I hope 1 of those 32 is mine😮

@@MarkBrown-kn5yk Wait till I have them all done. If you were to miss out, I’ll just make another batch until everyone who wants one gets one. 👍

Great, just let me know how/best way to contact you. I'm pretty sure you said you were melbourne based, I'm in Altona so may be able to pick up Thanks Mark😊

Hi Mark, I’m WA based (Perth), but I can post over to you no worries. You can always email me:- [email protected] Or Mobile / Text 0400722006 Just been up the shed completing the lathe work on the top mounts, then cleaning up the lathe from head to toe, ready for making the alloy handles next. I have some Mill work next making the 2 flats on the 30 top mounts, and lastly drill and ream the 10mm cross hole, de burr & chamfer the holes & that’s the top mounts out the way. It’s crazy - they have the least material in them, are the smallest part BUT, they are the most complex / time consuming to make, and the two 1200mm long round bars - that I made all these parts out of there’s a full metal garbage bin of metal swarf that I can barely lift, just in what steel was removed to create the 30 parts. After this batch are done & out the way, I’m half tempted maybe to see what a engineering shop would charge to CNC machine them for if I was buying say another 30 for the next batch assuming there’s enough demand to need another batch. The amount of time that goes into making short production runs manually on a lathe is eye opening. For now I’ll just plug away at completing this batch & re-assess better production methodology if I’m going to do another batch after this lot.

Bugger, coming to Perth today, to go on the Indian pacific Sunday

Nope, no drive dogs included. They are an accessory that you can buy from H & F for $55 according to their website. www.machineryhouse.com.au/l081

Yes I am full of admiration for Max’s skills and abilities. About 18 months back, a couple of us helped him put the roof on his new workshop for a few days. He is a genuinely really nice guy, who would go out of his way to help anyone. He works long & hard & deserves every success.

Thanks Opie, I’m still learning the lathe & mill. As you have seen my background is in timber - but I’m enjoying my foray into metal working. I should do another video at some point. I’m finding I have to concentrate pretty hard learning to operate the new lathe, so having my attention distracted at this early stage trying to film my feeble efforts probably isn’t wise just yet, but hopefully not too much longer. The Bridgeport is a uK Adcock Shipley Bridgeport Series 1 J head from 1952. It belonged from new to the engineering shop at the University of Western Australia & has chromed ways & a full 48 inch X table. It doesn’t appear to have done a great deal of work from what I can tell. It’s a 3 phase 440 Volt 1 horsepower motor. It honestly scares me to use it because my lack of knowledge & experience, the fear factor trying to do anything other than drill a hole or two so far is all I’ve been game to do thus far. I have a project I’m working on that’s going to require more use of the Bridgeport so it will be a pretty steep learning curve for me. Hopefully I don’t mess up. When I am unsure I usually check with Max for advice before hand. 😂😂👍

@@ianmoone2359 I totally hear you on the filming. Im in the same boat. Its extremely time consuming and does divert your attention so I generally do just update videos and they aren't as popular or exciting but oh well. LOL. Don't be afraid of the machines. What I would recommend is develop a safety protocol. More than anything as you know already these machines can hurt you. I take time to plan out what Im going to do and Ill take several days to think about. Even after I lay it all out, I think and look and consider and run my head through the process and so far Ive made very few mistakes. Im learning like you. Im a mechanic by trade, not a machinist. Go lightly. Take light cuts but be aware that you do have to make cuts. The cutters are designed to dig in and make cuts. If you go to light, you're going to have issues and could even damage your cutters and tooling. On the Bridgeport, they all have chromed ways in some areas and not others. If you took that mill apart I think you will find a bit of wear on the saddle and table. You can check my videos where I took mine apart when I had the table top reground. I have a new lead screw and head bearings and it does a good job so far despite the wear. Max is something else. LOL. I have to say, you aussie machinists on youtube have the americans beat by a long shot. Cutting edge, max and matty are doing things way and above anything I've seen on American YT channels. I get a lot of my learning from these channels. And max, he's a beast. He has a full time job on top of what he does in his shop. WOW! You'll be fine. Dont be afraid to jump in, just be safe more than anything.

I will do Mark, but it’s going to be a while. I’m actually making parts to assemble the next batch of 30 adjusters. But this is going to take time, possibly 6 months or more. I have bought a Bridgeport Mill ($10k) & a new 14x40 Metal lathe ($10k) to be able to make these next batch. I now need to save up another $6k to buy the materials & hardware to be able to make it all happen. It took me 3 years to save the $20k for machines. It might take me another 6-12 months to save for all the materials & hardware. I’m doing this in my spare time a couple hours a day as and when I can manage it. (I’m a full time carer for my 92years old mother with advanced senile dementia), so spare time to devote to the project is limited unfortunately. That’s why this is taking me so long. I’m not a fitter & turner or machinist I’m having to learn the requisite skills to turn these out, again, slowing progress down. I try & get a little bit done each day so progress happens, it just doesn’t happen like a tradesman working flat out on it all day every day week in & week out. I’m not borrowing finance to fund all this, I save up the required cash - until I have what’s required - then I purchase what I need. I have the round bar stock steel on hand and am making top mounts at the moment. When I’ve saved another ~ $600 I’ll buy the alloy bar stock to make the handles etc. When I e saved another $3k US I’ll buy the hardware from McMaster Carr in the USA and have those all shipped. When I’ve saved another $2.1k I’ll have the alloy mounting brackets laser cut & so on. It just how it goes, slowly slowly catchee monkey. It’s been 3 years, if it takes one more then so be it.

