# Adventures in metalwork and machine restoration!



## TFrench

We've just bought a nice old 13" swing lathe for our unit - mostly for our own use it has to be said, but hopefully we'll get the odd paying job for it as well! It's given me the kick up the backside I need to get a thread started about the various machines I've been tinkering with recently. 
First up is this nice RJH pedestal grinder - a £40 gumtree special. It looked very ropey - but its all cast iron, right? Had to drill the solid rust from the water pot with a masonry bit it was that solid! I milled 2 flats on the spindle while I had it in pieces to let me get a spanner on it to change the wheels more easily. New bearings in the head, paint and a nice new NVR switch had it pretty much sorted.


RJH grinder by tfrench123
It's got a coarse wheel and a wire wheel currently but I think I may swap the wire one for a fine grit wheel.

Next up is this RJH linisher - I've been looking for one for a while and this popped up on ebay fairly close (turned out to be the same seller I got my bandsaw from - more on that later) so I picked it up and got it back to the yard. Not run it up yet as we've not got a 3 phase plug socket but I'm pretty confident it will be fine. I've hoovered all the dust and belt debris from the guts of it, just need to give it a splash of paint to cheer it up when I get a chance to do it. 


RJH Linisher by tfrench123


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## TFrench

This brings us onto current projects: the bandsaw. Another "too cheap to not buy" ebay purchase! It's going in my home workshop eventually, but I've taken it to work for now so I've got the room and tools to work on it! Main issues are the 3 phase motor (240v at home) and the fact it weighs about the same as a small elephant. It's an 18-T-10 - 18" throat and a 10 speed gearbox. The motor is a 6 pole slow running jobby so it would be very expensive to convert to a single phase one so I'm thinking of sticking an inverter in it. I'm also making a set of Myfordman's cammed castors to move it about on. For now though I've just bolted the castors straight to it so I can at least move it:


startrite bandsaw by tfrench123

Castor brackets:


Camming castor bracket by tfrench123

I'm planning on mounting the inverter where the original switchgear was, so I've made up this aluminium replacement so I don't wreck the original, and had one of the guys on the estate punch some louvres into it to help with cooling:


Louvred panel by tfrench123


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## TFrench

The bearings in the guides were all quite impressively full of swarf:


knackered guide bearings by tfrench123

And the gearbox was leaking oil and covered in crud:


gearbox by tfrench123

I thought it was the centre gasket but when I degreased it it turned out to just be the oil seal behind the pulley, which was then flicking oil over everything! Both problems now sorted (hopefully!)


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## TFrench

So now the metal lathe, and the reason for starting the thread! It's been listed on ebay for months now and the start price has been creeping further down, with no takers at all. Eventually it got low enough I thought it had to be worth a look, so me and my dad went to see it and ended up doing the deal  It belonged to an old engineer who was offered it as part of his redundancy package - so it's pretty much a one operator from new machine! Further information here, for anyone interested: http://www.lathes.co.uk/harrison/page7.html Last weekend we went back armed with jacks, skates, levers and lots of chocks of wood to remove it from the shed it was in. I'm pretty sure it was built around the lathe as we did have to chop chunks out of the doorframe to roll it out! Didn't get any pictures, but suffice to say getting it in the trailer was "interesting". Getting it out at our end was much easier:


Unloading the lathe by tfrench123

So it's now inside, waiting for a serious clean up and inspection:


lathe front by tfrench123


lathe back by tfrench123

I didn't get a picture of the piles of stuff that came with it, but I think we did pretty well. Couple of coventry die-heads and lots of dies, LOADS of bar stock in steel, brass and aluminium, faceplate and dog drive plate, fixed and travelling steadies, loads of new inserts and a few insert tools and boxes of HSS ground bits. Going to need a new toolchest just to store it all! The motor should be 3 phase but it's been running on single phase - that lovely chunky 1.5mm twin and earth you see wrapped up on the bed :shock: Pretty sure the motor on the floor you can see in the pictures is the original one - we found it in a corner of the shed it was in. Not sure yet whether to refit the 415v motor or keep the 240v in it - I've not had chance to look at the plate of the one thats in it yet. Am I right in saying the 3 phase would have more torque?
Thats all for now, plan is to keep this updated as I do more to it and move it into it's final home at the other end of the factory (a challenge in itself!)


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## TFrench

I had a spare hour on friday afternoon so I started degreasing and cleaning the old girl down. Only had white spirit so I didn't go too mad. I picked up some proper degreaser this weekend so I can have a proper go at it next time. 
Before:


front before cleaning by tfrench123


rear before cleaning by tfrench123

After:


front clean 2 by tfrench123


back clean by tfrench123

Started working out what levers do what - I've got a manual coming so hopefully I'll be able to sort it out then! I opened the coolant tank and the pump and pipework has been removed and filled with sawdust. Not sure how much really heavy work we'll do with it so I'm going to leave it alone for now, but it would be pretty easy to sort at a later date. The only really major thing it was missing is a 4 jaw chuck but one popped up today on ebay that has the correct L0 taper fittting so I'm picking that up tomorrow.


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## hawkeyefxr

I'm jealous as hell lol. One place i worked at bought a brand new Colchester, nobody used it but me, it was a beauty. They also had a really old 30's lathe, the 4 jawed was 24in diameter lol.


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## Rhyolith

Too much machine porn! 

It seems to be a common for engineers to be paid in machines... the ward production lathe at one of the railways has a similar story to yours.


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## Keith 66

Well i have never seen a big Harrison described as a Colchester!
Looks like a Harrison L6 ? nice lathe, well worth doing up, The norton gearbox on the front has three levers so is a late metric one, that gearbox should be oiled never greased, if its full of grease you will have to wash it out. The whole machine uses 68 hydraulic oil for everything. If you have three phase its worth putting the original motor back as it is a big machine & the power is nice.
The toolpost looks like the one on mine, they are an indexing toolpost that is similar to a capstan unit, you can have four tools set up in it & one crank of the top lever rotates it 90 degrees & locks it again, very quick & easy, but if its broke it is an absolute sod to fix, i know this as several small springs escaped into my workshop never to be seen again, took me hours to get the toolpost right but it was worth it.


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## TFrench

That's a damn good point Keith - must have had a severe brain fart when I wrote the first post! (hammer) The manual arrived today so I've got some new reading material - it's even called an L13 on the manual. Not sure why they went to the trouble of making such a massive range of lathes with such small increments in centre height. The gearboxes are all full of oil (looks pretty clean too!) but I'll probably change them all while I'm at it. The 4 jaw chuck I picked up turns out to be a 12" one, not a 10". I'll see if I can swap it with a tool dealer for a smaller one at some point. The toolpost is just a 4 position one - loosening the lever on top lets it spin freely to use whatever tool you want. We have got 3 phase so refitting the motor is not a problem - just not sure on rewiring the switches.

Spent the afternoon degreasing it - got the back pretty much done, and the bits between the bed. Turns out its painted red in there! 


back degreased 2 by tfrench123


bed cleaned by tfrench123


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## Stanleymonkey

That's starting to look very nice. I suppose it helps have access to all four sides at the moment. 

Why is it going to be a challenge to get it into it's new position? Tight fit?


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## TFrench

Yep, all round access is making it very easy to get cleaned up! Getting it in position is going to need a big area clearing out - stationary engines, engines and axles from Austin Champs and lots of assorted tat, then I'm planning to fit an OSB partition wall to create a little machine shop - theres a little surface grinder and centec horizontal mill to go in there as well. Need to fit wiring and lighting in there too. Once all that is done we can skate the lathe down (forklift won't fit!) and into position. Its going to be quite a project.
Yesterday I took advantage of an early finish to go to Walsall to pick up a nice tooling cabinet to sort everything into, which was today's project. Been tripping over all the stuff that came with the lathe for a couple of weeks now, then there is all the stuff for the milling machine so it was nice to get it all consolidated into one box! 


Lathe HSS tooling by tfrench123


Lathe insert tooling by tfrench123
Plenty of room for the inevitable adding of tooling too!


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## TFrench

The eBay monster strikes again... Browsing harrison lathe bits and bobs and spotted a collet chuck. Which just so happens to be the correct L0 nose fitting for my lathe. And listed incorrectly AND collection only which normally seems to keep the price down. Only problem - its in Bristol. Luckily I was heading back up the M5 from Cornwall this weekend so I stuck a cheeky bid in on it and won it. Whoops. :lol: 


Burnerd collet chuck by tfrench123
What a beautifully made chunk of metal! Just need to make a better lid for the box it came in now.


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## TFrench

Finally, some progress! Made a decent lid for the collet chuck box (I've added a latch as well since I took the photo)


Collet chuck box
I picked up another job lot of tooling for a ridiculous price on ebay. As well as these brilliant old engineers boxes there was a red mechanics topbox full of tooling and a plastic tub with loads of cutters. It then took me a week or so of lunch breaks and odd hours here and there to sort it all out into the proper tooling drawers so I can find everything! 


More tooling!

We finally got a free afternoon at work and set about making room for the new lathe. First time this area has been tidied out in years! First job was to get the tool cabinets in place at the back - had to remove all the drawers to be able to manhandle the big one into position - its seriously heavy filled up! 


Space!

To move the lathe we've got a set of machine skates, but they are a bit temperamental - moving over any uneven surface allows them to drop and whatever is on them becomes very unsteady! It's also hard to change direction with them - you need to keep jacking up the machine to adjust the angle of the skate. This is my solution:


skate boots
The box drops over the skate, and you can bolt them to the machine. They then pivot on the bolt easily just by tapping with a soft mallet. They also allow the skate to drop by 2" before they come out, so they can go over a lot trickier surfaces. Here they are bolted to the lathe:


On the move 
Made it a very easy job - 2 pushing the lathe and one tapping the front skates to steer. Easiest machine move we've ever done! 


Eagle has landed!
It still needs to move back to the wall quite a bit but I still need to finish cleaning it up and swap the motor back to 3 phase. Big step closer to having a man sized lathe though!


