Member postings for Stephen Benson

I upgraded my Cowells lathe to use the latest re-settable dials from Cowells (15GBP each including O ring) a few years ago you have to extend both the original dial and lead screw to make them work but still an easy and very useful upgrade.

I upgraded my Cowells Vmill to use them yesterday and that is much easier just takes an afternoon I have posted all the pictures of both upgrades in my Cowells album here is just a flavour.

Edited By Stephen Benson on 23/05/2016 10:41:13

Thanks for letting us all know Nick Wabeco are German and expensive I thought that would equal a good product I think you have saved me from an expensive mistake, I think I will just fit Newton Tesla motors on my South bend and Downham Borer instead.

I have a Cowells Lathe and Mill for small accurate work and I am very pleased with them, but I was thinking the Wabeco was a good buy for updating my larger machine tools.

Lovely work and and I would also like to know more about how you printed the dial

If you have cleaned and oiled it then I would look for wear on the pallets, I built mine over 12 years ago and I have had to strip and it clean twice, on mine the rear pivot on the centre arbor gums up with old oil.

Next time it needs attention I plan to fit bearings and setup the escapement better by adding slips to the pallets it is like a high school student looking at their early primary school work. I know I can get a better action and reduce the weight but as it is it keeps time to 15 seconds a week and runs for 5 years  between servicing.

Edited By Stephen Benson on 25/04/2016 20:32:51

Edited By Stephen Benson on 25/04/2016 20:33:34

I would rethink the 1 module cutter it would make the timepiece too large 0.6 module would better for that style of movement

Well I can tell you my lathe has a standard leadscrew and the more I play with it the more I like it

I have been after one of these for a few years always liked the look of them they are a bit quirky as the spindle taper is morse 1.5 and the tail stock is a short MT1 they were designed in Japan to make cameras and not for general sale.

But just look at that bed, a huge casting superbly accurate been drilling with 0.5mm solid carbide PCB drill in silver steel to a depth of 7mm no problem modern taper bearings in the spindle with a 12mm through hole.

The lathe only weighs 15kg (34lb) so easily lifted out of the way when not use so perfect for clockwork in my tiny workshop so I made a MT0 adapter for my Cowells tooling for the tail stock and a adjustable backplate for the three jaw and ER16 collet chuck just need to knock up a fixed steady adapter for my Cowells steady to finish.

Love my Cowells but that will stay in the garage for proper machining jobs with lots of swarf, the ML1 is to be used inside for re-pivoting and boring barrels and the like.

Loads possibilities quite few here

**LINK**

Steve G Conover has a couple both for beginner but if you want to work in metric then that narrows the field considerably Colin Thorne has some great designs for the beginner in metric most only require a lathe and pillar drill however a mill would speed things up and make wheel cutting easy

John revisited the turret clock Grasshopper and found a solution, published it in the Hydrological Journal I think I photographed it I will try to find it.

I have my machine tools in the garage and run my clock repair workshop inside keeping the clean jobs inside keeps me warm and listening to my music while ensuring I do not upset the boss

Must of an old one a new genuine Optivisor fits very securely I often forget to take mine off

I am a clockmaker and i have a Optivisor with no5 lens for bench close to work and a number no4 lens for working on the lathe or milling machine.

On my close to Optivisor I have the new Quasar LS light fitted which is brilliant

Works well with my varifocal glasses, and the LEDs are too bright to look at so they shed a lot of light

Edited By Stephen Benson on 22/01/2016 16:38:37

Edited By Stephen Benson on 22/01/2016 16:39:49

I am a clockmaker and i have a Optivisor with no5 lens for bench close to work and a number no4 lens for working on the lathe or milling machine.

On my close to Optivisor I have the new Quasar LS light fitted which is brilliant

I would post a picture but yet again I was defeated by this awful user interface I even put the  picture on photobucket ready

Edited By Stephen Benson on 22/01/2016 15:26:15

Sorry Thought the Grasshopper was a gravity escapement forgive me

Wilding does offer the easier to make and nicer to watch gravity escapement as well using the same escape wheel also electric winding in the latest Small Turret Clock book.

I had the same problem this forum seems to make pictures and links incredibly difficult to post even the spell checker has to be turned on every time you post something, given up trying to post pictures on here life is too short.

On the half dozen other forums I frequent it is made very easy in fact you would almost think they wanted you to post pictures.

The Potty Finger Engine a quick search brought up a a nice UTube video of it so of to Pocket Mags to get a digital copy of the latest ME download the mag and it is over two issues there can be but a handful of parts.

Not really a gripe as it is nice to see this sort of thing in the ME I was just surprised, I showed the video to my 10 year old lad he was very keen so we have our first proper project together however ours will be much less ornate.

They are quite involved to build so you have to be sure you have a use for it when it is finished, I did the clock bushing version which I use almost daily in my role as a Clock Repairer in my opinion it is the best clock bushing tool out there beating all the commercial versions including the Swiss tools

The standard handles are a bit OTT and time consuming to set up I use these commercial ones they are fully adjustable and work well.

Edited By Stephen Benson on 03/07/2015 15:23:59

Thanks for the info Ketan most helpful yes I spotted the review in ME but the reviewer had not used the machine to make anything as far as I could tell just taking a cut using a side and face.

I have used full sized horizontal machines in college and on the shop floor; I found them to be very versatile, accurate and robust this one is so small and compact it would take up very little room but would be great for metal removal and wheel cutting.

I could pick up a Centec for about the same money but they are much larger and I doubt a 60 year machine would still be accurate without a full rebuild then parts could be issue.

http://www.axminster.co.uk/axminster-engineer-series-su1-universal-mill

I am clockmaker but not exclusively and I often have to make tools to build various things so need a small solid machine that can take reasonable cuts.

This Chinese machine seems to fit the bill but only one supplier in the UK at the moment anybody got one or seen it close to.

Edited By Stephen Benson on 03/06/2015 13:57:36