Druidic exploits of a various nature!!

[v8druid]

Had a busy day with me mate yesterday ...... on the techy stuff






re-aligning and shimming this ready for re-assembly .....






defeated in the late afternoon by some O rings that did not wanna fit/stay put, no matter how lubed they were or how hard we tried ... a mod is required spent well over two hours trying ...... and had to throw in the towel .... the maths just did not add up .. pint pot, won't take a quart



one of the groundsmen at Simon's brother's place came dashing in late afternoon .... could we look at the Gaiter ... summat had just gone bang an' he couldn't turn it off ....






never seen a stop solenoid coil quite so comprehensively self-destruct before .... end cap clean off it and spewed it's contents well and truly out ..... think it may need a replacement ..... had to stifle the Yanny motor to kill it



'Snubbers' didn't turn up with the posty today, so it got a 10W bulb wired across the L & N very close to the LED unit ... tha's killed the phantoms ...
amazed at the amount of light in the shed from the dim glow when the LEDs are on .. enough to navigate by, in there ... sod all when they're off though ..... the Ghosts may be producing voltage, but not enough current to make the filament glow even slightly

It'll do for now 'til the trick bits turn up and proved the issue/cure

[v8druid]

right gentlemen (and ladies if we have any) .... get yer brain cells out of storage ... does anyone know where Lion milling machines hail from ... damned if I can remember and drawing a blank on google .... quite fancy this 4VS .






it's this, or a tidy-ish Kondia FV1 .... both with XYZ power feeds ..... still regretting missing those Ajax last year the Kondias are Spanish and have a decent rep. ..... some folks prefer 'em to a Bridgeport - heavier built, 40 INT taper and more daylight



unless I can turn up some horror stories on the Lion, I'm more inclined to that ..... dearer, but looks to have had a very easy life



Never seen one of these 'in the metal' plenty of Kondias though

soooooo .... anyone care to share

[Mattir]

Hi,

the Lion might be made in Bulgaria as there are lathes with the same brand. Based on what I read on one US forum, it is solid stuff.

[AndrewMawson]

The Kondia has far stouter power feeds on all axis. Those Align units in the Lion are OK but not very solid, I have one on my current Bridgeport and have had them on previous ones. The
Kondia ones look as though they might be oil filled which is a good thing.

[v8druid]

Hi,

the Lion might be made in Bulgaria as there are lathes with the same brand. Based on what I read on one US forum, it is solid stuff.

cheers Mat ..... I'll see if that leads me anywhere with their millers .... I have seen Lion brand lathes about

The Kondia has far stouter power feeds on all axis. Those Align units in the Lion are OK but not very solid, I have one on my current Bridgeport and have had them on previous ones. The
Kondia ones look as though they might be oil filled which is a good thing.

Yeh the Kondia look to be OE drives Andrew ..... regrettably it's only an ISO30 quill I discovered last night .... really want a 40, which the Lion is ... got plenty of 40 int. tooling which I kept .... My old miller that Tom at Exc@v8 bought off me was ISO50 so he got given a LOT of tooling with it
At 2.4m tall the Lion may present issues ATM for headroom ... need a measure up ... Kondia is only 2.14m ..... shouldn't be a reason for selection though ... it's gonna have to fit in a box for now, but could really do with the facilities a turret'd provide .
Could always cut a hole in a roof and extend it up a bit for now LOL

re the Align units .... there are an awful lot of them about on machines so hopefully will do the job, and I'm not exactly looking for a 'production' machine , but take your point

[Wazza]

Could always cut a hole in a roof and extend it up a bit for now LOL

Didnt know you had built the shed yet , I must have missed something

[v8druid]

Didnt know you had built the shed yet , I must have missed something

LOL ... now don't wind me up mate ..... ......could just do with the facilities that a turret'd give me for all sorts ... including bits of shed ..... like that 1ph MIG ... been umming and ah-ing for ages about acquiring summat suitable and then wondered WTF I'd pissed about, after the event ... would make life knocking stuff out, so much easier and such a versatile bit of kit

[v8druid]

LOL ... now don't wind me up mate ..... ......could just do with the facilities that a turret'd give me for all sorts ... including bits of shed ..... like that 1ph MIG ... been umming and ah-ing for ages about acquiring summat suitable and then wondered WTF I'd pissed about, after the event ... would make life knocking stuff out, so much easier and such a versatile bit of kit

it'll fit ... m/c is 2400mm ... I've got 2450 mm

Didnt know you had built the shed yet , I must have missed something

[v8druid]

well yesterday morning got destroyed by a 'town expedition' for supplies for a birthday meal today for Vicki and her hubby ... both 33 this week within 2 days of each other ....
and very nice it was too earlier this evening


this was yesterday morning .... thought it was smoke to start with, but mist hanging in a shallow valley the other side of that ridge





yesterday afternoon .... or what was left of it sorted the grass out for a.n.other week - or less - depending on the rain/sun levels for the next few days.