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## gregmcateer

I know jack - .... about metal working, but even I can see that is a proper job. And you've got some serious space there! What does your firm do, other than source awesome machines and various other associated pieces of tooling?


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## Droogs

all i can say is "You lucky lucky drinks technician"


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## TFrench

gregmcateer":3itbyoct said:


> I know jack - .... about metal working, but even I can see that is a proper job. And you've got some serious space there! What does your firm do, other than source awesome machines and various other associated pieces of tooling?


We do industrial insulation and cladding, so lots of tin bashing in stainless and aluminium. It's a small family business and we all mess around with old stuff for hobbies - cars, stationary engines, old woodworking machinery! 

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## TFrench

Fingers crossed we have inbound wadkin content! Exciting times....


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## TFrench

So I've hit the motherlode of old machinery. College had to shut down the woodwork department because they couldn't afford to fit DC braking to the machines (or didn't want to) and now it needs to be removed ASAP to make way for the "marketing office" 
So in no particular order:


Wadkin RS


Wadkin BGY 


Union polisher 


Myford ML7 
There's also two big startrite bandsaws coming home with me - hopefully I've already got a buyer for one, and the other will donate it's 240v motor and switchgear to mine and save me fitting an inverter to it! I only went for the lathe but they were selling it all so cheap I've had everything - should get the lathe for almost nothing I hope! They also have a wadkin 12" sliding table saw - a 12BGP and an 18" planer thicknesser - a U/OS.


Wadkin goodies
I'm leaving them for now as they aren't desperate to get rid - tempted to get the planer when I have room, clean it and fit a DC brake and flog it on - its in mint condition apart from the surface rust on the top.


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## Farmer Giles

I'm drooling  That is one very nice haul!

I once bought a very nice Tom Senior Light vertical milling machine from a school for peanuts. The head of the Resistant materials department (woodwork and metalwork in old money) put it on Ebay. He spelled the name wrong so I was the only bidder. He said it was 3 phase, it was single, and a brand new motor. He said it was Imperial, it was metric. If he had listed it correctly he would have got a very good price as they are sought after machines for model engineering.


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## TFrench

Who are we to argue with other people's cock ups!  

Picked up the haul on friday - borrowed a genie lifter which made life easier - not sure how else we'd have moved it all! This is one of the bandsaws coming out:


startrite bandsaw removal
I had time to have a proper look at them on sunday and in the back of one I even found the micro adjuster for the fence. Result. Unfortunately the single phase one's motor spins much faster than the one in mine so I can't use it. Back to putting an inverter in it.


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## TFrench

I've sold all the machines I didn't want now, and I've made my money back on the deal - and I've still got the wadkin lathe and the myford (given it to dad for his birthday!) Got the wadkin checked on my quick 3 phase testing rig at work and as expected it runs like a clock. Can't wait to start using it properly. I've made progress with the Harrison too - got the 240v motor out and am about ready to swap the 415v one back in. Once thats done I can move it back into it's final position.
In other tool acquisition news I've got the chance of clearing a local workshop full of industrial sized woodworking kit - if I get it out, clean it up and sell it on I get a cut of the profits - should work well. (or I'll just end up keeping the bits I want!) Can stick some pics up if anyone is interested when I get started on it?
Today I also picked up this:






From a terribly described facebook ad. From the pictures I thought it was a bench sized drill but when I got there and saw it I just rolled with it! Somewhat sweaty work deadlifting those chunks of iron into the van. Its a Grimston Electriska geared head drill. Not sure yet whether to keep it or sell when I've done it up - its possibly a bit excessive for my workshop (so is a wadkin RS though, right?), but its a lovely old machine. According to lathes.co.uk its a very early one with the gear levers on the right hand side of the head. So far it looks to be missing the rack the head winds up and down on but thats about it. All the pick-off gears are there, although one is missing a few teeth. Not bad for £80!


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## TFrench

Had a real stroke of luck with the drill - the lady I bought it off still had the rack for the head in her garage so I went and grabbed that on Friday. Took advantage of the warm weather to clean the rust and paint off the column, base and table and get them painted and re-assembled. Once that was done I could lift the head back on with the engine crane. 



I wired a new flex and plug onto it and fired it up - smoke poured out the motor but I think it was just a bit of oil that had leaked - it runs perfect now. Now the head isnt rocking around on the floor I can clean it off and get it painted to match. The only faults I can find for now are one of the pick off gears is missing 4 teeth and the two locking levers for the table on the column are snapped. Think I'm going to keep it as I've already got someone after my old startrite drill! It doesn't actually take up any more floorspace either...

Last week Dad was clearing out one of his sheds and I picked up this vice - no before pics but a good clean and splash of hammerite and its good as new. It was missing jaws so I've got a new set fitted. Been after a nice vice with quick release for ages!


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## colonel-cueball

I have a number 6 and its a decent lift, surprised it made it all the way up here to the wilds of Scotland given it wasn't overly well packed by the poster (but hey it was collection only till I cheekily asked if he would drop it off just down the road at a parcel store -yeah ok I know the place, I think I paid £45 for mine and £15 to get it brought up, not overly bad.


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## wallace

That RS looks to be in nice condition. I've just finished another one, that's 4 this year


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## wallace

Your RS has the upgraded bearings. A big roller bearing on the outboard side and a pair of high precision matched bearings on the inboard. I would take the cover plate off and check the grease because replacements are silly money


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## TFrench

Thanks Wallace. I think I saw that on eBay and thought it looked like your work. What grease of grease should it have in it? I know it's been kept greased as all the nipples are covered in it but I haven't had time to open it up yet. I'm considering swapping the belt for a rubber one while I'm at it as well to eliminate the clicking from the join.

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## wallace

The grease doesn't have to be anything special, just a bog standard stuff from a garage. Its not as if the spindle runs at high speed.
I've bought proper belts which have a scarf joint and they send you a small amount of the special adhesive. Generally they don't send enough. Ideally you want them to make the belt up then it can be heated and cured properly. Only downside is you have to pull the spindle out to slip the belt over. 
They are pretty expensive, like £50 as well. I ordered one once and it was an inch too small. I found a guy on ebay who makes conveyor belts and got him to make a 3' wide belt so I just cut it up and now have a load of belts. It was the same price as ordering one belt to the RS spec


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## TFrench

Is there much to pulling the spindle out? Think I may have seen one of your threads on Canadian woodworking where you made a spanner for pulling the spindle? If you want to sell one of the belts, let me know, it'll save me getting one made up.

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## wallace

Its not too bad just take both end caps off, undo the nut on the inboard side and shove a stick inside the morse taper and hit with a suitable hitty thing. Pull the spindle out just enough to slip the drive belt on and be carefull not to drop the spacer that's between the stepped pulley and the main casting. The stepped pulley doesn't have any grub bolts. Then wiggle/ tap the spindle back through. The inboard bearings might try and push out so put the end cap back on the keep them in place.
You have to unbolt the motor and its support to loop the other end of the belt.
Alternatively you can always put up with the click click noise  
If you message me your address I will send you a belt


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## TFrench

Some progress, finally! Grimston drill has been degreased, painted and moved into position - much harder work than moving my old startrite! I still have a few jobs to do - there's a couple of handles that have snapped but to fix them I need the lathe up and running... Also need to make a new gear for one of the speed changing gears - the largest is missing 3 teeth. I have found a cutter of the right tooth form among all the stuff I got in a job lot so I should be able to make one of my own. In theory...


Grimston Drill
And then today this landed in the workshop:


Elliott shaper 
I've wanted one for ages, watched loads of videos on youtube and then this came up pretty close by at a reasonable price. It seems in good condition, everything is tight with pretty minimal backlash. The cross feed all works as well, so I'm hopeful there won't be much of an issue getting it back to work. It has been converted to a 240v 1hp motor instead of the 415v 2hp motor it should have but I'm not sure how much that will affect it. The vice that came with it is a bit naff as well, but I have a decent spare.


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## TFrench

I mentioned a while ago about a barn full of machines I had the opportunity to buy. Today the deal was done, so here's a few pics of some of what there is. I will sell most of it on as it's too big for my home workshop but there are a few things I'm going to keep. If there's anything you want, speak up!  
240v (from new!) wadkin cross cut saw


wadkin 240v BRA 
240v Multico k3 morticer


Multico 240v morticer 
Danckaerts dovetailing machine


Danckaerts dovetailer
Union pedestal grinder - I'll probably restore this and keep it for work. 


union grinder 
Startrite 240v tilting arbor table saw. I might keep this as its probably nicer than my Kity saw.


startrite tilt arbor saw 
Flottjet planer thicknesser - never heard of this brand before?


flottjet planer
Big SCM thicknesser


scm thicknesser 
Very BIG Sagar sliding table saw


sagar sliding table saw 
There's also a wadkin sliding table panel saw - think its a BGP but it's too covered in rubbish to get a photo of, and a 6ft planer. Like I say, if anyone is interested in anything let me know. Looks like I'm getting into the machine tool sales business!


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## SVB

Wow - you have been busy.

Nice ML7 you got there, has both the gear box and spindle clutch that are rare and sought after add-one that command quite a premium on ebay etc.

Good result - look forward to seeing how things progress.

Simon


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## TFrench

SVB":25yhjubq said:


> Wow - you have been busy.
> 
> Nice ML7 you got there, has both the gear box and spindle clutch that are rare and sought after add-one that command quite a premium on ebay etc.
> 
> Good result - look forward to seeing how things progress.
> 
> Simon


Yeah, I've gotten it all cleaned up now and got it in dad's garage - gave it to him for his birthday! It's a long bed as well - I haven't seen one for sale yet with everything this one has. It's got high and low speed direct on the motor switch. He's over the moon with it - he had a round bed Drummond before that you could only take a few tenths of cut before it stalled! 

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## SVB

TFrench":2a0nam16 said:


> ]Yeah, I've gotten it all cleaned up now and got it in dad's garage - gave it to him for his birthday! It's a long bed as well - I haven't seen one for sale yet with everything this one has. It's got high and low speed direct on the motor switch. He's over the moon with it - he had a round bed Drummond before that you could only take a few tenths of cut before it stalled!
> 
> Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk



Sounds great. Would be great to see some pics when you get the chance.

