Member postings for Dave Wootton

Wilwau patterns and castings were taken over by Norman Spink , some of his castings still had the Wilwau trade mark on them years later. I was fortunate to get hold of some original untouched1950's Waugh castings originally sold from his home in Bearsden, Glasgow, complete with the original receipt, and very superior castings they were too. Far above the sorry mis-shapen lumps that made up my last casting purchase.

Edited By Dave Wootton on 03/06/2023 18:17:00

Too slow typing above post says it all!

Edited By Dave Wootton on 03/06/2023 13:36:26

Apologies Hopper, you have obviously researched this very thoroughly, I'l have to read Mr Whitworth Socketts book!

Dave

Although entirely fictional, Mr Algernon Myford will always now stick in my memory, embellished with a formidable moustache which he twirled whilst making his famous quote about progress.

Nice to see some good natured humour on the forum.

Duncan's post on rotary valve IC engines and the name Frank Aspin bought back memories from a book " some unusual engines" by L.K.J Setright borrowed from the library years ago. Google search found a really interesting website on Aspin and his engines, lost part of this morning on there! Must have been an interesting character to meet.

Very nice work again Jason on another interesting engine, always a pleasure to read.

Dave

Edited By Dave Wootton on 02/06/2023 11:53:45

Got my Acorntools shaper project running for the first time today and spent a happy half hour watching it swish back and forth as the feed ratchet clicked away. Mesmerising, and it makes a change from cleaning and painting, which is all I seem to have done for the past few weeks.

Hi Steve

Not sure if it applies to all BTH magneto's but certainly the twin cylinder ones fitted to old British bikes, the armature must not be withdrawn without a keeper fitted to the body otherwise the magnetism will be lost. There used to be details on the Brightspark magneto website, which is full of usefull information. Who will also remagnetise it if it's too late!

Beautifully made mag's have had a couple of bikes in the past fitted with them, always seemed a cut above the prince of darkness's ones!. If you make a demonstration rig it may well interfere with everyones telly and make them cross, you may ask how I know........

Dave

Hi Dave

You have obviously researched this well, I was not aware that full size lubricators worked in that way, wrongly assuming it was all down to pressure differential, must admit that I never gave the effects of gravity a thought.Very Good idea to make the steam feed optional, and it would be great if you made your results known, I've learned a bit more already! Look forward to seeing some more pictures of your progress, judging by the quality of the work so far it's going to be some locomotive!

And Duncan's point about mounting the GWR condensers in the roof had also never occurred to me, but makes perfect sense, you can learn a lot on this forum!

Dave

Hi Chris

Could I suggest a very good book on using the smaller home workshop lathe, The Amateurs Lathe by Sparey it covers many of the questions that arise when starting out . There is also Using the Small Lathe by Mason and of course the Harold Hall books. The Sparey and Mason books are fairly old but still available and were written about the time your ML7 and similar small machines would have been common in the home workshop, they don't really deal wiyh modern carbide tooling but are full of good information to get you going.. Ian Bradleys Myford lathe manual also covers setting up the machine, although I believe the Sparey book covers that too. I'm sure they would be worth their modest cost in helping you get started with your machine, something to read in bed too!

Good Luck

Dave

Just read the article in MEW, it is indeed an excellent article, well done Hopper. I'm inspired to make some for the shaper, which is undergoing reassembly at the moment. may have to adjust the sizes for the cross feed but will keep the same construction. Looking forward to making these and will post a picture of the results, if the stamping doesn't come out too well , pics will be taken from a distance!

Thanks for a really good practical article.

Dave

Thanks Dave and Jason.

I thought it was me doing something wrong, hopefully he will get back in touch, I didn't want him to think I was ignoring him!

Dave

I've got a couple of items listed in the classified section and have had an email enquiry from alerts@model engineer about one of them. However there is no return email adress other than the alerts one above and when I reply there is an undeliverable message from Mortons. I've checked my inbox on this site and nothing there, am I missing something or being exceptionally dim? both quite possible. Can anyone please tell me what I'm doing wrong, any help much appreciated.

And David if you are reading this I'm not ignoring you!

