Member postings for Roger Quaintance

welcome aboard, where be you to?

Nature abhors a vacuum, if the air outside is damp it will be damp inside unless you have dry heating, and by that I mean not propane which only makes the damp problem worse. Dehumidifiers will collect the moisture from the air making space for the next lot to come in, in short without heating you are on a good hiding to nothing and forever fighting rust.

Whilst Terry Aspin will always be remembered for his books on foundrywork (both of them timeless classics) (Oops just found another one so three foundry books) and chuck the muddle engineer cartoons, most do not realise he was a prolific cartoonist drawing for many "Comics" of the day, it is a pity he never published Chuck the muddle engineer as a book of his own. Though Chuck did write building a locomotive from scratch, his third book.

Edited By Roger Quaintance on 13/03/2022 13:48:41

I am a lefty as well ha ha, we seem to have A Rash of them. Watching people make something out of nothing puts us all to shame and makes us realise where the innovators are to be found, The end result is as accurate as possible within the restrictions of the lathe. The saddle components appeared to be bouncing around a bit

They say necessity is the mother of invention, this chap shows what can be done with basic tools and a will to get there. Accuracy not in the realms we expect but it gets the job done it seems. One has to respect the ingenuity involved.

no milling machine no problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwOHX3pAYyg

I feel like complaining every time I see it, ha ha

I am sure there not only is a lot of interest but a lot of people who have experimented one way or another. The forces involved only limit the size of the gear or the profile I suppose though most people will need either 20dp or 16dp only the odd person will use 14dp for older machines. Mmm not meaning the person who uses 14dp is odd, ha ha. My problem will always be a non mathematical mind. Plus my workshop is such a mess photos will not be easy and I seldom work to a drawing these days its all in my head and developed as I go so one problem will follow another, ha ha. I will take a series of photos as I go and to hell with the mess and if it fails then maybe others can suggest how to rescue the project. Though basically I will not be spending a great deal of money on it, thats for sure.

As a make do and mend engineer my approach is a function rather than a pretty thing so I will not spend time on unimportant finishes. Whilst I am purportedly retired I do run a a campsite so my time is limited, most years to the winter months, going out now I could be some time, ha ha.

PS why is there not a facility to "like" a post as I hate to ignore other peoples input.

I am sure many of you have tried gear hobbing one way or another, having seen the Jacobs (CES) machine and fighting old age crap memory etc I am going ahead to build one to fit on the lathe. What do I have, I have a number of inch and a quarter bore commercial hobs (including 16dp 14.5pa as used by both of my lathes). I have a couple of lathe top slides, a Boxford dividing head to fit the topslide (when mounted as a vertical slide) A large piece of angle plate, assorted 16dp gears from many different lathes. I have ordered a couple of UJ's around £11 the pair could not make them for that if I had the time. Lots of bits to make, an arbor to hold the hob and a drive gear to drive the blank, a suitable banjo to hold the required gearing, numerous connecting structures and a chance to make a vertical slide for the lathe. (the angle plate will swivel and also hold a tiny rotary table I made many moons ago, or one of the topslides. So lots of bits to make or cobble together. One day I will actually make something other than a machine to make something, ha ha

cheers, it is on a dividing head (myford style) but for my use will probably use the 2 morse taper to hold an arbor

thank you, yep I checked the angle so not unified

so next question anyone have a spare backplate gathering rust?

anyone know what lathe that might be? am looking for a a chuck or maybe backplate or cast blank

amputate at the wrists? I'll get me coat. Ha ha

I have needed an index for ages, many thanks it must have taken ages

a thought comes to me, why not try mixing your own bronze, copper brass and some zinc, or maybe some Aluminium for ali-bronze it would solve the problem would it not, worth a try.

got it thanks

I'll certainly have a look at that. In the mean time design changes already before I start building, instead of 40:1 worm drive I will make it possible to change the driven gear so it could be any ratio I have a gear for, that will give me a lot more scope. The mandrel (see spelt correctly, ha ha) will be made to take both one inch hobs and inch and a quarter. I have several of both and don't think it worth making two mandrels. Everything still in my head at present but will start sketching to find what I need to make

Close Phil, I took time out to look at again today, and noticed the gear at the handle and shaft spins however the gear that transfers motion to another gear driving the leadscrew does not move, oops have to move it out from the wall to get at it, it has been like that since I bought it and was told then the lathe had not been used for 40 year, ha ha So am pretty confident that is the answer, Just have to mount the motor now and could have the basis of my gear hobber

It has only taken me 3 years to make a start on the machine, it kind of got buried as I have a Colchester for my main turning.

ok I get that much for me that would be 10 divided by 40 it is the next part that I have problems with how do you get from .625 (5/8) to using a 48 and 30 tooth for that ratio. I tried using the log method in machinerys handbook but the gear numbers that it comes up with seldom include gears in the set 30, 35, 40, 45, etc and has all sorts of odd gears required and whilst that could be done with a stepper motor that is not a route I wish to go down I need to be able to work out compound gear trains. Once I have the basic ratio using gears that I have, even if three trains are needed at times how to break a ratio down into the various compound units.

oops well am monkeying around