@ianmoone2359 yes, Mark me down as serious buyer, just let me know when getting close, and how much they will be. Thanks

I agonised over buying this lathe for more than 2 years. I spoke with 4 local You tube Machinists, about my choice. (Max Grant, Bruce Whitham, Matty Johnston & Ted Roza). It was a toss up for me over a used AL1000D 3 phase machine 16 years old, low hours & minimal wear for $8.5k, so no warranty, smaller spindle bore. D1-3 Chucks, No “variable speed” potentiometer - unless I added a VFD to the 3 phase motor but that was an extra $2k Out of the 4 guys who advised me - 3 said buy the 16 year old AL1000D because it’s Taiwanese made. The 4th (Ted Roza) actually has a AL356V and invited me around to see his in use on a project. The fact his looked and works fine and has larger spindle, D1-5 Chucks, Variable Speed single phase, DRO, some tooling etc and was $9.5k was what finally convinced me. I was so close to pulling the trigger on the used AL1000D. I think it would have done everything I could possibly need to do, & likely I’d have been just as happy with it. It’s 20 years old that AL1000D model, the benefits of the New AL356V swayed me in the end. I bought my 1952 J head 1 hp Bridgeport Mill used and the x axis Bridgeport Vari Speed 3 power feed on it wasn’t working. It was a nightmare for a new chum like me to swap it all out for a new Power feed - because I’m a wood butcher with zero machining metal experience & I didn’t want to go through that stress again with a used lathe if there was anything wrong with it. I did consider buying a NEW AL1000D but they were $12.5k not $9.5k and outside my budget without waiting another maybe year to save up the extra coin. I’ve bought a lot of machines (wood working) over the last 40 odd years, always used. I just felt that I wanted a nice new machine for a change and the new AL1000D was out of my budget so it sort of came back to my best choice being the AL356V Remains to be seen if I regret my choice in time to come. There’s a new AL356 Review Video been uploaded by Ted Roza who has had his AL356V for 12 months and just uploaded his review video if your interested in another opinion on how they are by someone who owns & used one. Hope that helps out.

Thank you for that. Always nice to watch the grain appear when you apply the Orange Oil. It’s the most satisfying part of the entire building process.

Your right. After cleaning & oiling they are surprisingly nice. The oiling makes all the difference, I was pleasantly surprised at the difference it made, immediately after going through the machine at every oiling point and operating the handles, I was taken aback at the difference it made. They also seem to settle in with use. Cutting a taper yesterday with the compound and oiling and use has it smoothing up nicely. When trying it straight out of the crate, initially I wasn’t impressed, but cleaning & oiling and use is the key. You have to be prepared to do a little “finessing” when you first get it. Inside the chuck for eg, needed a good clean out with CRC 5-56, because there was grinding dust in there on the scroll & jaw T slots that was binding it up. Inside the T slots is really rough / burrs everywhere. I’ll have to go through it by hand and relieve all the burrs, it’s just nasty in there. But taking out the grinding dust helped a heap. Accept the fact you’re going to have to put in the time & effort to clean it out & oil it up to make it nice to use. Pretty much unavoidable with all the cosmolene it comes coated in, and the left over grinding dust from manufacture. After “run in” I will drain head stock, gear box & apron oil, flush & wash out well & refill with new Telus 32 oil, just to get any residual casting sand out that might be sitting in the bottom of those oil reservoirs.

@@ianmoone2359 that’s awesome feedback mate! Thanks heaps can’t wait to finally get one! While I wait hopefully I’ll see more video of you using yours :)

@@blakelieschke14 All I have for making vids is my IPhone - no selfie stick etc, & no computer to edit etc, so I can only do vids in one take, one handed, which makes it hard to do Lathe vids. Also this is my first ever use of any metal lathe, so I have to concentrate 110% so as not to screw up and crash the lathe etc. I’ll need a tripod or something to hold the phone & really because I’m only learning, I shouldn’t be videoing what I’m doing in case I’m doing something wrong or unsafe & inadvertently teach someone else a wrong method or unsafe technique for eg. Maybe in time as I gain knowledge & skills I might be able to film a lathe & mill video or two. Right now I’d just be embarrassed at whatever content I could put out. I just realised your in Perth so if you want to see one running and see how smooth it runs etc your welcome to take a look. I’m NOR near the Galleria Shopping Centre in Morley. Hit me up if it will help you any. Retired commercial skipper, so we probably have a bit in common. 😉

I think they have a sale in November? usually each year. The discount can be up to the equivalent of the GST (10%) often. You will still need a live centre with 4MT arbor as well as a Drill Chuck with 4MT arbor - & levelling feet - so buying your lathe during the sale can free up a little extra $ for the things you will need to be able to fully utilise the lathe after it’s delivered.👍 Just mentioning, I’m not sponsored by or in any way associated with H & F other than I spent my hard earned $ to buy my lathe from them.

