Member postings for Graham Meek

Hello Andy,

Glad to hear you have made the ML7 unit and yes the double ball detent would be a worthwhile improvement.

Are you OK to draw this out yourself? Or would you like me to draw this out and post the drawing on here?

Regards

Gray,

Mystery over, to quote from Mr Blue Skies, John Slater has come up with the engine in question, it was ERGO 2 a 19cc V2 Marine Engine

It was by R S Robbins and appeared in ME Vol 147 issues 3658 & 3660. Although I think my memory has embellished what I thought I remembered about the engine.

Many thanks to John,

Regards

Gray,

Hi David,

It just goes to show appearances can often deceive the eye.

Hope you and your family have a good Xmas

Regards

Gray,

Hi David,

Your interpretation of my design is very good. Am I right in thinking you have scaled up the original design a little?

Generally,

Going back to the Original comment on the fitting of this unit to a standard S7, and not a S7B. I was looking up the internet links on the Meek screwcutting clutch for a friend. When I noticed that Mose Necchio had fitted this unit to a standard S7. Something I had not noticed before.

I helped make some of the parts for this International conversion, which was some time ago now. At the time I was not aware the unit was going on a standard S7. As can be seen in this video all the gears line up and Mose did not say he had any trouble with the fitment. I must therefore conclude it should fit without any trouble, but to expect the un-expected.

Regards

Gray.

youtube.com/watch?v=bymCnF183M4 (Tried to paste this but it does not work for me)

Hi David,

Glad to hear you are pleased with my Retracting Screwcutting toolholder. As regards the operation of the unit there are a number of YouTube postings by people who have made the clutch, including the Myford Big Bore and Wabeco lathe. "Meek screwcutting clutch", usually gets to it, but some kine Moderator might put a link to some on here.

As regards the DAG addition, you need to ask yourself do you do a lot of Metric screwcutting?. If not, then it is probably easier to live with the standard Myford Metric conversion.

Hi Brian,

Thanks for the kind comments regarding the selector detents, wish I had thought of it earlier.

Regards

Gray,

Edited By Graham Meek on 14/12/2019 11:30:51

An idea constructors might want to consider for the Myford 7 series selectors is the one I have used on the Emco Maximat Super 11 earlier this year.

This does away with the need to have vee grooves and the possibility of one of the ball bearings coming adrift. The holes for the Engaged positions are slightly smaller than for the Neutral setting. Despite the remote control lever on the Maximat the control is very positive. It is a pity I had not had the benefit of CAD all those years ago.

Regards

Gray,

Hi Ken,

Having never carried out this needle roller conversion I have assumed the original Hemingway conversion machined away part of the leadscrew bracket. If this is not the case then I am wrong in my resolution of the problem and an additional spacer needs to be fitted.

The S7 in question had a custom Metric leadscrew fitted, hence why it has no gearbox, and is heavily modified.

Hi Brian,

I hope all is well with you and I reciprocate the Xmas greetings. Thanks for the kind words.

Hi David,

The material does not have to be aluminium, I chose that as it was to hand and machines easily. I know of other constructors who have made their main body from Cast Iron. Mild steel could be used but it will distort due to internal stresses and would be a real problem to machine.

Regards

Gray,

Ken, Phil and Brian,

Thanks for answering this for me, I have been a little tardy in logging in today.

Generally,

I know quite a few people have made this attachment since publication and quite a number have added Ken's little mod.

However I feel I must draw attention to a recent malady encounter by someone fitting the device to his non screwcutting gearbox S7. Something I hasten to add I had never ever considered, but there was a reason for this person to carry out such a conversion.

Problem number one,

The pocket in the rear of the attachment is designed at 8 mm deep. This is to accommodate the cast boss on the rear of the Myford headstock where the Tumbler reverse was fitted. This usually stands proud of the casting by roughly 8.5 mm. On this particular headstock the boss stood out from the surrounding surface by only 6.5 mm. The attachment with its 8 mm pocket was hitting the headstock casting before bottoming out on the machined face of the boss.

To rectify this 1.5 mm of material needs to come off the adjacent faces. Just making the pocket only 6.5 mm deep will not solve the problem. This has an adverse effect with reference to the Input gear of the attachments position relative to the Mandrel gear. The clearances are tight here so the relative position of this face in the Main body at 8 mm need to remain as drawn. The extra material removed does not weaken the Main body but it will mean the selector bush and the selector shaft will need reducing in length.

Problem number two,

The position of the output Myford gear on the attachment was not in line with the Myford gears on the standard quadrant banjo.

A packer between the banjo and the mounting bracket brought the gears into line but now the leadscrew gear could not be fitted as the leadscrew was not projecting through far enough. A needle roller thrust fitted at the tailstock leadscrew bearing bracket allows the leadscrew to come forward sufficiently for the status quo to exist.

I hope these words of caution help those considering following the same route. Whether the headstock casting was a rogue, or a very early one, we shall never know. It does however go to show you cannot take anything for granted and it always pays to check first.

Regards

Gray,

This may be of interest for those who have 4.5" Metal cutting saws.

It was made using structural aluminium picked up at a local scrap yard.

Regards

Gray,

Hi Hubertus,

While the engine I have in mind is not an Ericsson, it does share some of the Ericsson cycle. Having revisited the Ericsson Caloric Engine, I may well be able to incorporate this engine design to suit my needs.

Thanks for jogging my memory,

Regards

Gray,

My first project when I joined a local CD manufacturing firm in the early 1980's, was to isolate the in house designed Laser Mastering Lathe from its surroundings.

Although not heavy, the machine was in an upstairs room of an old Mansion resting on a wooden floor. The mansion stood on one side of a valley. While on the other side about a mile away was a dual carriageway. This machine would not only be affected by someone walking across the room, but also the traffic trundling down the dual carriageway.

