Another new member

Hello, Now retired I spent 35 years managing in the IT industry and then 15 years as an academic (getting a PhD and teaching management).

I am interested in clocks, and am teaching myself to service and repair the ones I have as well as "fiddling" (my wife's term) with other things. I am (slowly) learning the skills needed to be a machinist.

I have had a small Taig lathe (ER16 collet head) and an old 6mm watchmakers lathe for several years. The Taig has a vertical slide, and I have been able to mill bits and pieces on it. However I have run into the limitations of my (very) old drill press (hand drill on a stand) and was finding setting up the Taig to mill a pain. So I have just invested in a SX1LP mill from Arc Eurotrade with an MT2 ER16 Adapter.

I now seem to be spending most of my time now making tooling, clamps and other bits and pieces for the mill and lathe rather than clocking! Next project is a Harold Hall grinding rest so that I can sharpen the broken drills and blunted tools properly.

Hello Peter and welcome. I think that the tooling problem is a universal one but at least making it yourself gives valuable practice at using the machines. Some people never get beyond this stage and are happy making tools.

All the best with the clock repairing, have you any plans for clockmaking?

Brian

Thanks. No plans for clockmaking! I have rather too many clocks as it is. In any case clockmaking would involve gear cutting and (after so many years in IT) I am averse to highly repetitive activities. That is what computers are for.

So clock making probably lies on the far side of a timeline that includes CNC - and I have a LOT to learn before I even contemplate that.

Hello and welcome Peter

I was always interested in clocks having taken old alarm clocks apart as a teenager to see how they worked. Most of them went back together and continued working!

In my retirement my wife bought me a Vienna regulator (American) on Ebay and I restored that and was pleased to get it working. Later, on researching my family tree, I discovered that three generations of my ancestors were watch and clock makers so I took the plunge and started clock making as well as repairing clocks for friends. Making gears (more correctly called wheels and pinions) isn't that tedious.

Your new mill is very good for small items and could be converted for CNC. I have an SX2P which I have converted for CNC and find it very useful for crossing out wheels which is more difficult than cutting the teeth.

Have fun.

Russell

Hi Peter welcome to the forum. Join the fiddlers and menders and if you need any info it mainly will be forthcoming on here.

David

Hi Peter, Welcome to the forum. Tom.

Welcome to the forum Peter, using tooling you have made yourself is very satisfying.

Neil

Welcome.

I make tools,(and a lot of swarf and reclaimed scrap; but not all is reclaimed! )

Enjoy yourself

Howard

Welcome to the forum

H