Member postings for William S

Not a Deckel but a Theil 158 **LINK**

same layout as the Deckel just a tad bigger, Stefan gotteswinter on YouTube has a Deckel and demonstrates it’s versatility, in my opinion I would prefer that over a new mill any day of the week.
Although I would be taking a keen interest in the accessories and most importantly spindle tooling that’s included. If I remember correctly the Theil has a proprietary design so finding tooling that fits off the shelf is a pain.

I hope that helps

William

Type- 6ba ( 1/8” ) Double Coil steel spring washers x 10 in to eBay and a listing for what you require should appear

When I get home later I will do a sketch of the required parts and get some dimensions.

The bronze bush is top hat shaped, free floating until the bolts are tightened to allow it to align to the tailstock bore/barrel instead of relying on the thread if that makes sense.

When I was contemplating making the barrel I thought to use a bit of thick wall tube, thus negating to drill a long hole, it is only a clearance hole.
Another worry I had was the morse taper, getting it square/ true etc. I was going to put that in first in the tube, put a dead centre in it and machine the o.d down to the finished diameter. Basically between centres.
I was lucky enough to find the missing parts so I gave up making them!

I’ll be back!

William

Looks like a morse taper blank to me, enables one to put whatever one wants on a morse taper shank.

hope that helps

William

Hi Andrew

The technique I used on my first BCA was to do it at the dead of night in complete silence and listen to the oil squidding about with me swinging about on it, nipping the bearings until there was minimal noise but not excessive drag. it was a well used machine so that may have contributed to the fact I got that spot on first go as I can recall.

I have since tried that method on my next BCA which is in immaculate condition (scraping marks still on both bronze bushes!) and it works as it should, The manual states the bearings will run warm which mine do with the above method, so I guess it works!

One important thing to mention is to not heavily pack the thrust bearings with grease they don't like it. I did and on top lick the spindle would suddenly stall but immediately restart so I can only assume this was the cause. Since it has now splattered most of that grease around the shed walls/me it seems to have stopped doing that trickery!

Its good practise to get the spindle warm before making any adjustments. I'll try to find the post which links to a copy of the manual which gives very vague lubrication and adjustment details, if you don't already have a copy.

Really it comes down to not running hot and the other extreme of chatter it use. So just experiment and keep an eye on it.

William

Very nice job

As to locking the thread could a simple lock nut be employed. I suppose the fine external thread would have to be extended which might be a bit tricky. I don’t know if it would work in that situation, but it’s an idea.

William

So I hope that all makes sense, what I really want to know is about the lens, am I right in thinking its a "condenser" lens, what is the exact purpose of said lens?, is it really necessary? (I'm guessing it is!) I only ask this as with a light source it the microscope seems works as it should even with the projection screen.

As one can hopefully see the dimensions are given so how does one go about finding what lens I require?

That should be enough for now but I will be back to ask more (stupid) questions that I am sure the clever folks of this site will hopefully answer!

Many thanks and I look forward to hearing your responses

William

Okay, I seem to have acquired the above bits of kit, the 2 to the left I'll cover in another post.

Now the Zeiss has come out of the naval base down in Gosport, last calibrated in 2002. The chap I brought it from had 2, the one that followed me home is mostly complete;

Namely it has 90% of the attachments, however you could say its missing the most vital part, the main lighting unit that hangs off the back of the machine;

I have most of the information/dimensions to reproduce the item, the previous owner has gone as far as he is willing to go to ascertain the information which I am much obliged for him to have taken the time to help me out, from his complete machine.

Its main job is to hold the bulb so really its just tube, however it has a lense in one end which has kinda scuppered me! what follows is all the information I have on the lighting assembly;

Continued on next post;

Right bit of a long shot but if someone could help me out it would be much appreciated:

I would like to borrow a 5/8 8tpi ACME tap, I am loathed to purchase a new one as I have a feeling what I have in mind is not going to work!

I would like to use the tap as a crude gear cutting hob in order to free hob a bronze gear,

I did have it on my mind to actually make a hob and I did spend an hour in the shed realising that in order to make the hob I need to make so much other stuff that it was getting stupid! possibly all in vain if it doesn't work out! the tap will hopefully solve that problem in one foul swoop!

The aim is to create an 18tooth bronze gear that can run up and down a lathe lead screw in order to quickly traverse the carriage up and down the bed (exactly the same idea that myford used on the ml10 as a carriage traverse).

I would gladly cover postage costs if someone is able to help me out.