@@ianmoone2359 Hare and Forbes are having an EOFY sale at this moment and there are some considerable saving to be had Chris. I bought the next one down from Ian,s, mine is the .AL346.very similar specs with some variations. I bought a HM46B mill also at the same time in last years EOFY sale and saved over $700 on the deal. I continually check prices and I am sure that at the moment Hare and Forbes are offering some really good deals on their lathes for the End Of Financial Year sale. Check it out mate it might be worth your while. Cheers, Bruce.

@@ianmoone2359 Chris Hare and Forbes are having an End Of Financial Year Sale at this moment and, from what I am seeing, there are some really good deals to be had. I bought the AL346 and a HM46B mill at last years EOFY sale and saved around $700. I check the prices yesterday and they are offering even better deals than I got last year. Have a look mate, you never know, you may save a packet by buying during this sale. Cheers Mate, Bruce.

Pretty much my reasoning for buying new.. if you already have the skills & knowledge & another working lathe & mill you can probably restore / rebuild an old lathe, but even then you might have to send out work like re grinding induction hardened bed ways etc. I need to spend my time learning such skills & acquiring such knowledge, not fixing some old machine that I don’t have the ability machinery or knowledge to do. I respect & admire those who do have that ability, I just recognise that I am not one of them at this stage, yet. Maybe one day I might get to that point IF I live long enough, maybe.

Well said. I think some of the Chinese castings are common on Taiwanese lathes these days to. There is rubbish out there, particularly in the cheap import mini lathes. I’m hoping this one doesn’t fit that category. Someone I know has had one for 12 months. I went and saw it operating / in use a couple of times Holds very tight tolerances and runs nice and quiet. That convinced me to pull the pin on this one. It was a battle to decide between the Taiwanese AL 1000D 3 phase model. A 16 year old used one was available at the same time for $8.5k so essentially the same price & it was in very good condition for its age with little sign of much actual use. But it came with no warranty, and the smaller spindle diameter and smaller chucks etc. If you’re a machinist and have other lathes, you can use them to help you fix / restore older used lathes that you might buy cheap. But that doesn’t apply to me. I don’t have another lathe (or the skill set yet) to be able to restore an older machine if there’s something wrong with it after I’ve bought it. So for me, this one the AL 356V made more sense now. Maybe that might change in time to come - who knows.🤷‍♂️

At 11.38 you can see, all metal gears. Worst case scenario, I have a dividing head on my Bridgeport mill that I can machine replacement metal gears if I had to. 👍

Thanks for the tip - much appreciated. I’m at the beginning of a long but hopefully enjoyable learning curve. 👍 I’ve yet to run the lathe in, after which I shall change out all 3 oils and do my best to flush out any casting sand residues, and re-fill with new oil. The 3 jaw chuck is definitely going to need a strip, clean lube & re-assemble because I notice the scroll & jaws tighten considerably as the jaws close in on each other near the centre. It’s fine when the jaws are further apart. I’m expecting to find grinding dust & maybe swarf or something in the scroll once I open it up.

@ianmoone2359 yes the gear box's are real bad on the import lathes casting sand and rust and deart. And small metal chips in them. I see one take out the bearing in 6 months. Because it was not cleaned out first. The chucks are the same a good cleaning will help. Light oil one the jaw side and grease in side is just fine. It took me 7 years to put together my shop. So if you stick to it you can do anything you put your mind to. I have experience in manufacturing. But not as a machinest. And have heard so much hear on KZfaq. There are some great people hear. Growing and learning together. I love making things in the shop. I pray you will find the same in your quest. God bless joe

@@josephlovell6951 Thank you very much, I’ve already been blessed to meet a couple of local machinists who have been guiding / mentoring me thus far, but I’m the first to admit I have an awful long way to go. I will spend considerable time cleaning out any / all debris that I can find & remove. Probably add a rare earth magnet or two in the bottom of gear boxes to hopefully catch any metal particles and hang onto them as well.

Thanks for the info, that’s something I wasn’t aware of and had not considered. This is one steep learning curve. Occasionally my head wants to explode at the end of each day trying to learn, comprehend & remember “new stuff”. I seem to max out my ram memory in my brain at 3 new things a day. 😂😂

Engine crane might stretch to get the height you need to get the skid out from under it is the only possible issue & the reason I went for gantry & block & tackle /endless chain. I’ve seen others achieve it with an engine crane tho so it probably could be done. I was petrified I’d tip it over. 😂👍

