Jennying Machine

Many years ago the company that I worked for were throwing out this machine as it was old and they had much more modern machines that would do similar work.

Always on the front row for anything free, I offered to dispose of it as I had a job that it would do.

With the model of the 1896 Ford Quadricycle, another use came up for it, this is the produce four bicycle wheel rims of 7" diameter.

My idea is to make bands of 1mm (as close as I could get to the 0.078" thick MS with the ends welded together and then they will be passed through the two shaped rollers on the Jenny to produce a semi-circular rim, which is correct according to the drawing.

I used a couple of pieces from the scrap box for the two tools and another couple of pieces to make the adjustable guide, which has never been present although a tapped hole was present ti fit one.

This is not an item that gets used very often but it is invaluable when nothing else will do.

Brian

Brian

What an excellent piece of kit, and well done you for saving it. Did you use a radius turning attachment to make the dies?

Coincidently, I've just finished re-working a modern Jenny/bead rolling machine. I bought it in the US several years ago and bought it back to the UK. It started out like this:

Despite being made of 15mm or so steel plate it still exhibited some flexing in use. Also I was clearly wearing out my welcome for handle turning duty from Sue, my partner. It's not a tool I have used a lot, but I have a vintage car restoration project coming up which will require a lot of panel work.

It ended up like this, The stiffening comes from 50 x 50 x 3mm RHS which has made a huge difference. The motor is a 24V unit from a stairlift. The further reduction gearing is by 2 sets of 1950s BMC engine timing gears operating via a jackshaft.

I fitted a PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) speed controller too; the foot pedal switch hangs on the frame when it isn't in use.

Brian,

a thing of beauty........

Stueeee,

what a nice peice of kit u have now.......congrat's........

Thanks for the comments guys, I'm a sucker for old machinery, especially when it's free. A shame that the machine has no makers name.

I happened to have a lathe tool with the correct radius so the groove was easy to produce. The other tool was turned by eye and then filed (but don't tell anyone).

I've had a practice with an offcut of st/steel and that worked fine. I now need to source some 1mm by 20mm wide ms and get some strips welded into rings. I then have to drill 40 holes in each for the spokes, cut, upset and thread 160 1mm spokes and make 160 brass nipples. It's fun this model engineering!

Brian