Member postings for Mike Henderson 1

Hello John and welcome

I think power cross feed falls into the nice but not essential category.

I survived 25+ years with first a Zyto (ugh!) then a non-pcf Super 7. My first taste of power cross feed was after buying a Kerry AG23 and subsequently a L-series Harrison. Interests change and workshops evolve and my current hobby lathe is once again a Myford. It doesn't have power cross feed so I'm converting it.

Yes, I could manage without but, having grown used to it, being without it would be a constant irritation. Only you can decide how you will feel but I'd be looking for a machine that had it ready fitted.

If anyone is wondering why I didn't follow my own advice, the later Myford was added while I expected to keep the Kerry. Subsequent downsizing of the home workshop meant one or the other had to go. For the work I do now, the Myford is a better fit,so..................

Regards

Mike

Edited By Mike Henderson 1 on 08/11/2021 20:46:42

Thank you, Duncan and Jon.

I've had previous with phosphor bronze, in particular the grade that is very red in colour. Not sure what exactly it was - stores issue half a century ago when I was young and ignorant. Drawings called for a length to be press fitted into a steel housing, bored and then reamed to size 1" diameter x 6" long. Anyone see a disaster waiting to happen?

Enough to say that it was fortunate it was a through hole as the reàmer had to be drifted out and was probably ruined.

Some research has revealed LG2 is stated as not subject to dezincification and often used for (cast) steam valve bodies rated in excess of 200 psi. The gauge glass bodies I'm making will be working at 150 psi so material should be suitable. However, I have Jon's recommendation of PB102 so a bit more study is called for.

Thanks again, Mike

I have to make the bodies for a pair of reflex gauge glasses (sometimes called Klinger glasses). The machining operations are pretty straightforward but I'm uncertain what grade of material to use.

The options are phosphor bronze PB1, the same but PB102 or leaded gunmetal LG2, all in drawn form, not castings.

Which would be best for machinability and which for corrosion resistance, bearing in mind the duty to which they will be put? For clarity, no soldering, hard or soft is involved. Machining will be mostly milling, plus some drilling and tapping.

I'm looking at 2 1/2" diameter bar here, so would like to get it right first time. The finished bodies will be highly polished and see service around 200 days a year.

Thanks in advance.

Mike

Like Brian, l make no allowance on the flanging former for the fabrication but there is one thing you seem to be missing.

Former diameter should be the barrel outside diameter minus twice the wall thickness of the barrel minus twice the thickness of the material you're using for the endplates. I suspect this was just an oversight but Peter's calculation gives the former a diameter equal to barrel i/d.

Regards, Mike

Another vote for Libre office. I haven't found anything I want to do that I can't. I'm sure MSoffice is more capable but so far, for me, I haven't strayed beyond the 80/20 rule and Libre office covers that and more

Mostly word processing but I keep all the accounts for my (small) business on spread sheets, too. Nothing desperately complicated in way of formulae but it works fine.

Mike

It all depends on the ML7!!

The late ML7R is really a lite model super 7 and uses the same bed. The early ML7 that predated the first Super7 and stayed in production alongside was a very different beast and did not share the bed casting.

Whether the Super7 headstock could be physically fitted I don't know but wouldn't expect so. That said, the gap between the shears must be the same since both lathes use the same fixed steady. Can anyone do some measuring?

Mike

Mine only landed today!

Mike

Ummmm....

I should be more careful to say exactly what I mean.

I do not believe Andrew's rubberised gasket material will be at all suitable. When I said gasket/jointing, I meant the material that is used for joints on steam engines for the likes of cylinder covers. To be clear, I'm talking full-size, not model. I very much doubt the average model engineer has much use for 1/16" steam jointing.The washers I bought appear to be from something like this, although it is impossible to be certain of the exact grade.

Given that the washers used to be lead, years ago, I wonder if a more accessible route would be to cut them from offcuts of lead flashing. I would think a couple of tubular mild steel punches would suffice for this, without any need for hardening unless going into production.