Many thanks and I look forward to your responses

William

The red dot is only there to give a visual indication that the stop/indexing plunger is in the correct section between 2 stop pins giving 180 degrees of spindle rotation One can get around not having one by engaging the plunger and rotating the spindle and seeing wether you get 180degrees if you don’t just rotate the spindle with the pin pulled back slightly and “feel” the stop pins on the spindle.
The dot is merely a dab of paint so it could be added with a bit of dismantling. Stupid question but is the little window present? Also the dot might be obscured with grease/dirt.

Im lucky enough to have 2 Alexander versions and they are fantastic machines with a bit of thought. Stefan gottaswinter on YouTube is quite a guru on them.

I hope that makes sense

William

Possibly not going to be seen, but I just found your post Chris Cartwright, I may do a pm and see if that gets through also.

Regards your query's, the down feed, (I think that's what you are talking about) my first thought is the leadscrew is not set up correctly, there should be 2 thrust bearings either side of the bearing block just below the ball handle, this is adjusted (on a mk3 mark 2s are the same I belive though) by undoing the top lock nut and nipping the cone nut up inside the ball handle, I use a pair of circlip pliers in the 2 holes. (I can supply pictures if required, even better if you could supply pictures)

Another thing that I can think of is the slide may be set up a bit tight, on mine any backlash is really taken care of by gravity, if the symptoms of 5mm present themself when winding the slide back up the, I would say it is too tight, (gravity should be pulling the slide against one side of the nut.)

The manual does say to lock the unused slides when milling so with you locking it there's nothing wrong with that!

Regards the rotary table, sorry if you have already checked this but are the locking bolts loose, is the table able to free spin with the worm disengaged?

The slide has to be wound off to remove the rotary table ,the rod holder block may have to be removed first to allow the rotary table lock bolt too be unobstructed. Turned upside down to reveal 3 socket head bolts that secure the taper spigot to the bottom of the table (remember to mark the orientation of this in relation to the table.)

I hope you find this and it makes sense. Any other help please ask, if you can supply pictures that would be great.

William

To be honest, to measure stuff sub 1mm you are looking in to optical equipment to get the best idea of what you are looking at. All what I could suggest has already been put forward.

My first inclination was shadowgraph with appropriate screen/mask, the measuring loupe would be the next best thing (cheaper but one would struggle with wide parts the ends only being measurable)

Then there is a Mitutoyo contracer: https://www.mitutoyo.com/products/form-measurement-machine/contracer/

That would be the most accurate and easiest method and also the most expensive.

I really don't see the point to all of this, its really only a break-edge from what I can make out from what John has described so doesn't need to be quantified. The works drawings I work too have break all edges in the notes section which is enough for us employee to work out that they don't want huge great chamfers(would be specified if that was required)

As Robert Butler has said through out this post, a set of rad gauges along the Moore and Wright pattern would suffice if one has to be really pedantic, although as others have said the size required doesn't really exist. They could be lazer/water jet cut but the kerf has to be thought about.

Just my thoughts that will no doubt be disregarded

William

My BCA along with a few other machines run with the cheap polyurethane belt available on ebay, and other retailers I guess.

I join it with an old knife heated with a blowlamp, press the 2 ends either side of the blade and slide them both off together simultaneously to stick together. This does require a bit of practice. The knife only needs to be warm enough to melt the material, I used to get the knife red hot and when the plastic touched it almost seemed to boil, evidently this did not work at all well.

Another thing I have found, if you are trying to repair the initial joint forget it! cut about 10mm either side and start from scratch, same if the new joint doesn't work.

The expensive name brand stuff came with my first BCA and I really struggled to get a good join with it it never seemed to fully adhere to one another, I put this down to being quite old, peoples views above seem to reflect my experience. Also my Alexander D bit grinder came with an old name brand poly belt on it, it subsequently broke, I repaired it (I didn't have any new 4mm stuff so needs must) and it subsequently broke again and whipped me in the chest! (which was quite a painful experience) I doubled up a length of cheap 2mm belt and its still in use today!

I would strongly advise not to use a metal joiner on the BCA, it was designed for an "endless loop" so I would be concerned with wear on the pulleys etc, also I cant seem to find any larger diameter than 5mm, I use 8mm on my BCA it seems to fit nicely in the grooves and only slips when I am using a slitting saw on the lowest rpm( no bad thing really).

I hope that helps

William

As a side note is there anyone here who uses the genuine original belt material? I have one from home and workshop machinery and its too short for my MK3 (it was described as a BCA mk3 original belt) I suspect its from a MK2. Its an odd material that wants to coil it self up because of the way its made.

Just clicking randomly on the lathes.co.uk site I have just found this:**LINK**(quite interesting to do when your at a loose end!)

They seem to resemble what are shown in your link/pictures. Sadly, not much help I can offer on your other questions though!

Nice little pieces though.

William.

