Member postings for samuel heywood

I really had no idea it was so old. Well I guess the 1920's was a stylish decade wasn't it?

One of my very favourite engines, not least because i rode on the footplate, oooh must be nearly 50 years ago.

Yeah , i know it sounds like a tall story, I just happened to be in the right place @ the right time.

Can hardly believe it myself now, all these years later.

We weren't doing the" ton" though Hopper.

I remember be told to "stand there, keep still & don't touch anything"

Guess little boys were generally better at doing what they were told back then...

In the absence of instructions though , we could still find plenty of mischief to get into!

I'd wager a pint of finest Ale they come from the same factory though.

Just had a look at the RUWAG uk website, if you zoom the pic~ stamped hss Germany.

I also see a flatted shank pictured , if that's relevant to anyone. The B& D ones i have are all round shank.

I think i'd rather take a "Johnny Cab"

Posted by Pete. on 03/03/2023 06:24:05:

You should upload some photos of your modifications, I'm mulling over ideas for my project mini lathe, I have a couple of ideas I don't think I've seen anyone else do, but these machines are so heavily modified by so many people it's quite possible someone somewhere has already done it.

There's a young German lad with a channel called "we can do that better" who almost exclusively does videos on modifying his mini lathe, he's done a few nice additions well worth taking a look.

Well here's my take on the cross slide extension.... Used brass because it was early days, i didn't want to use Ali & my steel turning still looked like the machinists equivalent of a ploughed field! Hidden in there are two 10x15x4 bearings, bigger would be better but the retaining bolts get in the way rather.

.... hope that's of some use Michael.

On reverse of B& D's packaging it states "Bits below 3mm do not have the unique bullet pilot point but do have a specially ground point"

Looking @ my 3mm example,it just looks like a standard split point.

Maybe they decided it wasn't economic to do in small sizes at some point in the production run?

Here's one more, well it's not really a modification or improvement, more of a helpful tip~

Not seen this anywhere whilst surfing the web, might be useful to someone.

I find single point screw cutting quite satisfying, however changing out all those gears can be a bit of a pain.

They are pretty tight on the shafts (as they should be) & especially that B/C gear bush.

The sticker on your mini lathe lists various combinations for the ABCD gears, but not all thread pitches possible are listed, neither is the particular combination necessarily the only combination that will produce a particular thread pitch.

Now, sit down with pencil paper & calculator (if required) & thrash out possible changewheel combinations for all the pitches you are likely to want to cut.

See if you can minimise the gear swap outs.

I can cut several metric pitches without changing either A or D wheels & a few more before finally having to swap out the D wheel (gear)

Next, based on your ' minimal change tabl'e, you just thrashed out buy some extra changewheels (you will know which ones from your table) & either buy or make a couple of extra BC gear bushes.

Assemble those extra BC 'cartridges'

Swapping out a different BC "cartridge " will be a breeze, & save you time & a little frustration.

I've not outgrown mine yet either.

Guess i'm still happy tuning up the moped whilst the rest of the lads have moved on to Mk2 Escorts.

I tend to learn most lessons in life the hard way but one lesson i did learn fairly young.

As a teen i attempted to learn electric guitar. Some people are gifted that way, some not~ guess i'm not.

Anyhow, i could only afford a cheap one & put it sounding a bit naff down to that.

One day a friend of a friend was visiting, now he could really play! Picked up my guitar banged some stuff out, pronounced it 'not bad' & my ears couldn't believe it was the same instrument!!

Lesson was~ a skilled person can work wonders with only modest equipment. Sure they can do better with quality equipment, but it's the "skilled .....whatever" that counts.

Judgeing by some of the work exhibited on this forum it will be a long time before my humble mini lathe will be the limiting factor to my limited "skill"

I've no recollection of what we measured things in @ school, should have been metric i guess, but i've always done a rough in head conversion depending on what i was measuring. (now a more exact conversion with attempting to be a hobby machinist)

Flit from one to the other.

Big things~ feet.

Under one foot, i find cm convienient.

Little things~ well a thou or ten seems a lot more convienient than .0..whatever mm.

