Member postings for Speedy Builder5

Ziplock bags for all BA nuts, bolts and then stored in a shoebox, home made drawers for BSF, BSW, Metric,UNF/UNC. Also as Philip, tobacco tins for rivets, nails, special screws etc etc.

VHS nylon/plastic boxes are another source.

Bob

Martin - Tracy tools (others available) Imperial drills same price as metric ie HSS 1/16" - 1/2 inch by 64ths £30 (29 in a set) and Metric 1mm - 13mm x 0.5 increments £25 (24 in a set). So ignoring any slight differences, metric same price as imperial - £1 per drill on average.

Bob

Odd chaser dies can be used on their own with a suitable holder as chasers. They can easily be sharpened at home and provide excellent formed threads on their own (without the die box).

Bob

IK Brunel was smoking a cigar, with chains in the back ground - was this the first "Chain smoker" ?

Question the suitability of plaster , where will the montage be stood, and how much chain do you want, but it would be fairly easy to make a half mold of a link (Ie: half of a vertical link split down its vertical axis) and pour plaster of Paris in and then slosh the plaster around until it set. (We used to make male formers for aircraft ventilation ducts, when dry, wrap glass fibre around them and once the resin was set, smash the plaster away from the resin.).

I digress, once the half links (which would be hollow with a wall thickness of say 1/4" or 6mm), they then could be stuck together to make a link at the same time linking to the next one. Plaster of Paris is surprisingly strong.

So looking at a vertical string of chain, you would make up these halves and stick a LH half to a RH half to make a link.

I hope you were generous and gave more than 50p. You see it on FlogIt etc - bought for little and sold for lots - never heard of anyone going back to the shop and donating any more of their windfall.

lookup Nylon Hammer on any of the internet sites.

I have a Southbend backplate and chuck which fits my BOXFORD which begs the question, was my SB faceplate actually a Bford one ?

Ie: Will a Boxford whit thread at 55degrees screw onto a Southbend 60deg?

Bob

NDY and CirClip, thanks Ian, you are on the money. just tested it with a magnet, as you say, slightly magnetic.

Now what do I use 2 feet of 5/8" Al Bronze for ?

Bob

Edited By Speedy Builder5 on 25/02/2023 11:03:44

Hi Bill, I started with COMSOL ( higher temp lead solder from Cup Alloys). No Go!

Then with some scrap bits, tried a joint between brass sheet and a disc of the mystery metal. Used Cup Alloys 455 silver solder rods(55% silver) with their EF flux. The mystery metal turned black and wouldn't "wet" . By comparison, the scrap sheet of brass "wetted" nicely and the silver solder flowed nicely. Adequate heat, joint prep was from fresh turned material and no coolant.

I do stress that I do not lay the problem at Cup Alloy material or even my soldering and silver soldering skills. I think my mystery metal must be some sort of bearing bronze (not sintered). It came from a metal supplier to the marine industry. Unfortunately that was some time ago and I don't have the invoice any longer.

Tried again with a mix of table salt and EF flux - No Go.

The material turned nicely, but was tough to drill and very tough to put a 1/4" BSP tap through the bush. I just thought my ancient tap was blunt, but by comparison, when I re-made the bushes in some stock brass, they passed through quite easily.

Tried mixing a bit of salt with the silver solder flux, no joy there.

Abandoned the solder idea, chucked the bushes in the bin, removed the marking off the remains of the bar, then used a different piece of stock material.

Job done and the COMSOL flowed lovely with BAKERS fluid as flux.

Ps: this isn't boiler related !

What on earth have they sold me. A year or so back, I bought some CZ 121 bronze bar as stock. Today I made a couple of 1/4 BSP bushes and went to solder them onto a brass plate with COMSOL. The solder flowed on the brass plate, but the bushes just turned black and would not 'wet' to the solder.

I thought it a bit strange, so on a piece of scrap brass, turned up another scrap of the CZ 121 - same problem and the solder would not adhere to it.

Moving on, I tried a bit of silver solder - same problem.

What have I got hold of ? Not CZ121 for sure. It looks like bronze - turns like bronze

Bob

Brian G,

The nut looks like it had some sort of tap to make the thread. I bet it would have taken a very big wrench to turn it.

Looking at the top of the screw, you can see thread rounding where it has worn away and where the rats used to chew at the animal fat that was used to lubricate the thread.

Bob

Edited By Speedy Builder5 on 24/02/2023 06:48:58

We have the screw of a walnut oil press (circa 1860). It's about 1.5m long and 170mm diameter, pitch 60mm. They were hand carved from a log of lime wood.

First a suitable log was sawn, square, then made octagonal by planing off the corners by 45 degrees, then made 16 sided and eventually round (Similar to sailing mast making).

It was then mounted on a couple of stands, one end with a stub and the other with a handle.

As one operator turned the handle, the other walked from one end to the other, scribing a pencil line along the length thus marking a spiral. These guys were real artisans !

Once they had the spiral line, they would cut a saw cut to the depth of the thread along the spiral. Once that was done, they used a chisel to form the thread profile - thread angle approx 90 degrees!

The final cleaning up was with a wooden moulding plane with a 90degree dagger blade.

I have yet to find out how they made the nut !

Bob

like Michael said - do it properly and just use plaster. make yourself a a form tool ( in 1/8" plywood) of the radius you want. Slap up a good load of plaster and drag the form tool over it. let it set a little bit and refine the form once again but this time use a flat trowel like in this video - Be brave my son !

Plaster curves

How about using skate board wheels ? You may have to re-profile them to take the crown off, and fit the more up market wheel bearings.

Bob

Lathe elevator ??

Lift

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=elevator+moving+house&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:109db096,vid:uXhXmmpI8_A

Just check out that you can cut both metric and imperial threads (If that is what you need) - probably by use of a conversion gear wheel set and that it is present with the lathe. (may be difficult to source after purchase).

Also a 4 jaw chuck and faceplate as minimum tooling.

Bob

Nick F, The small one here is 125 watt and lord knows what the big one is. Neither trip the RCD's so I guess they are still good. as you say, ideal for brass plate work and the Big Un is great for soldering zinc guttering which is used extensively over here - mind you, it takes about 30 mins to warm up and even longer to cool down.

I would guess that the element is leaking to earth and needs replacement. Whilst you are looking for the Henley Solon replacement elements, buy a packet of spare hens teeth whilst you are about it perhaps?

Bob

And whilst on the subject of leakage - what is the best method to neutralise the spillage from these batteries ?

Bob