Member postings for Nigel McBurney 1

Heavy Drilling from carriage reduces wear on tailstock ,so maintains accuracy,

While I was at work and later on my visits as a procurement engineer to lots of UK machine shopsI can never recall seeing anyone using power feed to part off on a centre lathe ,and I never do now at home with my Colchester, the Ward capstan lathe where i once worked,never had power feed,and the capstan lathe was a real production machine in days gone by, though I suspect that manual winding of the cross slide was quicker,as the parting tool usually at the rear had to be kept well to the rear in order to clear the tools on the capstan turret,so the operator had to wind the handle quickly up to the work then slow down the hand feeding when actually parting off ,rather than wind fast then stop engage a clutch and part off . Of course at the same time the high volume turret auto lathes were enclosed and cam driven so a cam could drive the parting tool up to the work very quickly and slow automatically for the actual parting, plus the fact they were designed to do that job and were very rigid. and the same can occurr on modern cnc machines where there are no handles to wind. When HSS was in common use the general rule was to reduce cutting speed by half when parting.A pumped flow of coolant helps a lot particularly on steel,

I have a rear tool post for my S7 its ok if making a batch of parts and a light tool eg a chamfer tool is needed to avoid tool changes on the front toolpost but I consider the cross slide though in proportion to the lathe is rather light in construction a distortion could occurr after a parting tool jam ,the thrust is up and cast iron is far stronger in compression than tension,so I never use the rear toolpost for parting off.

Be careful when buying boxed sets,if buying say 3/16 to 1/2 inch whit, the tap wrench and dieholder are usually not suitable for the larger sizes,the tap wrench may hold the tap but the handles are too short to turn say 1/2 inch, like wise the od of the i/2 inch die is very small to suit the sets dieholder which again has too short handles to get enough grip to turn the die unless the owner is a giant, and of coarse a small die will drop through a larger die holder,so they can only be suitable for a tailstock die holder which has a long sturdy tommy bar, Best to buy individual taps and dies as and when needed,Quite good tap wrenches and dieholders can be purchased at boot sales /auto jumbles ,Many years ago while still at work,the company bought very good drills from Drill Services,of course quality is not cheap,and they were being used on cnc machines running 24/7 .he boxed sets I have seen were routed out of mdf ,so could easily be made to keep taps in set order and put in the bottom od small filing cabinet drawers.

Just been down to have a look at my Fobco,bought new 1968,I had it all that time and did not realise that there was a screwed chuck extractor ring,Jacobs chucks were good in those days and has never needed removal, its still as free as it was new, I have found that chucks used in the horizontal mode can get gummed up and stiff,it might be that soluble oil drains out when vertical but can lay inside when in a tailstock,and whe out of the tailstock are invaribly stored upright with the shank in a storage rack ,so the soluble oil cannot drain out,perhaps they should be stored with taper shank up. As for lube I use Halfords 15/40 in my oilcan and have always used good motor oil for over 50 years. dont forget when lubricating the Fobco pull the quill down to expose the the grease nipple set into the quill which lubricates the bearings ,for grease used to get Castrol lithium based grease but it is now difficult to find so just use a multi purpose grease from any motor factor,mine has possibly only been greased every ten years,ok when the drill is only used in the home workshop, over greasing can cause problems, and after 50 years my Fobcos bearings show no sign of wear, A very good drilling machine, in those days no instructions came with the drill,a chuck guard was a extra and no one bothered then, where I worked the drill guards were found ,cleaned up and fitted when we got word of the impending visit from the factory inspector,At least I now know hoy to get the chuck off though at my age I will never need to.

I machine gib head keys (full size not model,0 from key steel which is bright but a bit tougher then en3b, the material is heated to red head with propane torch ,cooled slowly, to remove internal stress ,and I find it stays flat when machining one side,

Part of my apprenticeship was 6 months turning on a Ward 2a capstan lathe,the work was components for scientific instruments small batches from 20 to 1000 components,after brief instruction on setting you had to do the setting up as well as the work,wich was mainly i brass ,nickel silver ,aluminium,and a few small steel jobs,one day I was setting up for a run of around 1000 brass parts for microscope eye pieces ,which had fine threads for lens locking rings and where the eyepiece screwed into a microscope, threads cut with ordinary taps and dies,I set myself the task of seeing if I could complete the batch without adjusting or resharpening any of the cutting tools,so took a bit of time with the set up and then got going ,while setting up I "lost" 3 parts as they were not good enough,the company was fairly small so the owner spent a fair time in the works,well he came round to see how I was doing ,he saw the the 3 scrap parts in the swarf tray and told me off for wasting the brass (1.5 inch bar ) , though during the week he came back after looking at the time sheets and asked how I managed to get the usual component time down from 41/4 minutes to 31/2 minutes,the fastest that it had been done, my reply was I took a lot of care in the setting up to see if it was possible to avoid stoppages and resharpening ,If I remember it was only the die that needed adjusting,all HSS tooling had not required attention,The main lesson I learnt from this was sod being honest,if in future I have to part off parts that I was not satified with ,dont part off just machine it off to swarf leave no evidence. I still have one of the parts in my tool cabinet drawer 60 years later as a reminder. It was a good example of what can be done with HSS tools and toolbits,if they are ground correctly no need for carbide, and no power feeds .

