Anyone been to the Harrogate show yet ?

Had a good day, walked miles. Eldest son loved helicopters flying, RC trucks and planes. Could have used some more seats around the place. Good chat and lots to photograph ( that's tomorrows mission!).

Hadn't got any major planned purchases but was "inspired" to save on a few baulbles..... etc, etc.

Glad some one mentioned silver solder must visit CUP tomorrow! Forgot that!

Is John S trained in CPR or mouth to mouth?

Had good day at the show, bought a Warco WM14 mill, a stuart 10V set of castings to try out the mill and a bag of brass and Aluminium. Met Neil from MEW and had a quick chat. Lots of good models on show and a few clocks but only 2 of them working. Shame there are not more clocks on show. The Chester stand was a bit small, Warco was very big. Less visitors than the Ally Paly shows.

Good day really. Mr Harrison bought me a drink, met an old school mate from Glasgow, bumped into Dave Fenner, Ivan Law, D.A.G. Brown plus a few more lads I know. Better not say too much about the spend, SWMBO may come across this message. All in all, a nice day. Still think it's the best show, but like all the others we could do with more of the trade attending. You can't beat handling what you may buy.

Regards,

Alan.

Well I managed to chat to a good many readers today, some new faces and some I've met before - Graham must have passed me just after I arrived (about 12:15) and was heading for the loo!

The Arc stand wasn't marked as such, just John with a pair of EMG-12s and (usually) an audience, but it was only two stands from the front desk.

No College or Noggin, but Blackgates and several other stands with a good selection of ferrous and non-ferrous.

Bought some aluminium welding wire which might help with tripod stiffening, and an MT0 reamer for the Adept.

Interesting new products not just from Arc, but from Warco, Machine-DRO, Chester, Eccentric Engineering and others plus a some new (and some odd) tooling. Will put these in the mag.

A few other photos from the show:

General view

Nice spiral flute taps from Greenwood

Electric traction fans will like these displays from Minimag - the displays are MUCH crisper than this photo. So new they haven't even fixed a price yet:

They also had a selection of protiotype solenoid engines, they do a kit for not too many £££s

Eccentric have something very interesting brewing (more detail in issue 230 :

And a pride of lions:

Few more pics:

A big steamy thing:

It seems to have some smaller relatives:

And boats playing football:

Hi, I went today, very good as usual, bought a few bits, watched John S demonstrating Arc's end mill sharpening machine and had a chat with Neil.

I was fascinated by a working model shaping machine in the photo below.

Regards Nick.

I went yesterday as my first visit and really enjoyed it, I'd recommend it to anyone thinking of going in future.

I'd intended to look at the lathes and after a very helpful chat with the staff at Chester Machines I ended up buying one of their DB8VS machines. The guy I dealt with was very helpful and gave me what I though was a really good deal.

It really is unfortunate that since the relocation of the show some years ago, it's not viable to travel with the associated rail costs and overnight accommodation.

Stoneleigh was relatively accessible after a 2 and a half hour drive from the south coast and we used to attend every year.

I can't remember why the venue was altered, but it was mooted that previous venue was too far south for more northern visitors to attend.

Lofty,

I don't wish to spar with you, but the country as a whole suffers far too much in the way of bias in favour of all things South.

Stoneleigh is a fair haul from up here and the South is already well served with other Exhibition sites that might as well be on the far side of the moon in terms of access for those of us living oop Norf.

As far as I know, there is nothing serving Scotland, why not I ask?

I for one would be deeply saddened to see this excellent and well attended Exhibition relocated to the South on a whim having run at the Harrogate location for the better part of 25 years

Brian Thirsk North Yorkshire

Hi Lofty76, as far as I'm aware the exhibition at Harrogate has always been at Harrogate. Are you getting muddled up with the Midlands exhibition which used to be at Stoneleigh and then they held it at Castle Donington from 1996, which is now held at the Warwick Exhibition Centre since 2005.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 10/05/2015 14:58:56

Only sorry I coud not attend Harrogate this year having "gone North" every year almost since this excellent show first setup. By "gone North" I mean from Hampshire. If those who wanted CES had checked Colleges' website, CES were not expecting to be there.

Edited By KWIL on 10/05/2015 14:48:19

Not a spar at all Brian, it just means that we personally are not able to easily travel that distance, as are many other members of Southern clubs.

The Stoneleigh show was the best for us, the London one mainly seemed to concentrate less on live steam and more on model aircraft et al and was much more crowded.

The Warwick (Leamington) Show was at Stoneleigh before it moved to Donington. It now happens further south than ever!

Neil

Ok Neil, got you the first time

I don't think it was as good as the Harrogate show though.

May have changed.

Well, its been there since 1994 Nick, we were going to Stoneleigh in the early eighties.

Pretty sure I have a communication somewhere from the Southern Federation telling us about the demise of the Stoneleigh venue with a recommendation for the Harrogate one.

.

Yes I have today. (Sunday)

I got round a fair bit quicker than last year. This is due to me having a little bit more knowledge this year as what I wanted to see and I don't think there were the footfall numbers there were last year.

Managed to purchase the things I wanted :-

Silver solder and flux from the very helpful guy's on the Cupalloy stand.

