Member postings for Chris Gunn

Ian, they are for holding parallel shank drills in the sleeve, so you need a dedicated sleeve for each drill size. the drill is inserted just a short way into the slot, and a drift can then be used to eject the drill. I would have thought more handy for production work, one can use a cheaper parallel drill in the sleeve, when the drill is done throw just the old drill away, and you still have the sleeve for another new drill. I would think in most modelers workshops these would not be of much benefit.

SOD, I use taper shank drills quite frequently, especially in the bigger sizes above 1/2" as no chance of the bigger drills spinning in use as they can in a keyless or Jacobs style. I am not a fan of turning the shank of bigger drills to hold the in a drill chuck. If I am making a quantity of anything that requires a series of drilled holes I will use taper shank drills from 1/4" up, I have accumulated a set of metric and imperial taper shank drills over the years. Used ones are often cheap to buy as only folk like us have the machinery to employ them.

Chris Gunn

Alan I am not sure what threading you need to do but the Ward Capstans used Coventry die heads, there are plenty about, and reconditioned ones too. However using a die head does limit the type of part you can thread, but in the factory I worked in any screw cutting would be done on centre lathes, so the need for screwcutting did not arise in the case of the capstans. We would use a die head for quantities of any oddball screw or pin that needed a thread on the end. Bear in mind there is not a lot of bed length to play with on a Capstan, but that may not be an issue for you.

Chris Gunn

I am another ex Ward 3A Capstan operator, and I remember there was a facility to add a chuck to them, I made thousands of gear blanks using chucks. I believe the lever operated collet chuck assembly could be removed to fit a chuck. Not something one would do daily, but fitting chucks is possible. The chucks we used were paradoxically Alfred Herbert chucks with soft jaws held on serratted carriers within the chuck body. In my section we had a number of machines with collet chucks and bar feed, and a few with chucks. We stayed with our allocated machine, and I remember using both chucks and collets on it. I wish I had the room for one now, I thought they were fantastic machines to run and make stuff fast. One thing sticks in my mind and that is the huge dial on the crosslide and the small coloured spring clips one could attach to the dial to indicate where to stop for different diameters on the job in hand.

Chris Gunn

Tony, using off standard sizes of fasteners and so on, is not so daft after all. It makes your customers come back to you for spares. A company I used to work for used 11/64 pins, 1 1/16" pitch chain and chain wheels, I could go on, but anything prone to wear or breakage was non standard. For one high wearing part they bought special 10.8mm silver steel, impossible for the customer to buy this in small quantities to make their own parts.

Chris Gunn

Peter, I have standard cap screws in 1/4" Whit, and some hex socket button head if they are any good, but no countersunk apart from slotted like you have already been offerred.

Chris Gunn

One way is to machine a slot in the underside of the vice and add a tenon which is a close fit in the slot in the machine bed, and then the vice is aligned automatically. There has been a couple of threads on this topic recently.

Chris Gunn

I just had another look at the pics of the end mills, and note what could be a hole in the end. Hard to tell if it is a centre or a hole. If it is a parallel hole they could be countersinks, with the hole being provided for a pilot. I have some similar under my bench, complete with pilots.

Chris Gunn

I'm with Bernard, if they were nice and shiny I would still not use them for milling. There is probably a reason they are rusty and you got them for free. Once you have cleaned them all up and you have modified them by turning the shank down or adding a drawbar to possibly make them safe to use, they will give you limited service for all the effort before they need sharpening again. they may put you off milling as well. Put them back under the bench, and buy some modern ones, and buy the sizes you need.

Chris Gunn

Chris, your memory is not so dull, mine came with a monster 2 speed motor as well, which could not be run with an inverter, but may have been runable with my phase converter. I use that on my 3ph Bantam which has the original 2 speed motor still on it. However I wanted to run both machines at the same time, so went for a new modern smaller 240v 3ph motor, which reduced the footprint by a couple of inches, and an inverter package from Newton Tesla, and this works really well.

Chris Gunn

Neil, I have a mike with a rectangular frame which is an "Elliot" make, but the barrel is different.

Martin, just had a look at the Polly vertical, 1 3/4" OD copper is used, they do not give a thickness, the ends are 16 or 18G, so I would suggest the tube should be the same for a low pressure boiler, i have mad a few from 2" x 16G in the Polly style, as said 30psi will be plenty to run a smal engine.

Chris Gunn

Martin, do you need 75PSI for a simple oscillator?

Chris Gunn

A broken one? apologies to Del boy.

Folks, I have just been going through a box of memorabilia that originated with my mother, and includes some items from her brother who served in the navy throughout WW2. I have a lot of his records and scrapbook, plus a couple of engraved pom pom shell cases labelled "from a gun that shot down two Kamikaze bombers". I also found the training notebooks of George Brooks Martin, number 1041030 who was an engine fitter working on Wellingtons and Lancasters in the RAF, who does not seem to have a family connection. Also in the box there is an old Smiths of London lamp with an odd mounting. I wonder if anyone can identify this, is it from a ship or maybe from a Lancaster? I can only believe it is related to all the memorabilia in the same box, as otherwise a strange item for my mother t have kept.

Chris Gunn

Brian, i would use either 1/4" or 6mm, but I would use soft neoprene rings rather than O rings, and make the nuts to suit. Some suppliers stock the glasses and matching neoprene. it is important to cut the rings square, I push a piece of tube on a piece of round bar to suit, and part them off in the lathe using a scalpel mounted in the tool post.

Chris Gunn

Re my surplus spring steel, I should have said I will cut it up into smaller pieces, so plenty to go around.

Chris Gunn

Sod, I have some proper common as muck spring steel 1/16" thick x 6 1/2" wide, about 4 pieces 4ft long, I will never use all this so if anyone wants a piece, FOC but pay the postage, send me a PM.

Chris Gunn

Andrew, how about the plastic balls that are in washing machines? they act as non returns in the waste pipes?

Chris Gunn

OR, if you have any motor rewinders in your area, they may well have some duff motors lying about, and you could be lucky and find one. They could also hold new ones.

Chris Gunn

Nick, my guess would be that the end mill is not sharp.

Chris Gunn