Simon


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## F Flinstone

Brought back plenty of memory's with the "Harrison" lathe, our school metelworking room had about four or five of them, fifty years later I still love metalworking, I didn't like woodworking the teacher was also the technical drawing teacher and a turnip :evil: , thats why I now want to do more wood work, starting from scratch.Ff


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## deema

I’m interested in the Dovetailer, SCM thicknesser and Startrite saw. Sent a message.


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## TFrench

Slow progress on all fronts recently! I have got the inverters for the wadkin lathe and the bandsaw now. Mounted the bandsaw one and the buttons just came proud of the casing, so I made a 1/2" spacer piece for the louvred panel and got it all fitted up:


20181011_125014 
The motor is refitted and wired into the enclosure, I just need to connect it all up now. Then its just a case of getting the castor system working and it can come home.

First attempt at moving machines from the farm went ok - all the ones that could be moved by sack truck went into the van. Next trip only bagged the SCM thicknesser as I'd not realised how heavy the dovetailer is :lol: Finally managed to coordinate manpower, trailer and tractor to have another crack at moving machinery - successfully this time! 


20181010_140505


20181010_142954
The chap has decided to keep the startrite table saw and wadkin radial arm for now, which I'm kind of gutted about as they're the ones I really wanted for myself.
I have cleaned up the morso guillotine now its back in my workshop at home though, quite pleased with how its come back from being a bit of a rusty wrecker.


morso guillotine


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## TFrench

Oh boy, its been a while since I updated this. Lots of things have gone on since the last update! I sold off all the bits from the last trailer load except the large yellow grinder which I've kept for work. Then as I was perusing facebook marketplace as you do I spotted a bridgeport milling machine, which was listed as having lots of other machines with it. Arranged to look, turned out to be a patternmakers workshop with a load of nice sanding machines. (plus 4x bridgeports, all knackered!) Did a deal on all the woodworking stuff and the BIG swift milling machine. 


Sanders 


Sander and mill
Went back a week later with manpower and a friend with a farm telehandler. A mild spanner in the works when we opened the double doors to the yard and discovered 3 steps that everything would have to come down! We improvised and nothing (and nobody) got hurt! 2 tons of mill coming down that slope was slightly hairy.


Interesting move
My plan was to keep the single disc phillipson sander at home and fit a VFD to it, but when I got it in my garage I realised I was being a bit silly  It was gigantic and the shape of the base meant I couldn't get it close to the wall, so it had to go unfortunately. 

In the meantime we finally got the electricians to sort out the 3 phase power at work so I could get the harrison lathe fired up which was the original point of this thread (only a year after getting it) All my wiring was good with the motor swap so we are back in business on that front. They also powered the Swift mill up, at which point I realised I'd dropped a colossal clanger and bought a CNC machine. I knew it was but I assumed there would be a simple way to make the table feed so I could use it as a semi manual machine. Apparently not - so there I was with 2 tons of mill I couldn't use and a pretty sick feeling  
To be continued...


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## TFrench

Because I'd bought all this stuff I had to make a bit of effort and get my other toys home. The startrite bandsaw and wadkin lathe both came in pretty easily - engine crane was about on it's limit with the headstock but it managed it! I posed it next to the graduate just for a size comparison - I always thought the grad was a decent lump until this came home! (admittedly it is on a cart and 3x3 bearers, but still!)


Wadkin RS and graduate
Then I realised putting it in the same position wouldn't give me enough room for outboard turning so I assembled it against the wall to the left. In theory should I be mad enough I could turn 3ft diameter - should be enough!


Building the RS 
I removed the horrible ugly control box which left some great big holes in the door. A replacement door was expensive so I used P38 and a dremel to recarve the wadkin logo. Not perfect but better than it was! 


Lathe door 
Not a great pic as it was just before I got it running and it was still a bit of a mess, but you can see the VFD enclosure, tool rack mounted on the wall and the wheeled cart I adapted to hold all the faceplates and chuck bits. Against the wall is also the gap bed tool rest. This is a bare reproduction casting I bought from someone on instagram who made a pattern and had a couple made. That will be my first major machining job, coming soon hopefully!


Wadkin RS running


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## TFrench

If you've stuck with it this long, here's the resolution to the "whoops I bought a mill I can't use" saga. A friend rang us one friday night to let us know about a tractor auction happening the next day. He'd been to the preview and said I may be interested in some of it as he knows I buy and sell machines. We went for a quick look as it was local and I couldn't believe how much good stuff there was. I nearly bottled it and talked myself out of going the next day but in the end we decided we had to go. First time I'd ever been to an auction so it was slightly nerve wracking. Turned out better than I could have ever hoped - we came away with 2 incredible milling machines and lots of other bits for properly silly prices.
Deckel FP1&2 mills:


FP1 &amp;2
The FP1 runs and has lots of accessories with it - I've since found out the boring head and riser block it is on are incredibly rare and probably worth more than I paid for everything at the auction. 
Something I'd never seen before - an adjustable eccentric chuck


Eccentric chuck
Toolpost grinder:


Toolpost grinder
This is something that they threw in with a boring head I bought as no one bid on it. When I got it back and did some research it turned out to be a centering microscope - you can use the crosshairs in it to get your workpiece perfectly on centre. 


Centering microscope
Among the other cool stuff was this camelback straight edge


Camelback straight edge 
Finally I got this Elliott pillar drill for the princely sum of £25


Elliott drill
I've done a quick resto on it and given it to my dad for all the help he gives me!


Elliott drill


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## AES

Blimey, that's a real Aladdin's cave you've got there!


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## TFrench

I try! I'd like to be able to start making them all pay for themselves at some point, that's the dream! In the meantime it can just be fixing my own problems. I'm currently working on a wadkin evenwood ripsaw - got a braze repair to do on the fence casting so I'll post pictures of that when I do it.

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## TFrench

Now we're pretty well caught up with the recent acquisitions, here's what I'm currently up to. Bought a wadkin evenwood ripsaw on ebay that looked horrendous and also had been dropped and the fence casting broken. Obviously no-one else was daft enough to bid, but my dad has just bought some TIG brazing rods and was itching to try them out :lol: I spent good friday having a thoroughly enjoyable day cleaning and painting the saw and making all the parts that were missing:


Evenwood saw 


Evenwood rear panel 


Evenwood painted 
I was really happy to get it all done in a day - just left the fence to sort. This is the cracked section after I'd removed everything I could:


Broken casting 
I sandblasted the rust from the repair area:


Sandblasted
We ground a vee on either side of the repair, got it clamped up as well as possible (not easy due to the way the crack ran and it being a C shaped casting), preheated with the gas torch and set to with the TIG:


Tig brazing
Once we'd got it as good as we could, it was into the duvet to slow the cooling down. I ground it down roughly to neaten it up once it had cooled and it seems to be a success - it all rings when you tap it with a hammer. Tomorrow I'll get the inside ground back, re-tap the holes and try it on the fence rail. Fingers crossed! 


Brazed!


----------



## AES

Blimey "T", if that repair works (and it looks like you're well on the way) then you really have achieved something to be proud of. Well done, please let us know how it works out.


----------



## novocaine

did you "v" out the crack before you welded it? if not then whilst it should hold you've only done a bead and about 3mm penetration on the weld so it will still have the crack and it may go again in the future. 

otherwise, cracking bit of work to take on, welding cast is always scary, especially the pops and bangs you can get when you hit spots.


----------



## TFrench

Yep, we ground a pretty decent vee, and managed to get about 1" in from each end on the inside. I'm pretty hopeful! First time using the Tig braze, I've done it with cast rods with a stick welder before. Key seems to be getting it all good and warm before you start.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk


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## toolsntat

Good work Tom,
Having never done anything like this my mechanical thinking asks a question.
If an oversized hole was bored at intervals following the break shortways when clamped together, would extra welding/ brazing be able to fill these holes all the way through?
My thinking is that this would increase the weld surface.
Cheers Andy


----------



## TFrench

The hard part would be getting the holes to fill up from the back - you have to get the rod and the tungsten tip in there at the same time. I did consider drilling and tapping it together with grub screws as well but for one its such a hard shape to clamp, being an open sided tube and two the crack ran in a spiral so would have needed a new setup each time. I used the die grinder and a carbide burr to remove the excess braze on the inside of the casting and got it fitted to the fence. Just need to find the right size tap for the clamp now.


----------



## TFrench

So far, its looking promising. Ground out the internal braze and got it fitted back on the fence rail:


Success
I tapped the main locking screw thread back good again - the crack runs right throught the centre of the thread so if the tap didnt burst it apart it seems to be held pretty well. All that is left on this part is the grub screw that holds the pointer for the scale needs re-tapping and installing. 
I've done a bit of messing around with lathes but very little "proper" work - today I turned a new pin that had been bent in the fence assembly. Surface finish is pants but I hit the sizes I was aiming for (more by luck than judgement!) 


Turned pin
I'm now down to 2 broken parts - the bristol lever that locks the fence is snapped and the fine adjustment clamp is broken:


Next part 
I think the game plan for this is to mill it off square so I can grub screw and braze a replacement section on and machine back to the correct shape. I'm really enjoying this project - it's really pushing me into trying lots of new things!


----------



## Trevanion

People will really break anything, won't they! It makes me sad seeing old iron being wrecked.

On the other hand, I'm very happy you've taken on the very difficult task of putting it all back together! Kudos!


----------



## TFrench

One word: Farmers.

They'd dropped it off the forks of the loadall. (hammer)

Like I say I'm really enjoying it, I'm learning new stuff and at the end of it I can sell it and get my money back!


----------



## Trevanion

TFrench":3d4v02rs said:


> One word: Farmers.



That's all you had to say! :lol:


----------



## TFrench

More progress on the saw repairs. Next up was the bristol lever that had had the thread sheared in the fall. I took it apart and couldn't get the remaining stub of thread out, so I chucked it in a collet chuck, faced it and tapped it, then did the same with a bit of whitworth threaded rod and grub screwed them together with threadlock.


