Macpherson

Hi, my experience with villiers engines was from motorcycles many years ago, they had conventional slide type carbs, but if it`s any help, currently I use a fuel stabiliser ` Ethanol shield ` to protect stuff from the damaging effects of modern ethanol laced petrol, so far I`m happy with it. time will tell ! It`s only my way round the problem, I`m not trying to get involved in the Aspen debate which is definately another option, cheers.

Hi, interesting, I was introduced to Tung oil a good few years ago after coming across this guy, I`ve still got a couple of litres of his homemade ` two tree varnish ` a blend of Pinus silvestris and Aleurites fordii with a touch of his home distilled citrus oil to give the finished article the smell of oranges and lemons.........It`s pine resin and tung oil, I got the latin off the bottle....... good stuff I use Tung oil a lot and wipe the finish, and although folk complain that it takes an age to dry, this can be accelerated with the use of driers which are easily available and were used commonly when oil paint was the norm, the biggest prob is that rag used to wipe can spontaneously combust due to rapid oxidization on the fine fibres of the rag, so when finished wiping the cloth goes into a jam jar !! Cheers natural linseed oil ecologically green paint

Hi, I can see the point in replacing the points with electronics if your going to use it and can`t get any parts, the condenser would usually be the weak link in a machine of this age and certainly at one time was replaceable with a more modern part, the points aren`t a problem unless knackered, easy to set and maintain. If I remember correctly the contacts on the points are stellite buttons brazed onto the operating mechanism and fairly robust. Villiers stuff may still be able to be sourced but if not remember that all this stuff comes from a different age and is ultimately repairable, don`t throw anything away even if you successfully replace it as having the original parts is important to any collector. If the coil is suspect and you can`t get one, the simplest solution would be to rewind it, not difficult, just measure the wire guage and count the number of turns as you unwind it. fiddly but possible. Just googled Villiers spares, There seems to be a fair few sites, a lot of these engines had parts in common, you may be able to find what you need, Good luck.

Debris Netting Allotment Fence Crop Plant Fuit Cage Scaffold 2M X 50M Green Roll | eBay I`ve used this, works fairly well, cheap, don`t know if the link will work

Brings back memories, spotted it was a villiers in the first pic, the first engine I ever stripped down when I was 14 was a 6e 197cc, early 50`s I think, from a bike not from a saw, but it`s interesting to consider what fuel / oil ratio you would use in the same engine now with modern synthetic oils. I`m thinking you might get away with somewhere between 25 / 40 - 1, any thoughts ?

Scots mahogany,

Nice flowers !! The other good thing about Alder is that it grows about as quick you can burn it, in fact up here if it`s not cut it quickly becomes a bloody nuisance specially along the side of the roads.

Hi, when I just want to retouch an already sharpish chisel, plane, knife or whatever I stick various grades of wet n dry to a bit of plate glass with spray adhesive and do it that way, very fine grades are available. If you`ve got good quality steel you`ll get stuff extremely sharp, better than new! I also use a linisher to get the tool into the desired shape first, on the grinder topic, the little bench ones are great for drills etc and a slightly bigger version is handier but you really need a selection of wheels of different compositions and grades dedicated for specific jobs. Some of the more intricately shaped tools I`ve used really needed to be sharpened by hand with small hones etc. cheers

Recently bought a strip of spring steel on ebay, really cheap, if you really can`t get the part you need perhaps this could be an option, as have the old band as a pattern.

that should do ya fine works out to be 3.36 kW i fink

Just blow the lot into piles and join a bit of flexi pipe to the outlet, a few meters, stick it in the ton bag behind you with the loops tied and fire it in, easy, it works good for me, takes a lot of the pain out of tidying up, not had a prob with suction, anything to save effort, cheers.

Got a Stihl handheld blower with the vac attachment a couple of years ago, wouldn`t be without it now, more than paid for itself, it`s mostly only used on small jobs for tidying up, using the rake does my back in and I hardly touch it now. Having said that, as has been said , the vac`s only good on dry stuff and definitely no stones, the bag supplied fills real quick from a pile so if there`s a lot of stuff I miss the bag out, put on an extension hose and fire it straight into ton bags.

Hi, yeah, you got to assemble it when you take it off the pallet, it`s heavy enough to be unwieldy until it`s on it`s legs, that`s why imo the wheels are really handy, you can`t lift it using the planing table as was said, the alloy could warp or snap, it`s a 2 man lift sedan chair style with a couple of 3x2`s under the thicknessing bed. I`d guess that once it`s built up you`ll not want to take the legs off !! There are table top machines on the same page that take 5" + timber at half the price, some with built in dust extraction. The Record looks like the same machine with minor differences [ switch for instance] This is the only lightweight planner that I`ve used so I can`t comment on any of the others but as I found the usual problem these days is too much choice.........you just have to pick one and bite the bullet......cheers.

