Electronic ignition

[Triton Thrasher]

lathes.... chucked off...

I get that.

[orabanda]

Chinese lathes are good because they are affordable; the results come down to the machinist.

Many a bad job has been done on a good lathe (and Vicky Versa).

(written from my hotel in Beijing)

Richard

[worntorn]

I was given a Taiwan built lathe, a Southbend copy. It was purchased new for my neighbours business but none of his employees would use it due to its tendency to always cut on a taper ( about 20 thou per foot!)
A machinist friend gave me over the phone instructions on how to adjust the head stock relative to the bed( also in the operator's manual) and now it cuts true to within one half thou per foot.
It's 30 years old but in as new condition because the employees turned their noses up and wouldn't use it, or put any effort into sorting it because of where it was built.
So it's a little beauty to run especially after I fitted a DRO to it.
I have a big Monarch lathe as well for heavy work, but still use the little Taiwan lathe for all kinds of MC work.

I had better include some Electronic Ignition info in this post. Ei is great if you can find a truly reliable 12 Volt charging source.
For timing, the slickest I have encountered is Pazon Smartfire. Put Piston at TDC compression stroke then rotate the Pazon ignition plate until the LED light turns off.
Amazingly, it works perfectly.

Glen

[muskrat]

G'day all.
I've only ever had Boyer on my BSA's and can't really fault them. First kick starting hot or cold and check the timing once a year.
 A while back I fitted a Dynatek 2000ip system ( http://www.dynaonline.com/products/harley-davidson/dyna-2ki.aspx ) to a mates HD. Wow what a system. I can hook up the laptop and adjust everything from ignition timing, rev limit, dead crank revs (for kickstarting), adv/ret rear cyl timing and even make my own advance curve map. Every time I do a service I can download the data and see if he's been a naughty boy.
One day I'll work out how to adapt it to the BSA.
Cheers

[coater87]

Occasionally I go on a forum about using lathes. You get chucked off if you say you need advice about Chinese lathes. Think about it!

 We must visit some of the same sites.

 I was in a discussion about a Monarch 10EE, and some guy blurted off about how he does not know why all the bother when you can get a Chinese lathe just as good.

 He was banned for 2 weeks.

Lee