Barson drift

the photo makes it look like something from the SAS black museum. It occasionally locks on the spring when pushed in but not always. I think it needs a bit of adjustment but does anyone know how ?. I think Mr Stevenson has one.....

Edited By capnahab on 05/07/2015 17:07:55

It's many years since I've seen one of these. Morse taper and brass/bronze hammer in a very convenient design.

Not sure about adjustment . Have you tried a little lubrication ? I would think you would need to knock out the roll pin & dismantle to find the cause of the problem.

Edited By Dinosaur Engineer on 05/07/2015 17:58:39

This is unusually informative for those (like me) who haven't got a clue what this is!

www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-RARE-BARSON-HAMMER-DRIFT-FOR-MORSE-TAPER-DRILLS-/261720781516

Neil

Capnahab.

I have one of these, found in a skip during the black days at RR in the 1971 bankruptsy. .

If you look on the end of the bronze hammer, there is a slotted screwdriver cap which holds the end of the captive spring down the shaft of the thing; undo that and you will have access to the internal gubbins from which it might be possible to do something about seeing where the sticky point is.

As the Dinosaur Engineer says, the only other thing you can remove is the roll pin, but I suspect all that does is hold the MT blade in place through a slot in the blade. Take that out and you have everything in bits.

Regards

Brian.

.

Me ? No, not got one, got five though.

Cleared a college out in 2000 and these were in some of the job lots. Not sure how they can be adjusted but have had then to pieces before.

Absolute godsend to use, one handed, blat - job done.

I have used these, I agree with John they are a godsend, so much so that I wish I could find some more so that each lathe/drill could have one next to it, I assume they are not available anywhere.....

Baldric.

Does it use a trigger/release button we can't see? Or do you twist it/push it to set it off?

How come ME never ran an article on how to make one of these??

When I have a minute I will take it apart with pictures.

When I made the wedge for the 3MT on my mill I never thought of that, might have a go at making one.

Ian S C

For those of a more nervous disposition where things that go "BANG" are concerned there is also another option

I have one of these and find it works very well, I searched for the barson item but they seemed to go for silly prices and the I came across one of these at Drill Service Horley. I like the idea of not using an impact tool on a machine spindle especially a hobby machine which has a lighter build than an industrial tool. The Barson was standard issue in the factory where I served my apprenticeship and is very useful to tap a drill into its taper and for one handed ejection. The opposing taper type ejector is also a one handed tool but you also need a small copper mallet to tap a drill into its taper.

Mike

Edited By Michael Poole on 06/07/2015 14:38:11

Capnahab,

It may be too late now as you said you were going to open your's up, but for what it's worth, my model is I think earlier than yours, I have two small slotted head steel screws instead of the roll pin. They are very tight, I have not pushed my luck since they would be easy to chew up.

They are screwed into a round brass closure plate slotted to guide the MT bar

At the heavy end, under the threaded steel plug, there was just the other end of the MT slider bar with what looked like a plain brass washer fitted to the end, acting it seems as a guide in the plain bore; no compression spring as I had expected. The spring must therefore be a tension spring acting from under that top washer.

I would be interested to hear what you find. As others have said, what a useful tool it is.

Brian

I am lucky enough to have 2 of these, and very handy they are too. They were standard issue in the machine shop at Timsons when I did my Apprentiship. They had 3 uses, firstly to tap the drill back into the tailstock, secondly to get it out again, and thirdly to "bang in" any latecomers as they hopefully walked the length of the machine shop. For the latecomer the sound of 100 or more of these banging on the lathe drip trays was worse than losing the quarter of an hours pay.

Chris Gunn

Hi, I used to assemble these for a summer job at the Barson engineering shop in Bromley, Kent in the early 1970s. They mainly did work for the print industry, but the hammer drift was produced there in 2 sizes as I recall. It was a fairly small scale operation, and occasionally used ones came in for overhaul. When we assembled them, we used to run them in by squirting oil into the end and working them vertically until they worked smoothly and any brass swarf came out. The drift/spring/plug assembly was pushed into the barrel with a press; the 2 grub screws held the fixed brass plug, and the large steel screw at the handle end, which acts as a stop as well, was the last part fitted.