Mike

CuP Alloys list the Sievert washers, £7 for two, if you want the genuine article. I just sourced a pair as one of my burners was missing the washer entirely!

IIRC they used to be lead but the current ones certainly aren't and looked to be from 1/16th gasket/jointing if you have that thickness handy.

Mike

The OP asks what size people have on what lathe. Not directly helpful to him but I have three on different lathes.

The Myford Speed 10 has a genuine Multifix AA, £41 from a local tool dealer, complete with 2 holders. I fell lucky. Since fitting it, I've bought extra holders from Rotagrip, Paulimot and Pewe, the last unhardened unslotted to machine for particular purposes. All have fitted fine.

The Harrison 11" (better known as an L5a) has a size A from Rotagrip with extra holders from them also. This was the first one I fitted, to replace very unsatisfactory Dickson clone. Main issue with the Dickson was that extra holders didn't fit, regardless of where they came from, including the original supplier! A minor issue, at least for me, with the Dickson was the far right corner of the body fouling the work when partially rotated. I know the theory is that the toolpost is pinned at 90 degrees but I struggle when using hss tooling, as opposed to insert tools. I seriously considered cutting a corner off!

Most recent fitment was a genuine size C on the Harrison M400. This was s/h from Home & Workshop with 4 holders, albeit 2 for boring bars. Two more plain holders came from the same supplier and I've bought a few more from eBay vendors ( UK based, selling used holders). I may have been lucky, as opposed to cautious, but all have fitted fine.

I'd also like to pay tribute to Home & Workshop. I enquired about a C post at Warwick show several years ago. (They had a D on the stand). The following spring I went to Doncaster to be met with "Are you still looking for a Multifix? We've got one put aside in case you are." Pretty good going, considering I only buy odd bits and pieces from them at the shows and hadn't asked then to reserve a C for me.

Usual disclaimer, with regard to all the traders I've mentioned.

As you will gather, I do like Multifix QCTPs. I've got to them gradually and to be fair to the Dickson type, I did use good clones for several years on both a Super7 and a Kerry AG23

Mike

Reference Jason's mention of a "Princess Royal" variant, this was a construction series by Tubal Cain (Tom Walshaw). It offered enhanced detail to represent a mid 19th century textile mill engine alongside "Goliath", a reversing steel-mill engine from the same base castings.

The series ran in alternate issues of the M.E. from 1984 vol153 issue3736 to 1986 vol156 issue3768.

As with all Tom's build series, it offered sound guidance and would be worth reading, even if there was no intention to dress the engine up with the added detail. Given the era, it was probably based around doing everything in the lathe.

IIRC the mill engine included at least a representation of a governor, while the steel-mill engine included gear reduction to a layshaft

Nearest I can find to an off-the-shelf solution is the ELS4 from rocketronics.de

It's an option I'm giving serious consideration. Virtually unlimited thread pitches and fine feeds at a fraction of the cost of a retrofit gearbox.

Has anyone else experience of this?

Mike

Edited By Mike Henderson 1 on 15/08/2020 23:28:02

My Spped 10 came with a 5 inch Pratt Bernard 4-jaw, which I understand was original equipment. Certainly, I wouldn't want to go to anything smaller.

However 4 1/2 inch centre height it isn't.

Mike

Coming back to this, between the articles and the Bonds catalogue, things become clearer.

First, the Bonds' chain was 5mm pitch. Given my plans to upscale, I'll almost certainly use modern, easily available 6mm pitch. You'd have to peer under the body to see it, anyway.

The gears in the original design must have been 32dp. I'm inferring this from the comment in the article that they need thinning from 1/4". The only gears in the catalogue that are this thickness are the 32dp ones. Again with the desire to upscale, the nearest metric gears would be mod1.

As an aid, I've laser cut the gears in 3mm acrylic, to both mod 1 and mod 1.25, reducing the tooth count appropriately for the latter. At the moment, the larger teeth seem to look better but I wont buy the steel gears until the wagon has progressed enough for me to try the acrylic gears in place and see which looks best then. Looking at photos of full size wagons online, the mod1 tooth count is certainly closer for the crankshaft gears. Ho, hum......