Tapping


Both ends tapped


Back together

Have to say, I'm pretty satisfied with the result! 
I've also remade the knurled knub for the fine adjustment fence clamp. First attempt at parting off and by god it looks horrendous :lol: I'll put that to the inside so it can't be seen. I'll weld the knurled bit to the thread to finish it.


Knurling
I only got the one photo but I've also repaired the last cracked casting - put it in the mill and squared the broken bit up, then found a bit of thickwall pipe that was pretty much the right size, cut a section out and welded to the casting with dissimilar rods.


Milling flat 
Just leaves painting it all now.


----------



## TFrench

I moved my big bandsaw home months ago and I've finally gotten round to getting it up and running  I'd been putting it off as the wadkin lathe was a bit traumatic! This one was much easier, helped having the wadkin there to copy the wiring. While it was still at work I started making some cam-action castor brackets for it so I could move it but drop it down to stabilise it for use. Ended up not really working out how I wanted so I got angry and blasted some big C section brackets on with the mig welder. It's actually very stable on just the wheels, I can also wind down the corner pads if I need more stability. 
Here's the inverter, with some very neat for me wiring:


Inverter
I found a mitre fence attachment on ebay - they are unusual as you set the angle, then a hook pulls the work through. Its all a bit of a bodge to work around the way the table splits. I'll get a better pic to illustrate my ramblings. Anyway, I needed to make something to hold all the bits and this is what I came up with:


Tool rack
And here it is, all finished up.


----------



## TFrench

Here's the mitre attachment in use:


Startrite mitre guide
It's the only one I've seen for a startrite. Because the table has no mitre slot this is what they came up with - it actually works pretty well. 

This evening I also finished painting and assembling the fence for the evenwood saw. All thats left to do to it is tap one grub screw hole to hold the pointer for the scale then its job done. Pleased with how this has turned out as it was basically scrap when I bought it.


Finished fence 


Finished fence


----------



## AES

Looks a nice paint job, well done. Spray can, spray, or brush?


----------



## TFrench

Brush, I can't be bothered with the masking and clean up of spraying! And I find rattle cans don't give a durable finish. This stuff is tractor enamel, seems to give great results.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk


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## AES

OK, thanks. As said, nice job.


----------



## Farmer Giles

Lovely work there, fixing cast iron can be a right pig 

I use synthetic enamel AKA tractor paint too. Odds and sods I brush on but if I'm into a project I use 3M PPS (paint preparation system) which is a series of plastic measuring cups with liners including paint filters that fit via an adapter to the spray gun replacing the normal cup.

Much less washing as you can take the cup off and put a cap on it and it will stay fresh for days so you can mix a full cup. You can then swap it for one with gun wash in it, job done. I don't like single use plastics but this saves paint/thinners so overall is beneficial and takes all the hassle out of spraying, plus the liners are pretty thin, not a lot of plastic in them. I tend to just use one liner per type of paint per project.

Cheers
Andy


----------



## AES

That 3M paint prep system sounds very interesting Farmer Giles. Any chance of a link please?


----------



## MattyT

Hi,

Great job, do you happen to get your threadlocking compound pre-applied? I'm looking for some grub screws and other fixings that come with a pre-applied threadlock that uninstalls fairly easily, without heat so I can resuse them. 
Thanks, 
Matty


----------



## Farmer Giles

AES":17gnlkon said:


> That 3M paint prep system sounds very interesting Farmer Giles. Any chance of a link please?



Here you go,there are different sizes of cups etc. I can take some pics next time I'm spraying and stick them in new thread but I'm sure there are YouTube videos.


----------



## AES

Thanks for that FG, much appreciated.


----------



## TFrench

MattyT":2agj1rzv said:


> Hi,
> 
> Great job, do you happen to get your threadlocking compound pre-applied? I'm looking for some grub screws and other fixings that come with a pre-applied threadlock that uninstalls fairly easily, without heat so I can resuse them.
> Thanks,
> Matty



Sorry, I just always use a loctite bottle I've had forever. 

Farmer Giles, that spray system looks really interesting, I'll definitely look into that! 

Did the final few touches to the evenwood - turned a new handle for the rise and fall from yew:


Evenwood saw finished 
and got a few pictures out in the sunlight:


Evenwood saw finished


Evenwood saw finished


Evenwood saw finished
It's up for sale now (not here though :wink: )


----------



## TFrench

Lots been going on recently... I've finally got the new compressor sited and plumbed in at work - which means I can use the plasma cutter :twisted: Inspired by Coleys1 (Pretty sure it was him) some time ago I bought a nice big sawblade to cut something cool into. Had a few ideas but settled on a tree of life style design. I found a suitable image on google and scaled it up:


Saw blade plasma art 
Went over my french chalk lines with a paint pen so I could see it through the hood:


Saw blade plasma art 
And got stuck in with the plasma:


Saw blade plasma art 

Really happy with the result! 
Important lesson learned as well: either do it outside (it was chucking it down) or sort some proper extraction - unbelievable amount of smoke came off it. Within the next couple of weeks I am hoping to address this in a typically over the top way... :lol: stay tuned...


----------



## ColeyS1

Wow wow and wow some more. That's amazing!!!!!!! I'll have to borrow your paint pen idea, should make cutting the line much easier if I'm not second guessing where I'm going. I'm still in the process of sorting out the engineering area. Like you said the dust from plasma cutting was horrendous so I'll be waiting to your future extraction project. Very nicely done- it looks superb !

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk


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## Fitzroy

Sweet, nice peonies also. 

F.


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## Trevanion

What sacrilege! You should've bought a machine to fit the saw blade! :lol: 

You've got some nice sized offcuts there to make a couple of knives out of if you were that way inclined, probably some decent steel in one of those old blades. I imagine most of the smoke you were experiencing when plasma cutting the shapes was actually rust burn-off more than the actual cutting.


----------



## TFrench

Thanks guys. Coley, the paint pen makes it really easy to follow, it almost glows! I do wonder if some of the smoke was from the paint as well though. The peonies are not my department, I just create the canvas for the gardening department to work with :lol: I had to cut the big sections up so they would drop out - with so many small shapes they were hanging up when I tried to leave them big. 

Next project was a really cool vice I got on ebay. Its a German Leinen, the rear jaw slides in dovetailed ways and the screw is completely enclosed and protected in a tube. Really neat design. Took it to pieces and found the jaws should have an insert bushing to keep them secure. There was only one left for some reason, so at least I had something to work with. Turned up 3 new bushes from an old bolt and made some new counterbored cap screws to hold them on with (chucked them in a battery drill and ground them down on a bench grinder - works a treat!)


vice jaw inserts 
Forgot to get any other pictures, but here is the finished article:


Leinen Vice
Using it is really weird at first - kind of like when you're on a train and the one next to you moves. I've moved it onto my bench at home in favour of my big old record so wel'll see how I get on with it. After this being the only one I've ever seen I picked up another, slightly smaller one off facebook this week.


----------



## TFrench

Next up was a thread protector for my wadkin lathe. As the spindle is solid, I've not been able to use tapered centres for spindle turning as getting the taper out was a nightmare. Enter the wannabe machinist :lol: 


machining thread protector 
Turned, drilled, bored and threaded (I cheated and tapped it, didn't fancy internal threading up to a stop for my first go at threadcutting. Its a 6tpi thread so its moving pretty quick) then I knurled it -this didn't come out as deep as I'd hoped. Need to work on that next time.


thread protector
Then I turned up a top cap, bored in the middle. Marked it up and drilled and tapped it in the mill:



And the finished article:


thread protector 
Worked first time. Chuffed is not the word!


----------



## TFrench

Finished up the restoration of the second sliding rear jaw vice:


Vices
And my dad picked up a 3rd on a recent trip to holland! 


Vices 
The little one binds on the castings when its closed up - not sure if it's been dropped at some point or if its a manufacturing defect- its in almost unused condition so I think it may have been rubbish from the start (hammer)
To round off this session of vice restoration, a machine vice I picked up recently, hot off the production line. The moving jaw pivots - nice for holding irregular shapes. I'll probably stick this on one of the mills at work for now. Just need to turn a suitable handle instead of the quality 6" bolt it was supplied with :lol:


Vices


----------



## TFrench

Latest part of my highlights reel is the Deckel GK21 pantograph. Back in Febuary I spied this on ebay and as they've always interested me I stuck a bid on it, not expecting to win it. Whoops. (Mrs F is very understanding) Getting it in my van was an interesting experience with the sellers ancient tractor forklift thing, and we also bent a cover plate with the strops (more on that later) but at that point I just wanted it to stop swinging around and get it strapped down in the van! Getting it back out of the van at home was thrilling too, pretty much maxed out the engine crane, but it all turned out ok in the end  Here's how it looked when I got it back:


Deckel pantograph
I've steadily been working my way around it ever since - whenever I get a free hour in the workshop I'll derust/clean up the next section.


GK21 cleanup begun 


Cleaned tables 
It was covered in the black gunk that drops off ivy, but apart from some light surface rust its in really good condition. The paint has cleaned up really nicely - apart from a few chips on the base its almost perfect. In the pics above you can see the rusty strip that goes along the top of the leadscrews that looks a bit bent. The tension of the strop snapped 2 of the M4 countersunk screws holding it on and bent it about a bit. I've been dreading having to get the screws out but it turned out to be really easy. I used the sharpest, thinnest puch I had and made a punch in the top, then just drove them around and around with the puch. Easiest bolt extraction I've ever had! (I'd bought left hand drill bits and everything, expecting it to be a pig!) Today I made up a replacement cover strip in aluminium, just waiting on the right screws for it now. My neighbour has been for a look at the motor and we've worked out a plan for getting it powered up. Exciting times!


Gk21 cover strip 
Ollie Sparks the plane maker has a similar machine that I was going over at Richard Arnold's open day, it really fired me up to get this running - the stuff he is doing with his is incredible. Not that I'll ever be at that level :lol:


----------



## marcros

what is a pantograph used for?