This latter effect was not found out until after the machine was suspended on springs and fitted with oil filled dash pots. The final solution to the road noise was solved by Dr H, the Brains behind the whole mastering set-up and was done electronically. Although his initial late night fix looked more like a spiders web with dead flies in, (diodes, capacitors and the such like). When the resident Electronic's engineer came in the next morning a proper circuit board was made. The machine continued to work faultlessly afterwards and further clones were made to meet the increasing orders placed with the company

My best regards

Gray,

Hi Neil,

Unfortunately this is not the one either, again I have all of Andy's Designs.

The engine in question had the cold cylinder horizontal and to the left. The hot cylinder being vertical with a pipe connecting the two. There was some kind of valve gear to operate the inlet valve, (I think). That's one of the problems with getting older, the brain is not so good.

Regards

Gray,

Hi Bill,

I have all Professor Senft's designs but the one I am looking for is not amongst them.

The problem is without the articles title, or engines constructor, it is impossible to do any meaningful search. I was hoping to jog someones memory.

Thanks for taking time out to reply,

Regards

Gray,

I am trying to trace information on a model of a Rider based engine shown/described in ME during the late 1980's, early 1990's. The engine featured an inlet valve on the cold cylinder that allowed a fresh charge of air during each cycle. The cold cylinder compressed the incoming air while transferring it to the hot cylinder.

The hot cylinder followed normal Rider practice with the displacer above the piston. It differed in that, at, or around bottom dead centre, there were ports in the cylinder wall, (I think), to allow the hot gases to escape.

I have been unable to trace this myself as I cannot recall the article title, if it was an article. Or it may just have been a photograph from an exhibition. A lead to the article, a copy of the article, or a drawing of the engine would be much appreciated.

Regards

Gray,

Here is the bandsaw blade tension device I made. It has been heavily "Meekised" from Jacques design to make use of a smaller dial gauge.

I have also added a photograph of the modification that automatically cuts off the power when the saw is through the metal. This has been described in EiM and Home Shop Machinist over the past few years.

Regards

Gray

Blades breaking can be attributed from my experience with the type of machines under discussion to the following.

Blade alignment, which is very well covered above.

Failure to anneal the blades after welding. The easiest way to resolve this is to anneal any new blade. This being done after placing on the machine but without any tension. The small hand held butane torch is ideal for this. Trying to do this off the machine usually allows the blade to kink.

Getting the correct tension, this I have found greatly extends the blade life. I have to thank Jacques Maurel for this. He wrote an article in EiM in June 2016 on making a bandsaw tension gauge. Before using this device I used to get about 12 months usage out of each blade, if I was lucky. The current blade has been on the machine 2 years. Although now that I have said that Sod's Law dictates it will break at the next usage.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Gray,

I for one can see a centre in the work!

I also suspect the amount protruding from the chuck is to allow time to dis-engage the half nuts before a collision. A wise move if you are doing screwcutting for the first time.

Also having the tool set around at half the thread angle means you do not have to remember what your last cut was, as when the cross-slide is returned to zero, the cut is already set at the last movement.

Regards

Gray.

Ian,

If you start screwcutting with a tool which has a dead sharp Vee point then you are falling at the first hurdle. Your procedure is correct, but the sharp pointed tool is giving you the wrong starting point. A radius or small flat is required, it is easy to check the radius required with the use of thread gauges or a 10 mm bolt will serve just as well. The radius is not that precise so don't be put off by this requirement.

Even then with the correct radius I would still expect to have to adjust the depth to suit a commercial nut. It is always worth running a plug tap through any commercial nut before hand. I have yet to find one nut that a plug tap does not clean out.

Regards

Gray,

As an aside, and to illustrate the effects of soil substrates. My last employment was involved in the maintenance of Linear Accelerators. (Radiotherapy treatment machines), at a local Oncology centre. These machines are housed in reinforced concrete bunkers, the walls, floor and roof being an average thickness of 1 m. With 25 mm steel plates in-bedded in the walls at strategic places.

In the walls at right angles to the machine centre line and in the roof were lasers. These lasers had to meet at the ISO centre of the beam, which was also the pivot point for the rotating gantry. While routine morning checks are carried out on these lasers using a specially made in-house checking device there would always be a cry for help to the workshops during the run up to winter and late spring. This did not affect just one particular bunker, as all machines required re-calibrating.

The reason, the water table was not far under the foundations and the whole structures settled during the autumn, (the rainy season) and then moved again as the ground dried out during the spring and summer.

Regards

Gray,

Hi Jason,

My thoughts on the ML7 Tailstock set-up' was always to adapt the tailstock to take a Super 7 Tailstock Barrel, Feedscrew, Thrust bearing and Handwheel. Which I considered an easy thing to do with the aid of an adaptor piece. The S7 set-up gives a much more sensitive feel when drilling over the ML7, (having used both). With the added bonus of a self ejecting facility for the Morse taper tooling. I always found the Acme thread sticking out of the ML7/ML10 Handwheel a constant source of numerous cuts.

This conversion was one of the things I wanted to do on the ML10 that I once owned. The substitution would then allow the fitment of the S7 Tailstock Dial that I designed a while back, which would be an integral part of the adaptor piece.

Such a conversion now would require access to an ML7/ML10 to formulate the design, but this is not currently possible hence why I have not proceeded further.

Regards

Gray,

Generally,

I hasten to add that I know in some peoples eyes this modification to the ML7 would be a retrograde move, possibly treasonous, but as with all things in life we make choices based on our own requirements.

Regards

Gray,

Edited By Graham Meek on 25/11/2019 11:37:28