This is a modification I should have made years ago. At long last I have relegated the spanner to the drawer with it’s companions.
I have detailed how to modify the lathe tailstock to get rid of the old nut and bolt and replace it with a lever and cam – much better. This mod involves milling a pocket and drilling holes in the tailstock, so probably not something to do if the lathe is still under warranty. Of course lucky owners of the latest model WM250 already have this as standard. I have included some drawings which of are based on my lathe but could be easily adapted to other similar Chinese lathes, probably even the multitude of mini-lathes out there.
Whilst tidying up I moved the computer and managed to break the wireless dongle for the keyboard and mouse. I only have a small fold down desk in the workshop and a full size keyboard covers nearly all of it. I found a replacement mini keyboard and mouse set from Maplins – Cerulian Mini Deskset ref:N69JX.
Cerulian Mini deskset
This deskset comes with a mini dongle that only sticks out about 6mm so I shouldn’t be able to snap it off like the old one! The keyboard has quite a nice action and takes up very little desk space so should be fine for the small amount of use it will get in the workshop. As an added benefit it comes with a thin moulded silicone plastic cover, which I assume is packing, but will serve very nicely as an oil proof membrane as it is sufficiently transparent to see the keys through and very flexible. The mouse has a power saving feature and powers down after a few minutes of being idle, just click to wake it up.
UPDATE April 2015 – I bought another of these for use with my desktop computer, I notice that Maplins now sell it under their own name. With more use I have noticed that if you don’t hit the keys centrally sometimes a key will stick slightly, this doesn’t bother me particularly but a typist would probably find it annoying. I also tried it out with my so called “smart tv” it works OK but the range is not really more than about 2 metres for a reliable connection.
I have been using Alibre for my drawings for some time, the learning curve is pretty steep and on an expertise scale of 1 to 10, I am still firmly at 1 or thereabouts! The latest version for 2013 has been renamed Geomagic Design following the purchase of Geomagic by Alibre’s parent company 3D Systems. There are a number of new features and some tweaks to the interface. There are different versions of the program with Geomagic Design Personal being the entry level that I have. Not all features are available in the Personal version but it is probably the most suitable for the home user and definitely the most affordable. There are plenty of free tutorial videos available and a useful users forum so the new user is well catered for. All you need is a brain slightly less fuzzy than mine…
UPDATE April 2015 – 3D Systems have now decided not to support Design Elements any longer and wanted a whole heap of cash to upgrade to the next higher version. I will keep on with what I have until it no longer functions. Can’t afford lots of pension money for something I don’t use that much!
After some time without new content I have finally added a new page. This is for a drill press hold down clamp. A useful adaptation of an old Mole Wrench which was lying unused in a box of bits that “might be useful one day”.
I have recently discovered that the latest update of Chrome mobile (Android) seems to have broken the menu system in the Journeyman’s Workshop. Anoying or what! Everything was working fine and if you use Firefox Mobile or Dolphin it still does. I have tried various tweaks but no joy yet. I think this problem may be apparent on the iPad as well but I have no way of checking.
At present the only sure fire way to navigate on a tablet is to use the Sitemap which has direct links to everything and is available at the bottom of every page.
Not a major upgrade but I have tidied up the code and made the site HTML5 compatible. I am not sure if this adds anything or has any advantage but it keeps my coding brain working! A few CSS terms have become obsolete but nothing major the most difficult bit was getting the site map table to validate at W3S.
I have also altered the menus slightly so that they work better on Android tablets, iPads and probably phones. They now stay open if you tap them, the items are perhaps a bit close for large fingers but the extra space at the top prevents most of the auto triggering.