----------



## TFrench

Haha, should probably have mentioned that! Basically it is a reduction milling machine/router. The right hand table holds a large master pattern which you trace with the pin at the end of the arm. The left table holds the work, and the spindle moves above that. By altering the pivot points on the arms you can achieve reductions from 1.5 : 1 to 10 : 1. They're effectively made obsolete by CNC routers but its still a very cool machine. This one can also work in 3D - I'll get a picture of how that works as its easier than explaining it. 3D printing has recently made them more usuable again as you can very easily and cheaply make master patterns that would have been very expensive before. I recently saw Stefan Gotteswinter on youtube cutting a tiny torx head in a titanium bolt with his one from a 3D printed master.
The "post" thats on the left hand table can be used to lock the arm assembly in place so it can be used as a milling machine as well. The most common use for them was for engraving and die making. I recently went to see a proper die making workshop where they still use these machines - the precision was awesome. They're using cutters with a 5 thousandth of an inch tip. Incredible. 


Engraving


----------



## TFrench

Pantograph progress: the inverter I had hoped to use didn't work - not sure if it was the VFD or the weird 2 speed motor. Bit the bullet and got a new motor and inverter that should all play together. Hopefully be running this weekend. 
In other news, I've been playing with the lathe again. Had an absolute blast. A while ago I got a dickson toolpost for the big lathe but it wasn't a straight fit on the existing 4 way toolpost. Finally plucked up courage to have a go at making a new one (I've made this all up as I go along from a steady diet of youtube machining videos so let me know if you see I've done something particularly stupid!) 
Started with a billet of suitable sized stock:


Roughing 
Used the steady rest to face the end and get a centre in it. Then used a carbide tipped TNMG tool to get the rough features set out:



Cut the first thread with a tailstock die holder:
[url=https://flic.kr/p/2gHuaC2]

Threads!
Cut it to length in the bandsaw (cuts about 5mm off square, another thing to fix!) 


bandsaw 
I remounted it in the lathe and faced it off, turned down and threaded the other end. I've got much more confident with myself and the lathe - learned so much on this one part! Main thing is that the more aggressive a cut the more the carbide likes it. I was messing around taking light cuts and getting long stringy springs - once I started taking a more "manly" cut I got much better chips. All good fun. Heres the finished bolt:


Finished 
Fits perfect, which came as a surprise to me! :lol: Surface finish could be better as well. Next job is making a T-nut for the cross slide for it and a nut for the top.


----------



## xy mosian

TFrench,
You are clearly enjoying every minute. The pleasure in repairing machines the likes of these I can sense from here. To have all required tooling available as well, fantastic.
I was thinking of your thread protector as I read another thread about a stuck drive centre. If the screws holding the top cap were countersunk, then the protector could be used as a 'jack' to force out stuck centres. 
This is a great thread to read and keep up with. Thank you.
xy


----------



## TFrench

xy mosian":k90b06ul said:


> TFrench,
> You are clearly enjoying every minute. The pleasure in repairing machines the likes of these I can sense from here. To have all required tooling available as well, fantastic.
> I was thinking of your thread protector as I read another thread about a stuck drive centre. If the screws holding the top cap were countersunk, then the protector could be used as a 'jack' to force out stuck centres.
> This is a great thread to read and keep up with. Thank you.
> xy


Thanks, I'm happier than a pig in sh*t when I'm in the workshop making stuff! All the hours of watching youtube machinists are paying off :lol: My thread protector works exactly as you describe - I have to jack all my centres out as I have a solid spindle. I didn't have countersunk screws when I did it - I'm considering fitting some though, just so theres no protrusions to catch a finger on.

This weekend I got the pantograph running at last. Invertek inverters are fantastic - I wouldn't recommend anything else to be honest. Even comes in IP66 so you dont have to dustproof it. There was some minor "confusion" with the wiring of the potentiometer but anyone can make mistakes, right?  Once I figured out which macro it needed to be running it worked straight away (check me out, talking clever stuff!) (hammer)


Pantograph inverter
New motor and inverter fitted, all wired up and you can see on the top of it the aluminium bracket for the control panel. Lifted it off the skate and dropped it in position - it's right on the edge of what the engine crane can lift, which is a little nerve wracking... 


In place 
And with that the only thing to do was test it:


first use 
(the first squiggle looked like a 2 so I rolled with it) 
Still quite a bit to do - get/make clamps for the tables, make a smaller tracer pin, make letter carriers....

And finally, in what is possibly my greatest ever bit of skip diving (and its an illustrious career) I found this beauty:


D-bit grinder
(and the machine levelling pads) It's a D-bit grinder, specifically for making engraving cutters. I've powered it up and the run capacitor seems to be shot but other than that I think its just surface rust. What are the chances?


----------



## Phil Pascoe

xy mosian":15s3j5ca said:


> TFrench,
> I was thinking of your thread protector as I read another thread about a stuck drive centre. If the screws holding the top cap were countersunk, then the protector could be used as a 'jack' to force out stuck centres.
> xy


That's how they're used on solid spindle lathes like Record CLs.


----------



## xy mosian

phil, 
That I didn't know. Nowt new then!

TFrench,
What glorius sh*t to be in.
Do I see you moving into cycle powered machinery as well?

xy


----------



## TFrench

With the pantograph project pretty much done mechanically there has been a dirty, greasy heavy old iron restoration shaped hole in my life. Enter stage left.... 


assembly
A Charles Taylor metal spinning lathe. Because everyone needs one of them. Obviously. Metal spinning has interested me for a long time as it brings together woodturning and tinbashing. Plus it looks incredibly cool. (youtube it if you've never seen it done!)

Restoration wise I don't think it is going to be that much of a job to sort. Bearings seem ok, the green and cream seems to be original and 90% complete so I'll leave it. The tailstock sticks a bit - I have a feeling there is a thrust washer missing. Main issue is the motor. Original is a monster dual speed 4hp 3 phase jobby, mounted on an even more enormous bracket that goes on the back of the headstock. An inverter big enough to run it would overload my electic supply so I think the gameplan is going to be fitting a new smaller motor on a more sensibly sized bracket, and fitting a VFD in the right hand leg. 


built up 


tools, chucks and forms
The main reason I bought this one (aside from it being cheap) was that it was advertised as coming with a couple of tools. Turned out it came with this massive selection, 3x proper chucks and a box of nylon forms. The guy also gave me a full set of instruction DVDs as well which should come in handy. He has also offered to come and give me a lesson when I get it running which would be helpful!


----------



## wallace

I've always fancied trying metal spinning, I nearly bought a set of old tools from an antique fair but the price was scary. I've got the promotional film on 15mm cine film showing spinning being done. I cant remember the machine maker. They were painted a deep red and you could add loads of extras to make it into a saw, lathe, bandsaw etc


----------



## wallace

Heres a clip of the coronet doing metal spinning

https://www.youtube.com/upload


----------



## Keith 66

I havent looked at this thread for some time so all i can say is "i am not worthy".
I thought i was bad buying machines & selling a few, i realise i am but an amateur!
Keep it up. By the way, dont want a big acdc tig welder do you?


----------



## TFrench

Keith 66":22ekqxgp said:


> I havent looked at this thread for some time so all i can say is "i am not worthy".
> I thought i was bad buying machines & selling a few, i realise i am but an amateur!
> Keep it up. By the way, dont want a big acdc tig welder do you?



I'm an amateur too in most things, I'm just lucky to have the space and means to do what I do. It's become something I really enjoy, and pretty much self funding as well. The spinning is something I've always wanted to have a bash at as it's something I could possibly incorporate into the day job. Maybe someone will want a fancy finial on a boiler or something. :lol: 
I recently bought an ac/dc tig so I can have a go at aluminium repairs but I was diddled on it - seller claimed it was fine but I can't get it to work. It's in for repair now. If it can't be fixed I may well be interested in yours!


Wallace, I can't believe that tiddly little coronet had the beans to spin ally! Makes me think I'll be ok fitting a smaller motor than the original on mine.


----------



## TFrench

Nice and easy job today. The wadkin lathe uses 1 1/8" toolposts and I had a few of the modular rests I wanted to be able to use. Bought a length of the right size stock and knocked out 3 new rests. The one on the right is the original, I made 2 of the same style and one with a square shoulder to use with the hollowing rest I picked up recently. Really good exercise in making repeatable parts, its definitely easier than doing it on the wood lathe! :lol: 



Toolposts


----------



## marcros

do you have a tap for the sorby system? I have a tool post, but would like a very short cross piece- shorter than they make.


----------



## TFrench

Yes, I bought a set so I could make my own rests. The curved one was a little beyond what I can roll at work though!


----------



## marcros

Yes, it looks like a beefy section to bend!


----------



## TFrench

Progress report... Tailstock on the metalspinning lathe is seized - I think it was missing a thrust washer, I spun it to retract it and it's galled up and won't budge. Need to get the porta-pak home from work so I can introduce it to Mr Flame... :evil: 
Went to a farm auction where I spent an enjoyable morning with andytoolsntat buying nice wadkin stuff... Had to go back with the lorry to pick it all up :lol: 
EPA spindle moulder:


EPA spindle
BSW ripsaw


20190914_110015 
RM planer (what a monster - 20" cut!)


20190907_132801
BGY sander (keeping this, been after one for ages)


20190907_152520 
And a DM morticer (again, keeping as its more wadkinny than my multico and has stacks of chisels):


DM morticer

I've had a session cleaning the morticer and it looks like a different machine:


DM cleaned up
Still some work to do but its getting there.


----------



## TFrench

Ran into a problem with the RM that I hadn't noticed before I bid on it, the castings for the infeed support roller had been cracked off - I assume by people dropping boards onto them, and the roller had also gone walkies. I've made good progress on a fix the last couple of days. 


Wadkin RM roller
Turned 2 "eyes" to match the size and shape of the original castings, then got a bit of EN8 round bar that I turned to match the original. Next job is to cut the broken bits off, jig it all up and weld it back together.


