Member postings for Dave Wootton

I've got the Multifix clone from PeWe tools on my 254 for the past eighteen months or so, fit and finish is excellent. gets used fairly intensively for a home machine and am still delighted with it and have had no problems. PeWe are great to deal with and although out of stock at time of ordering it arrived exactly when promised. I've used the larger genuine ones at work and am a great fan of this type of toolpost. PeWe are the only supplier of one the correct size for the Myford 254 and I was a little concerned when ordering as I had never heard of them before, but very pleased with the whole deal, must order more toolholders!

I tried one of the Rolson ones and it did work ok, but now having had an Optivisor for a few years wouldn't be without it, the lenses don't suffer from the edge distortion that the Rolson one suffered from. I have one dodgy eye anyway and so perhaps notice it a bit more than those with two fully working eyes.

I would agree with Dave above, for occasional use the Rolson was very useful and enabled me to drill holes in the proper place again! and at the price paid a few years ago was well worth it. For the occasional bit of fiddly soldering or similar would do the job. The varying magnification lenses would also help decide which magnification would suit if going on to buy a more expensive option.

Dave

Hi Duncan

The round rods are turned down and press fitted into the block, so they can't move, the adjustment is the whole block sliding along the bed and then being clamped using the cap head screw. works the same as the Boxford and Colchester plain bed stops. I've never felt the need for a micrometer version or anything complicated,I did have a Boxford with a micrometer stop but never used it other than as a plain one. In use I admit to using the shank of a drill or piece of bar between the stop and saddle to set the distance, or using the top slide dial for short lengths, not exactly high precision but good enough for most of the things I make. I recently had to make 30 screws with three diameters on them and milled a simple step gauge out of a piece of bar to act as a spacer for the stop which worked well. I'm afraid I never make proper drawings just sketches, if its of any interest will dismantle and put some pictures on this evening.

Dave

Just found a picture of the one for my ML7R in my album, good lathe I miss it in some ways!

Hi Mart , This is the saddle stop made for my 254 which has a similar non gap bed style to the atlas, fairly easy to make and has proved invaluable since I bought the machine, due to the type of bed wipers on the 254 I wish I'd made the round stop rod a bit longer on the right hand side as swarf builds up in the gap ( I do a lot of cast iron). The 254 has a safety feature in the apron in case of a jam up under power feed, but if the atlas is not so fitted the round stops could be made as one rod passing through the main body with a brass shear pin. The one I made for my ML7R was like Hoppers rigid and I never had a problem with it over many years use.

I think my wife has had one secretly implanted into my nether regions, as soon as my bum touches the sofa she receives a signal and finds me something to do!

Excellent work, what a result! never guess it was the same item.

Had to smile about the paint not drying because of the heat and humidity, I spent yesterday touching up the wing of the car where I scratched it getting out of the garage, so cold I had to have a fan heater pointing at the wing to get the paint to dry!

Dave

Just found a reference on wikipedia that ETW's engines are in the care of the SMEE and at the time of the entry were being restored at West Dean College. So it looks like they are in good hands.

Dave

Sorry to hear that, always enjoy your posts and have learned a lot from, copied may of your methods, and taken inspiration from your projects. Look forward to the completion of the marine engine posts.

The quality of work and finish on your diesel engines is exemplary, as Hopper says all are works of art.

All the best

Dave

I remember GHT's lathe and some of his tooling being on display at one of the shows,probably at warwick as Gray says, somewhere around the early nineties if remembering correctly. Everything was beautifully made and finished as you would expect , so hopefully still preserved somewhere and being cared for. I saw GHT demonstrating using a super 7 at the M.E exhibition in the 80's, he was quite chatty and approachable, parting off MS bar with ease and a little showmanship! Made quite a few of his projects over the years and all of them have proved invaluable, particularly the small rotary table, small hole boring tools and boring head . Always thought he had a flair for design in that everything looked right , never built his dividing head as have a vertex one, but always thought it a most handsome design and a nice project.

Some of ET Westbury's engines were featured on the web a few years ago and were being cosmetically restored, can't remember if they were being sold off or not, but they were still around.

In the great scheme of things probably not important these things are preserved, but personally would hate to think of any of these things going to scrap.

Dave

I know this is drifting very far off topic, but does anyone know what happened to Martin Cleeve's much modified Myford ML7 or the EW lathe that he modified and serialised in M.E?

Over the years I've asked many model engineers who live in the area and nobody seemed to know, although some knew Martin (Ken) . Such an interesting machine would surely not been scrapped, but seemed to have dissapeared without trace. I do know he had a son so hopefully it passed to him. I remember asking the old owners of Thorcraft years ago but they did not know. Not important but always been curious, always been quite interested in the history of model engineering.

