Member postings for Russ B

I picked up a £29.99 cordless angle grinder (no battery, no charger) as I already had a 4Ah battery and charger that came with the £59.99 400nm impact gun (which is a superb quality piece of kit, and its got some serious oomph, way more than any pneumatic hand held gun ive used!)

Back to the grinder....

2 issues, the no load speed is only about 7500rpm, not the 10,000 advertised, I didn't charge my battery (as I dont intend on using it and long term storage outside of 30-60% charge is very damaging for a lithium pack). My 3 bar battery indicator shows full, however these show full at anything over about 30% from what I've read online, so not to be trusted. I'll charge it up tonight and see how it goes.

Issue 2...
It's easily got the worst on switch I've ever seen, horrible wobbly bit of plastic that latches in at the end with a nasty sharp feeling hook thats held in by the spring tension of the switch trying to return to the off position. The side of the "slot" that the thumb switch slides up and down is notched on one side so assuming you're right handed, its like a sort of safety feature, you have to guide the wobbly switch away from it, as your right thumb naturally pushes towards it - no "safety" for lefties I guess! Its pretty awful, and its the looseness of the switch and the sharp cheap catch feeling that makes it so. It frequently gets caught on something and won't move from off, must be a notch or catch under the button that cant be seen, perhaps you're supposed to press it in before you slide it.

The casing plastic is cheap, sharp looking flashings etc.

Overall, looks nice, but the quality is absolutely no where near that of the big 400nm impact driver I bought. Bit of a let down to say the least. Although it was only £29.99 and I've got the battery and charger and I'm sure it'll do exactly the job its supposed to - I'm still tempted to take it back.

This one is the newer version that looks the same as the old one, but the battery is at an angle to the body - not sure if thats any different.

Anyone else got one, what are your thoughts?

I also tried my 2 nearest Lidl stores on Friday with no luck, however I did pickup one of the cordless angle grinders I've been keeping an eye out for for the last 9+ months so that's a real bonus!

I bought my freehand/bench top horizontal bandsaw from Aldi online at about £150 delivered, its still my favourite Aldi/Lidl buy, and is still on its original blade, still razor sharp. I wish Lidl had an online store.

One of the Lathe headstocks I'd worked on had a broke ridge line in the lid above the spindle which allowed oil to run off and drip on the gears below, the last of the ridges dripped into a reservoir cast above the nose bearing providing lube.

Another one of them (Colchester) had a steel fabricated reservoir on top that directed oil to the various parts, including the clutches hidden away at the back of the box.

It's for this reason that I don't use the Newton Tesla drive on my Myford 280 below 50%, as reducing the speed of the whole gearbox any further stops oil being thrown up from the bottom of the box to reach the necessary parts. I keep meaning to pop the case open and reprogram the pot to range from 50-150%

Geoff, I'm only 17,000 km away, I'll drop in if I'm passing!

I bought a Myford 280 with a noisy gearbox, one of the interference fit gears had come loose and could slide left and right (correction, it could slide left, it shouldve been up against a shoulder on its right), I rebuilt the gearbox and there wasn't anything else wrong I could see (correction, something else was wrong, I don't recall what but you could "rub" gears together by pushing the selectors in certain directions, something wasn't aligned or secured or something). I used dab of special Loctite for very close fitting parts requiring a high bond while immersed in oil. It's smooth and has been whispering along for years now.

(The gear top left should have been against that shoulder)

I also recall the spindle bearings (Gamet Super Precision) required an end float of a 10th of thou off the top of my head (2um ish) and it was probably 5 times that although I couldn't see or feel anything moving! it was such a small number I'm sure even the 1000lbs of casting could flex that much if I pulled and pushed them!!

I think we need to know what lathe you've got, and if the noise is related to the input or output speed of the machine. I can see from that photo you have 3 ratios that you can transmit from the input shaft the layshaft under it but It's unclear to me what happens after that, I'm guessing another 3 position selector and perhaps a seperate backgear but I don't count enough gears or envisage enough throw on the selector for that to work, more info needed.

Where are you located, if you're local I could take a look/listen which counts for more than a thousand words!

Edited By Russ B on 05/02/2020 14:41:49

Just my thoughts but you can't sensibly machine anything massive with an ER32 chuck and they do slip, so it's not going to see a lot of shock unless you really do something silly - and even then, I'd expect you'd see more variation in strength from a cheapo M6 bolt to a rated 4.6 or 8.8 for example - what grade is it? (A2 I'd guess?)

Even A2 has a higher yield than 4.6, and I'd be happy enough to use that - I'd just avoid anything unrated/monkey metal.

Edited By Russ B on 17/12/2019 15:39:51

Terry what do you need help with exactly? Ive recently fitted new belts to mine (at work) they're a tad on the tight side and not quite the right section but they do the job, I could advise on what I'd order instead i(for £2 odd they cost I might just reorder as mine do slip a little on the lowest speeds.)

I've never welded cast iron, but I thought preheating the rods and the part, plus peening the weld as it cooled was best practice? Hopefully someone with first hand experience can provide some tips!