A last question, for now, that I hope one of our boiler experts can advise on. The cylinder block will be a two part fabrication, comprising the block and the saddle, silver soldered together. I have a piece of 2-1/2 inch bronze bar for the block (£2.50 more years ago than I care to remember). Given it's going on top of a boiler, should I get a piece of bronze sheet for the saddle or will brass be acceptable. Volume 2 of the boiler test code requires no brass in the structure of the boiler, other than lock nuts on screwed stays, but accepts brass fittings. Does the cylinder block count as fitting or structure? Obviously it's above the water level and there would need to be a serious amount of dezincification before it could cut loose.

Mike

My main lathe at work is a Harrison 11". That is to say, a later L5A. The cross-slide dial on that is graduated in the normal way, increasing as the tool feeds into the work. Incidentally, it is also direct reading, radius not diameter. I've cast an eye over other L5's, L5A's, 11"s and 140's over the years, both before buying mine and since and all had a conventiona dial.

My money is on one of two things. Either your reverse reading dial was a option at manufacture, to suit the original purchaser's needs, or a later alteration. Harrison did offer a vertical slide for the L5 and its relatives. Vertical slides often have the dial reverse calibrated. I don't know if the feedscrew and dial dimensions are common, but it's possible that a VS dial has been fitted either during a repair/overhaul or by mistake at the factory.

Mike

It's amazing the threads that come up.

I have a couple of 1/4" BSP injectors on large scale model locos. That is, the union tails are threaded 1/4" BSP, the union nuts that hold the tails onto the injector body are larger. One was lost (reprehensible, I know) during a protracted overhaul. No matter - just make a new one. Close measurement with micrometer and thread gauges revealed that the nut thread was 22mm x 18tpi ! And that was measuring all three threads on both the injector that was missing a nut and the spare one in the drawer.

In truth, it was no harder to cut than any other thread, beyond having to fit off the tool. No die to finish it with.

Mike

I feel the essence of twittedness coming on.

Re-reading the articles when fully awake, rather than just before sleep, I can see that it is not the o.d. that is given but the pcd. That provides the ratio outright and it simplifies to deciding on a suitable dp or module. I'd assume the original was dp but, if you read the previous post, I'm looking to go metric, in which case module will fit in better.

Off into the workshop for a bit now but I'll do some rough figuring this evening.

Mike

Thank you Bazyle and Jason

6mm and 1/4inch pitch chains and sprockets are both available from HPC, amongst others, as is 4mm pitch at over 5 times the price per unit length. I'm stumping up the price of 4mm for another project but definitely going cheaper for the wagon ( it's a much longer chain for one thing!).

The drawing gives the shaft centres as 1 1/2 inches so taken together with the outside diameters an educated guess for the dp is certainly possible helped by counting teeth in the photos. This last will be an approximation as I don't think the full gear is visible anywhere so it'll be count what looks like a 90° segment and multiply.

To confuse the issue still more, I'm more at home with metric these days so am toying with upscaling at 2mm to 1/16". It's not as if the castings are still available, beyond the set Station Road Steam had a year or three back.

Mike

As you do, my mind is thinking about the next project, or possibly the one after that. I rather fancy revisiting Barrie Neville's 1 inch scale "Meg" steam wagon. I have the copies of Engineering in Miniature in which it was serialised some 30 years ago but the author doesn't give the details of the gears, sprockets and chain used in the transmission, beyond the diameter.

Is there anyone who has a set of drawings and can tell me the tooth count and dp for the gears and the tooth count and pitch for the chain, please? I do know that these came from Bonds o' Euston Road and later of Midhurst. I've a s/h Bonds gear catalogue on its way and will attempt to reverse engineer the info if I must but would prefer the genuine information, if possible.

Has anyone on here built this wagon and is there anything that I should be aware of?

Thanks in anticipation.

Mike

Is Barrie Neville still with us? I have a contemporary address for him but can find nothing online to suggest present whereabouts.

Can I suggest the quality and the serial number would suggest Reg Chambers as the (professional) builder.

Mike