My first lathe was an EW bought s/h some 60 years ago, in those days carbide tooling was not used very much if at all on small lathes,especially on lathes with plain cast iron mandrel bearings which had a single split with adjusting/clamping screw,and the lubrication was via simple countersunk drilled holes,no wicks or drip feed lubricators ,this type of bearing with crude lubrication is not suitable for high speeds,and in fact my lathe came with a lot of carbon steel tools,in fact my lathe had some scoring on the spindle yet no marks in the bearings,some advice from my employer at the time was dont buy any more carbon tools only use HSS and he also told me that poorly lubricated bearings usually result in damage to the steel spindle, At the time I was using a Boxford at work and soon found the EW a pain in the b/side as there were no half nuts,I was 19 at the time and never thought about doing the half nut conversions that have been done in recent years, finishing my apprenticeship and two job changes I bought an ML7 and cheerfully waved the EW goodbye,

Trefolex is ok for machine tapping ,I have both Trefolex and Rocol solid and liquid, my usual choice is Trefolex ,especially on BSP pipe threads, the grease like solid Rocol is very good on small threads eg 8 and 10 BA in all materials.

I suspect that trefolex consists of tallow plus some other ingedients and colouring, where I started work,a dark yellow goo was used I was told that it was tallow mixed with flowers of sulphur and and was shop practice to use it on all materials including cast iron.when machine tapping with an attachment in the Pollard 3 spindle drilling machiine it was practice to not to stop the drill ,just brush the swarf out of the flutes and then apply a dollop of goo with the same brush,and I still do this with Trefolex on the Meddings,

My first employer had a saying ,always have one lathe in the shop with changewheels only,then if an odd pitch is required it can be screwcut without too much hasle.

I once saw a Butler 36 inch stroke shaper at a machine tool exhibition at Olympia, now that was an impressive machine.

When fitting a depth rod to the micometer head always ensure that the mating faces are very clean,any minute spec of grime will affect the calibration.

I Prefer solid shank boring heads and also boring bars and fly cutters,The one piece construction reduces vibration and chattering particularly when the job in hand is approaching the limits of the tool capacity.

Where I worked back in the 1960s dedlock cutters on 40 int holders were used on iron castings,it was company practice to grind the 90degree point where the cutting edges met ,back at 45 degrees with a small cutting face width of about 3/16 so there was no sharp point to get chipped ,this practice improved cutter life and finish , I always found the dedlock cutters to be very good and rigid enough to prevent any chatter and of course with ths Clarkson system these threaded cutters were easy to remove.

On my wifes Suzuki which has stop start,I changed the battery and used another battery and some light gauge wire to maintain a current to the car, Last year I used the Halfords service to replace the battery at home ok it cost but the battery on Dicovery 4 is very heavy and at rear of the engine bay under the windscreen so difficult to lift and fit when one gets ancient, the Halfords fitter just disconnected the battery lifted it out and put the new battery ,no jump leads or resetting, I asked how about the possibly lost settings he replied that on most vehicles there is now a time limit in the vehicle system so as long the change over is done quickly no resetting is required. I then asked the fitter if he had a battery tester to see if a cell or the whole old battery was duff (it was 7 years old) his reply "sorry we dont carry battery testers on the van" !!! about 2 years ago the Suzukis battery had run down due to low use,when I went to charge it I found out that with these stop start batteries a special function on the battery charger is required,lucky my newish small hi tech charger has this function.

lumium is With a steam roller there a number of different types of rear roll construction in full sze,a lot of rollers for a start only used a single T ring as there was a lot less strain on a roller wheel compared to a traction engine, the spoke fixing to the rim varied,some cast in some rivetted and a few were bolted,this made rim replacement easier,spoke making can be a bit long and tedious,but thats what model engineering is all about.Now some makers in the later years of production after WW1 started using six spoke wheels,the hub and spokes were in one piece and bolted to the rim,Marshalls and Wallis & Stevens used plate wheels with circular holes cut in the plates,and this practice continued when both of theses makers started making ic engined rollers. so lots of choice, Should you wish to make a spoked rim then either get sawn off aluminium billets and machine either a single or double spoke flange,you might say a lot of waste material but it would only be a piece of ali say 4 inch dia and the wheel thickness,so easy to do and cheaper than castings.Or you could go for machining a plain rim from tube then then machine a recess in the rear of the rim to take another piece a smaller dia tube ,machine it into an angle rim and press or bond it or lightly press it in place with some small rivets to make sure it would not come apart, I would go for the single angle ring with spokes bolted in place, though I would go for machine the whole thing in one piece as I always try to make parts from solid, If you decide to make a double ring with rivetted spokes its not easy to form good rivet heads and if the rivets are hit too hard the ali can split. Castings in aluminium will crack even easier as I found out many years ago. Aluminium is a lot easier to machine particuarly as this would be a first attempt, My choice would be a roller based on a Marshall with flat steel wheels and make the model with machined from solid stee rims. Have a look at the photos of steam rollers on various web sites to see the various wheel types.

Jason how much did it go for,I missed it due to phone call. Some of the so called experts are not very good and it becomes obvious when items like this engine come up,I just wonder when the experts start spouting on other subjects where my knowledge is limited how good they really are.

Grind off thee faces with an angle grinder,just leave hardened and flat the face that locates in the lantern toolpost,a grinder disc is far cheaper than ruined carbide cutters.

The Myford /Colchester is a good combination,you will soon appreciate the large spindle bore,it is so useful.

Back in the 1970s when we were younger my wife and I carried my new Myford S7 upstairs,no motor ,tailstock and cross slide removed, I do know of a round head Colchester triumph that was taken down a flight of steps into an air raid shelter by a friend and his son,though they were good at moving various heavy items with minimal equipment.

When instrument making near 60yrd ago,instrument scales were filled with soft engraving wax,rubbed onto brass and nickel silver scales and rubbed of with tissue paper. fine engraving and finely divided scales were filled with black melted sealing wax ,these were scalesthat were finished by graining with polishing paper and then clear laquered, the laquer did not affect sealing wax but could not be applied to engraving wax which bubbled up