Member postings for RJW

Many thanks all for the comments and links, I've got a better idea of what I'm dealing with now, think I'm going to have to get over to see the machine in the flesh and see what's going on with the spindle,

The transformer and bulb holder will hopefully be fairly straightforward to replicate, just need to find out what it needs if anything to fit chucks and faceplates now,

Point taken about divisions into 360 John, although to be honest I think I'd find that easier than working out which plates I'd need to get divisions needed, and chances are I'd miscount the holes at some point anyway,

Think I'm well beyond sorting out any electronic gubbins to fit it these days TBH, just the mention of Arduino CNC and programming and my eyes glaze over, too many wasted years hunched over broken computers I think, they've turned me into a luddite, I even hate my smartphone which thwarts all attempts to let me answer calls when the damn thing rings

So in summary, it sounds like a superb bit of kit that's more accurate than anything I'm likely ever to be capable of, and near impossible to fix without a lottery win if bust or has any serious bits missing,

As soon as the weather picks up, looks like being a trip to visit the beast and hope it isn't bust.

Have replied to your PM Michael.

John

Thanks Michael, that's very helpful, it does appear to be a far easier bit of kit to use as regards use for dividing (no wheels to change or holes to count) but I've no experience with these machines at all (yet), and there appears to be nothing to hold a chuck or faceplate, I gather from the owner that the spindle is threaded but only over a very short distance,

I believe the machine is in good order, but it's the missing bits that are bothering me, the owner knows nothing about it either, it's an estate sale so we're both winging it, it's too far just to nip over and take a look unfortunately.

John.

Would appreciate comments for and against optical dividing heads v the traditional disc types please,

I've been offered a 'PG' type with a matching tailstock at what appears to be reasonable money relative to the more common disc types, it appears to be missing the light transformer and plug and I'm not sure if anything is missing from the spindle nose that would render it unusable without a lot of faff, but at £150 is it worth a punt anyway?

John

Thanks Bob, with hindsight, I really should have done it years ago, they'd have been nearly done now

Similar problem to you as well, unfortunately those in the loft are on my side, hey ho, decided I needed to shift things though when we started finding doors getting hard to open, stud walls ain't what they used to be.

Another big plus of putting the cropped pages in binders, I can pull any of them out to scan them into the pc as A4's or whichever flavour they were printed,and run copies off in A3 on my printer, makes them much easier to read without messing up the originals, coming across some very interesting stuff too,

John.

Edited By RJW on 28/02/2018 10:21:04

For the last few days I've been working through my collection too, no one wants them even free, they're a mine of information and too good to throw away, so I've decided to put them in lever arch files, working a treat so far and coming across many articles that are revving me up to get my backside into the workshop ...... but maybe when it warms up a bit ...........

I remove the staples, lift out any centre pages with full page spreads - usually the general arrangement and dimensioned drawings, guillotine off the spine, then take out the front cover, index and all project and interesting articles, the rest, such as back covers, adverts, postbag and other general guff goes in the bin,
So far, I'm getting two full years plus front covers and index pages in a single lever arch file, all index pages at the front for easy reference with front covers on each month as per the mag', the heap of chuck away pages is thicker than the stuff going in the binders by a mile,
Wish I'd done this years ago instead of wondering what to do with all the paper wrapped volumes on my garage shelves.

John.

Might be worth checking out UV crystal cement for bonding mineral watch glasses, most of the watch parts houses such as H.S.Walsh, Cousins and Meadows & Passmore sell it.
Sets rock hard and doesn't yellow.

John.

Carl, some details of the Parker control unit in my Sieg, think it's a 506 in mine but can't check without stripping the top off the box,

1st link is for a .pdf user manual, second is a website which gives more detail, no connection to either concerns, just a happy user,

John

**LINK**

**LINK**

Edited By RJW on 22/01/2018 11:18:20

Carl, I have a Sieg C1 with the M1 milling attachment, the original Chinese control board was junked by the previous owner when it blew and was changed for a British manufactured unit,
I don't have the data book to hand at present, it's out in the workshop and too dark and damned cold to go out there at the mo', but I'll dig it out tomorrow and let you have the details,
The original controls on the headstock are still in place and working, photo's of it are in my albums, would think this unit plus an on/off & speed control switch would do the job for you, think they were around £100 last time I looked.

John.

Hi Julian, Many thanks for your kind comments, they were very much appreciated,

Mike, I felt very much the same as you when way back in the 90's I first delved into repairing clocks and watches, but to be truthful, when you dig into them there's no real mystery or black magic at all, they're actually quite crude as mechanical devices,
In many ways I find clocks far easier to deal with and more forgiving of ham fisted activity than 'model engineering' projects if comparing to making live steam or I.C. engines.

Just keep asking questions when you get stuck, it gives our grey cells a bit of exercise, Lol.

