Member postings for Graham Meek

I had hoped to give a more blow by blow account of this project, unfortunately a bout of Shingles had other ideas. For those who have been following this post I have made significant progress despite my infirmity.

John (Slater) has been busy with the 3D views and his help has been most welcome, especially visualising where the parts go.

Hopefully tomorrow will see these parts assembled. There are still the trip rod and stops to make, but this should not take too long.

Regards

Gray.

For those following the post but are not familiar with the Maximat I thought I would include a photograph of where the unit has got to fit. Sorry for the poor quality of the scan,

Regards

Gray,

Edited By Graham Meek on 05/05/2019 19:33:21

Hi Phil,

Thanks for the praise, and the news about your friends Warco unit, I shall look forward to that. I always like it when others add their own twist to my design. I never consider my designs to be the last word on any topic, just a solution that worked for me.

This design for the Maximat has fought me every step of the way, or that how it has appeared to me, but with a bit of luck the end of the tunnel is insight. Most of the major machining is done, just the turning and gear cutting to do now.

I am as well as can be expected, thanks for asking.

Regards

Gray,

I had hoped to make a post last weekend, but things conspired against me. The Main Body shown below is the second attempt. The first was originally made in cast iron tooling plate, but two operations from the end I noticed a crack in the plate like the strata running through a rock face. Thus it was time to start again.

Here are some more photographs of the project so far.

Regards

Gray,

Edited By Graham Meek on 05/05/2019 13:04:52

For those following this post I have started work on the parts for this screwcutting clutch. The above photograph shows how the Gearbox Cover plates would fit to the Main body. The output shaft will be on the left Overall length of the unit is 103 mm by 96.5 mm high .Hopefully this week I shall make a start on the main body.

Regards

Gray,

Hello Robert,

I am unfamiliar with the DRO set-up so I cannot comment on this.

There have been a few additions to my original design to suit personal preference. The first being the ability to dis-engage the unit when desired. Using the original Myford tumbler lever location holes. This was done by Ken Willson, (KWIL), and several people I know have added this feature. I have no drawings of this, but I am sure a personal message to KWIL will get you the necessary details.

Another modification which has gone a long way to quieten the device down in use is the fitment of non metallic idler gears in place of the Phos Bronze ones. The materials used so far are as follows, Delrin, (Acetal), a Nylon graphite mix and my choice Tufnol. The flat woven material, not round. The latter is not good for gears as the laminations are running parallel to the gear teeth. Not perpendicular to them as in the sheet material.

The last modification I can think of is the addition of ball races in the idler gears. This mod was down to Phil Proctor and shown on the front cover of MEW which contained the ML7 version of the clutch.

I hope this helps.

Regards

Gray,

Well finally I have something that works, it has not been an easy machine to add the attachment to. The Mk2 design above has gone through a few more iterations since I last posted. Mostly the design is now more compact and there are less gears in the transmission.

Below is the drawing of the controls of the mechanism, it uses the dead space behind the chuck interface to mount the operating lever, which has a total travel of 45-46 mm. All the rest of the mechanism is out of sight. I hope to start work on the unit next week so I will post more info as the project progresses.

Regards

Gray,

I had an email from DraftSight saying they will stop free usage after the end of December 2019. I re-registered about 4 months ago.

Regards

Gray,

The article and 3D images are away at the publishers for the Mk IIII or 50 mm B&F Head. Given the challenges of making the Mk V an article may get written in the near future.

Regards

Gray,

Hi Ian,

I have no plans at the moment to design a dial to fit the Boxford lathe. The last time I worked one of the machines was in the Grammar School workshop, circa 1966. If my memory serves me correctly the feedscrew thread is a single start thread. If this is so, then the dial would be a simple affair, not requiring any gearing. Unless of course the feedscrew uses a non-standard pitch, it has been known in the past.

Regards

Gray,

Thank you all for your kind regards,

Gray,

One last photograph to show the lineage,

Regards

Gray,

Hi Neil,

No problem this end, as you know I make mistakes too.

Regards

Gray,

Thanks for the kind comments, this B&F head was a joint venture. As so often happens lately this head was mentioned in passing during a conversation with John Slater. Who has done some 3D views of the internal workings of the Mk IIII head. When I said I had schemed out a smaller head he said he would like to see the drawings.

