well be in the BS: EN, German DIN or other; but finding them is accordingly as complicated!

307 grades seem a bit odd though. It looks as if it's very much a welding grade, as the only references to it I found without spending half the morning, are as welding wire and rod.

I can support that way of lighting the machine.

I fitted an l.e.d. array strip to the white-board shelf above the Myford lathe. The lamp came as two units you can connect by a short flexible lead (supplied), so I fitted them overlapped a few inches, to fit the full length.

Plus a tubular l.e.d. lamp to underside of the upper of two narrow shelves above the Harrison lathe.

'

However I found a disadvantage to the lights being as open as in your photo, in my workshop. The lights are slightly above my eye-height but were still shining at me, so I screwed a narrow edging-strip to the shelf edges to shade them without any noticeable effect on the machine illumination.

'

While I was at it, I added a steel sheet (part of a scrapped server case) to the lower shelf above the Harrison, to keep the swarf in the chip-tray. It extends to slightly below the rim of the tray but without touching it anywhere, so it can't resonate. The Myford makes do for the moment with an offcut of building insulation-board standing in the tray and propped against the wall.

First physio session at the hospital this morning, then after a gentle afternoon trimming some of the triffids taking over my, err, garden, decided to resume work on the Worden Tool-grinder (Hemingway kit).

Decided which bits to make next - then found I don't have the necessary reamer. Right, plenty of other bits to choose. Collected the tools, metal and drawing (in a plastic folder) together, then stopped for tea.

After which I thought I may as well set up the lathe and make sure I can sit at it on a disability-aids stool... and one thing led to another. Before I knew it and I decided to call it a night, I had scattered swarf all over the shop and completed the first stage of Part 32.

First machining since my operation, was that.

I'm not sure if the back-cloth is for the same purpose, but putting a sheet of white card or similar behind the lathe helps setting anything optically, too.