John.

My pleasure Mike, I've learned a ton of stuff on here over the years, so it was nice to be able to help with something I actually know about,

I'd suggest not getting too hung up over the pivot sizes, if you cut them a bit small or even slightly over size if you're afraid of overcooking things it isn't a big deal, it's always a moveable feast on clocks because whatever pivot sizes you end up with you will always cut the holes to suit each individually, you'll be drilling the initial holes under size anyway in order to broach them to suit the pivots, so personally I'd make all the arbours and pivots first then drill the plates

Another tip I would give, is to avoid cutting a sharp root where the pivot blends into the arbour, if it's cut sharp it'll create a stress raiser, and can guarantee if the clock ever suffers a mainspring or line break, that's where something is likely to break, best to cut the fillet with a small radius for the strength, which brings me to a point Marcus made,

Totally agree with what Marcus wrote, but where oil sinks are concerned I personally would add them front and back (outside only) because they do tidy the job up no end, that's just my preference though but there are other reasons for my thoughts on this,
In every case on antique longcase clocks where the winding barrel arbours invariably run in plain holes, the oil has stained the plates where it's run off the holes and they're always very badly worn, but on the clocks where I've added an oil sink no appreciable wear has been apparent on subsequent servicing or repairs years later, 'But', the oil sink on large holes are best cut Very Shallow, because on those anything removed from the front of the hole will reduce the bearing surface in a greater proportion to the smaller train holes, in my experience though, a very shallow sink works wonders with the oil less likely to run off!

Regarding oil sinks on the inside of the plates, some may advocate it but I don't, they further reduce the depth of the pivot hole and the pivots suffer less support = wear, they will also cause an excess of end shake on associated arbours,
However, this brings me back to my comment about forming a small radius on the root of the pivots,
I Always run the oil sink cutters over every pivot hole 'Inside' the plates, not an oil sink, but just enough to crack the sharp edge away because, if you have a radius on the pivot root and a sharp edge on the pivot holes, I can guarantee this will cause the wheel train to bind and stop the clock or cause poor performance at some point,

The arbours may feel free when you spin them by hand, but when any wheel train is working under spring or weight pressure, the arbours will always migrate to either the front or the back plate depending upon any gradient formed when cutting the gears, arbours and pivot holes, it's unavoidable, the best way to get you head around this, is think of what happens on a belt sander or flat belt drive if you tilt a roller, the belt will move across as the roller tilts, and exactly the same thing happens in a clock wheel train, so if a pivot root radius runs against a sharp edge on a hole, it'll cause friction which will have a greater impact the closer it gets to the escape wheel where the power available to the wheel train is lower,
If you look at any clock movement that's done a fair amount of running, you'll always find on every arbour that one end has left witness marks on a plate around a hole where it's rubbed, but the other end will just have a mucky ring of dried oil around it.

Most of all though, don't rush it and enjoy making that clock.

John

Hi Mike, the front pivot of the fusee arbour carries the grunt of the mainspring power during all operations, winding / running etc and bears the full load of mainspring power when fully wound and the chain against the fusee stop, it needs to be fairly beefy to carry the load otherwise it would chew the front plate hole oval very quickly,

The rear pivot by contrast bears an indirect torque reaction to the load bearing on the front pivot, and being at the other end of the cone it's a much reduced load, which as the spring unwinds will reduce further to the value of the pre-load of the spring as the fusee chain reaches that end of the cone, so that pivot doesn't need to be as big, it also doesn't suffer someone heaving on the winding key,

The main factor against making the rear pivot hole as large as the front, is that you will increase drag unnecessarily on the rear pivot and gear train, a larger hole means a larger bearing surface creating more friction, my advice would be 'don't do it', and go with the original plan.

There's nothing stopping you making both pivots the same size and drilling through both plates "As an initial machining process" and cutting both holes the same size to suit, but you will still need to broach both holes to suit each associated pivot individually, the holes should be finished to size with tapered broaches from both sides of the plates, the holes are not parallel walls, they should taper inwards equally from both sides towards the centre of the plate for every pivot, the taper is also very slight and invisible to the naked eye, even under a loupe, (100:1 ish)

Please forget about precision engineering fits and thinking you'll get away with doing both holes at once with a straight reamer and hoping it will do, if you go down that road it will end in tears because the wheel train will bind up as soon as you pin the plates together, the tapered pivot holes compensate for a degree of miss-alignment of the plate pillars and pivot holes which Will invariably happen,

Hope this makes sense.

John.

