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I bought this from a charity shop for ~£20 because I needed a rugged vac to clear up after some building work. Now surplus to requirements, but it's a working machine and I'm reluctant to scrap it. Might be useful for workshop duty? It's bagless wet'n'dry and has a 1kW motor - no other specs I'm...

OK, thanks for your reply - reassuring (from my point of view at least!) Hard to know what RP's thinking was - both machines apparently designed to tension a 3/4 blade, but the 350 has a screw with over twice the core strength of that on the 300 and a stronger thread profile. Hmm. And properly...

Good to hear how you sorted it out, though a bit worrying about the plasticine plate! Having had a look at the 300E on Record's site it seems to share quite a few components with the 350S so it's a problem I might run into as well. The tensioning screw on the 350 looks like it has a 12 x 2 mm...

Hi and welcome to the forum broadsman. I have the 350S and the wheel carrier looks very similar to yours. The wheel runs parallel to the carrier. Tracking is adjusted by a screw which tilts the carrier plus wheel relative to the plane of the machine's frame. It does look like you've distorted...

Pete, Tim, Lefley, thanks for clarifications of the differences between techniques for casting and wood stabilisation. For the record, I must have made a typo or arithmetical error in saying that the water pumps I described could achieve 85% vacuum - they are much better than that - more like...

The OP has probably tapped his holes by now, but assuming the taps in his set are standard ISO 529 taper, 2nd and bottoming rather than the serial taps John describes, it might be worth saying that there is no requirement to use the taps in order. The only difference between them is the...

Thanks Pete - that makes sense. I have been flirting with ideas of resin casting (and also resin wood stabilisation) hence my interest in this topic. From what you say casting needs positive pressure and stabilisation needs negative. So I think that maybe Topcat32 is referring to stabilisation...

This comes from experience in chemical laboratories rather than woodworking, so may or may not be relevant. You can get vac pumps which attach to a water tap - they work on the same principle (Venturi effect) as the Holdfast systems, but are cheaper - for instance this from camlab. The...

Thanks for further replies - it seems I'm not alone in my heretical practices. The comments about musical instrument makers reminded me that when, many years ago, I picked up my first set of Uilleann (Irish) bagpipes from a chap in Sheffield he showed me his workshop and he did everything on an...

Ah, I see that the censorbot has picked up on the use of $ for S. I meant a badger's derriere, not pineapple. Bob.

Much depends on what you see yourself using the lathe for in the future I suppose - if you're thinking to make brass/aluminium parts, then by all means get some practice with them. But if (like most I suspect) you're going to end up working mostly with steel there is no real reason not to start...

And I wish I had a wood turning lathe so I didn't have to! One day perhaps. My main reason for putting the small 4-jaw in the big 3-jaw was that the 'native' 4 jaw for the lathe weighs nigh 17kg and it's a PITA to change over. I wasn't seriously worried about safety for this job, it was just...

Well, Evapo Rust should know what they're talking about I suppose, but sure as heck it isn't carbon migration. The carbon in tool steel is pretty happy where it is, and the only way to shift it is with heat as far as I know. My money would be on be on some sort of tannic complex with the...

This is just fun really I suppose. I'm mainly a metalworker, but occasionally I need to turn wooden parts. I haven't got a wood lathe, so use an engineering lathe. That's the first heresy. Apparently. Others are in this pic: A three jaw engineering chuck holding a four jaw engineering...

I have Fisch Set which seems OK to me - no worrying wobble of the points. I don't know how £18.58 for a set of eight sits in the scale of things though - seems good value it to me as the bits cut beautifully. I suspect that if you need real accuracy (but we don't know what accurate means in...

Bit of a moral dilemma! Could argue convincingly either way, but life too short, so I flipped a coin. Angelboy won - sorry Blister. I'll send a PM. Bob.

I bought this maybe four years ago to break down a stack of pallets, thinking it would be a handy tool to have in my armoury afterwards. In the event I found a better way of dealing with the pallets and haven't really found a use for it since, so it's been gathering dust on the shelf...

Richard - I think you have nailed it with the Retro Formica pics. The back and seat on the one I butchered were stained and varnished to match the frame, so perhaps never clad with Formica, but in all other respects they look identical. Searching specifically on Benchairs I haven't yet...

Thanks Richard - I too thought I had seen something similar before, but couldn't remember where or when. The V&A archive is indeed fascinating - the nearest I have found so far is a 1947 seminar chair, which looks to be in a similar style, but with armrests. But 600+ pages still to go! I didn't...

Today I was presented with chair which needed to have some inches lopped off the legs for use as a Panto prop - I don't know why exactly, I just do what I'm told. I lopped the legs, gave it a sand then got interested in how it was constructed: It's obviously a mass produced 20th century...