The Imperial system was,at least in part developed from the natural order of things?an inch~ width of your thumb, a foot~ well self explainatory as long as you have large feet , etc etc.

The Metre as i understand it, is the length it is because someone just decided it was so & bears no real relevance to anything real world. They just said a metre is 'this much' & we'll use that.

Metric system short changes you 4" x2" x 8ft Timber? you'll be lacking on all dimensions with metric.

Ever run the mile? Nowadays it's usually the 1500m.

All that said Duncan's probably right, the Imperial system will likely peter out eventually, when all the old & wise have departed this life.

Sometimes the' best' isn't the popular choice. Anyone remember VHS & Betamax?

Betamax was actually technically a better system, whilst being smaller, but Jo public went with VHS.

I was only trying to be helpful Michael, if i wasn't~ feel free to ignore my comment. My friends often do.

Yes it's a bit cheeky calling drills pilot or bullet point when they are not.

I can attempt to take a close up of the 4mm point if that's in any way helpful??

Thanks for the replies all.

@ JasonB ~I've a box of used mo max 1/2" somewhere under everything else, can't do anything with them currently.

@ Nigel G, not a trained engineer,so sometimes do not use the correct engineering term. "torque down" the bolts is just a common (mechanics?) expression to me.

Actually i could try using the torque wrench to get an idea of whether it really is abuse! Generally i have a light touch with things all mechanical.

The reason I tighten these bolts well because i note by the time it comes to change tools only very light pressure releases the bolts so maybe something is amiss?

Don't worry Howard, i haven't mushroomed anything~ not sure i'd have the strength these days, more 'Mr Muscle' than 'Mr Universe'

As i've already got some suitable steel stock maybe i'll go with Hopper & Jason's suggestion rather than buy something in.

Meaning.. I am?

The Mini Lathe~ maligned by some, loved by many.

Whilst not the last word in engineering magnificance it has, i'm sure, opened up the world of hobby engineering to many~ including myself.

A trawl of the internet will bring up many modifications & 'improvements' to this humble machine.

These range literally from 'the good, the bad & the ugly' ~ please peruse, they may be a source of enlightenment, or spur you on to make your Mini Lathe your very own unique machine.

One of my favourites was a '7x 20 mini lathe bed extension'~ long since disappeared into the cyberspace ether... I Wonder if it ever got finished?

So.... what Mini Lathe modifications worked for you? Which is the best?

I'll start things off~ my Mini Lathe has been fairly heavily modified & still ongoing.

My absolute best mod was a cross slide extension. Now have 100mm travel.

Not only can I turn up to nearly 6" dia stock without crazy toolpost manipulation, the toolpost neatly skirts the 100mm chuck for 'parking' whilst drilling etc with the tailstock.

N.B. to date max dia turning 5" steel, boy was that frustrating, but 'm sure 6.9" Ali would be a breeze!

Your mileage may vary, but for me #1 mod.

My also rans~

Headstock taper roller bearings~ Other sources quote much better parting off performance. I never noticed this, but parting off has never been an issue(within limits)

Maybe i did something wrong? (Actually I know I did~ spindle end bearing is slightly too loose, other end slightly too tight (on shaft). Still works well enough, but you learn by your mistakes.

Facing was however much,much better. Absolutely worth the effort just for this.

Some sort of bearings to both cross slide & top slide are very much to be recommended.

Please note, whilst these may help, if your top slide/cross slide are rather lumpy/rough, this is not a cure in & of itself & you need to address the issue seperately (& preferably1st)

Reading around,some Mini lathes seem to come with quite acceptable cross slides/ topslides & some seem to be quite awful out the box.

Mine was the latter~ but i learnt a fair bit fixing the issue.

Right~ over to you folks!

Does anyone happen to know what the standard mini lathe toolpost is made of?

To this non expert eye it looks like it's not steel but some grade of cast iron?

Reason i ask is i want to make a new one to take up to 1/2" tools.

This will make the base thinner but not so thin, as due to my non informed & later more informed attempts to get the topslide working snug & smooth i've lost some height on the topslide. A 7/16" tool will almost fit to centre height as is.