Good one Ian 👍

@@swanvalleymachineshop Thanks Max, much appreciated. 👍

@@ianmoone2359 shouldn't mines rated to 2t

@@nickking8317 I did have a guy with 2 engine cranes I could have borrowed. The “issue” was that the spread of the legs on the engine cranes wasn’t wide enough to get past the pallet the skid was strapped down to, to allow the engine crane to get close enough to the balance lifting point of the lathe. It’s not so much the weight your lifting at 600 kilos, it’s the ability to get the engine crane close enough in to the lathe to be able to lift it and still get the height you need. The pallet is ~ 6 inches tall, and the skid is another ~ 4 inches above that. So your lathe is already 10 inches up in the air. The bolts securing the skid to the lather are about 8 inches long and the bolt locations are in a recessed pocket on the base of the lathe so you can’t pull them up through the top to get them out, you have to pull them downwards, meaning the lathe has to go up another 8 inches to get the securing bolts out of the skid from underneath. So the lathe is then 18 inches off the ground. I suspect you will find as I did, that you won’t get the engine crane in close enough because of the pallet, and that with the lifting slings and lift bars & shackle etc that you will run out of lifting height on your engine crane before you get the lathe high enough to get the securing bolts out. I could of course be proven wrong. Others do seem to manage it on KZfaq videos, so I can only assume they are braver & smarter than me most likely. 😜😂😂👍

We all have to live within our budgets unfortunately. There’s not a great deal else available in this market. It is what it is.

@@ianmoone2359 I call it being a traitor to your own country.

@@thecommentary21 Ohh trust me, I’m no China fan boy. When your only choice is China or nothing, sometimes you just have to accept reality for what it is.

I could send you photos of the glue up / cramp up if you give me your email address please. I didn’t video any of the glue up & cramp up unfortunately, only still photos. But I’m happy to share with you. Sadly I got to visit with Max just a week ago after an extensive heat wave here in Perth over several weeks. Some places in the top the expansion was more than 72 hour cure Megapoxy could withstand and a few cracks appeared between some of the blocks. I did warn Max of the possibility ahead of the heat and begged him to liberally oil the top before hand with the bottle of orange oil I left with him - to try and avoid just this very situation. Temps (ambient) reached around 44c for weeks on end and inside a tin shed it was amplified beyond that. Sadly the oil application didn’t occur and the top cracked in places. I wouldn’t personally recommend this type of glue up again. If you study timber technology and shrinkage expansion rates of Aussie eucalypts, you will see that the variations between length and radial & tangential sawn grain direction are just too large for a parquetry joined top like this to remain stable unless it’s in a 24/7/365 refrigerated air conditioned environment like a houses or office tower. In a tin shed it just won’t hold up unfortunately is the experience lesson.

​@@ianmoone2359 thanks for the response, that's some good advice. I think I might have to opt for a different design then

I was using a rag. 🙄 Been doing it about 45 odd years, you’d think I’d have worked it out by now. 😉

Glad you enjoyed it! I should make another batch, but I’m still a long way from being able to do that myself.

Hi Mike. The grey table that I’m working on top of is an old electric height adjustable computer desk, and the two “hydraulic ram” looking supports are just a pair of height adjustable roller stands that I bought a few years back from “Beyond Tools” out in the Malaga Industrial Estate here in northern suburbs of Perth Western Australia. They weren’t cheap, around $200 each from memory. I tend to use them either end of the Robland X31 as extra support for longer lengths of wood passing over the Infeed & outfeed table of the jointer. It prevents the timber wanting to drop at either end as it cantilevers out past the support of the jointer tables, meaning I don’t have to push down & forwards as hard on the tail end to stop it lifting, while the tail end passes over the cutter head. It’s real easy to slip & end up with palm in the cutter head if something goes wrong, so I don’t like working over a jointer that way these days. As I’ve got older and muscles waste away I just don’t have the strength I had as a younger man to get away with that sort of work without making a slip up - so supports with roller tops like that relieve me of a lot of the workload. Same reason I have a power feed on the X31, it’s like a extra pair of hands in the shop that I don’t have to pay wages to make them show up and put in a decent effort, and I’m not having to use physical strength to hold down and push hardwoods through saws when ripping etc. As I’m getting older I’m just finding ways to work smarter not harder. The roller stands aren’t hydraulically adjustable, they are just 3 legged beefy friction adjust round rams that clamp tight in the centre with a collar and set screw once you have them at the desired height. They tend to then find themselves getting other uses like supporting the ends of this long bench for eg as the ends cantilever out past the ends of my computer table work bench, so as not to over stress the Mason mitre clamps & dowels underneath joining all 3 sections together. I tend to make a top like this in smaller sections and join them rather than one continuous length, because most hardwoods and this local Jarrah one, there’s different shrinkage & expansion rates in the blocks from edge to edge, end to end, between summer and winter, & even depending whether the block comes out of a quarter sawn, radial or tangential grain, so 3 smaller panels means that the amount of variation within each panel is hopefully less than what the “Megapoxy” epoxy resin can resist. To get the blocks to half bond into the Parquetry pattern, my set up on the saw, has to be accurate to within thousandths of an inch for length and widths through the jointer likewise for consistency & accuracy, because any variation, and gaps in a half bond Parquetry pattern would grow exponentially (& appearance will suffer) the longer you repeat the pattern. Keeping it in 3 shorter panels helps prevent this from occurring over time with seasonal moisture content changes in the air. You really can’t rely on the strength of PVA glues for Parquetry work in timber, they can’t handle the internal stresses that are exerted. Aussie is such an old continent that all of our souls are acidic, (no active volcanoes spewing lava and ash which are basic and neutralise the soils that the trees grow in, so the sap in our Timbers is acidic & even tho we might dry / season the timber down to 12% EMC here on the Swan Coastal Plain in Perth Western Australia, that remaining moisture being acidic, over time attacks the PVA glues and breaks them down. Epoxy resin I’ve have found is the only successful adhesives long term that are inert to attack by the acid sap & with the strength to resist variations in shrinkage & expansion across the length / width & different grain direction depending how the lumber was sawn out of the log. Hardwoods don’t have medullary rays like softwoods do so the shrinkage expansion rates in hardwoods without epoxy resin adhesives, a Parquetry pattern like this will likely tear itself apart over time with the differing shrinkage & expansion rates trying to tear themselves apart and with acidic sap attacking PVA glues - it wouldn’t last 3 years at most, before glue failure. The expoxy resin should be stronger than the timber it’s joining, and hopefully last maybe 50-100 years hopefully. If the matrix of blocks is going to fail due to varying rates of internal stresses from different grain directions / varying rates of shrinkage & expansion, it should be the blocks themselves that split fail first before the glue fails if that makes sense.