----------



## Trevanion

I've seen absolute diabolical looking Wadkin DMs before that were more black than Wadkin green, give them a once over with a bit of thinners and they totally change into beauties that would command almost double the price :lol:. They have a lovely double stop mechanism which is super robust, just like the rest of the machine!

I wish we had farm sales like with gear like that out this way, usually it's more powdered rust than actual machine :roll:


----------



## TFrench

The auctioneer was hilarious - there was a really knackered old bench with a record vice and literally no one would buy it. He got down to a pound and eventually said "come on, CRAFTSMEN used this" like that made it worth something! :lol:

I'd never studied a DM before, the double stop is pretty funky. There's a spare as well in the box of stuff that came with it.


----------



## Trevanion

TFrench":30n320y9 said:


> The auctioneer was hilarious - there was a really knackered old bench with a record vice and literally no one would buy it. He got down to a pound and eventually said "come on, CRAFTSMEN used this" like that made it worth something! :lol:



I was at a farm sale once and there was a pallet of about 20 ancient, homemade, odd-sized, rotten concrete blocks which nobody wanted. "These have still got plenty of life left in them! Look!" as he kicks one of the blocks and a chunk falls off :lol: 



TFrench":30n320y9 said:


> I'd never studied a DM before, the double stop is pretty funky. There's a spare as well in the box of stuff that came with it.



It's a lovely thing for when you're doing joinery being able to do both the mortice and the haunch in a single pass without having to adjust stops like on the older Sedgwick models. You just flick the stopper around when you need it and then flick it out of the way, the ball detent makes it feel kind of tactical when you do it too.


----------



## AES

I think the word "adventure" is being used in its widest sense by the OP. Of course metal working COULD be dangerous - along with just about any other activity you care to mention - but having often visited India on business I've seen some very dangerous practices in workshops there. What exactly is it that you're trying to say?

In general there are a LOT of discussions on safe practices in all areas on this Forum - as you would know if you had looked around many posts on this Forum.


----------



## TFrench

Like AES says, not sure what you're getting at. I'm a sheet metal worker for a living, I'd like to think I have a bit of an idea what I'm doing. The adventure part is more related to the cool tools and restoration stuff I'm doing... 

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk


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## TFrench

Big progress on the sander this week. Not up to wallace's standard but I'm happy with it. 
Before shot as a reminder:


Sander before
I tried to power it up and the switch was dead - I could override it but it wouldn't hold in. Luckily Wallace has a spare that is on it's way here as part of a trade... One of my most hated jobs is paint prep but I just couldn't leave it looking so gross. I've a feeling that as the switch was playing up it became the paint and glue mixing table... I have a large pot of Reseda Green for painting the deckel mill (can never have too many projects, right?) and its a nice enough colour for the sander.


Sander painted 


Sander painted 2 
Now I'm just waiting on the switch to get it running. I will also need to fabricate a dust collector for the belt side, and make a platen for the belt as well. Productive week though!


----------



## Trevanion

That’s looking lovely! The colour almost looks like something you would see on the original machine.

Did I miss a negative comment or something? :?


----------



## TFrench

Think it was a spammer, it got deleted pretty quickly.


----------



## Droogs

looking good Tony


----------



## AES

+1.Looks VERY tidy. Pity I haven't got the space for such a device in my shop. Well done Sir.

P.S. I didn't realise the post I reacted to (above - now deleted it seems) was from a spammer (how does one know?). I just didn't understand his point about metalworking being dangerous - so can crossing the road (specially in India which it seems is where he came from)! And YES I have tried crossing the road there!


----------



## TFrench

Thanks guys. Let's be honest, I dont have space either, but I've wanted one of these for ages!  Realistically I think the metal spinning lathe will find a home at work once I get it running - makes much more sense for it to live there with all the other metalwork gear. I just find it easier to have projects at home as I can work on them whenever I get a spare moment instead of having to make the effort to drive to the workshop. I recently got started on the deckel FP2 tart-up/recommission as well - got the toolmakers table stripped, oiled and moving freely (plus a paintjob):


Fp2 table
Articulates in pretty much every direction! Phenomenal piece of engineering, really looking forward to having it running and looking like the quality machine it is, not a scabby old knacker.


----------



## MusicMan

Very nice work!
Keith


----------



## Gremmy

An absolutely thrilling read! Just spent 35 mins going through this thread and should have been making sandwiches for work...
Keep it up and keep posting, this is giving me ideas that the lady will not be happy with


----------



## TFrench

Gremmy":1mkfgwbq said:


> An absolutely thrilling read! Just spent 35 mins going through this thread and should have been making sandwiches for work...
> Keep it up and keep posting, this is giving me ideas that the lady will not be happy with


You're welcome :lol: First child is expected any day now so I fully expect to have to rein in my addiction...


----------



## TFrench

Massive thanks to Wallace - we did a trade on some parts and the new switch he sent works perfectly. Sander is up and running! Still need to sort the extraction (got most of the parts for that) and the platen for the belt but its getting there. I ordered a couple of 400kg machine skates from axminster and got them ready for the morticer and sander. I had to cut extra steel out of the morticer one and add riv-nuts to make it narrow enough but it fits a treat now. With the skates prepared I bought the morticer home and used the engine crane to unload it and place it and the sander on their respective skates. 


sander finished


morticer home
The morticer location was always a problem in the past as I couldn't get anything long into it without "walking" it out into the middle of the workshop, which was brutal. Since the wadkin is a tad heavier I've opted for wheels :lol: 
And just to prove I can actually use my kit and don't just mess around with machines I made this fella. Disgustingly early I know but I think shop time is about to become even scarcer...


Snowman


----------



## AES

Great, GREAT stuff "TF"!


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## MusicMan

Very nice restorations! Well done.

Keith


----------



## TFrench

As predicted, having children turns out to be quite time consuming... :lol: I can't believe how long its been since my last update on this! I've managed to get a bit of time in the last week to crack on with the big wadkin planer. The cast iron support arms were cracked and the roller had gone missing. I turned a new roller from solid bar to match the original:


Turning roller
(First time indicating in something with the 4 jaw chuck. Not as easy as people make it look on youtube!) 
Then turned 2 matching bosses for the ends:


Wadkin RM roller 
(original on the left)
Milled the arms square and true:


20191220_152106 
And a matching slot on the eyes:


eyes 
Clamped square and true to the bed 


clamped up 
And welded:




Quite pleased with that. Just need to sell it now! Next update should be a bit sooner, I've had a bit of a run on vices recently - just waiting for paint to dry to assemble the last one and I'll get some pictures up. Here's a teaser pic though. :wink: 


Money shot


----------



## Trevanion

It makes you wonder how it broke in the first place since the casting even at the ends was fairly substantial.

Where there's a farmer, there's a way! :lol:


----------



## TFrench

The originals were U shaped - the roller just drops in. I couldn't see the advantage to that so left them whole for strength. This came from a proper joinery shop - the old fella said it was the first machine he'd bought when he started up. Someone had had a go at fixing it with some dowel pins and lots of araldite but it obviously hadn't worked. I was going to switch them to the outfeed side so there wasn't as much chance of them gettting shock loaded, but in typical wadkin fashion all the arms are numbered and matched to location. Felt wrong to swap them around!


----------



## toolsntat

If you're gonna have a clamp, have a Carver =D> 
Made in Nuneaton apparently 8) 
Nice repair (hammer) 
Cheers Andy


----------



## Trainee neophyte

TFrench":1zqonksv said:


> Quite pleased with that. Just need to sell it now



You actually release them into the wild? I assumed you just have a collection. A really big collection. A huge sea of cast iron and shiny stainless steel, all buffed and polished and gleaming.

Catch and release is so much more humane.


----------



## TFrench

Trainee neophyte":32qwbdnj said:


> You actually release them into the wild? I assumed you just have a collection. A really big collection. A huge sea of cast iron and shiny stainless steel, all buffed and polished and gleaming.
> 
> Catch and release is so much more humane.


Oh, believe me, I wish I had a workshop big enough to fill with this sort of stuff :lol: . I just aim to get the best I can fit in my home workshop and doing the odd machine up helps fund it. Great machining practice as well - I'd never have had a go at turning a shaft that big without having a need for it - does that make sense?


----------



## Trainee neophyte

TFrench":arbaghft said:


> Trainee neophyte":arbaghft said:
> 
> 
> 
> You actually release them into the wild? I assumed you just have a collection. A really big collection. A huge sea of cast iron and shiny stainless steel, all buffed and polished and gleaming.
> 
> Catch and release is so much more humane.
> 
> 
> 
> Oh, believe me, I wish I had a workshop big enough to fill with this sort of stuff :lol: . I just aim to get the best I can fit in my home workshop and doing the odd machine up helps fund it. Great machining practice as well - I'd never have had a go at turning a shaft that big without having a need for it - does that make sense?
Click to expand...


I am just in awe of what you can do - I wouldn't know where to begin. As for owning some of these fabulous machines (not that I could ever do them justice), I couldn't possibly justify the cost of your endless hours of labour to bring them to life. I have a sneaking suspicion that your finished items look better than the day they left the factory. Apologies if I take the Mickey - but you do have an cast-iron case of addiction. =D>


----------



## TFrench

I think you're mistaking me for Wallace! My standards are lower than his, I don't have the patience for fillering and polishing that he does. I just enjoy getting them working again.

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk


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## TFrench

Ok, as I said - there's been a bit of a run on vices in the shop recently. Mainly because they're a nice quick project and I can get bits done between nappy changes... :lol: 
First up was this record 94 1/2 pipe vice. We needed to thread some pipe at work recently and realised we hadn't got a decent pipe vice to hold it in. Got this at a car boot and it was pretty gross so I stripped it down and gave it a splash of paint. 


94 1/2 pipe vice 


94 1/2 pipe vice
Dad picked up this little euro sliding rear jaw in Holland in the summer. I don't think it had seen any use from new as the casting was binding, making it really tight to move. Much engineers blue and filing later, its nice and free. I did some research and the DRGM casting is a German trademark thing that was used up to 1952, which makes it older than I'd expected.