The topslide does actually work quite well now!

The loss in base thickness will be offset somewhat by making it a two way toolpost, so there will be some additional side bracing not present on the original.

Material options are Ali (we can chuck that one out i think, ) , Steel, Cast iron, Or S.G Cast Iron.

Any thoughts? I'm thinking standard Cast Iron may not bare up too well the way i torque down the tool retaining bolts!

This will give the micro mill a good workout cutting the slots , but i'm not proposing to cut the slots full width in one.

Thanks.

Arc Euro trade do heads with HSS cutters & sell the seperate HSS cutters. Can't comment further as i do not have & have not tried~ probably of Chinese origin also (as most will be) but their HSS lathe tools and blanks are good enough.

Need a boring head myself, still wondering about making one, looks more time consuming than genuinely difficult??

I have some B & D " bullet drills to &,yes, do seem to drill tighter tolerance to size than conventional.

I believe they were( & maybe still are?) made by 'Bayricshe Boherwerke' in Germany.

The later DeWalt cobalt ones feature a faster spiral i believe.

This may be advantageous to the original OP task of drilling stainless but as i'm still stuck in the 1890's i regard fast spirals with all due suspicion that 'Old Nick' had a hand in them. Certainly they (fast ones) do not mix well with Brass.

@ Michael Gilligan ~ i think you'll find the pilot point starts @ 4mm dia on these series of drills.

@ OP~ my hat off to you sir, not sure i'd fancy drilling 12mm holes in stainless with a hand drill even if the drill bits were made of kryptonite.

I'm given to understand slow speed , high speed is the required recipie for sucess drilling stainless.

3D printing is an amazing concept. Really, i was blown away by the possibilities when i first heard of it.

But, aside from the serious brain ache i'd give myself with all that 'computer stuff ' I don't think it will be an addition to my home workshop until an affordable hobbyist machine is available to 3D print metal.

Now that would open up some real possibilities for hobby use & beyond.

hope that's not a pipe dream or too off topic.

I see the problem has been solved thankfully.

Just a thought~ shouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility for a home engineer to manufacture there own inserts of any material of their choice?

Not familiar with "Timeserts" but my impression of" helicoils" from my biking days was they do the job but always seem a sloppy fit on the bolt.

Many moons ago (maybe 30years?) my local friendly Yamaha dealer repaired a monkey metal cylinder head for me with various solid steel inserts~

He must have had some engineering experience as he did the job himself & did it well.

These were definitely the dogs danglies & much better than helicoil though to this day i've no idea as to the trade name.

Anything is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it.

By way of trying to be helpful You should be able to search ebay for completed listings of any same or similar machines sold recently to gain an idea of 'market value.'

If someone really wants something they may pay over the odds. I have on occasion.

Similarly if there is little interest a buyer may end up with a 'bargain'

It's the $64,000 question really.

If i were marooned on a desert island, having just harvested the last five coconuts

& a fellow maroonee offered me a 1kg bar of gold (worth a fair few quid i believe) for one of said coconuts i'd have to politely decline under the circumstances.

Hello David, sounds like you have a "Real Bull" manufactured mini lathe? A version of which i have also have.

If so, i've always found it easy to stall in high gear & yes it does make some strange noises when that happens~ doesn't seem to have a trip out~ i hit the stop button as quickly as possible.

From your post it sounds as if you are quite conversant with it's capabilities & a 10 thou cut in "Hi" normally works for you?

DOC does rather depend on work diameter? which you haven't stated~ i'd expect a stall likely on a 10 thou cut in steel in low gear if i was turning 4" to 5" dia steel.

I Hope that isn' too much teaching grandpa to suck eggs.

I would check out Davids suggestion, if only to eliminate it from your enquirys. You can chip a gear tooth off & it runs perfectly fine in one gear & 'seems' to run in the other.

Both motor brushes should be easily acessible once you remove the motor cover~ disconnect the power first

( ask me how i know!) so you can then compare the length/condition with the 'new' spec.

Wouldn't hurt to clean up the stator with some alcohol dipped cotton buds while your at it to remove any excess accumulated carbon dust.