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Re: Your favourite sub seventy five quid tool?

Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2020 12:15 am
by Alpha1
I definitely need one of them thanks for the link.I spend lots of time centering round stock in all kinds of materials before drilling holes through the center they have to be precise. They are then mounted on a mandrel on the lathe for further turning. I am going to order one to morrow.

Re: Your favourite sub seventy five quid tool?

Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2020 8:40 am
by Ovenpaa
Pleased to have been of assistance Alpha, how have you been clocking them in previously?

Re: Your favourite sub seventy five quid tool?

Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2020 12:59 am
by Alpha1
I have not really been clocking them in at all. Most of my turning now a days is to do with bespoke pens. I have a couple of regular suppliers who cast acrylic bar stock that I work with I also use exotic woods.
My pen turning has gone to a new level. I have invested in a lot of tooling and triple turn taps and dies from the USA. The only bought in parts for my bespoke pens are the nibs, the ink pump and the clip. Everything else is made/turned in house. Unfortunately because the blanks are cast they sell them as 20x20 or 25x25 but its very rare they are actually square. I have experimented with all kinds of set ups. But the bottom line is I have to turn them round and go from there. I have invested in pen jaws to hold the blanks and tried drilling them on the lathe but its not accurate enough. So I am going to give this gizmo a go.
Bespoke pens can sell for £125 up wards so its worth the effort. I am receiving commissions and its some thing I enjoy so I will keep it up.
The metal lathes are still running mainly for small projects for the Company I work for. Apparently because I,m not time served I can not use a lathe at work. But I can take the material home and turn it in my home shop with out any issues and they pay me for the work of course. How weird is that. The last item I machined was shipped out to Singapore.
Its a funny old world we live in.

Re: Your favourite sub seventy five quid tool?

Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2020 4:20 pm
by FredB
My lathe! In 1986 I was visiting a firm in Luton when I spotted an old lathe outside the door, waiting to be taken to the tip. I negotiated a good price---nothing--- and returned the folowing day with a trailer. It is a Finney, made in Birmingham and driven by a belt from an overhead shaft. A new moter cost me £75 and it has functioned flawlessly ever since. Dozens of parts for old guns have been made on it, motorcycle parts for restoration and so on.
Fred

Re: Your favourite sub seventy five quid tool?

Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 9:02 am
by Christel
FredB wrote:My lathe! In 1986 I was visiting a firm in Luton when I spotted an old lathe outside the door, waiting to be taken to the tip. I negotiated a good price---nothing--- and returned the folowing day with a trailer. It is a Finney, made in Birmingham and driven by a belt from an overhead shaft. A new moter cost me £75 and it has functioned flawlessly ever since. Dozens of parts for old guns have been made on it, motorcycle parts for restoration and so on.
Fred

That is just excellent shakeshout

Have you been able to date your lathe?

Those old machines were built to last. We went to a local shop yesterday, out the back I saw four lathes, one Chester and three Colchesters. Cracking piece of machinery.

Re: Your favourite sub seventy five quid tool?

Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 1:01 pm
by Ovenpaa
Hmm.. I am not sure I would include the Chester in the same class as the others although it was a tidy little machine.

Re: Your favourite sub seventy five quid tool?

Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 5:33 pm
by FredB
I looked for Finney lathes on the web years ago but could not fund any information. I moved into our current house in 1990 and quickly rigged up a counter shaft made from turned wooden pulleys--- I had a steel bar and bearings to mount it on. I welded up a frame from some old dexion angle iron and mounted it on the wall above the lathe. At the time, we had a project on engine auxiliary drives at work and there were lots of surplus belts. I used a polygroove drive belt and a tensioer from an American Ford engine with a simple coil spring to tension to keep it reasonably tight. I figured that I could design and make something more sophisticated when time allowed. The bodge-up has functioned flawlessly for almost 30 years.
Fred

Re: Your favourite sub seventy five quid tool?

Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 7:50 pm
by Ovenpaa
I was brought up on belt driven equipment but at the other end, I was occasionally responsible for starting the main motors which were controlled from sub stations with liquid rheostat starters and each one would run a few hundred brick presses. I used to kick the things off very early on a Monday morning (Good overtime) and they would then run for 156 hours continuously.

Now I am not saying they were old, however someone had written 'Faraday is a twit' in the dust :)

Re: Your favourite sub seventy five quid tool?

Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2020 10:18 pm
by 1066
My first lathe was a round bed Drummond from about the 1920's. That was flat belt drive, originally on a treadle base I believe. I still have to original handbooks somewhere.

Re: Your favourite sub seventy five quid tool?

Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2020 11:51 am
by Mattnall
Cheap but useful tool - a magnetic sweeper for about £10.

Saves my back and the guys next door love it since they dropped a large box of screws in the dust of their workshop - found them all before they were found by a car tyre.