couldn't believe what I had off it for a few days growth











front lawn done as well .... and looking good / shaping up

today's been a bitsa ... bits of this and bits of that ....


been nagged for weeks to make a couple of seat basaes for some old chairs Pam's got it in her head to repaint and upholster ..


job done



back in my favorite place this morning, altering the catenary supply for the boxes ...
had two spare cores so decided to double them up for a better delivery of lecktrickery





in and out of there three times, by the time i'd turned it off altered the far end , altered this end, ......
then again to turn it back on after forgetting to do so after I'd altered this end ... Oooops !!


been trying to develop the enthusiasm to break into a trunking in the box to fit this for ages ....





in the wiring mood so thought I'd sort this one too, whilst I had the inclination ..
be handy to have some leccy in that corner of the patch, without having to trail a looong lead out


day seems to disappear quick on the bitsas


and then it was time for the main event .... a birthday tea

and so the munchies got had ... followed by the usual obligatory ceremonials .... three times for a certain lil' one


take two .... I missed the first one LOL



take three



job done

[v8druid]

looked at ebay Monday night Lion listing had ended assumed someone'd had a bargain chap who had it couldn't tell me if it was ISO 40 Int. spindle, or one of the other tapers or morse even ?.... didn't seem to know much about it at all ..... wanted 40 int. as I have plenty of tooling ..... if he could've said for sure, I'd have took a chance, and hit BIN, when I first saw it, as the listing said it could be run up before collection

guess where I was yesterday ?



JD agents ... £136 .... yanny dealer 78 quid .... JD really do take the piss



and guess who didn't snap the short bolt holding this on, trying to fit the new one
What's left outside the pump, suitably modified as a guide to centre up the drill, to try and get t'other bit back out


bloody nightmare location to get at ..... job for tomorrow sometime ... after we get the heated vac mixer re-assembled, which is what I went there for this morning.
hadn't been there 5 minutes and the maintenance guy at Simon's brother's factory was on the phone ... could he have some help with an auger feed. New auger flight had arrived and could not see HTF to fit it .... to replace a recently deceased flight
never having seen this thing before, let alone assembled I was scratching my head for a bit



specially as it seemed about 18" too bloody long Having learnt that the predecessor had been slung in the skip, we then spent half an hour looking for it ... well 2 minutes to find 95% of it and the rest looking for the tail that'd snapped off, necessitating a new one



once I could see it I'd a better idea of how the new one ought to look and the bit that looked too long weren't far off ....
ten minutes measuring up the drive system, which was still 15 ft above the factory floor and still wired in, Id sussed that things weren't as bad as they seemed ... the drive end was right ... but the flight was too long over all

so assembled the business end ....



to suss the issue at t'other end ....



bit of judicious hack sawing and removed this bit



adjusted the 'new end' for the spigot to fit and made said spigot fit the flight tube



end refitted ....



and job sorted ..... whilst the maintenance guy and Simon were still pondering HTF I'd arrived at the 230mm that had to come off ... before we'd actually re-assembled it (I'd worked it at 235 mil - but was close enough)

left the maintenance guy and jis side kick to hump this back into spot and fit the hoppers .... we had a date with a vac mixer and the day was disappearing quick

beautiful building this is all in ... prob.s about 2/3 of an acre of concrete with a lid on .... the guys who laid the concrete achieved a near mirror surface on it apparently .... then the guys who came to paint it, said "way too smooth" and scarified the bloody lot .. badly ..... it is some shed !!

[v8druid]

Did I want a job as maintenance engineer ...... er ... no ta .... they break stuff faster than it can be fixed apparently

these arrived Saturday ......



and got tailed ready to install



spent a bit of time yesterday afternoon making some space in a box .........