I got a bit over ambitious with my chinese sheet metal folder and cracked the casting clean in half....... I was going to replace it with solid bar, but it woudln't hurt to have a go at welding it - it would save me £30 and a fair amount of swarf....

Edited By Russ B on 29/10/2019 10:10:51

Thats exactly what I just thought when I read it!

Searching for one now.......

I'm going to give RAL 7012 a try instead of RAL 7011, it's ever so slightly lighter and has a slight tip towards more green and red over blue (this makes it more cream in colour) -

RAL 7011 RAL 7012

They look so much darker on screen than they are in real life, I'm not sure why.

+1 from me too, have ordered several things and been surprised every time by the speed of delivery.

Edited By Russ B on 12/08/2019 09:49:13

I'll probably miss a few ....

Sieg SX1L from ArcEuroTrade - really great little machine once I'd removed the tilting column however the 100-150w motor was a pretty serious issue, I'd still happily have that machine now if it weren't for that.

Bridgeport dual speed motor belt driven (J head was it?) with mechanical variable speed cross feed on the table. Easily my favourite machine, it could tackle anything and had a shaper on the back, I loved it, but it was 7 feet tall and took up half the width of my domestic garage by the time you'd allowed enough space to rotate the ram and move the table left and right. Miss it, but it was impractical in a garage my size, maybe one day I'll be able to have one.

RF-30 machine, really heavy duty piece of kit, round column means you lose x/y coordination when raising/lowering the head which has to be done quite alot when changing from end mills in the spindle collets to drills in a chuck etc, can be worked around with stubby drills & hold everything in an ER collet - solid, reliable, and with the mentioned work around, very useable, would outlast me.

RF45 - seriously big hunk of kit for a desktop, the quick speed changes on the mill head was handy (bought at auction it was going cheap, sold to a friend + £100 for my troubles/transport)

Astra L4 horizontal and vertical mill - probably the nicest machine I've owned, it was so capable, but so small, it had to go! Being a horiztonal mill, the vertical milling was done via a knuckle type head mounted directly on the horizontal spindle, leaving very very little room down to the table. It was a very very small machine with very limited x,y travel, ideal if you only want to make small things on a 3.5" lathe but no good for my general purpose, I miss it, and i dont miss it at the same time!

My current machine and I don't think I'll ever sell it, unless a VMF falls in to my lap(... Frank.... ahem.... just in case you need the space in crete.... ) Myford VMC with 5 micron M-DRO scales and central lube system, the slides and screws are the smoothest of any machine I've ever used, they're on par with bad ballscrews, it's a dream to use, I will make a small column riser if/when needed as it's ever so slightly tight but it's not given me any real trouble yet (I've got two pieces of stock the right size for a 3.5" raiser, I'll use one and sell the other once made).

I had to get a small mill for general use and heavy duty drilling at work and I went with an RF30 clone as it's just a solid piece of kit, belt drive, very little to go wrong - someone drilled the table within a week, bloody apprentices and electricians.......

This should make light work of my CES/Jacobs hobber castings

https://youtu.be/otUPiTs5vFg

Looks like it's a nice 10 inch shaper with a few neat little features. A chap called Mark correctly identifed it by PM but I'd not checked, thanks to mark and as I said to him, I look forward to getting it and hope it's all present and correct.... And if it isn't a new project is born (The shaper works I've just not explored all the features as I don't know what I'm looking at)

Edited By Russ B on 22/07/2019 22:55:10

Well I'd googled for hours before posting this and now after half an hour of looking I've found it!

Eriksen Shaper

Does anyone know what this shaper is, it's stroke is about 8 inch off the top of my head.

Flat ways on the ram and table etc not dovetail

Looks like a little lever on the back perhaps sets the speed to 3 or 4 presets (I'm guessing due to its proximity to the input shaft)

Can be set to index left/right or up/down

Nice piece of kit, I'm hoping it'll be in my garage very soon, I've always wanted a shaper although I'd envisioned it would be vice mounted and hand operated, but what I really need is just a bigger workshop!

I did search AirgunBBS and BSA owners forum but I didn't have any success. I have left John a message and have been assured he will call back.

Many thanks for the quick replies, I honestly spent an hour or more looking for even a crumb trail - forum skills need more of a refurb than my rifle apparently!

Does anyone have contact details for the legend/gunsmith/designer John Bowkett. I've picked up a Titan Manitou which seems to have a few unusual features. I'm planning on stripping it, having it hot blued locally and giving the stock some love, I just wondered if the man himself would be able to service it or even refurbish it for me.

I'm going to have a good look when I get the chance, but I think the barrel and receiver are extended but I'm not sure. The top of the dovetail is also serrated/grooved, looks to be the factory finish, I've not seen this before and can't find any photos similar online.

All the best,

Is the saddle thicker on older machines? I'd seen some photos online which seemed to show some meatier than others, but I couldn't tell if it was age,model or rebrand specific etc