Yes the product range is expanding greatly I noticed just recently. I made my missus a blackbutt cutting board recently & went looking for more orange oil, but discovered a new lemon oil product food safe made for chopping / cutting boards so bought one of those as well, and it worked a treat. 👍

Mostly I try hard to stay out of trouble, but not always successfully. 😜😂 I’ve had a varied career from 10 years in railway engineering, 8 years in Forestry & Wildlife Conservation. Now some 30 odd years in timber work (sawmilling, kiln drying, joinery, cabinets and furniture making. Environmental Consulting. Charter Skipper, Fisheries Research. About 10 odd years volunteer work in missing persons. Now I’m having a crack at machining metal. Your never too old to learn & better to wear out than rust out. Last few years, alongside working in my shed, I’ve been a full time carer for my now 91 year old mother who has senile dementia, so that curtails a lot of my shed work time. Then there’s my secret part time work as a hit man for the mob. 😜😂😂😉 Dad to 3, grandad to 5. That about sums it up.👍

@@ianmoone2359 Wow, it sounds like you've had a very interesting and diverse career! It's great that you're always looking to learn and try new things, even with your responsibilities as a carer for your mother. It's also wonderful to hear that you're a father and grandfather. Can't imagine how do you manage to balance all of these different aspects of your life!

Yes still going like a champ. Has had a replacement rack fitted is the only repair. I split one tree of rings of a particularly hard species called Eucalyptus Wandoo, which is 15 on the Janka hardness scale, so one of the hardest Timbers known anywhere in the world. The ram would just bounce off at least 3 hits before it would split. I managed to break 3 teeth off the rack, however the pinion remained fine. Just bolted a new rack under the ram and it’s never missed a beat since. It still worked while missing the 3 teeth on the rack but I just figured I ought to fix it. The new rack was ~$70 through my local Stihl dealer. Dead easy to unbolt the old one and bolt the new one on. “While dry Marri and Jarrah are normally considered pretty hard at around 7.1 and 8.5kN respectively, Wandoo is off the scales with a whopping dry hardness of 15kN.” & “The wood of this species is extremely dense, with a air-dry density of 1,100 kg/m3 (1,900 lb/cu yd) and a green density of 1,100 kg/m3 (1,900 lb/cu yd)[12]: 46  and is used for a range of heavy duty construction purposes, including as railway sleepers, poles, wood flooring[45][12]: 46  joists, beams, girders and by wheelwrights.[46] Wandoo was renowned as being the most suitable timber for the production of railway sleepers.[47][46] There was once an industry in the extraction of tannin from the bark and wood. These days the wood is not much available, as the wandoo forests are preserved for recreation and watershed protection.[45][12]: 46  The wood and bark contains 10 to 12% tannin.[10] In the 1960s over 68,000 long tons (69,000 t) of wandoo was used to produce tannins for the petroleum, leather and fishing industries.[6] The wood has a yellow to light reddish brown colour is textured with a wavy to interlocked grain and is considered extremely durable and resistant to termites.[12]: 46  The wood also has no chemical reactions with metal fastenings.[10] In the 1960s 2.7×106 cu ft (76×103 m3) mill logs of the wood was harvested.[6] Demand for the wood was such that sawmills in Narrogin and Boyup Brook, Western Australia were entirely dependent upon the supply of wandoo.[46] When dried, E. wandoo is among Australia's hardest timber when measured by the Janka hardness test.[48] At 15,000 kN, E. wandoo is twice as hard as Jarrah, and of comparable hardness to Grey ironbark making it Australia's second or third hardest timber.[49] E. wandoo has a density rating of 1280 kg/m3, making it Australia's densest species of true Eucalyptus.[50] “ I think it’s important to understand just how hard Wandoo is as a timber to try and split. Axes and “block splitters” typically “bounce back” off a cut ring 2 or 3 times in a row, when the ring is green - before a split will even start. It’s one of the two or 3 hardest Timbers in the world. So yes, the Masport did lose 3 teeth off its rack, BUT splitting Wandoo on a 8 tonne kinetic splitter probably counts as “abuse” of the machine on my part. On any other timber it works a treat without complaint. Ohh how hard is Wandoo? Even termites can’t eat it, it’s that hard.