Thus another collaboration started on the MK V. John however was not the recipient of the Mk V shown, that was for another machine. John is building his own version for his mill.

I wonder how many have thought the Mk V was on an ISO 30 shank?

The actual taper is a BT 20,

Regards

Gray,

To deal with the last point first, the drawing for "Typical cutter Profile" has yet to be published.

You are right in that the dimensions are wrong.

In the case of the 48 tooth gear the numbers have had an Eric Morecombe moment. "all the right notes not necessarily in the right order". The same with the numbers, they are all there, but not in the right order. The view of what I sent in is below.

The 54 tooth gear is however way off, again below is the drawing submitted with the article.

These radii are the flank radii of the actual tooth profile. The radii will be different if you try and use Ivan Laws tables based on the Browne and Sharp system. Where each cutter profile in the series is made to the smallest number of teeth to be cut by that cutter.

My cutters are the closest one can get to an Involute form, using a form cutter. Without resorting to a hobbing machine. This gives a much smoother action between the gears.

Regards

Gray,

When I tooled up the X1 milling machine I decided the original boring and facing head, (Mk II), was just too big for this machine. I therefore made the Mk III which has a 50 mm body, compared to the original which had a 66 mm body.

This boring head saw more use on the Emco FB 2 in the end and it proved to be a much more in keeping with the size of the machine and the work that I do.

Thus when it came to making a NEW version of the B&F head with constant drive I decided that the 50 mm body would be the basis of the prototype. This then is the Mk IIII, and has seen considerable use on my version of the Clayton Steam wagon and the Fiat 702 Tractor that I am building.

Regards

Gray,

Back in the late 1980's I adapted the standard Emco boring head design to do facing work as well .

While many of examples of my Boring and Facing head have been made around the world the design did not suit everyone. Some did not like the original large dial used by Emco, not realising this was in fact there to aid balancing.

As the original design was an adaptation to meet an the needs of a pending job at the time. I decided to start with a clean sheet of paper and design a boring head which had the dial concentric with the main body. Certain features of the original Emco design have been retained. No point trying to re-invent the wheel.

The New version has a continuous drive to the feedscrew during facing operations un-like my initial design which has an intermittent, 2 speed, bi-directional drive. The New head has a single speed but still feeds in two directions. There is an inbuilt adjustable clutch to cut out the feed when the stops are being used.

The Dial is Zero setting and one complete revolution removes 0.1 mm from the bore. Each numbered division removes 0.01 mm from the bore.

The largish knurled ring on the end is the selector mechanism for the direction of feed.

The Mk V head came about after a friend asked me to make him a B&F Head as he could not find one suitable for his new Mill. I must admit I have not seen any to suit this particular mill with a facing capacity. The Mk I being the initial Emco design.

More details of the evolution to follow,

Regards

Gray,

I fitted angular contact bearings to my Myford VMC many years ago. After having the lower radial ball races pack-up due to debris getting past the bearing shield. Fitting angular contacts does require some form of end cap to stop debris getting into the lower bearing. The end cap does require some form of seal. I used a labyrinth seal nearest the cutter and an INA running seal inboard nearest the bearing to retain the grease.

Regards

Gray,

The quill might just need oiling. Extend the quill and lubricate with a 32 weight oil, or slideway oil if you have it.

I have experienced in the past on these mills a poorly aligned quill relative to the pinion shaft. This will throw burrs up on the rack teeth on the quill. These burrs will cause the quill to become tight. Try winding the quill down as far as it will go and see if there are burrs on the teeth edges of the rack, on the portion of rack which is exposed. If there are then an India stone used carefully will remove the burrs. The only problem is it will only remove those burrs exposed, to get at the rest you will need to strip the quill out.

Regards

Gray,

Having had another look at the Maximat Super 11 dog clutch again, I have come up with the following schematic that I am 90% certain will work.

The main stumbling block has always been the square operating rod for the two speed motor switch. The rod is right where the clutch should ought to go. However in a moment of inspiration I tried fitting the dog-clutch outboard of the rod and hey presto it worked.

While this is just the schematic drawing, certain changes will probably be needed to be made, but nothing significant, (I hope).

Regards

Gray,