Member postings for William Ayerst

I do now know which end is true - there's an infinitesimal difference in bore diameter that is detectable on the fit of the spigot on the cylinder end cover - though I didn't at the time. Given the only remaining skewed angle is the top of the cylinder and non functional I guess I could leave it- but I want to square it up. Any ideas on how to mount that for facing or shall I use the vice as I expect?

At the time I was machining it, I couldn't be sure which side of the cylinder was perpendicular to the bore. I guess I could have tried both ways and seen what the DTI said...

It certainly= seems more straight forward your way!

I should probably, for my sanity re-face the cylinder top to be perpendicular to the port face and bore, and parallel with the cylinder bottom. I guess for that arrangement I DO need to use the vice?

I noticed that the port face of my cylinder was sloped about 10 tho on the longitudinal axis. It's my understanding this isn't a critical issue, but I decided to see if I could fix it.

I used flat packing on the bottom (entry point of boring tool) of the cylinder , and rod above it incase the cylinder top wasn't parallel. I placed a mandrel into the cylinder and pushed that hard against the vice jaws. In this arrangement, the bottom of the cylinder was parallel to the ways, and the bore was vertical.

I used a dial indicator and the vertical traverse of the vice and determined there was about 10 thou out. Clearly the cylinder top was slightly out of parallel, so when I clamped it using that side to an angle on the faceplate - instead of the cylinder bottom which was fully parallel with the bore, it was skewed.

It was a fairly straight forward job to skim that off with the slot drill, but the finish was nowhere near as good as holding it on the faceplate, as although it was flat there were some chatter marks which needed polishing out.

Just incase I'm doing something horrifically wrong on that note:

• I used a 3/8" HSS slot drill in a collet, running at the fastest lathe speed.
• The work was held with aluminium strip below and rod above in the vice, quite tightly.
• The vice was mounted to the compound vertical slide (my obvious thoughts as to a lack of rigidity)
• The carriage had the lead screw engaged and using a lead screw handwheel to advance the carriage (maybe I should have locked between each pass?). The vertical slide, and cross slide were nipped up much as I could while still being able to move them.

All the best,

Edited By William Ayerst on 23/06/2021 09:56:51

Thank you all, I managed to mill some T-nuts and a few other bits without major issues, and have some parallels on the way.

Thank you Clive - I guess I'm still not 100% on the beating process when holding a part in the chuck - the beating needs to get it flat against the packing behind - but surely if it is flat and hard up against the packing, then by nature the packing will be very tightly gripped?

I have tried to use a drift and a hammer in the past but I think this is what gently nudged my cylinder out of true when held in the 4-jaw (although of course, it could be something else entirely)

Dear John,

Flat bar is what I meant, rather than flat rod. I have found a set of parallels which are 1/2" to 7/8" - the latter of which is the very tippy tip of my vice jaws - so should be fine.

Re: drifting the packing behind the chuck - clearly I'm doing something wrong, as I had thought that was done, but ended up with one surface a couple of thou out of parallel - but I will keep practising.

As an aside if anyone knows a good way to test which side of my cylinder is perpendicular to the bored hole....

Good morning all,

I'm a little way further on building my Stuart 10v, and one thing that has come up is that I don't really have a solid solution for bringing work away from the chuck or the rear of a vice on the vertical slide, while maintaining parallelism.

My usual method is to add packing around a part, and slide behind something of known good (ish) flatness, such as flat rod. I tap it home using a soft hammer and then tighten up the jaws. Inevitably, this means that the packing piece becomes trapped behind the work.

On the 3 and 4-jaw chucks I can't afford to leave the packing piece behind the work while the spindle is rotating, and since it may require some effort to release it may move the work piece.

On the vice in a vertical slide, I am constantly on the hunt for packing pieces which are shorter than the width of the piece being clamped, and the correct thickness to bring the work out beyond the jaws.

Any thoughts or opinions gladly taken.

Wouldn't putting a bar across the jaws, or clamping a hex socket/etc. all still require the mandrel to be immoblized? If you're doing this by putting it into backgear doesn't that present the same kind of risk to the gear teeth?

My solution was a short length of PTFE could be copper) which sits between the base of the spindle housing and the underside of the bull gear engagement bolt - no load at all is presented to the teeth that way. I use an adjustable spanner on the side of one of the chuck jaws, but all of the suggested solutions could work. FWIW I describe it in this YT video and my source is Steve Jordan:

Edited By William Ayerst on 20/06/2021 10:13:23

Thank you for the advice, the shaper certainly seems romantic but if it really is going to be significantly less useful, it may have to wait!

Ah, good point Ady.

Thinking about it though, a dividing head could fit on the lathe (i.e. the Hemginway 'VDH' or a shaper, couldn't it? That's not something a mill can do that a shaper can't, right?

Thank you!

So, I've got an ML7 and drill press and generally feel like I've got most machining needs covered. One thing that is a bit of a pain is setting up back and forth between turning and milling on the lathe. I'm after some vintage british / euro gear and I've had my eye on some horizontal-and-vertical lathes like the Tom Senior, Centec 2B, etc. - but my heart keeps coming back to shapers.

I'm all about analogue, no DROs or digital equipment at all in my workshop, and it appeals to me alot - but it must also do work. So, if only had a shaper, lathe and drill press - what am I missing in terms of machining actions which are either a) impossible or b) a real faff?