@@ianmoone2359 thanks for the prompt reply. Great feedback.

I’m trying to Ken, but it’s been a lengthy process these last couple years what with pandemic etc. Could be another 12 months before I have the next batch ready. Trying to make them myself. Bought a Bridgeport Mill. Still need to buy a metal lathe, then I’m good to go. Just gotta find the $10k for the lathe. 😂👍🇦🇺

You know you could have a large framed sign made up with:- “Swan Valley Machine Shop” Maybe in burgundy background and shadowed gold leaf lettering to go along the front so that is the first thing anyone sees as they walk in the door maybe? Just a suggestion, been trying to figure out what would look best to match & set off the top. Up to you. 👍 Flag Pole out front of the building. 🇦🇺 Plenty of time to work it all out. Should be a good spot to have a beer fridge underneath and a row of bar stools maybe? 😜😂👍👍

Thanks Ted, I’m glad you like it, it has come along a bit since you were here last, thankfully. Look forward to a catch up in the new year. Can you believe we were helping Max put the roof on his new workshop this time last year? Where do the days and weeks go eh?

From memory I think it was 41 degrees.

@@ianmoone2359 Grizzly sells them ground at 42 degrees with a secondary of 45 degrees. Most planer blades I encounter are around 40 degrees. I just bought the Grizzly version of this machine. After you spend the time fiddling and adjusting it does a decent job but I think this idea of yours using these wheels will improve mine.

@@anthonybeaver3734 I just used a Wixey digital angle gauge to find the 41 degree angle, and fiddled with the adjustment until I was getting a full flat grind that matched the existing ground angle from new. You can run a blue felt marker along the ground angle, do a single pass and see if your removing all the blue or just the leading edge or just the trailing edge. Adjust accordingly until your getting an even grind removing all the blue ink in one pass, then leave it set at that angle basically. The CBN wheels basically cold grind and prevent you changing the temper of the thin leading edge by overheating it. Realistically water (wet) grinding like with a Tormek, is the only other way to do that.

Yes this is correct. AFN bar. It cost ~$4500 🇦🇺 fitted and colour coded to match the vehicle paint colour. Couldn’t be happier with it. 👍👍👍

I think they are a good bar overall. I don’t think they are as thick steel perhaps as the ORA bars, which have a similar type of look. But lighter is actually better from the point of view of not sagging the front suspension & less mass equals better fuel mileage. They are known to have issues with water getting into the LED indicator lights, however my supplier / installer was prepared & had replacements waiting and swapped them out with no further issues. There’s another issue I ran into and that is the parking sensors in the front of the bar. They are held in with a double sided tape from AFN that lets go with water, and when the sensor falls back inside the bar they trigger a dash warning (that I just turned off). Again the installer knew about it and had a replacement tape that’s water proof and solved the issue. Mine was colour matched to the car by the supplier / installer which looks awesome. I’ve had zero other issues with the bar in the 12 months since & couldn’t be happier with it 12 months down the line, including another trip away up the coast etc as well as usual urban day to day driving around the ‘burbs. Unlike some other brands the bar uprights don’t interfere with the headlights by casting a shadow down the road in front of the vehicle on left & right side. Along with the LED & HID spotlights it’s an absolute weapon for night driving, & “melts tar at 3kms” 😜😂 The bar isn’t “obtrusive” to the driver day or night. It seems to get “a lot of second looks” and a few questions from other Prado owners in traffic and car parks. I’m surprised you don’t see more of them getting about.👍 I forgot to mention if your in WA you can get one through Tony at Aspect Offroad up in Carramar (Wangara area). He has a Facebook page. 👍 Ohh I should also have mentioned that, if your in Perth WA your very welcome to pop around have at loot at it in the flesh, if it will help you decide, because they are an expensive decision at the end of the day.

@@ianmoone2359 could you tell me diameter of the tube used to make the hoops? Just wanting to fit side rails in the near future.

@@brandonsauverain4447 60mm diameter and about 0.6mm of paint on top of that.

I’m sorry, I don’t have any helpful suggestions with that. When the rack arm is retracted, there’s almost no tension on the spring. Are you trying to install the spring with the arm extended or retracted?

@@ianmoone2359 retracted

@@charlesclarke8470 I could be wrong but in my fading memory, did I attach the spring and use the pulley on the motor to engage the pinion on the rack to pull the spring into place? I really can’t recall sorry.

@@ianmoone2359 My problem is fitting the plastic rollers in place, they seem too big once removed.I do have the splitter working ok in a make shiftway

Eventually mine shed 3 teeth on the rack under the splitting ram. It was understandable, I split 2 whole trees called Wandoo, which is about as hard as timber comes, (15 on the Janka hardness scale). The ram would bounce back off the rings 2 or 3 times before it would split them. So it really was abusing it to the max. A new rack I bought through my Stihl dealer where I bought the splitter - it was only $80, and I just unbolted the broken one and bolted the new one in and it hasn’t missed a beat since because I haven’t split any more Wandoo, just stick to splitting Jarrah now and that splits like butter. I’d imagine you could always source a new spring from Masport in NZ. Just check that your rack under neath the ram isn’t missing a few teeth.