Dave

I used to live about ten miles from Hastings in Sussex, Ken Hart or Martin Cleeve as he was known in print's home town, and used to know a then very elderly model engineer who knew him from helping out on the Hastings miniature railway with him. Evidently a brilliant engineer , who trained as an electrical engineer working in one of the Southern Railways power distribution stations, later either being made redundant or leaving, he set up in his home workshop to earn his living on his ML7. A man of definite ideas who even made his own cap head screws and micrometers, he modified his Myford quite drastically in order to improve its efficiency. At one time in the 1960's some of his tooling productions were sold by a local company Thorcraft which is still trading.

Because of the high standards he set himself his business did meet with modest sucess, but he never had any desire to expand it or employ others so it remained a cottage industry, I believe he died at a fairly early age ( thiswas related to me by an octogenarian!) . the chap I knew who I only ever knew as Stan, spoke very highly of him and told me that although he could be regarded as slightly eccentric and like many single minded and very clever people not everyone got on with him, he regarded him as a likeable and good friend, as did many others.

Because of this very slight connection I've always set out to read as many of his articles as possible and have always found them interesting .I thought this was worth setting down as there can't be too many left now that knew Ken Hart so thought Stan's rememberances may be of interest. His book on screwcutting certainly helped me work out some very odd thread pitches when I was working, almost made me look like I knew what I was doing for a brief moment!

Dave

Just thought of one thing Stan said about Ken " The trouble was he was so quick and clever he made your head spin"

Edited By Dave Wootton on 24/01/2023 12:23:20

Really pleased this has worked out well, nice when someone gets a useful bargain, has cleaned up remarkably well.

I was a bit unsure about the Evaporust when first using it, but found pretty much the same as you that some neat solution would remove the black from the pits. As mentioned in previous post my mate who restores vintage cars swears by it, and some of the bits he restores to usefulness from rusty lumps astonish me.

Look forward to seeing the finished article, I hate painting too!

Dave

Looking forward to seeing this project progress, I had some very rusty bits to clean up and a mate who restores vintage cars gave me some Evaporust, worked an absolute treat. Not sure what's in it and if it's easily available, or if theres an equivalent, but it did work better than anything else I've tried.

Dave

I recently bought a selection of ARC premium slot drills and end mills, very pleased with them, cut well and seem to be holding a sharp edge despite some hard use. Previously bought Dormer and Sherwood cutters and these are a safe bet, sometimes found on offer in sets.

Dave

If anyone is unsure of feeds and speeds the tables in Tubal Cain's model engineers handbook will point you in the right direction.

Hopper

Purely selfish, but I hope you do get it, always enjoy your interesting posts and this would be a good one!

Dave

Garry

DiogenesII has thoughtfully bumped your thread up to prevent it from rapidly dissapearing down the list of postings where it would possibly be missed by many.

Dave

Truly an astonishing video, absolutely fascinating, never seen a set up like that before so ingenious, Thanks for the link Bruce.

I have never seen the machine but I went to the same college( Bromley) as the apprentices from Molins in south london ( who made cigarette making machinery), and remember them saying they all spent time on a machine dedicated to putting the elliptical oil grooves in bronze bushes of varying sizes. I believe it was a commercial made machine and was German. It was regarded almost as a punishment job to spend time on it, a pig to set up then days of repetitive boredom. I remember thinking at the time that it couldn't be much worse than having to chisel the things by hand, only ever had a few to do but I was working with Mr Superfussy at the time!

I've always wondered what the machine was like and how it operated, any links or pictures to anything similar would be much appreciated and of great interest. The only thing remembered from their description is that gearing was changed to alter the stroke of the machine, but it was a long time ago!

Dave

Edited By Dave Wootton on 27/12/2022 08:03:21

Correction to my above post re EU imports, just found the Atelier MB invoice and I did not pay vat at the time of ordering, just for the flywheel and postage. Shows how awful my memory is getting!

Looks like no-one bothered to collect the vat, the courier just left it on the doorstep, that was back in October and I've had no request for payment.......yet.

The duty from the EU seems a bit random, I ordered a flywheel casting from Atelier MB which cost 59 euros plus vat ( paid on ordering) and paid no duty, yet my friend ordered a slightly more expensive one from the same company a week later and was charged £30 duty and administration fee. Have had similar things in the past when no duty charged, yet a repeat identical order a month or two later was charged duty on.

Have always had to pay the duty from the US, it seems their authorities are hot on that sort of thing as the sender will never undervalue an item on the customs form, not that I've ever asked of course! The Chinese seem to put a minimal value on everything, although it is some years since i bought anything direct from China.

Atelier MB castings and service excellent BTW, wish I'd seen their Tigerli locomotive before starting my current project loco, would have prevented much whingeing and gnashing of teeth.

Edited By Dave Wootton on 14/12/2022 11:33:03