Some copper plate and tube for practicing silver soldering.

A good quality second hand D1-3 backplate to put a ER32 collet chuck on that I have. This needs a fair bit carving off though as it's a 200mm one and the chuck is only 125mm

I also semi-impulse purchased a parting tool from 'Eccentric engineering' (Was on my list of future purchases anyway) This is due to the very positive experiences I have had with their diamond tool holder already.

Here is a short video **LINK** of me taking reducing cuts off the backplate with said diamond tool holder if anyone is interested.

Back home by 3:00pm for a cup of Char, a sarnie and a little snooze.

Nick

You should have trepanned that off and saved it for a flywheel rim or similar.

Look forward to seeing your photos in the next few days

Well back from the 3 days at the show and a very enjoyable time but a few points first from previous posts.

I feel Lofty is being very unfair over the criticism of Harrogate. The NORTHERN SHOW [ hint in the name ] has always been at Harrogate. The Stoneleigh show was the original Midlands show, possibly because it's in the MIDLANDS ? Which then moved to Castle Donnington and then Warwick.

There are 5 main shows in the UK, and in calendar order are Alexandra palace in January, Harrogate in May, Bristol in August, Midlands in October and MEX around Christmas.

4 out of these 5 are in the south so I feel it's very unfair that he criticises anyone in the North for having the balls to host one show ?

And as other remarks about travelling ALL the shows are in the same boat, if you live close to one you have no problem, if you have to travel then you have a problem. NO ONE lives close to all five shows, just live with it.

Now the show, Really enjoyed myself, met many new people and also renewed acquaintance with many old friends. I feel that Harrogate is the best show of the year. It has an atmosphere that seems to be lacking at other shows. Plenty of room, dedicated halls with plenty of power, good hard standing parking and plenty of space for the larger models to run around outside.

I was there for one reason, if you don't count my jolly, and that was to demonstrate the end mill grinder. This was on my time, my shilling and not paid for by ARC although I did get a free meal on Saturday night so the £4 is now down to £3

First off got loads on negative views ranging from it only sharpens the ends [ Yes it was ONLY designed for that in the same way a Myford lathe can't plasma cut metal ]

You can buy a lot of milling cutters for £800 [ perfectly true and if you are someone who won't use £800 worth of milling cutters in you life then a valid point and so it's not for you ] Acra Machine tools were also there with a very large and heavy industrial 14 x 40 lathe with a price tag of £8,000. That won't fit in the average 10 x 6 wooden shed with single phase but didn't stop them coming and I'll bet they didn't have anyone telling them it was too expensive ?

So once the negatives were out the way and simply discounted we got on to the serious players. I had a LOT of interest from a few clubs who soon realised they need to spend money or pay tax and the spin off is once paid for it is then a source of revenue all year and not just fine track days.

A couple of University workshops expressed an interest as did a few serious model engineers who have the foresight to look ahead. Milling cutters are never going to get cheaper and good carbide has never been cheap.

Over the weekend I sharpened a total of 232 cutters brought in by punters, split 91, 71 and 70 on the Sunday. Average commercial price for doing cutters is about £5.50 upwards.

I did many that were good cutters but commercially not viable to sharpen. One one is going to pay £5.50 to regrind a 4mm cutters costing less than this but it now has a new life.

I could have done more but a lot of time was spent repeating how it works and how to set up. I also ground 40 / 50 ? that I brought up in case I had no cutters from punters. These were not included in the total of 232.

I was never hard pushed, often had 3 or 4 people waiting but it wasn't a bind.

These were mainly HSS but probably 20% were carbide. In fact the first person on Friday rolled up with 7 carbide cutters that he gleefully told me I wouldn't be able to do anything with as they were chipped and badly broken [ nice one ]

He left after about 15 minutes with 6 of them sharpened perfectly and has to come back later for the 7th as I had to grind about 8mm off it.

Worst one was an extended 1/2" cutter with about the last 5/8" badly damaged and the guy was perfectly willing to scrap this due to the damage but it survived to cut another day. I was a shame to waste a long cutter like this.

All this was done for free with donations asked for the Children's Heart Trust, a charity my daughter is involved with. No price was inferred or offered, it being left to the punter and I made a point of not even looking at what went in the collection box, most paid but some I think didn't realise there was a charity box and said thanks and walked off, not worried.

At the end of the weekend I had collected £170.89 for the charity and I'd like to take this chance to thank everyone who called round the stand, whether they brought cutters or not, for their company and support.

I'd also like to extend my thanks to the organises of the Harrogate show for the help and friendly support given.

Edited By John Stevenson on 11/05/2015 10:03:43

Nick G,

Why reduce the diameter for the full depth, surely you only need the diameter reduced for the spigot length to fit the chuck recess ? remove the collet chuck and you would still have a faceplate for special jobs.

Emgee

Hi John,

I took your advice and dug deeper, but still with the diamond tool holder.

You were right. But I only went to 125 thou inch depth resulting in 1/4 inch coming off at each pass. It was still quite happy at this but I did not want to push further due to the tool post I have being of poor quality and having movement. (a decent one is on my wish list)

Cheers, Nick