Stuff you have made today

[JMS1972]

Thinking things through aloud on line.. I have an antique back shaft lathe circa 1942/3

Recently I've become aware of the lathe chuck slowing & almost stopping even when under the lightest of loads .
I thought I'd cured it by replacing a known part shorted motor .

I've removed & part stripped the headstock shaft to clean out the old greased taper roller bearings that get a shot of grease out the hand held grease gun at the start of each lathe session . Happy to say in the dissolved grease no particles of metal or plastic were found. So binding problem is elsewhere.
The motor is still under warrantee but it runs so quiet you'd think it not on .

That only left the back shaft bearings which are sintered bronze bearing running on a mild steel 3/4 inch shaft . I'd ordered a metre of 3/4 inch drill rod several months ago so it was an easy change out . my biggest problem is that it's so easy to reassemble the simple shaft arrangement . I put one of the bearing mounts back on the wrong way so the oiler cap cannot be accessed to oil up at the start of each session .. will rectify that tomorrow . The old back shaft is full of groves where it's been scoured by something like cast iron dust or abrasive wheel grinding dust , they have both lost almost 2.5 thou on the mild steel bearing surfaces . ( It's not down to me yer Honour )
One thing that confused me is that two of the steel drive dog bosses are held on with tapered pins . I don't have a tapered 1/4 " drill so I step drilled the holes from 1/2 then down in 0.5 mm steps to the smallest size of the taper pin .. they nearly fit well. Might just drill right through them in the proposed future proper re-fit out & use rolled pins if I can get them long enough .

I've now got to consider either re-bushing the two steel phosphor bronze bearing sleeves with Olite bushes or try to accurately turn up two x two ( 4 x 3/4 ID " bearings in two carriers for proper sealed roller bearings .
My problem is that the drill rod is a very fine tolerance precision shaft and is exactly 3/4 of an inch in dia , the ID of the bearings being considered is also a precision 3/4 " which will be a hard interference fit on a ground to 3/4 " dia drill rod shaft . I have to mess around for a few minutes setting bearing sleeves precisely in there mountings so having them rock solid on the shaft is not going to work , grinding or turning off a thou or so on the shaft will also caused problems in a couple of places where precise bored to 3/4 ID driving dogs have to fit . They will slop about if I turn anything off the drill rod .

Hmm .... Just had a thought can you get 3/4 ID bearing plus 2 thou or so oversize ID for situations like this ?

Off to explore sintered phossy bronze , Olite and the Bearing Boys web site.

Not sure about the bearings but you need a taper reamer to finish off the holes for the taper pins.

 

[Hood]

I've wired secondary emergency sockets independent of the mains in our bungalow and changed the hard wired boiler feed to a plug & socket job. When the mains dies after a four minutes outage I plug the boiler in the emergency socket adjacent to the boiler , pull the genny out on it's wheeled doored box , get it running , then open an enclosure box on the back of the bungalow & plug the genny in on a heavy duty fly lead . So far I've only needed it for a three hour outage , caused when someone trashed themselves , their car and two electricity poles that took out three stretches of three phase cables

A good friend made this setting up much easier for me as they supplied me with some portable maintained emergency lights , as soon as the power fails they come on giving me a light source to set things up by .

We have been here 20 years and it is the first power cut we have had, well for any more than a few minutes anyway. If it becomes more frequent I may have to invest in a small generator but as I live in a built up area it would have to be a silent one.

 

[Pete.]

We always fit LED emergency lights by the fuse boards and at the top of the stairs in domestic settings now just for added safety, after all no one wants to wandering around in the dark in the nip looking for the fuse board do they?

Can't you just keep swan vestas and a box of candles like all the other fuse board owners?

 

[Hood]

Can't you just keep swan vestas and a box of candles like all the other fuse board owners?

No need, everyone has smart phones nowadays, they have LED torches on them

 

[selectedgrub]

I used that pair of prototype risers.
With all the locks on my special room it needed an upgraded handle.

 

[Onoff]

What was it billy connelly said " no such thing as bad weather , just the wrong clothes "

And something about where he grew up, you knew it was cold when the polar bears started stealing scarves.

 

[Onoff]

We have been here 20 years and it is the first power cut we have had, well for any more than a few minutes anyway. If it becomes more frequent I may have to invest in a small generator but as I live in a built up area it would have to be a silent one.

All overhead lines here in the back end of nowhere.

The gennie is buried in the garage missing a capacitor and God knows what state the fuel is in. I should have added a preserver.

A Summer job I never did was to fit the changeover gennie switch I bought next to the consumer unit. That's buried somewhere too.

Looks like it'll be the widow maker lead again then!

 

[Hood]

I was actually thinking that an inverter and a battery pack would be good enough for me for emergencies. The central heating wouldn't draw much current as it is only the control as the boiler is gas so the battery would last a good while and it might be worth investigating.

 

[dobbslc]

Don't forget the pump!

 

[Hood]

Don't forget the pump!

True.

 

[James1979]

I was actually thinking that an inverter and a battery pack would be good enough for me for emergencies. The central heating wouldn't draw much current as it is only the control as the boiler is gas so the battery would last a good while and it might be worth investigating.

I’ve got a ups for the plasma which is basically what you describe. If the power goes out I can’t use the plasma itself but it’ll buy me enough time to shut the computer down properly.

 

[Fraserb]

We've been off since 7pm on Friday, looking like it'll be late tonight or tomorrow its back on, wife has me investigating generators

 

[bricol]

Hmm .... Just had a thought can you get 3/4 ID bearing plus 2 thou or so oversize ID for situations like this ?

Don't know - you can have bearings ground specially though.

But you can also buy ground toleranced bar.

 

[Onoff]

I scored a bfo ups from work a while back. Must go 50kg. My back goes just lifting it. Must investigate whether it just needs new batteries which I think is the case. Dumped I think purely as they were upgrading.

 

[daleyd]

Don't forget the pump!

And the combustion fan!

 

[dobbslc]

We've been off since 7pm on Friday, looking like it'll be late tonight or tomorrow its back on, wife has me investigating generators

Pain in the ****!
But I bet if you were looking at buying a generator last week you would've got the evil stare for wasting money...

 

[slim_boy_fat]

will see what its like when i use it vibration wise

I'll probably hear you from here.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

We've been off since 7pm on Friday, looking like it'll be late tonight or tomorrow its back on, wife has me investigating generators

Next BBC news headline..."National generator shortage".

 

[Cobbler]

Next BBC news headline..."National generator shortage".

No Slim, government say all new generators must be fitted with catalytic converters & stop start technology & £12 a day within the low emission zone!

 

[dobbslc]

And must all be electric by 2035...