Small german vise
Next up was this Fortis. I don't think its particularly rare but I just really like the shape of the fixed jaw. It just flows beautifully - incredible patternmaking! 


Ajax/Fortis 
It's slightly interesting as behind the Fortis nameplates, the Ajax Steel name that was cast in was ground off. I assume Fortis had their castings done by Ajax? 


Ajax/ Fortis vice
(Bear with me, finished pics are coming...)


----------



## TFrench

The next patient in the surgery was this (as far as I can tell) really rare Alfred Herbert vice. Herbert were a machine tool manufacturing company in coventry who made very high quality kit. The chap I bought it from had got it from the auction when Herberts closed, still on a bench. He thinks they had them cast specifically for the factory. Not sure if thats true, but if they did sell them there don't seem to be many about now. It also has the Ajax brand cast into it, which is a coincidence! The designs are very similar, but there are a few differences. 


Herbert Vice
Restoration was mainly a case of clean up, degrease and paint. The handle hole in the boss had been worn horrendously - years of extreme neglect by the previous owner I think! I bored it in the mill to get it back concentric with the boss and bored a brass bushing to fit. Pressed together with threadlock, I reckon its good for another 70 odd years. You can see in the above pic the lower end of the bar had a nut on it - I turned it round to match the other end and assembled with threadlock. 
The finished articles:


Ajax


Ajax 

Only thing left to do is mill some jaws for the Herbert. I'm thinking I might make some solid ally ones with vee ways in them so I've always got soft jaws set up...


----------



## Bm101

Brilliant as always. Thanks for posting. 
Think you might just have tipped the balance on my 74 paint up! There I said it ...paint.. aghh. I'll finish the shelves on the stairs first! I have another little vice I picked up that's interesting. It's in the rust bucket with some citric at the moment but I'll post some pics.


----------



## Bm101

Very brief but got this off eBay for about a tenner. Rusty but not pitted really. Pics after because I forgot before pics. Just in a citric bath for a few ish days. Stove black wiped on then buffed with a small cloth wheel in a 18 volt makita drill.
Wasn't happy with the black. It was cold so I had An Idea and got the mapp torch out. Give it a gentle warm coat and applied a smidgen more and smears buffed out like a car polish. Neat. 

Nice little vice. Apprentice piece? Maybe. 

















I do like that stove black finish. Have to say.
Just for interest. Sorry to interrupt your proper thread. Hope all is well with mum and baby. And also Dad. Dad gets forgot sometimes. :wink: might as well get used to it now mind it only gets more desperate Lol.  
Best regards 
Chris


----------



## TFrench

Bm101":2dyxqbup said:


> Just for interest. Sorry to interrupt your proper thread. Hope all is well with mum and baby. And also Dad. Dad gets forgot sometimes. :wink: might as well get used to it now mind it only gets more desperate Lol.
> Best regards
> Chris


Thanks Chris. It was a desperately "sheet" first couple of weeks - Mrs F was suffering with serious "baby blues"/PND. Million times better now, makes you realise how horrendous life must be for people with "proper" depression. Certainly changed my outlook on it. Once I'd convinced the relevent people there was actually a problem though, I couldn't fault the NHS. We're lucky to have it. 
Nice vice. I reckon you're right with apprentice piece -I thought at first it could be for a surface grinder, buy that sort of precision vice (in my experience) is milled from a solid block for rigidity and squareness. Handy size though. 
I got another cool one in the post today - a brockhaus heuer forged steel. If the ebay seller had seen what they're worth (still available new) he'd still be kicking himself for accepting my offer! I'll stick some pics up when I've cleaned it. Early start in the morning to go get the next project - the sort of lathe machine guys have accidents in their grundies over. :lol:


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## TFrench

Next project!






Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk


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## Trevanion

Ooo, those little Hardinge lathes are quite nice, they take 5C collects if I remember correctly.


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## TFrench

Dead on! It's an HLV, not the updated HLV-H. 5C collets in the nose, and it has a couple of chucks. All the steady rests are with it, and the taper attachment. A lot of cleaning and getting rid of surface rust to do before I try running it. Hopefully the bed isn't too worn.

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## MusicMan

Now that is a very nice find indeed. Hardinge had about the best bearings of this generation of machines. And you have a very complete set of accessories. Will watch the restoration with much interest.

Keith


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## AES

Great looking bit of kit TF. Lucky b - - -er!

BTW, how is the name spoken please? Soft "e" (as in Gilbert Harding) or with an "e" ("dingy")?

And while we're at it, how do you say GIB STRIP please? "Jib" (as in that thing on a sailing boat) or "Gib" (as in the Bee Gees)? (Often "argue" with a mate about that one - I say "Barry Gib").

Either way, looking forward to seeing this one "done up". Will it be a keeper TF?


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## Trevanion

AES":3lpe10nb said:


> BTW, how is the name spoken please? Soft "e" (as in Gilbert Harding) or with an "e" ("dingy")?



I would say like a hinge, "Hard-inge".

Gib. Jibs are for weirdos and Scandinavians.


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## TFrench

MusicMan":2k3np178 said:


> Now that is a very nice find indeed. Hardinge had about the best bearings of this generation of machines. And you have a very complete set of accessories. Will watch the restoration with much interest.
> 
> Keith


Take it you saw it on ebay? I saw it go on a while ago and thought it looked a nail. It came back up in suggested items and I looked closer and realised it was more a case of terrible photography than rust. Then I realised just how many bits were with it and I figured that even if it was beyond repair I wouldn't lose out. Showed a friend on instagram and he agreed, so I did the deal. The toolpost is an original swiss multifix, which is a bonus! 
I'd love it to be a keeper - it really is a special thing. Something will have to give though - there's just not enough room at work for another big machine. It's a lot bigger than I expected actually - the chip pan goes back a long way to accomodate the taper attachment I think. I'm thinking I might sell the shaper, as realistically everything I can do on that can be done with a Deckel. I'll do some measuring and see if I can make it work.
Ditto to Trevanion on pronunciation!


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## MusicMan

Soft g in Hardinge, definitely.

I didn't see that on eBay actually. I've stopped looking at lathes so I wouldn't be tempted! And I love my Boleys. However, that is a very capable machine indeed. The accessories are probably worth as much as the lathe. It is cool that it has separate carriage drive and screw cutting drive. I would try to shoehorn it all in if you possibly can! 

The main thing to check on is the wear on the bed near the chuck, as you know. It's very difficult to adjust the carriage properly if there is uneven wear. Even then it is not terminal. I had one of my Boleys reground (in Birmingham) as it was so bad. This is costly but gives a new lease of life. 

Good luck!


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## TFrench

Been going to work early whenever we're in the yard so I can crack on with this. Finally starting to see some progress. Bed is cleaned off, I can select all the gears, I've had the cross slide and compound completely to pieces to clean them all out. 60 odd years of crud and its all a bit sticky! 
I had to deploy the big guns on the handles - the graduated dial is plastic so I couldn't just hit it with the mapp torch! Induction bolt heater - this thing is fantastic. Got the handle to smoking hot in about 15 seconds and red shortly after, with no damage to the plastic next to it. Success. 


Hardinge compound
This is the carriage all put back together - I will still take it off completely to measure the bed but if its all put back together I can't forget how it goes. This thing is seriously complex! You can see the tailstock in the background, thats how all of these parts looked when I started. Lots of WD40 and scotchbrite is the key!


Hardinge cross slide
I've taken all the extra bits home so I've got something to work on when I get time. It has the original taper attachment which is really nice. Endless changewheels too - there's more still at work. Not sure if they all belong to it. Think they'll get the evaporust treatment. There was also a load of R8 collets and a bridgport horizontal arbor support with it, along with some chucks that are way too big. I'll flog all of those as I've no use for them.


Hardinge accessories 
Lastly - tonights job. Cleaned all the 5C collets that came with it on the brass wire wheel. They were really rusty on the fronts.


Hardinge collets


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## MusicMan

Evaporust will work really well on the change gears, that's how I did mine on the Boley 3.


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## nabs

I can't believe I've only just come across this excellent thread - keep up the good work TF!


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## TFrench

Cheers guys. Changegears are done. Evaporust worked its magic on most of them, but a couple were too big for the tub. Also got the chuck stripped and rebuilt. Ultrasonic was great for this, got all the crud out of the hard to reach bits. Pic here of it nestled between the 2 other chucks that came with the lathe. No idea why they were with it, the big one wouldn't even clear the bed! Getting them cleaned up and ready for ebay while it's cheap listing! 


Does my chuck look big in this?


----------



## TFrench

Finally finished a project that's been eating away at me since I started it (posted about it on 26th July last year...  ) - the Dickson toolpost for the big lathe. I've got lots of lathe jobs to do and I've been putting them off because shimming tools in the old 4 way holder drives me insane. 
We left off here, with the new stud:


Finished

I made a new T- nut (spot the glaring mistake :lol: ) and the top nut




Added a bar handle:




It's been a really fun little job, and it'll make the lathe much more usable. Probably a lot more of these projects coming, with all the enforced coronavirus workshop sentence


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## MusicMan

Nice job there. I love the Dickson tool post. Now, I must get on and do the same as you instead of the badly fitting threaded rod and a pile of washers!


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## kevinlightfoot

I love this thread!Come on lads give us more of your endeavours,I think they are more interesting than the woodwork stuff .Is there a site which you can reccomend with more like this? Keep it up best regards Kevin.


----------



## Trevanion

kevinlightfoot":1xl0hvou said:


> Is there a site which you can reccomend with more like this?



Instagram is where all the cool kids are at 8)


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## TFrench

Like Trevanion says, lots of people doing very cool things on instagram. I still like the forum format though, you can get a much more in depth discussion on stuff, without the moron opinions on social media. I don't put pics of all the stuff I get up to on here as I've been moaned at in the past for using the forum as advertising. Never mind the fact no one on here has ever once bought any machinery from me :lol: 

I've been working on the lathe all day today, making parts for my big pillar drill. I'm catching up on all the projects I've had kicking around my head for years, I love it! Every cloud and all that.


