Member postings for Alexander Smith 1

I just love the image of a hen putting in her false teeth in the morning before she tackles something a bit tough! To be honest, I thought the fact that it took me several sessions on the Internet to find one supplier with a handful of second hand P9 collets qualified them as "rare as hen's' teeth" but no matter.

i'm in the process of rebuilding a pair of Hauser mills which came to me as a box of bits, essentially. I'll post some photos when I've done some painting but I think I can make one good one at least from the bits. What I am missing are the threaded end stops which regulate the movement of the laver action y slide. Seems to be just some threaded rod but measuring the bore of the slide end plate gives me 7mm with a .75 mm pitch thread so I assume that will correspond to an M8 x 0.75 thread. I've been looking all over for a supplier of this 8mm extra fine but can't find any. Lots of 8mm by 1.25 and 1.0 but no 0.75. A few suppliers list nuts this size but no threaded rod. Can anyone else with a Hauser mill confirm this is the thread and point me to a source or is this also "rare as hen's teeth?

Sandy

Have a look on you tube, there are several restoration videos of Walter dividing heads. Might give you some useful tips.

sandy

I have a Hauser mill which takes the Shaublin P9 collet and looks suspiciously like ypurs( 9mm diameter and 2BA internal thread. If it is, then hen's teeth are common in comparison. I managed to find a couple from a French dealer. If anyone would like to dispose of any, let me know.

sandy

Hi Woody, if it's like a standard 4-jaw chuck, the screws are retained by the plug you can see from the back. The plug has a u- shaped end which locks into a groove about half way along the screw. If you look from the top you should see the groove and the ends of the U at either side. I think there is probably a special tool for getting the u- shaped key out but I've done it in the past with a thin punch- work both sides alternately a little at a time and you should see the plug starting to emerge. To get it out fully you might need to make a punch with a slight bend to get round the corner. I'm not describing this at all well and a picture would be a lot better but all will become clear as the plug emerges.Good luck. Sandy

That's fantastic Peter. Thanks for confirming the identity of the boiler and thanks also to everyone who helped- this is a really amazing site. If I send you a PM, Peter, would it be possible to let me have a copy of just the boiler plan- I can't take on any more projects so this boiler will have to go to someone who can make use of it. I got it for more or less the scrap copper price so if anyone us building Caribou it would be a very cheap boiler.Sandy

Many thanks to all for the helpful suggestions. My Club has a complete set of Model Engineers but unfortunately during lockdown I can't get at them. Does anyone have plans for Caribou or Buffalo who could let me have the relevant dimensions or a copy of the page of the magazine mentioned above. Thanks. Sandy

Can anyone help to identify this mystery loco boiler. It's 18 5/8" long overall and 4 3/4" diameter. There are 4 x 3/4" diameter tubes plus 16 x 7/16" tubes and a 3/4" thick walled regulator tube. The outer firebox is 6 1/2" long by 5 3/8" at the base and the inner firebox is 5 3/4" x 4 5/8" . The backhead is 6" high and the inner firebox is 4" high. There are 2 crownstays and a third longitudinal stay along the crown of the firebox. Anyone any idea what loco this boiler might be for - no one at my Club could suggest anything but several members felt the firebox was very shallow (much shallower than my Pansy boiler although overall it's a very similar size. 12" rule in the photos for comparison.

Thanks Sandy

Can't put my hand on it at the moment (It's in a box!!) but I got one of these 20 years or more ago. I think it was made by Moore and Wright and basically was a 1/2" drill chuck on a No 2 morse arbor with the sort of optical system used in a centring microscope - look through the viewer on the side and you got a cross hairs image of whatever was directly below the chuck. I'd never seen one so I took it along to the Model Engineering club (Stockport) and one of the members who was a long time engineer identified it a a jig-borer chuck so you could centre on a punch mark or graduation before drilling. Back then he thought it was around £600 worth so goodness knows what one would cost now. If I can dig it out, I'll post a photo.

