Disconnected rumblings

[mac]

Don't know if there are many gardeners here - but I shall inflict this on you anyway.

Everything is late this year, but finally my Wisteria,






Oh - all right you can have some 300 stuff -

Had a sort out - my new parts store.







Tootle ooo.
Mac.

[MCHUDD]

Hi Mac.
Great parts stash you have there mate.
Much better orginized than me
Cheers Mark.

[jtbo]

Woodle woo, that is looking good

Having everything in such good order must make finding things super easy, what a great source of inspiration those pics are for us all to do some of the same.

My potatoes are not yet growing, at least visibly, still couple weeks until there would be some growing. Lingonberry has started to come flower now, also blueberry has been some time now, lot of swamp flowers too, right at my backyard which has swamp, gravel hills and swamps with small ponds, such is scenery here, some 200 meters above sea level.

It is a good life at summer time

[Duvel78]

Don't know if there are many gardeners here - but I shall inflict this on you anyway.

Yes! Yes Mac! Same situation here, everything is so late... The rhodondendron in my garden started to produce his flowers only 2 weeks ago, very late!

Very jealous on your well organized place, if only I could do the same

[V6 Man]

Sorry, thought the first pic was of Mac's beard ..........

[SteveP]

Sorry, thought the first pic was of Mac's beard ..........

[thebear54]

A clean desk is a sign of a sick mind Mac.

Not even my parts center looks this organized...and I pride myself in knowing where everything is...LOL

John

[classicswede]

Tootle ooo.
Mac.

Spoting in that photo reminds me. Did anything ever happen with the idea of cast diff covers?


When I was in school I used to be a keen gardener but since finding cars and women I have no time for flowers anymore. Perhaps when my beard grows as long as yours things will change

[trabitom99]

Love the Wisteria and the parts store. I can offer a pic of my chaotic garage and my kids' snails' graveyard in the garden, but that will have to wait.

Cheers

Tom

[jtbo]

I'm not so much into flowers, but this is something I have now growing:


This has been put in bit later, it has been too hot to work on that field, so not sure if I get much harvest, but at least I get some.


Next year is my main target for big harvest, that is a new field so first season is not usually very good.

[macplaxton]

I 'ate gardening. Had enough of it in the last fortnight

[jtbo]

I 'ate gardening. Had enough of it in the last fortnight

They say that it is relaxing and relieves stress, I doubt they never did any real gardening in their lives

It is quite annoying, especially with amount of insects we have here and physically very demanding, but one gets free food or beauty to eye if doing flower gardening.

I need to move stones size half of the head from section of my field that is not ready yet, lot of soil turning needs to be done too, but at the end it should be worth it.

[mac]

Might as well continue to use this thread as a general dump for my rumblings (should be ramblings but with the state of my digestive system rumblings is more appropriate).

Some years ago I acquired a 1953 Box-Ford model A (a 4.5" lathe girls) in generally abused condition. The ways were worn, the headstock had been butchered (the back gear and its shaft were entirely missing and the sliding gear had been bolted to the head pulley set). But the powered apron and crosslide, and the gearbox were perfect and it cost me half of owt!.
Since then I have been slowly gathering the bits needed to fettle it (from tool dealers, e-bay and Box-Ford (now Boxford) themselves. I'd managed to gather a complete change wheel set (I know Model A has a g/box but it was Imperial and I wanted to cut Metric threads) but I never found a good headstock, until last July that is. On the bay was a horribly unflattering pile of rusted metal - but everything looked to be there so I took a risk and joined the fun.
With poorly maintained, incomplete examples reaching £400-500 I had hopes that the apparent condition would put people off - and so it proved. £166 secured it!.
A trip to the Essex marshes found it to be far, far better than I expected, and complete. A model C so no powered apron and no gearbox but it was a 1957 Metric, with a superb ph1 motor and Dewhurst reverser. The ways were unmarked and unworn and the rust literally wiped away (super quality metal). I decided to make up a hybrid using the bed,tail stock (less spindle), headstock and drive gear - together with my gearbox, leadscrew and apron assy.

As most know, I have been a touch "fragile" lately but have nevertheless contrived to "do something most days".
I have started to play around with heater resistor packs, I have started to put the 3door back together, and I have started working on my lathe again.!!

Below is the headstock in process of fettling, together with main spindle, back gear set, pulley and sliding gear. The motor has been fully rebuilt and you can also see the tumbler reverse has been done.



The bed plinths have been cleaned and painted



And just to show I wasn't always a bearded old fart I enclose a more normal pic.
Mr & Mrs Mac attending a formal dinner dance in 1981.



And visiting Sizewell 'A' nuclear power station in 1984.



Back under my rock.
Mac.

[Chris_C]

Mmmmmmmm, lathes.

I didn't know you were restoring one Mac, looking good. Is the current plan to use the original to supplement the Essex one? What is the Box-Ford way of metrificating the leadscrew, a 127tooth gear?

I've not found a huge number of reasons to screw cut threads, I prefer using a die when I can, but having a decent low speed can be useful for a feed (although it sounds like yours is posh enough to have a dedicated if it's got a powered cross slide?)

[mac]

Imperial lead screw - use a 127/100 compound gear for metric work
Metric lead screw - use a 135/127 compound gear for imperial threads.

I intend to build "one out of two" using the metric bed, headstock and tail stock body, transferring over the imperial leadscrew, gearbox, tailstock internals etc. that way I keep the powered apron and crosslide.

Mac.