Like Martin has illuded too above could your ''original'' flush mount oilers be a previous owners ''upgrade'' I can not find another ML7 on the web with flush mount oilers there (apart from Steve Jordan on Youtube and he is a well known ML7 ''pimper outer''

My 1974 Super 7 has late type screw in fittings all round (apart form the 3 oil cups), my quite early ML7 has the early type of again, screw in nipples. Maybe try digging the flush mount oilers out, and seeing if there is the remnants of a thread in in there?

Does having 2 of the same gun with different ends push the boat out to far, they are after all 2 different types of bearings so really require 2 different grades of oil(slideway/linear, rotary), which might be what the person who possibly changed them out in the first place thought, Low and behold it could well of been that ''small boy apprentice'', using his ''little'' noggin.

I wish people would stop critiquing Myfords 70+ year old design choices. They were not designed for todays heavy handed users who want to produce everything at 4000 rpm in -10seconds. Its mostly a hobby, enjoy using your brain to improve the not so good bits, its what I do.

This is a sales brochure for a 3 second version, but its exactly the same mechanically as my 6 second version, its quite interesting reading, it explains the operation better than I have in previous posts! the Internal diagram especially, this I acquired last week from eBay (again!) It has already provided the rather useful info about the lamp ,6v 18watt.

The Projectorscope 10/250 is actually something my work has on the floor under a bench in the grinding department, it hasn't been used in the 3 years since I started my apprenticeship. Hmm do I have a use for it?!

William

Well:

(quite a difficult thing to photograph)

So in the end I went the LOCA route because I'm a cheapskate!, (it was extremely simple aswell) I also didn't want a huge great quantity left over.

I went with one of the many cheap kits available on eBay, The UV torch was immediately dismantled and jerry rigged to my bench to power supply, the 3 AAA I scrounged only managed to barely illuminate 3 LEDS anyway. This also enabled me to knock up a quick tripod to hold it about 20mm off the bench.

So I experimented with some 1981NOS glass microscope slides(well that's what the boxed wrapped in cellophane said)

The result was a success and gave me confidence to risk the original! It went very well, As can be seen I just used the original brass cell as the line-up ring, the doublet was a relatively good fit anyway (they were the same dia, the lenses Michael) It also meant I didn't have to worry about peening it back it as the glue seems to be holding them in. I cleaned them, a couple of drops of LOCA, place together, wriggled them about to spread the adhesive and dropped it in the cell, lightly pressed it home with my thumb and placed under the UV light. left for about 5 mins, come back to one optically clear doublet.

Reassembly went well, I screwed the brass cell Doublet fully home as it was that way upon the initial dismantle, the glass ring was installed and then the "first" lens was adjusted until the 0.2mm markings were in focus, then the black tube was rotated to get the markings in the right place on the minutes scale, the Baker object mounting thread is off centre to the black tube. The mirrors were not disturbed when I dismantled to preserve the original setting positions, I glad I did this as I would not know where to start to get these back in adjustment!

I then following Clive's advice, "clocked" the glass ring by having it clamped very loosely just pushed it about until the markings all the way around were in the same place on the minutes scale.

Well there we go, I am now going to try and look in to rectifying the minutes scale, Graticules optics is who I will try first, Now that I know it does actually work. And see about a permanent light unit.

I believe this may explain: The Whitaker ring(bottom paragraph)

Source: Workshop Technology Part three, W.A.J. Chapman 1965 reprint.

Well a stroke of luck following Rogers advice:

Well good for the lens not so good for my finger, I decided after pressing the doublet out I would press my finger in to the threaded end of the body, a nice gouge and a flap of skin is what happened!

I turned up this plastic holder to support the brass body (it is tapered inside!) the brass body was a good fit.

This was the set up in the lathe, using the lever operated tailstock to gently press the doublet out, It might of just been glued in as it was rather sudden when it broke free. Also I can't see any evidence on the brass body inside of it ever being burnished in, although I cant be certain, its probably so small!

This is the little brass pusher I lined it with electrical tape, after turning the front face convex so just the very outside was pushing on the glass lens.

I am partway though cleaning these 2 up with meths, they are both glass and coming up rather well, I am now looking in to reassembly, how best is it to proceed in your opinions?

Thanks again for all the information that has been given thus far and I look forward to hearing more.

William

It’s looking more to me like the lens is burnished in

The thread is undercut, the picture above shows it just about. The part that would usually unscrew has a perfect flat face where I would expect to see the start of the thread. It does seem a bit odd to put a thread in but not put it all the way down to hold the lens in.

I hope that picture explain why I think it was manufactured like it appears to be, screwing it on a mount would also keep the lens face square.

What would be the process to “unburnish” the lens?
Or leave it and source a replacement, would a slightly different magnification affect much?, there must of been a reason for the uncommon magnification.

William