Garden Railway Forum

I will be honest and confess I have no idea what a spindle stop is or how it works? :oops: As Ian said, a spindle stop for a lathe is just a gizmo that acts as a position stop for parts held in the lathe chuck (which is why it's also called a chuck depth stop), so parts can be turned without resett...

Its a WARCO WM180. It is very competively priced and is the same specification as the OPTiturn 2004 at a better price. The spec looks good, much the same as Optimum without the price premium for the extra 10mm of centre height. Interesting that Warco test and measure each machine before delivery. T...

Once set up once for zero it's very quick and easy to pop a new crank on and drill it, it will save me sooooo much time going forwards My initial idea was similar to that, except it would have located the crank from the crankpin hole, so I could drill the hole for the grub screw. Then I had a bette...

I don't like giving up but I want to get back to modelling again and have negotiated a deal with one of the better quality suppliers for a much higher quality lathe. I sometimes wonder how many mini-lathes are sitting around rusting, due to quality issues that the average aspiring ME can't overcome...

I don't think it's going to be able to cope with anything I would need to produce or modify in 5" gauge. Only if you were working in wood. It would be OK for pattern making for instance. The usual rule of thumb for cutting metals is that at least two teeth should be in contact with the metal in the...

Thanks for that. Your description kicked my mind out of a rut. For some reason I had got it fixed in my head when machining cranks to drill the axle hole, then drill and tap for the crankpin and finally drill and tap for the grub screw. Sigh......... By using the sequence of axle, then grub screw an...

I'm not a particular fan of ceramic burners. The only one I've built was no better at boiling water than a poker burner with the same size jet. I can see the point of using them in locos designed for dual coal and gas firing, but remain unconvinced otherwise. I'n considering building a perforated pl...

A bit more time on the shed, the pictures do not show the con rods, but I made those as well and tried it as just the 6 wheels and again, works perfectly, no fettling required. You're on a roll......... ;) I wondered if you'd used that sort of jig for milling the axles, as I made one recently while...

Like you, I first turn the wheel profile parallel with the topslide clamped, which minimises chatter when turning the root radius. I then turn the taper using the topslide, as there's no chatter if the tool is sharp and isn't trying to form a radius. The Colchester Triumph 2000 I had in the mech lab...

One thing I have found is that increasing the frequency seems to diminish the range of speed settings to which the motor responds. The higher the pwm frequency, the more like DC it becomes, so the motor starting voltage increases. That may be what you are seeing. When DCC went to 'silent' decoders,...

The 1503 is basically a Unimat 3 on steroids. I imagine one would rapidly get RSI in the right arm from winding the carriage back and forth. Their larger models from the 2004 up do have at least one nice feature not used by Sieg, the carriage handwheel is on the right of the apron, out of the way of...

I've now discovered how to vary the PWM setting and so here's how the loco behaves on 12kHz and 8kHz. Most human hearing goes up to about 20kz, although sensitivity at the higher frequencies drops off as you get older. From memory 'silent drive' DCC decoders run above 15kHz. I can hear the buzz fro...

so I think the track is fairly well laid if I say so myself.... I don't doubt that, but we live in a universe where entropy increases.... The odds are the track will move over time. Mine is partly built on fill and I'm already seeing slight gradients that weren't there when I built it...... :roll: ...

I need some advice please on some bogies. Loosen the bogie mounting screw so the bogie can tilt fore and aft and rock side to side, as well as rotate freely. Since the rear driving axle is presumably fixed in position, that will give you 3 point suspension and make the model less sensitive to the t...

Just looked at the OPTIMUM lathes. These are nice pieces of kit. If the one you looked at is 114kg, it sounds like one of the 2304 versions. They are equivalent to the C4 in the Sieg range which is one of the machines I've looked at. With a 230mm swing and 510mm between centres, they are a fair bit...