Boring tool

Good Evening. Attached is a photo of a boring tool that I acquired with the mill. It required a lot of fettling for me to be able to use it, and it is now light fingertip control. I carries no name of mfg. and I would be interested to know its origins. Does anyone have a similar one? Lynne

Dore Westbury, built from a set of castings. Also had a facing facility but it looks like that's not been built on yours.

Emgee

Edited By Emgee on 01/04/2020 23:29:14

Did ETW actually have any hand in the design of this boring and facing head?

I have no recollection of when ... but

I’m sure the design & construction was described in M.E.

MichaelG.

Designed by Arnold Throp, who was the founder of Dore engineering, who provided a kit for it. Nothing to do with ETW, as far as I know. It's shown in use in Throp's book 'Vertical Milling in the Home Workshop and discussed by GH Thomas in his 'The Model Engineers (sic) Workshop Manual'.

The 'Dore-Westbury' milling machine was Throp's re-design of the earlier Wesbury machine. Dore Eng. produced kits, in which the larger pieces were ready-machined, and added the (optional?) back-gear. Castings for the original design were also available, from Woking Precision, IIRC.

[lots of edits - it's all coming back, slowly (wibble-wobble, wibble-wobble). Virtual prize awarded for anyone who can identify what I'm referencing in parenthesis in the previous sentence!]

Edited By Kiwi Bloke on 02/04/2020 07:58:23

Edited By Kiwi Bloke on 02/04/2020 08:06:18

Edited By Kiwi Bloke on 02/04/2020 08:09:11

I think Kiwi Bloke has it right, I think the original design was to fit on the spindle nose of the lathe, I borrowed one from a fellow club member years ago to cut an internal circlip groove using the facing facility of the original design and it worked very well.

As KB says George H Thomas mentions it in his book and made a few minor mod's to it, if you could get a copy of the original drawings, I'm sure with a small amount of work to make the star wheel feed mechanism it would make it a very versatile bit of kit. Shame no one does the casting anymore (as far as I know) or I would be tempted to build one.

Which is probably why my loco is taking so long!

Dave

.

An epicyclic gear built into the pulley, I believe

MichaelG.

I meant that sentence, Michael...

Isn't there something similar available from Hemingway Kits?

.

Caffeine deficiency >>> inability to count.

MichaelG.

Thanks to Kiwi Bloke and others for filling in the gaps in my recollection.

Having checked I can add that the Arnold Throp/Dore design dates from 1969 and was based on a head made thirty years earlier. The intention was to provide boring and facing abilities to the owners of small lathes and milling machines. Apart from the D-W and Myford models it was available for Drummond, Perfecto, Portass, Zyto, Lancing and Grayson lathes.

The core of the design was a half round slide which could be made on the target lathe - no shaper or vee milling cutter required - and the kit bodies were helpfully pre-screwed to fit the spindle.

GHT was somewhat critical of the design but was a boon to many MEs of the day and AT was a real benefactor to the movement.

The star wheel latches round once very revolution to let you face, especially useful down a hole. It's not just a clumsy hand wheel.

Stay well,

Rod

Edited By Roderick Jenkins on 02/04/2020 11:22:54

Purchased my Dore Boring and Facing head kit from Ivan Law at the same time I picked up a set of castings for the Mk 2 Dore Westbury mill.

Yes Michael, gear built into the spindle drive pulley, could be engaged by movement of the pin that locked the geared pulley to the spindle, so long ago now this is open to discussion or correction.

Emgee

Thanks for all the responses, they make interesting reading. I did not appreciate the function of the star wheel, just did not find it easy to use , so I replaced it. Now I know, wish I had kept it. Lynne

Roderick Jenkins:

Is the mill in your picture a Sharp, by any chance?

Sorry to revive an old thread, but have just discovered that the drawings and castings for this, or a very similar design are available from Reeves.

Dave

To be fair I think that "somewhat critical" is perhaps over-strong in relation to what GHT actually wrote. George was, I think, well aware of the real world limitations of money, time, skills and equipment that meant "home shop guy (or gal)" often, of practical necessity, had to accept working with things of less than ideal construction or capacity.

But just as LBSC set out his stall as "Yes You can make a little locomotive", George set out his as "Yes You can make equipment just as good as the professionals do". So in that context pointing out that if you are able and willing to put significant extra work in you end up with a rather nicer piece of kit than just following the standard words and music is reasonable. Nothing that George wrote implies that the standard one isn't functional. He just reckons, justifiably, his version works better and is generally nicer. Although I'm not completely convinced that ditching the star wheel and loosing the ability to automatically face the bottom of a bore is entirely ideal. Even though I've never needed that capability in 40+ years of metal mangling. I'd consider a graduated dial essential tho'.

George said

"apart from disliking the star wheel and striker which linits speed and imposes severe impulse loads there were other features that did not appeal such as the locking screw impinging on the sof gunmetal casting, the tops of the threads of a piece of screwed rod running in holes in the gunmetal casting, the screw should have been left handed, there were no means of determining the amount of feed, there was no adjustment for the sliding member, finally I didn't care for the method of holding the boring bars in the alloy casting.

These look to be quite a catalogue of complaints but they are all matters of detail that can be modified to suite the particular whims of the maker. These details attended to the result is, as far as I (GHT) am concerned, a serviceable head for larger work of a lighter nature. For the beginner who is not able to undertake cutting the dovetails on the small boring head (GHT design) this is a useful alternative that is much easier to make. The other (GHT) head is more sensitive and can be run much faster."

The GHT head is also of smaller capacity.

Seems to be a precursor of the "far more than can be conveniently counted" words written in recent years on improving the performance of affordable (but somewhat lacking in finesse, precision or both) FE imports.

As ever its about striking a balance. Generally a manufacturer is constrained to accept some imperfection to meet a price that the target customer can afford.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 10/04/2020 14:26:48

Clive Foster:

Thanks for your comments which I think nicely illustrate the different approaches of these two luminaries. As you indicate, AT was in business - Dore Engineering - and, so far as I am aware at the relevant time GHT was not.

As to striking a balance, I have carried out some of GHT's modifications but the striker wheel is still in the to-do list.

I imagine readers of my post will have realized that I meant to say that it ie the AT head "was a boon to many MEs"; needless to say, GHT's writings were, too.

I've just reviewed this thread after a PM query from Lynne. To answer ega's query - yes it is

stay well,

Rod