Recent content by Hopefuldave

Neat mod that, another good one is a thrust bearing between the top nut and the toolpost, lets you apply a lot more hold-down force with less effort (assuming you have enough thread sticking out the top) and gives a stiffer feel / less chance of rotation under cutting forces. Dave H. (the...

Easiest to drop the apron to work on it, is it the gear that engages the feedshaft worm? Drive out the pins at the gearbox end of the leadscrew and feedshaft, remove the tailstock end bracket, slide them out, and the fwd-reverse switch shaft - you can now unbolt the apron from the saddle, get...

Interesting - ever looked at a Vauxhall slant 4 (the 2.3 SOHC fitted to Victors and CF vans)? On the upper side of the block there are 4 Big blanked off holes where it was meant to be a V8 until the 70s oil crisis came along! Lotus based their 4s And V8s around them, the 5-bearing cranks are...

Very much a cheat, worms for some DP pitches are surprisingly close to metric threads, for Module pitches surprisingly close to tpi... An example, for 16 DP the correct pitch in mm is pi * 25.4 / 16, giving 4.987 mm - so 5mm pitch can be close enough... For 2 module, correct pitch in inches is...

Holbrook supplied a comprehensive kit for their toolroom lathes: An 8:1 spindle speed reducer that sat on the ways ahead of the spindle and engaged with it, with a matching spindle nose and indexing assembly; A cross-slide mounted relieving slide with an internal cam to advance and retract the...

Hi.again Ausdier, Agreed there's a brace, but by positioning it there near the top you'll apply probably 4 times as much tension to.it, and more importantly 4 times the force to the welds... A bigger triangle is always less stressed :-) How low friction is your trolley? Anything less than...

Agreed, 2"-3" x 1/4" strip between the caster mounting plates would be in the right area, it'll be in tension so doesn't need to be box-section, otherwise the welds on the.legs are going to be under a serious "peeling" load and would be first to fail in service... If the.top beam's clamped...

Sadly too true, I spent a miserable time working for one of England's better-known importers of.Chinese machines and tools, they were ALL of poor quality apart from a couple of lines that were discontinued when the prices either held steady or rose to maintain their production quality... What...

A good place to start is the metric gear spec. - Mod 0.7 is 0.7mm diameter per.tooth at the pitch line, so the tooth pitch will be Pi x 0.7mm, tooth thickness half that. The pressure angle is 20 degrees so as a hob is effectively a rack cutting the teeth you can make the hob flanks straight with...

I measured my BXA toolpost for a similar thread, top of the (5/8") toolholder slot is at 1-1/8" above the base when dropped right down, so you wouldn't be able to use bigger than 1/2" tooling, so the AXA sounds like a better fit.

I'll weigh in with Cheepo, the difference in quality shows first in smoothness of operation, then actual fit (particularly on camlock chucks), then accuracy in the sense of squareness / parallelism of the jaws- an out-of-square 4-jaw will let you be as accurate as you can centring up at...

Les, I.think.by.'clock gauge' Abby means Dial Indicator', nothing specific to clocks! Abby, any jarring or impact can cause iron and steel to magnetize, outside magnetic field supplied by the Earth!

Hi CP, I wouldn't suggest the Gingery build-your-own, unless you're more interested in making tools than making engines... As has been pointed out, space and funds will dictate your 'shop, but if you're aiming to keep costs down used light-industrial machinery can be cheaper than hobby...

Ahhh.... 20mm is nowhere near 3/4", 19mm is.close! I don't think.you can scale between metric and inch sizes like that, setting the inch increments to 1/32", you'll end up with parts that don't fit.... You need to make the conversion with dimensions accurate to the thou", and work to that...

I'm going to second Goldstar's comments, there's no point testing or adjusting *anything* until all twist is removed from the lathe bed and ways. A good quality sensitive level is essential, as is a parallel or two for spanning V and flat beds - unless your machine has a T-slotted boring table...