@@ianmoone2359 Thank you Ian for that info.I contacted Masport and they advised me of a dealer near me who could get any parts that I need so hopefully I will get things going soon

Hi mate. Bar added about 50 kilos plus about ~ 5kgs for the lights. (The AFN shipping weight is 50kgs so maybe some packaging weight in that 50kg). Driving dynamics for me personally improved slightly. I just find that I prefer a slightly lower front stance for “tracking” while on road. I’ve since added quite a bit of weight in the rear with a stainless flat pack fire pit, 75 litre Conpanion Lithium fridge & a heap of recovery gear, so it’s gone back to being basically level now, and to be honest it kind of “wallows” now when cornering. That’s more about the weight in the back than the weight of the bar up front if that makes sense. I suspect that a set of air bags in rear is all it would take to solve that, however I’m aiming to set up to tow a boat eventually - so it’s likely I might upgrade suspension at some point down the track which again would stiffen up the handling somewhat. I did take the Prado up to Shark Bay with the AFN bar on and went Offroad all through the Francois Peron National park, on Sandy tracks, with lots of corrugations and toward the top end some really soft sand. Stock factory tyres at 20psi handled it all really comfortably without any issues at all. If I were to have gone into any of the soft beaches tho I’d likely have dropped to 12psi. I’ve not noticed any impact at all on wind noise from the bar at all. Fuel economy has stayed the same basically at a little over 10kms/litre, but I don’t hurry anywhere - cruise control at 100kph basically covers me for long country trips. And I’ve since checked the speedo against GPS speed & on the factory tyres and rims, the 100kph dash indicated speed translates to 97kph by gps speed, so maybe that is why I always get great mileage? However I’ve noticed that EVERYONE overtakes me a lot of highways and freeways. Upside is I haven’t had a single speeding ticket in over 50 years. 😂 There’s the green “eco” light indicator on the dash when your throttle setting is optimised for fuel efficiency and mine seldom goes off. Hope that helps you out. 👍👍👍

Thanks mate - much appreciated indeed. I’ll chat with the spare parts guy at my next service about the secondary battery kit. Trying hard to decide “what to do next” ie what order to do things “as I can afford them” so that it works out in the proper order. Ie no point doing a suspension lift or gvm upgrade if I haven’t got the second battery in first and roof rack etc on. Stuff like UHF radio might be later additions perhaps. Anderson plug in the back for the fridge will need to happen soon as the ciggy lighter chord on the Companion fridge barely reaches the socket in the back of the centre console etc. I takes a lot of saving and research to try and get it all “correct at the first go”. I’m trying to do it without breaking the bank by just “throwing money at it” if that makes sense.

Thanks Robin. I don’t need to do a suspension lift or GVM upgrade just yet. I’m building this vehicle to eventually tow a boat. Any weight carrying capacity I gained in the Prado from a GVM upgrade, would just mean less weight I could tow in the boat because the GCM (Gross Combined Mass), remains the same, so increasing car load reduces the towed load. The MY21 150 Prados with upgraded 150kw & 500Nm engines (produced late 2020 onwards) can only legally tow 3000 kilos - so increasing GVM in vehicle by say 500 kegs effectively reduces towing capacity back to 2500kgs which is only what the older earlier Prados could tow. I’ve not yet come across anything thus far that has affected the stock functionality, so I’ve not lost use of any of the standard equipment features of the VX. I say that with just one caveat at this point that I’ve not yet tested but have heard rumours about, in relation to particularly strong spotlights & the auto high low beam dipping functionality & large reflectorized road side signage. I’ve heard rumours that when travelling at night in rural areas with full high beam spotlights on, and you approach road side advisory signs, that are designed to reflect light, that it’s possible the camera on the windscreen behind the rear view mirror which detects speed signs etc - also controls the auto high beam dip & raise function by sensing oncoming vehicles headlights, can be “fooled / confused” by your own reflected spotlights glare, off the road side advisory sign, into thinking there’s an approaching vehicle and automatically dipping your headlights which then in turn switches your spotlights off as well. I’ve not yet tested this rumour, you have the option of not using the auto headlights dimming feature, you can select manual headlight dimming feature on the indicator stalk & dash selection switch, - such that you have to manually use the indicator stalk to dim headlights and restore high beams (& thus spotlights), which is the setting I had selected last time I drove it at night in a rural area, so it wasn’t an issue, but I will make an effort to work out how the auto dim feature copes with spotlights and road side advisory signs that are reflectorized & the camera - next time I get an opportunity. What’s been suggested to me (but at this stage is still just a rumour) is that if there’s sufficient light from the spotlights & high beams to reflect off the white guide posts every few hundred meters on the side of the road that all have small white & red reflectors - to fool the camera auto headlight dipping feature - that on auto dip setting you might drive down the highway at night with your headlights and spotlights going high low and spotlights on & off like a disco ball at a night club. I’ve yet to test this theory rumour but it’s just a matter of time. As stated you can manually over ride this as the driver with your lights setting, BUT if true then that POSSIBLY could be one standard functionality loss thus far, but again I’ve yet to test this out. So far I’ve only driven twice at night in rural areas since fitting the spotlights - once to see how they worked and the second time to adjust and tighten where exactly they pointed on the road ahead of me. On both occasions I wasn’t set on Auto headlights dip setting tho so at the moment it remains just a rumour in my experience. I will report back - perhaps in an upcoming video - on how that functionality works at night in a rural area. I have other mods planned for the vehicle yet, like roof rack & 270 awning. I’ve also got plans to mount a 2nd spare wheel on the roof rack along with Max Trax and long handled recovery shovel etc so that will all feature in the next video. I’ve bought an extra 3 Prado rims as spares and a set of 5 extra tyres with only 4000kms travelled on them to mount up as spares - maybe as matching wheels on the boat trailer so that everything matches and is interchangeable between vehicle and trailer. I’ve bought a near new wheel cover and backing plate so will probably bolt the spare to the roof rack the exact same way as the factory spare bolts to the rear barn door as a matched set if that makes sense. Might not be everyone’s cup of tea but I’m not trying to copy everyone else. Because I’m not setting up as a rock crawler but more as a towing tourer, I’ve thus far avoided the suspension lift and GVM upgrade. I’d still like to add a second lithium battery system to help run the companion lithium fridge, with its own solar panel on the roof rack. The way it is going I might well get to the point I have to do a gvm upgrade once towball down load gets added to the vehicle gvm. I’ll have to wait & see until I test it all out once it’s all done. 👍