I'm thinking of something like the Elliot 10M or smaller.

Thank you Jason - good shout, I don't know why I said "eyeball" !!!

On the note of boring/etc. I had to grind down my 8mm HSS boring bar right down for it to fit. I thought a 5/16" carbide bar would be a better bet but it seems to need a hole that's already > 5/8" - is there a rule for determining the size of hole required based on some dimension of the bar?

Well I am very pleased - second time around both the baseplate and the standard turned very well, including the boring process which I took VERY slowly and methodically. I'm following the 'How to build a vertical steam engine' book, but using Harold's fixtures where appropriate (i.e. to machine the standard feet).

I am wondering if I will need to get some transfer punches or whether it will be good enough to eyeball...

Well, my enlarged holes milled to the correct position were fine - but the holes on my standard are out in exactly the same way. I was using the same bloody jig so I can only assume my drill guides are out with reference to the scribed alignment marks.

On the bright side, I did practise boring out the standard and that, at least, worked.

I think I'm going to throw this particular jig in the bin, though.

Jason, I've managed to get myself a pillar drill - which is what I used to spot through into the baseplate with

I've ordered a replacement standard and baseplate. I'm going to try to fix what I've got, but I think you hit the nail on the head Ramon - I don't want to perpetuate the errors (alignment-wise) - so if that ends up unavoidable I've got a failback position. It feels like it might be a bit of a cop-out but in reality I've spent about £100 on drills and a slitting saw + arbor, so it felt churlish not to spend £28 on castings.

I like the use of the Harold Hall fixtures and clamps for their convenience but I'm just not sure about using them as a blind jig. I'll double check all the measurements before using them again, for sure.

Ramon, if you have any ideas where to get cast iron rod suitable for the job then I'm all ears. I had read that you don't want to plug with dissimilar metals as when drilling you'll end up having the bit drift away into the softer one?

To be clear, the holes in the jig are spaced and set correctly - just that the whole jig was shifted along the longitudinal axis by 1/16" - so the holes are correct with reference to each other, but shifted with respect to the baseplate they're drilled into.

For visibility, I've marked and scribed absolute coordinates onto the surface and you can see the shift (bottom-left is lense distortion, I think)

I can't seem to find anywhere to get cast iron plugs - any ideas for supply?

Synthesising the approaches suggested: I think my first step is going to be to slot drill them out at the correct coordinates to 1/8" with a slot drill. That will be a sloppy fit (+20 thou over 'clearance' )  for a 7BA stud but might be OK. If not can open the now correctly aligned hole using a No. 30 bit, and tap 5BA then make some double-ended studs as recommended by Jason B.

Edited By William Ayerst on 07/06/2021 17:59:05

Edited By William Ayerst on 07/06/2021 17:59:16

I could kick myself - I made a Harold Hall fixture/drilling jig for the Stuart 10V, and used this to drill the holes in the base plate. Though in one axis they are spot on, in the other (longitudinal) there's about 1/16" out - presumably because after all the faffing to centralise in one axis the other had shifted.

The holes are drilled through the jig at tapping size (No. 45 / 2mm) but need to be opened to clearance size (No. 39 / 2.6mm).

I see my options as follows:

1. Leave them as they are, offset the standard's bolt holes by the same amount
2. Drill out offset, to clearance size either by filing holes oval first, or using a relevant slot drill
3. Drill out in-situ, over-size (i.e. large enough that the standard's holes could be in a normal location, and pass through enlarged holes in the soleplate, being fixed with washers/nuts underneath)
4. Plug the gap (with what?) and re-drill more accurately through the jig
5. Buy a new soleplate (and may as well do the standard if I'm doing that - as I overbored that) and start over

All of this is very exciting and my morale is very high - I'm learning so much from my mistakes it's hard to be upset - but I'm not sure how to approach this and would love to hear any advice.

Many thanks,

Well I absolutely cannot believe it - went to turn down some steel tube and saw a huge amount of deflection in the chuck - and it turns out I hadn't fully tightend down the front bearing cap after replacing the belt (where I removed the spindle). I feel like a right lemon but looks like no harm done.

Edited By William Ayerst on 31/05/2021 16:57:38

For marking out, thank you - I have both a surface plate, angle plate, scriber and height gauge so I think I'm covered in that regard.

Also tThank you for the advice on the over-large standard bore. It makes perfect sense. Re-clocking the standard it looks like it is parallel and central, but about 0.668" instead of 0.625". Unfortunately the cast crosshead is about that across the widest point in unmachineed form.

I have some 3/4" brass rod handy, so my thoughts are to open this out to 11/16" / 0.6875", machining the base of the cylinder cover to fit. I will need to fabricate a new crosshead but I don't think that should be too hard with my vertical slide?

The reason it was bored over size is that I was impatient to get started so was using some jury rigged clamping which shifted during boring, ending up with hole eccentric to the (now turned) outer rim - I thought I had miles of room so re-clocked and bored concentric - and then found myself in this spot.

Re: Harold Hall's site - I've read the build and seen some of the clamping and fixtures which look promising, I have ordered some plain aluminium to fabricate some of those pieces, too.

Edited By William Ayerst on 28/05/2021 14:14:31

Edited By William Ayerst on 28/05/2021 14:33:52