Yep, 152 mm = 6". Got mine of ebay from djm direct for £560, but there not listing it at the moment. At the time they were being offered with a wheels kit thrown in which swung it for me as it`s more expense if this is something you would need to buy separately, it`s a fairly heavy bit of kit to move on your own and without wheels the rubber feet wouldn`t last 5 mins. I spent ages swithering over which machine to buy, the trouble is, once you get up to this sort of money you`re getting into the territory of the ` real thing ` second hand specially if you`ve got 3 phase or an inverter. Just put planer thicknesser into ebay and start slavering, the Record Power PT 260 on the first page is the Metabo machine under a different name and with a scissors type wheels arrangement, different to mine, perhaps better ! But then the Segwick 12" x 8"......................... I would imagine that down where you are there must be easy access to a wide variety of options. Good hunting.

Yeah, converts from disposable blades to HSS, £53, you might be able to find a new machine with these already fitted or persuade a seller to do a deal when buying new, perhaps Metabo have upgraded as most of their competition uses HSS knives and there cheaply and easily sharpened, I`m not sure, but that`s what I`ll be going for next time. cheers.

Hi, 160 mm max thicknessing, also just seen a planer blade conversion kit for the 260 for sale on fleabay but it doesn`t say why it needs converted, perhaps to resharpenable knives ?? I`ll need to check it out, cheers

Hi, I bought the Metabo HC 260 about a year ago, its a great addition to my workshop, I can`t complain about the build quality and yes it can deal with reasonably big timber near to it`s capacity albeit with many passes taking off small amounts. I use it in conjunction with 2 roller stands which helps greatly, specially if your working alone, and as has been mentioned the machines rollers can do with a bit of a hand at times. I don`t have a problem with the safety features which I haven`t disabled although it can be a bit of a pita if you are changing from planing to thicknessing every five minutes and also it really needs to be used with an extraction system to get rid of the chips if doing a lot of work. As has been said a cast iron, British built Wadkin or similar is far superior, and I would love the real thing specially for doing really big stuff, but if you want to put a 6m length through a machine you really need a 45 foot work shop [ which I don`t have ], so with it`s wheels kit the Metabo has the added bonus of being portable which lets me take it outside when I need to deal with long stuff. The only other thing I can think of is that Metabo say that the knives aren`t resharpenable in comparison to some of the other makes available, and although I can`t see why, it didn`t put me off buying the machine, but it did have me deliberating, but there`s always something, hope this helps, cheers.

Had the fiskars bypass for years, very good. Just checked out the Wolf stuff which looks good too, but even just from the photo`s the Barnel tools do look a top quality properly engineered product and with a max capacity of 2 1/2" must be a cut above the rest, literally, I`ll need to get me hands on a set.

Hi, I believe that to get the actual kW from the kVA you multiply the kVA by 0.8 which makes your gennie 1600 watts. A 2.5 kVA gennie would give you the 2 kW but I`d imagine you`d probably be better with a 3kVA to give yourself a margin. There`s a conversion chart online, hope this helps, cheers.

I agree that the higher frequency of the vibes the greater the risk, back in the 70`s when I was an apprentice fitter we were made aware of the problem as part of our training and it was quite a big issue throughout industry, particularly with anyone who regularly used high speed air tools 20-30,000 rpm. Having said that, it`s the strimmer that numbs my fingers quickest now, I always try to remind myself to relax my grip and I always wear anti-vibe gloves which make a huge difference. cheers

Hi, the list of materials that have been tested and found to be effected by the ethanol now in our fuel is fairly extensive and not just various rubbers, worth a google ! I`ve never been in the habit of leaving any fuel system dry and since I`ve become aware of the ethanol problem I`ve been using fuel stabiliser in all my petrol engines. Interestingly, about a year ago I switched from the Briggs stuff to Ethanol Shield and found that gradually several of my older engines which could be tempremental began to settle down and run more evenly, I can only assume that it`s doing what it claims and cleaning the varnish that coats jets and other parts. Using Aspen is obviously the best solution, but in my case it`s not just saws that I`m worried about and at £12 for a bottle of Ethanol Shield which treats up to 300 litres of fuel I get the peace of mind knowing that my engines are protected and it`s cheap enough that I can also use it to protect a petrol car which potentially would be the most expensive fuel system that I wouldn`t want to have to repair, cheers

Yeah, there`s no doubt in my mind that the powder coating of new things is no substitute for properly painted things, as used to be. When I`m restoring things I generally take the bits to the powder coater to get blasted and then paint the stuff properly myself or get it galvanised. Imo there isn`t a short cut to a long lasting finish, cheers.

Yep, there`s no way round it if you go for paint it`ll need degreased, blasting obviously gives the best keyed finish for any paintwork and once the surface is prepped Galvafroid is top spec.for paint. Real galvanising is without doubt the best long term rust solution if you go to the bother of stripping the whole thing down but with the drawbacks that others have mentioned. Good luck.

Might be worth checking out Galvafroid high zinc 95% metal primer, if you can get rid of the rust and get it back to the bare metal it`s good stuff, takes real well to a blasted surface. Cheers

I could only add that if it`s fairly tight like the last one I did, the combi spanner`s not ideal, better with a proper 1/2" drive socket and a t-bar which also keeps the hammer well clear of the expensive bits.