Member postings for Mike Crossfield

I’ll see what I can do about some more photos, but whether I can work out how to add a video remains to be see.

The excellent mlhorology forum is (was) in yahoo groups. It still exists for dialogue between members, but since the end of last year it has few resources in terms of archives etc.

Mike

Just completed my version of the Claude Reeves gravity escapement regulator. My main spare time project for the last 3 years, ( plus 6 months for the oak case).

The build was based on John Wilding’s book. However I used miniature ball races throughout, which reduced friction to the extent that the clock will run on 10lb driving weight compared to 14 lb for Wilding’s version. I also used carbon fibre for the pendulum rod.

I have to thank several people on this and the mlhorology forum for their help and advice. In particular Peter Bell, who sold me his spare set of water-jet cut plates, and gave much advice, Rex Swensen for guidance on the use of miniature bearings and other topics, and Joel Shugar and David Gee, both of whom had successfully built this interesting clock and freely gave their advice.

A couple of pictures are attached.

Edited By JasonB on 14/09/2020 19:01:38

Thanks Jason

Mike

What puzzles me is that rotating the photos 90 degrees before uploading them didn’t make any difference. They still came out sideways.

Mike

Photos now uploaded. And in need of rotation.

Thanks

Mike

Ok Jason, I’ll try again. I deleted the two photos which were rotated. The first one, which is in my album, was fine.

Mike

I want to upload some photos from my iPad to my album, but they are coming up rotated by 90 degrees. I have tried rotating the originals by 90 degrees before uploading, but they still come out rotated!

Does anyone know how to fix this?

Mike

Picture shows the swarf trays on my Super 7. The front one is held on with a screw into the hole normally used for the travelling steady. I think the hole is there on the ML10 as well.

Mike

Michael,

You have some very nice and valuable accessories there. As others have said, they should be sold separately. The saddle wheel dial in your second photo is a “Graham Meek” design, not Hemingway. Steve Tracey Tooling sells these for around £150.

Mike

Get a copy of “ The Model Engineers Workshop Manual” by G H Thomas. Myford orientated, a massive source of information on techniques with many excellent tool designs. I made several of these (Centre height gauge, boring bars, tailstock die holder, boring head etc) 20-odd years ago when I was first setting up my workshop, and still use them regularly.

Mike

Ian

The chap offering tumbler gears on Myford Groups was Steve Tracey.

I posted his prices and his contact details 9 messages back.

Mike

If anyone needs these Super 7 tufnol tumbler gears, and doesn’t want to make their own or pay through the nose, Steve Tracey has recently been offering them at £15 each or £25 per pair including postage. I bought a pair and the quality and fit are excellent. No connection except as a very satisfied customer. Steve can be contacted via email: [email protected].

Alan,

I bored the 6 mm steel rod to be a sliding fit on the 4.5 mm carbon fibre stub, then threaded the other end of the rod to suit the pendulum rating nut. From memory the stub was about 1/2 inch long to give plenty of bond area, and I used a 1/16 diameter pin. Similar fixing arrangement on the other end of the pendulum rod. No sign of anything having moved after several months.

Mike

I used 6 mm carbon fibre rod for the pendulum in my regulator clock. I turned the end down to 4.5 mm using a carbide GT insert without any problem. Glued and pinned it to a length of threaded 6 mm steel for the 5 lb bob.

Mike

An interesting thread with a lot of useful information. Some different opinions, but that is only to be expected. I found Bob’s comments supporting a traditional handcraft approach just as valuable and helpful as others looking for more automated methods. The videos were very informative. I couldn’t see what ticktock took offence at. I have made a couple of clocks and made repair parts for a several more. I started out crossing out clock wheels by hand using a piercing saw, but found it difficult to cut sufficiently close to the line to avoid lots of filing, and I found it hard to produce results in terms of dimensional accuracy that I was happy with. I also had one or two disasters where I overcut and ended up scrapping a wheel. Very annoying when one has cut all the teeth and put a lot of work into it. Maybe I should just keep practising, but I can’t resist trying to find better ways. Encouraged by John Wilding’s book on clockmaking methods I bought a 2 speed scroll saw, thinking that would improve things. Not a success. First of all it was too fast, even on its lowest speed, so it wore out blades very quickly. Secondly it only used a small part of the blade, so very wasteful on blades. Finally I couldn’t take the near heart attacks when the blades broke. I keep meaning to find some way of drastically reducing the speed of the machine because I think that would help enormously, but that project is still on the back burner. I also have a pantographic engraver, and I have toyed with using that for crossing out, but the stumbling block there has been making the patterns, which seems like almost as much work as just fretting out the wheels. The approach I am using on my latest clock (Claude Reeves long case) uses a rotary table on the mill and coordinate settings. I use a 1.5 mm end mill, and even though the maximum speed on my mill is barely 2000 rpm the finish is not too bad, and I have not broken any cutters yet. I find that very little finishing is needed. This is mainly filing to square up the corners of the crossings. CNC would be even quicker, but I don’t think I want to make the investment in time and equipment to go down that road.

just my two penn’orth.

Mike

p.s. Picture of a couple of wheels crossed out on the rotary table.

I

The arrangement Ian P describes is very similar to what I used on my mill, In my case the scale is mounted on a length of aluminium angle attached to the undeside of the carriage,, and there is also a swarf guard over it. The read head is mounted on an adjustable bracket attached to the base casting. Works very well.

As other have said, it's common to have extruded aluminium carriers for the magnetic strips, which ensure a flat surface and offer some protection for the strip. Also wise to have covers to keep swarf away from the strip/read head. Adjustable brackets for the read heads make it much easier to align the read heads and set the required clearance from the strip. My kit from Machine DRO had the strip carriers and the covers, but the read head brackets were useless for my mill and I had to make my own. I think this is fairly common. The DRO-PROS.COM website has loads of useful information about installation, and several very good videos. Well worth a look.

Mike

Tony

My Rapidor Manchester power hacksaw uses a standard ac motor which runs at about half the speed of your motor. It uses a two stage speed reduction using v belts with an overall step down of about 30:1. It works well, is quiet, and has massive torque. Only snag from your point of view is that the large pulleys are, well, quite large! Take a look at the Rapidor pictures in the machine tool archive on the lathes.co.uk website And you will get the idea. If space is not a problem it might be the way to go.

Mike

Here’s a picture of my Chesterman gauge.

Rather puzzling.

I have the same height gauge in its fitted box with all accessories. The box and accessories differ from Bosun’s example. Mine has pretty much the accessories described in Stevegtr’s advert: a scribe, a depth probe, separate clamps for the scribe and probe, and a 1 1/2 inch height standard. All the accessories fit into vertical recesses, rather than cutouts. Does make one wonder if Bosun’s box is original.