Sandy

Hi James,

turned the office upside trying to find my copy of the manual to no avail but I found that you can download a full copy of the manual free from www.vintagemachinery.org. Look in the publications section. Great site with hundreds of manuals form old machines. All the info and exploded diagrams you need are on there. Sandy

Pure guess but could it be a home made lathe dog. Bar in the nut, grip it with the screw and drive with the wing?

sandy

We had a horrendously noisy cooker hood that IKEA replaced with another one that was also noisy. Finally fitted a different one but I think a large factor in the noise was the corrugated plastic pipe. I found several comments saying that smooth bore pipe was a much better idea and didn't set up resonance in the tube to the same extent. Might be worth a try . Sandy

Hi James,

I have a Harrison 140 which is essentially the metric version of the L5(not exactly, I know, but close enough) and have the manual. If you don't have a copy already, I could let you have the relevant diagrams.

sandy

Hi Andrew,

thanks for digging out the pump- I'm sure a coat of paint and a little TLC will serve. I have a converter so should be ok or a friend is very good with digging out star points and then I could use a standard inverter. I see that 415v inverters are becoming much more reasonable but I've never used one but another possibility I have the toolpost- just couldn't find it to appear in the photo. I'd removed the indexing stop as part of the cleaning and only realised that It was still lying on the bench when I'd taken most of the photos but it is there in the first one ( which I took last). I'm assuming that the bent lever is just a length of bar with a knob so even I should manage that. Presumably, the connecting pipes are standard hydraulic items?

i'll drop you a PM to discuss how we can sort thinks out if that's ok.

sandy

Hi Andrew, found the copying attachment in the back shed and after a little bit of cleaning it looks OK. Everything seems to be there and moves freely so it should work OK. The toolpost was put "somewhere safe" which means I can't find it at the moment but it is around. I can't see anything to indicate which model or size it is - the only number on the casting is C19787 which I presume is the serial number. Does this look like your one - in which case your spare hydraulic unit should be suitable if you are happy to part with it. Let me know whether you need any other information to confirm what model it might be. Thanks Sandy

That's a very kind offer, Andrew, but before you do anything let me dig it out of the back shed and take some photos and check condition to see whether it is still worth bothering you - it's been in there for years and I don't want to waste your time. Thanks also to DC31k, I've been hunting through google and the sites it throws up and I should be able to buy a manual but I can't see information on the different models so difficult to determine exactly what I have. As I said to Andrew, I'll dig it out and take some photos and dimensions.

Thanks for all your help. Sandy

Hi Andrew, thanks for responding

yes, the tank and pump for the hydraulic oil were missing when I found it. I have a small hydraulic pump that powered an actuator cylinder on a hefty piece of equipment and wondered whether it might be suitable but I have no idea of what the original was. A manual for the whole attachment would also be useful to ensure that nothing else is missing.

Sandy

Seeing this thread and the pictures reminded me that I've got one of these in the back shed (think mysterious cavern of treasures unexplored for too long). It came my way via the local scrapyard and I planned to fit it to my Harrison 140 but, like so many projects, it never got going, principally because the hydraulic unit was missing. Does anyone have (or can point me to) a manual for the copying unit or let me have a spec for the hydraulic unit - is this something completely specific or could I use an alternative?

Sandy

Like Lee, this took me back 60 years goiIng into the bakery with my Dad who was foreman, and "helping". "Helping " in my case involved raiding the bins with sultanas and dates and searching out any left over cream cakes but I clearly remember a very similar tool with cutting discs on each point being used to cut even strips from a huge sheet of puff pastry. This then had a long sausage of minced meat piped down the middle of each strip, fold it over and cut into sections and hey presto, you have a sausage roll! Fresh out of the oven they were wonderful. Sandy

Question for JohnP. I also have a Christen drill grinder that I picked up for a song at our local scrapyard. Unfortunately, it only came with one collet- you get very poor service at some scrapyards these days!

the collets are quite strange - split at both ends with a cone also at both ends, presumably to grip the drill shank evenly.

does anyone have any spares lying around or know of a source for these - I have toyed with the idea of using an ER11 collet chuck on an 8mm spindle- dead cheap from China, but the originals would be better.

sandy

Apologies if the moderators think this is advertising but my daughter sells led lighting kits and special effects modules for models and dolls houses including an mp3 recorder and playback and control chip if you are looking for a ready made solution. She can load any sounds you want onto the chip.Have a look at www.smallscalelights.co.uk under the special effects kits section. Lots of other goodies as well.

I'm sure others will come up with lots of other alternatives

sandy