Edit footnote: I don't have the plans for this clock to hand anymore, so my comments are just based upon experience of restoring antique fusee movements in general,

Edited By RJW on 05/01/2018 19:35:40

Geoffrey, unfortunately I'm in the North East so unable to offer any help, but this is a repair I've done a few times on longcase clocks and especially Westminster and gong strike mantle clocks, which snap pivots like carrots following a mainspring break,

Drilling out the arbour and inserting a piece of silver steel rod is the way to go, it's a neat repair, reversible and much stronger than the original turned pivot, it also doesn't change the form of the original arbour
Another method but less satisfactory on an antique, is to shorten and turn a stub on the end of the arbour and press on a pre-manufactured 'repair pivot', these take the form of a hollow ended short cup with a pivot machined on the end, if done properly though they can be almost invisible, but there is the risk of them coming adrift unless the cup is quite deep,
The photo's I've added will give you an idea of what needs to be done and is my preferred manner of repair, they show a typical pivot replacement to the second wheel on the strike train of a Westminster type mantle clock, which broke from the recoil of a broken mainspring,.

John.

Edited By RJW on 12/12/2017 23:10:16

I'm convinced! In future rust removal with Citric Acid is an outdoor job. It would be a shame to MacGyver myself with an innocent food grade chemical!

Thanks,

Dave

Yes definitely an outdoor job, ditto electrolysis, any acids and anything to do with Horolene type products (ammonia based), I perhaps mistakenly assumed folks would be doing these jobs outdoors anyway.
If it's raining or generally crappy weather and doing a bit of electrolysis, I commandeer the wife's greenhouse for a while (very draughty), and yes, I do warn her to keep out until I've done, the citric acid jobby can just sit outside.

John.

The "fizz of bubbles" consists of carbon monoxide and hydrogen.

Hardly an earth shattering volume compared to various pollutants created by using other forms of de-rusting, such as the energy used by sandblasting and electrolysis, especially compared to that created by various forms of air, sea and road transport, and what about pollutants created by phosphoric and other types of acids,

Every form of treatment has its eco downsides, it's up to us to ameliorate their impact on the environment, the alternative is to sit in a chair and do bugger all, personally I'll just get on with using my citric treatments, at least you can stick your hand in the stuff without them vanishing in front of your eyes.

John.

Amazing how we never seem to learn, or do we just become bigger chancers as we get older?
Recently returned from a fairly abortive trip to France where not a lot got done due to breaking that golden rule of 'keeping one's digits behind the cutting edge',

Repairing a rotary joddling tool to get a broken drive dowel out of the roller, was trying to drill out the broken stump but the roller kept turning in the vice, so grabbed it with my left hand and commenced drilling, the drill broke and the remaining 30mm stump of a 6mm drill bit still under power in the drill, slammed straight through my left index finger between the two big knuckles, needless to say the language was well ripe, strangely enough didn't feel too bad until I came to get the busted bit out of the drill chuck and saw all the blood and snot gathered in the flutes where it had reamed out my finger,

Shan't do that again .......... hopefully!

John

Edited By RJW on 01/12/2017 11:32:42

Citric acid is my favourite 'go-to' de-rusting method these days, I've used various acids, have a sandblast cabinet and a dedicated power supply for electrolytic cleaning, but nothing so far has beaten Citric acid crystals for ease of cleaning, wished many a time I'd found this method earlier instead of standing for hours over a sandblast cab,

I use a 50 litre plastic crate with a clip on lid, throw in a kilo of crystals (£1 a packet from the .... erm ....pound shops), then add 20 litres of boiling water straight from the kettle or whatever quantity depending how much stuff has to go into the tank, stir up to dissolve the crystals and then chuck in anything steel or cast iron that needs a good clean .... tools, car parts, clock parts, you name it, heavy encrustations will need the odd rub with a wire brush or Scotchbrite pads, oily bits need a wash first or it makes the mix messy,

If you rinse off the cleaned parts straight away after treatment, they'll start to rust immediately unless you oil or paint them, but if you just leave to dry straight out of the tank until ready to use, the acid will dry leaving a protective film, just wash of and oil or paint etc when you're ready to deal with them,

Very satisfying to see a steady fizz of bubbles gassing off the bits when the crud is being eaten, and the best bit is that when spent the fluid can be just chucked down the drain, any debris is left in the bottom of the tank,

Beware leaving the citric in the tank unused for a while though, great gobs of mould forms on the surface of the fluid, oh and if you want to speed up the job, use a fishtank heater with an adjustable thermostat.

John

Great scans Nick, you've just saved me a lot of googling for info, many thanks for posting them up, handy material to print off and keep with my burner

John.

+1 for Moore & Wright blowlamp, I've got a complete lamp in my workshop, yours is missing a brass tube which bends over the top of the small cap (removes to expose the wick) and is held by a large clip around the body, which should be filled with a cord wick, also should have a rubber tube and a mouthpiece to blow down, looks like a fake ivory job on mine, 

Unable to add photo's unfortunately, it's in another country to me at the mo'

John.

Edited By RJW on 04/10/2017 20:17:21