(the bench'll need some forks to assist it out the door with its current 'occupants', so's I can relocate them too .. the area is bigger than it looks in the pix and said m/c'll fit fine)

......ready for a Lion ..... it'd re-appeared on an auction listing this time 500 quid cheaper than the BIN listing previously Guy had gotten back to me with the news that it was deffo an ISO 40 int quill taper and I'd said I'd have it ....
Call later in the day to say he'd got someone local wanted to come view it too ..... "would he hold it for me if I sent him a 10% deposit, direct transfer now ?? "
er... he'd said he could come look at

Spoke to the seller late tuesday night... had the local been?
he had, but didn't leave any deposit and wanted to come back wednesday with his biz partner first ..... " so you still won't take my deposit and I collect it Friday "? NOPE

Hadn't heard from him wednesday but he'd ended the listing, so either the local'd had it ... Or I'dget a call this morning for my deposit .??? Hmmm!! so it was fingers crossed ...... one sweet machine .... especially for £2k

[v8druid]

someone winge-ed the other day, that I never take any pix from this angle .... so just for them ......





complete with obligatory black cat/co-pilot

and here's one off the patio last night ... this takes off regularly from down there



The red thing in the middle

Text last night at 11:30 ..... the local had been and paid for the Lion ..... hardly surprising .. want his arse kicking if he hadn't
don't come along like that very often
email from the seller today to say - thanks for the interest and " Spoke to the original importer told me they were made in Taiwan he imported over 300 and only had call outs to 20"

so back to trawling again .... have another make/model in mind ....... or another lion, praps ... the Taiwanese Bridgeport copies (some on steroids) were all pretty solid tools

Had yet another day on the Vac mixer ... actually doing what i'd gone to do yesterday .... good progress today




clever bearings these ... split bodies and cages .... well handy dealing with 3" dia. shafts that need to be aligned to the thou.






the guts of the beast




the motivator ..... a good half a tonne of drive unit



got it back in spot



and shimmed up/aligned ..... perfectly to 0.5 thou .... do me ... blind man be glad to see that half thou



eventually

buttoning down the hatches ready for a test run



worked a treat, ran like a watch and held vacuum beautifully
just got a car full of tools to unload tomorrow

[v8druid]

hopefully ain't going to need these again for a while ... told this week that the machine has never run so, well since they've had it (bought new) and holds serious vacuum ...... result !!


Had Clara here a lot week 'fore last and for a sleepover on the Saturday night ... she loves to stay here .... digger time Saturday, before her tea .... dumper, jake, dumper again then the duck to finish off ... "shut the door grand dad"





Sunday started at 05.27 !!!!! when Clara woke up and started again ...
mental note to self .. put her to bed MUCH later next time -- after ten hours kip she's like the energiser bunny on NOS (nitrous oxide)


Beautiful clear morning here on the Sunday ....








best one this year I think

waiting for Clara's dad to arrive to collect her and down the drive comes a strange car ..... and out gets John Jasper ..... used to own and farm Werngounsel in the '70s, before emigrating to Oz in 1980.
he's been here a few times when he's over to see his mum, who's pushing 90 odd ... didn't think he'd be coming again, two years ago .. was great to see him again





over with his grand daughter ....... and her hubby!! all feeling the cold, despite it being quite pleasant Sunday.


Sunday afternoon got taken up with some emergency repairs for Alex, who'd found some cracks in his S type hitch, when refitting his newly re-furbished tilty last week








job done and home just in time for tea .. or I'd have been in trubble

massacred the lawn on the Sunday evening .. again !! ...





starting to get back into shape at last.... and looks like it's been cut, rather than the so so look it's had so far this year.


Middle of me hamster juice (treatment) Monday morning and Pam says "there's a lorry on the drive" !! .... looked out the window and it's me scrappy, who's been coming to me for decades ...


after seeing me 'plumbed up', said he'd call back later as I had some stuff for him


returned late afternoon, stuck it all on and having a chat . " have you got a changeover valve kicking about Gra? "


oil pissing out of his diverter valve .... swaps his feed from tip to hiab ...





" fraid not mate, but can get you one in a few days"


arrived on the wednesday ..... 3/4" BSP ordered ... 1/2" arrived FFS !!!





their store man needs a course in thread recognition ... never gets it right first time !!


Replacement here thursday ... guy on the phone most apologetic ... especially as the size is cast into the body on the valves

had a real score when this arrived the following Monday .....





brand new and a quarter of new price .... good old Ebay


Posty interrupted getting the VA-r onto the 'Drema, for some pallet shuffling, with the forks, so's I could get at the edge of the patch that needed the drainage ditch clearing ready for some clean 40mm





left it on for the night, ready for some bucket action Tuesday












digging round corners ..... nightmare without a VA-r !!





meet me new dumper .......








needed to get this lot as close as poss. to where we wanted it, so's the barrowing wasn't too much of a challenge !!




one down .... 'nother one to fill ....

[v8druid]

new dumper's not as mobile as they usually are .... and with 70mm pins doesn't fit under the VA-r ... bit of a PITA, when I needed to shift it ....
so gave this a try





worked well ...





and relocated it a treat ..... some grip on that jaw !!!


dropped the VA-r off for the second time and .... no 2 en route .......





even if I could pick up the 7 footer with the VA-r .... a tonne plus of bucket and half a tonne of VA-r would be pushing it a bit, where it was going and not really enough room to get it all down in there !!!

as usual the co-pilot was 'in residence' ..... another PITA when you want to move .. have to make sure I know where he is ... daft enough to lie under my wheels ... getting old, love him and losing the plot a bit !!





trundled down to the closest point to its destination for a further 'unload'





and dropped it in ready for the hard part .....