Dave

That's some fine work Dave, going to be a fantastic locomotive. I could very well be wrong but I don't think a separate steam feed to the top of the sight glass would work, my understanding is the condensed steam at boiler pressure displaces the oil and the pressure difference between the boiler pressure at the oil tank and steam chest pressure causes the oil to be carried to the steam chest. I would have thought that applying a steam feed to the top of the sight glass would equalise the pressure across the system causing it to stop feeding. I know of a 71/4" Highlander that was fitted with the system as described in the Julian Atkins articles and I know that fed reliably with just small bore pipes to the cylinders (twin sight feed) with a restrictor where it entered the steam chest, my only input was to make the sight glass. I would think the length of delivery pipe would be similar to yours. That was years ago, but saw it for sale a couple of years ago still fitted with the system so must still be working ok.

I'm sure if I have it all wrong someone will be along to correct it!

Dave

Should point out that my post above refers to putting the dials on a shaping machine rather than a lathe!

Dave

Thanks Hopper

Thats excellent I can adapt the idea for the cross travel and also fit one on the clapper down feed, you've made an excellent job of the graduation and stamping, have to up my game a bit!

Dave

Did people have better eyesight years ago when they made all those tiny dials with faint markings, perhaps it made up for them being smaller in height!!

Edited By Dave Wootton on 23/05/2023 12:33:50

Can't measure them because I sold the lathe a couple of years ago, but bought two of thesefrom Myford for a ML7-R and was pleased with them. Nicely engraved and finished, smooth to adjust the setting and they hold their setting in use without slipping. I'm actually looking at fitting one to the downfeed on my Acorntools/ Atlas shaper to replace the original Atlas sized ones, which are probably the same as the ones on your lathe and need superhuman sight to use. So I'd be interested in the o/d of these, from memory the bore is tapped 1/4 BSF. Used fairly intensely over about seven years they still looked new when the machine was sold.

Nicely summed up Jason, got the point across much better than my rather rambly post. After fifty years in industry around machine tools I've never heard anyone proposed the kind of testing mentioned above, too busy making things on our rapidly wearing out machines just trying to make enough money to keep on keeping on!

Dave

The two speed ML7's with the higher top speed had hardened spindles that ran in bronze rather than whitemetal bearings, at one time these were available as a set from Myford to retro fit to the standard machines. I can't remember where I read it but the whitemetal bearings were considered ok to run up to 1000 RPM. I know of one ML7 that has an inverter fitted that is set to a maximum of 60HZ rather than the standard 50 and it's been like that for years (since the early 90's) with no problems at all. The owner uses it quite intensively on components for his G1 locomotives and has never had cause to touch or adjust the bearings, although he admits to maybe over oiling things a bit!

He didn't change the motor it came secondhand with a 3 phase motor fitted from new, fortunately it was easy to rewire to delta, and I used to get slightly used inverters from work so it was a cheap solution.

I've had a super 7 with a 1/4 HP motor on it, the machine was 3 phase when I got it cheap and very secondhand and a smaller single phase motor was all I could find secondhand and afford at the time ( well before inverters were widely available). It did struggle with the top two speeds, in order to use them the machine had to be run for a while to warm up. I used it for a few years like that and never did change the motor for anything bigger, it was obviously underpowered really, but perfectly useable with care and sharp tools. The top speeds were only used a few times to drill some tiny holes in brass, I'd be inclined to just put a new cable and switch on it and use it until a suitable motor turns up, even with the small motor on it should have around the top speed of an ML7 available, and look what fantastic things have been built on those over the years.

In the interests of not starting another round of lathe wars I should point out that fantastic things have been built on Mini lathes,Chesters, Warco's Boxfords, Raglans, Drummonds and a host of others!

Just noticed the motor protection device is called a Thermotron, straight out of Dan Dare! (am I showing my age again!)

Edited By Dave Wootton on 08/05/2023 13:19:50

A great money saving tip that I found out quite by accident this morning, don't cut your nice piece of 5/8" square mild steel an inch shorter than you wanted to. You then have to drive a 40 mile odd round trip to the nearest supplier to buy a new piece, which has increased in price since purchasing the now too short bit. Please don't ask me how I know this to be true. But at least I have done a trial run to prove the theory!

Doh!

Edited By Dave Wootton on 05/05/2023 20:37:14