Don't try this at home - a t-slotted slide for mini-lathes

Neil,

Third photo shows that block mounted on the faceplate, or do you referring to a different one?

Geoff - Workshop here I come.

Been there, done that

Russell.

And me

John

Which is the same size, but you knew that didn't you ?

Glad this post has come up on the same page as the MEX judges post as it's interesting to compare the two and another mark for the warts and all over the polish it until it dazzles end result.

In a contemporary magazine there has just been published an article where the engineering is superb, possible too superb in that many of the parts were being shown cylindrically ground.

Why I have no idea other than the author could and ego, because the fit didn't warrant sub micron accuracy and the parts were just soft mild steel anyway. Not many have the facility to cylindrical grind parts. It would have been a better article if the drawings had as much effort put into them as the polish on the finished parts.

However this backfired and the article went unnoticed and uncommented on possibly because it made it far more complex than it needed to be and it just put people off.

Neil's article breathes a breath of fresh air into the subject as it's always easier to improve on something than to try to equal or better perfection. More like a working man's version of George Thomas.

In fact if we take it a step further a modern day version of Jack Radford.

Now for anyone not familiar with Radford's work he was a brilliant engineer and an innovator. Thomas could and did add the bling but Radford was a designer and engineer first and a showman second.

Now I will stand back for incoming flames, bricks and the odd five pound note.

[Edit] English is not my fore fingers first language.

Edited By John Stevenson on 07/02/2015 16:22:51

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Yes, John ... I was just pointing out that BA would be the preferred fixing for Neil's Imperial-size material.

I thought it had fallen completely flat ... Thanks for noticing.

MichaelG.

1/4 BSW would have been most apt

Neil

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O.K. Neil, you have lost me ...

[the original "joke" was that M6 and 0BA are almost directly intechangeable]

MichaelG.

A big +1 on all the above.

# I always prefer my vintage/classic machine tools and motorcycles clean and in perfect mechanical "WORKING" order. Working being the key word. Original paint is always preferred to a respray, c/w dings, scratches etc. Over the top brightwork has never impressed me. Nor have concours standards.

# Never a truer word spoken; Radford was a true great, and GHT added the bling, and admitted a lot of his mods were from Radford's designs.

I promise never to go round gratuitously grinding parts, except where absolutely necessary.

Andrew

Thank you Andrew, I shall sleep better at night knowing this

BTW for anyone not understanding British humour Andrew wasn't the person I referred to.

As regards GHT and Radford I thought it telling that in later lifer GHT saw fit to travel all the way to New Zealand to visit Radford, but Radford never saw fit to visit GHT. ?

Radford never hogged the limelight but if you check back he had more unique designs to his name than GHT

This is especially for Geoff!

The ally strip was carefully scraped to ensure the machined face was truly square to the sides.

But really, please don't do it like this...

Neil

Oh it's an ali strip, I thought that was a piece of double sided tape holding it to the faceplate

Looks fine to me as long as you keep it below 2,500 revs.

Neil,

A better method would have been to bolt 2 bits of angle top & bottom to your faceplate as clamps with the block sandwiched between they could also have been drilled for a couple of tightening screws. You could also have "balanced" it a bit better ( there is more sticking out on the LH side than on the RH side) of your pic. Then 2500rpm & 0.100 thou depth of cut & bob`s your uncle job done!

Alan

Alan,

This was about 12 years ago, I've learned a bit since then!

Neil

Does that mean that now you have learned a bit you have less operations available to you Niel?.

:0)

Martin

Neil,

Now that caught my attention and made me sit up!

Surprising what you can achieve with ignorance at times.

Alan's suggestion would have been mine as well.

I think I would have tried the 3-jaw, slow speed so as not to shake everything to bits, just to see what happened

Geoff - Hard hat on.

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Very wise ... He's the 'ead 'itter

MichaelG.

I used two brackets in a setup similar to Alan's description when I parted off the corner of a 4" cube of aluminium. I extended the parting blade in stages and had to resort to a hacksaw when I got to about 1" diameter. The 'faceplate' is actually an aluminium disk bolted to a Boxford drive plate. I do have an original Boxford faceplate but I have only used it once as the slots never seem to be in the right place. I can drill and tap this aluminium one to suit the job in hand and it will be a long time before it runs out of places to drill.

Ian P

I could argue that from an engineering viewpoint the solution that works and uses the fewest resources is the best one,

Seriously I know that was not a good setup, hence why I didn't dig out that photo for the article, Happy to post it here as a BAD example.

These days I'd stick a drill vice onto the faceplate with double-sided tape and hold the block in that.

Neil