Glad to hear it Marty. If you are towing and have a passenger, it’s important to school them on what to do in the event of a trailer sway situation. All they have to do is push the Redarc button. But it’s better they know before hand than trying to explain it during a sway situation. 👍

It’s not easy but definitely worth the effort. I’ve also seen one installed in the centre console just in front of the storage compartment, but it was in a GXL - the blanking plate is where the heat / cold selectors for the seats are on the VX, which the GXL doesn’t have unless you ordered upgrade interior, so there was no blanking plate available to me in that spot.

Thanks Jack, much appreciated. I couldn’t even get Lightforce themselves to tell me how to wire them with the Canbus system, despite 3 attempts. Ended up letting Toyota do it. Hope it helps you out. 👍

Not now. When I first got it they moved the front sensors from the font bumper into the AFN bull bar. We parked the car outside for a week while at a beach house on holiday when it never stopped raining and blowing the whole week. The double sided tape used to hold the sensors into the bar got soaked and let go, the wind blew the sensor back inside the bar, and it would go off continuously because it was pointing at the inside of the bar. The supplier / installer was great about it tho, he called around and re-did the sensors with a better more permanent water proof type of double sided tape & no issues at all since. I’ve done water crossings even & no issues for eg. At the same time the LED lights for the indicators got wet and changed colour from orange to green. AFN were aware of the issue and the supplier had upgraded water proof indicator LEDs that the supplier installer fitted at the same time as fixing the parking sensors issues. Those 2 issues were well known with the AFN bars but I hear those 2 issues have been addressed with the latest batches of AFN bars. It was a minor annoyance at the time but no issues since fixed and all at no cost to me. I have heard of the issue you describe with parking sensors on ARB bars. What I heard was the holes drilled in the ARB bar are one drill size too small / tight. The plastic insert that the sensor fits into is too thin, and the sensor picks up the steel bar through the plastic insert when wet. Apparently the “fix” is to drill out the fixture holes one size larger and use a thicker plastic insert and re-fit the sensors. I think it’s a well known issue with the ARB bars. One more “issue” that the ARB bars were known for is the 2 vertical uprights interfere with the spread of the high beam lights at night, they cast two darker shadows on the road in front of your view that some owners take issue with / find annoying. Hope that helps out. 👍

Did they relocate the camera? Or do you have large spot lights which are ahead of the bullbar? The collision system uses the front camera, mirror image and radar for collision. What’s the alarm? I had an issue when TJM put the bullbar on and didn’t disconnect battery. They did relocate camera to bar. When disconnected and they removed the nose cone it put pre-alarms onto system. The collision pre-alarms kept coming up. Lucky I had a scanner and reset them. Now there is no issues and haven’t seen an alarm in 12months.

@@bushmagpie3312 No need to relocate the camera on mine at all. The radar sensor and front mount camera all work as per factory and no alarms at all. 👍

ARB they relocated my front camera very disappointed the way they did mine

Your bull bar look good

That’s a damned good idea, thanks for that, they got placed there temporarily & that’s as far as I ever got with them. I have several gear bags they could go into. Can never be too safe hey. 👍👍👍

Thanks mate, I got the inspiration to buy this vehicle from your vids. 👍👍👍

Mine is a VX model which has the ATRAC. Best I can tell activation of rear diff lock disconnects ATRAC. I’m not sure if the lower spec Prado (GL & GXL) have ATRAC however. 👍

Thanks Ted, for sure if you ever need to test moisture content, hit me up for use of the meter. Great if your ever buying a fibreglass boat with encapsulated timber stringers & transom, for eg, you can test for moisture / rot inside the stringers or transom - without poking holes through the fibreglass. 👍👍👍😂

Brilliant now I know mate!!! Would love if you could visit me someday in middlesexx would love to pick your brain