15 barrows in that second load .... thirty in total that day .... broke a bit of a sweat in the afternoon sun !!

especially sorting this end ....





this edge has pee-ed me off since we've been here ....
was the builders dumping ground ...
last bit to level off and they buried all sorts of crap in there ....


well I use the term buried very loosely ...
sticking out is more like it.


to date i'd had a large barbecue, a barrow body and frame, loads of bits of old sleeper, a bed frame and God knows what else out of there !!


I'd now got it to the stage it was re-fillable .... getting the fill there had been an issue, 'til I'd hit on the 7 foot bucket idea and it's worked well


two bucket loads and Pam had had enough ....





and it was tea time !!


so adjourned for the day ..... after putting it all away .....





but not before the VA-r went back on for the third time, ready for the morning's continuation .....





left his parking plate on for the night .... God knows where i was gonna be dropping it off first, next morning !!

rounded the day off after tea with a good burn up .... dead pallets, too rotten to get stuck in the wood shed/firewood pile .....





burnt remarkably well considering how knackered a lot of it was ... now't left the following morning !!


no. 3 away .....





and getting there ......





there was another filled 7 footer sat on the patch that night, ready for the morrow, but it'd have to wait 'til later in the day .... Pam was off to see Ken & Doug (her elderly cuz,s) in the morning and I was hoping to go eyeball a milling machine ... in Abergavenny !!
Not exactly what i really wanted, but was very tidy, well tooled, viewable under power and was only 8 miles away ... life's a compromise !!


the channel was coming along nicely ....





ready for a load of clean 40mm to fill it back up with, accompanying a cable duct at the back of the channel .... which i mustn't forget to put in first !!!


BUT ..... there was a well stuffed bucket awaiting our attention first .... hopefully the last one !!! ..... 45 barrow loads to date .... circa 3+ tonnes .... plus the next day's heaped 7 footer

[v8druid]

really hoped this was as tidy as it looked in the ad's pix ....
only down side was it was R8 spindle and I would have preferred an ISO 40 Int. ....
however .... there was a very good selection of R8 tooling and holders with it, so .... we'd see ?








Hoped the lathe behind it might also be up for grabs ... looked suspiciously like a Colchester Mastiff ..... which is top of my shortlist for lathes


slotting head on this too .....





a selection of some of the tooling/holders





I felt like i should know this bloke, who had it, but couldn't put a face to the name ???
we'd see the next day, hopefully

Well last Thursday morning I decided before getting much further with the soiling and blending in that the one small 'rock' that i was forever avoiding with the mower ought to come out the ground, as I was not gonna have enough cover over it ...... 'rock' be ****ed ... !!!!!



was half a road .....



with no chance of getting mechanical handling anywhere near it
.... it had to have it .... with a sledge



lot of the smaller stuff went back in there ... had to get filled with summat ... the bigger stuff's retaining a lot of it at the end .... and is nicely buried too. Would like to meet the tw*t that buried that lump of road there ..... if they'd only gotten it flatter ..... anyway
.... it''s coming along, after yet another bucket load yesterday afternoon ..... after I'd recovered from wielding said sledge ... 'spirit's willing, but yon flesh ain't what it used to be'



find some suitable stone to finish off/cap what's retaining the far end and ''Bob's yer uncle''
.... bit more lawn to mow
.. after it's settled and either been seeded or turfed


obviously the guy with the miller weren't available that day -- hence the tango with the tarmac ..... but he was friday morning ..... if I really wanted a Bridgy, this 'un'd do very nicely .... that said ..... I was high bidder on it ATM, but expected it to go for a lot more, unless I was intended to have it
.... if it dropped in my lap, it'd do for now, 'til I can lay hands on summat better, with a 40mm quill ..... it'd be bought at a level that'd sell on nicely, or not get had
... I had a figure at which I was out and know what they make for a move on, if it landed. ..... still gutted about last year's near miss with the Ajaxs and that Lion a few weeks ago .... summat'll pop up ....

had been inquiring after a very tidy Semco, 'til I realised it didn't tilt/nod and the turret didn't swivel .... guy had taken some very carefully composed pix - dealer who'd probably dropped one, when he acquired it ... very nice, but essentially just a vertical miller, with a ram head.
...... lawn massacred yet again yesterday evening ..... before it rained Friday


.... jury's still out on that one ?