----------



## TFrench

Sneak peek at the next job... It's the biggest chunk of steel I've had in the lathe so far. Yes, I was bricking it somewhat when I turned it on!





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## Trevanion

What size is that? 4 inches?

I was turning some 3" ally the other day which was the biggest thing I've stuck in the machine, except for the 10" handwheel I turned the outside diameter true on a few days prior but I don't think that really counts. 

I need to make another post on IG of what I've been doing, just haven't had the time/can't be pineappled :lol:


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## TFrench

It's 5 1/4" :shock: Had to swap for the 4 jaw, the 3 jaw is only a 6" chuck. 4 jaw indicating is hard work. Having the quick change toolpost made life so much easier today.


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## MusicMan

I would try to get a tailstock live centre into that chunk. All very well centering the 4-jaw but that only centres where your indicator is. The bar can easily be a bit skewed, especially with a heavy chunk.

The classic way to do it is, off the lathe, scribe the centre using an engineers' square, using the bit with the V jaws. The rule should be on a diameter. Do this a few times at different start points and you can find the centre quite accurately. Pop in a punch then put it on a pillar drill and drill out with a centre drill. Then you can get one end quite accurately in the tailstock while you fiddle about with the 4-jaw.


----------



## TFrench

Thanks Keith. Really wish I'd put a centre in it to setup, would have made life much easier. I did run the indicator at a few points along the length of it so I got it running pretty close to true. Benefits of a patchy youtube education :lol: I've finished all the lathe work on the part now. Just a couple of holes to drill and tap for grub screws and it's done.


----------



## AES

Blimey TF! I certainly wouldn't like to try to get THAT chunk into my Chinese Mini Lathe!


----------



## TFrench

Ok, finished the next project today. A very long time ago I got a Grimston Electriska geared head pillar drill. It was a proper basket case, but all the parts turned out to still be with it. The only problems were two snapped lock handles on the column, a stripped fibre gear (more on that later!) and the cast iron ring that holds the track on the top of the column had been cracked, brazed and the braze had let go. Winding the head up just pushed it off the top of the column. I bored the big piece in the previous post and counterbored it, then parted off:


parting

I also made two 12mm bars threaded M10 at each end to repair the handles. Faced the snapped bits off on the mill and drilled and tapped them.




Installed:




This morning I got the top ring set up in the mill and got the grub screws tapped. Also put two tapped holes in the top, for a light I had kicking around. Old one is next to it as well.


Finished 


Underside finished 

Installed, with the light fitted and wired up. 


20200329_170937 

Lastly the fibre gear that I need to fix:


snapped fibre gear 
I'm thinking I'm going to try making it in nylon. I think I'm going to try grinding a single lip cutter to the right profile to cut the teeth. I've got the dividing head for the mill, it's just putting it all into practice!


----------



## MusicMan

very nice stuff!

Gear cutters are not that expensive to buy (make sure you get the right DP or module) and it will probably mesh more smoothly than a home-ground cutter.

It will be stronger in Tufnol, but be sure you cut it from flat laminated whale tufnol. Don't be tempted to slice off cylindrical rod, since that is wound up in manufacture. The planes of weakness then line up with the planes of maximum load on a gear tooth.

They are not that expensive to buy but don't let me stop you having fun!

cheers, Keith


----------



## TFrench

Thanks Keith. One of my issues is that I only have metric arbors for the horizontal axis of the deckels - I'm not even sure if they made imperial ones. Although I could make an arbor and hold it in a collet chuck I suppose. I'd have to mock up the dividing head to see how much stick out I'd need, and if I'd get away without outboard support.

Edit
Just found a thread on practical machinist where one of the dutch machine dealers mentioned he had a couple of 1" arbors. I've messaged him to see if he's still got any, but it was a couple of years ago. It's annoying as all the second hand cutters out there are imperial.


----------



## MusicMan

Tom, I have an outboard support for a dividing head that has adjustable height of the centre. I don't use it much, and you'd be welcome to borrow it for this job when you're ready with the material and cutters, if we can safely and legally get it to you!


----------



## MusicMan

Tom, another thought. Your cog has a detachable central part, probably press fitted then bolted. If you can get this apart, you could cut the cog on a copy of the inner part, which you make with a metric hole to fit your arbor. Then swap it to press on to the original imperial part. The copy would need to be accurately made, but you have the lathe .

You could try it out in nylon first and if it holds up, no need to go to tufnol.


----------



## TFrench

Keith, I think you got the wrong end of the stick - it's the horizontal cutter arbor I don't have, not the workpiece one. My dividing head has an overarm and centre, so should be good there, thanks. Old Fred Deckel in his wisdom picked an 20mmx2 sawtooth pitch thread for the drawbars, which absolutely no-one else used. For the vertical head I have plenty of tooling, and I can use BT40 arbors with a converter pullstud so I can use pretty much anything. The horizontal is the issue, because all the arbors I do have are metric, and all my cutters are imperial. Luckily the dealer I messaged still has a couple of arbors, and the price he's asking is incredibly reasonable, so hopefully I'll have one here pretty soon. I'll be out of excuses before you know it :lol: 

Todays progress was to fit a nice big splashback panel to the racking behind the lathe. I've always wanted to have some kind of storage for all the stuff you need constantly, so this kills two birds with one stone. I folded a return on the metal sheet so anything that hits it runs into the chip tray, then made some hangers for the quick change tooling and tailstock bits. There's a few other bits I want to do as well but its a big step forward. Certainly beats having it all on the headstock and in the chip tray!


New splashback


----------



## MusicMan

Indeed, wrong end of stick, sorry, anyway glad it seems to be getting sorted. And that's a nice splashback/tool holder setup you have made, you get good use out of the sheet metal folder!

Where do you keep the chucks?


----------



## TFrench

Benefits of having a sheet metal shop for a living! (hammer) The chucks live in some big lista style drawers to the left of the lathe.


----------



## TFrench

Now I've caught up with what I wanted to do on the big lathe, its back to project Hardinge. I've been steadily working my way through it in lunch breaks and after work. Mostly it's been an absolute battle to get things apart, but I think thats mainly due to the decades of inactivity gumming it up and the incredibly tight tolerances its built to. I'd heard horror stories of the carriage gearbox getting water based coolant in it and the gears pitting badly. I was relieved when I finally got the front off!


Carriage gears

After that, I took the carriage completely off so I could clean it properly, and also measure the bed. Because the bed overhangs the front a little, with the carriage off you can just get a micrometer to it. In theory the worst of any wear should be on the front because its got the weight of the carriage hanging off it. In the picture you can see the sharpie marks where I measured it. It was a while ago and I can't remember the exact figure, but it was something like 0.014mm deviation. I decided it was probably good enough for my purposes. The clever thing with these lathes is the bed can be unbolted and sent off for a regrind, so if I find its cutting badly I can always do that.


Bed measurements

Today I started to get all the flaky rusty paint off the cabinet. I thought it was that flaky, it'd come off easily. Wrong. I wore a new wire knot wheel out completely getting it done. 


old paint gone

And finally, got a coat of primer on:


Primed 

First coat of colour tomorrow 8)


----------



## MusicMan

Looking very good, Tom. That bed wear looks perfectly ok and the gears look in good shape. That's a neat design, that the bed can be unscrewed. I had quite a job getting mine done.

Looking forward to the rest

Keith


----------



## AES

Yup, that machine looks like a real "piece of work" - especially when I compare your parts with those on my little Chinese mini lathe (separate post)!

You probably said already, but remind me please, when was it made?

Nice work, looking forward to the rest.


----------



## Trevanion

AES":12n354c4 said:


> Yup, that machine looks like a real "piece of work" - especially when I compare your parts with those on my little Chinese mini lathe (separate post)!



You fall on this one AES and it'll break *you* rather than the other way around! :lol:


----------



## AES

Heh "Trev", I'm NOT that big/fat - nor normally quite so clumsy!!!!!!!! ;-)


----------



## TFrench

According to lathes.co.uk, the HLV was made between the late 40's and 1959, when they replaced it with the HLV-H. New they were £1300 - £25k today. 

Got the first coat of gloss done. Darker grey than I was hoping for, but I can live with it! 



First coat

Also had a major auction score last week - enough 5C collets to fill all the gaps in my collection!


Collets


----------



## AES

Thanks "TF". Nice auction score. I wonder what the new cost of all those collets would be (I shudder to guess).


----------



## TFrench

These are mostly genuine hardinge ones - they're still available new from hardinge - $44 each for the round fractional sizes, $62 each for the hex and squares :shock:


----------



## AES

Blimey!


----------



## TFrench

Busy couple of days isolating myself  
Hardinge 2nd coat done, masking off - very happy with the finish. I'm still in two minds whether to paint the body of the lathe, or just leave it at the cabinet and chip tray. Mainly because I despise paint prep and there's a lot of chips to fill! Hoping to get the gasket cut and the carriage gearbox buttoned back up tomorrow. 


2nd coat 

Finished off the splashback - added a shelf for stuff thats rarely used, like the toolpost grinder and hangers for all the chuck keys, file and other bits and bobs that need to be in easy reach.


Splashback finished

Today I've been sorting the milling machines out - it looked like a bombsite. I got the smaller deckel lifted up onto levelling feet and the power cabinets for both machines moved, then the tooling cabinet for them placed in between. Whole area looks much better now, and more importantly its started to make room for where the Hardinge will eventually go... its like machinery tetris!  A toe jack, big levers and rollers - you can do a lot on your own!


Tidy shop!


----------



## MusicMan

That's a great shop coming along very well!


----------



## wallace

I wish I had a bid on that Hardinge turret lathe that sold recently, it went for £33O :shock:


----------



## TFrench

I think you'd run up against the limitations of a turret lathe very quickly mate... theres a reason they go cheap! No gearbox, no tailstock and not a proper toolpost. Great for making lots of the same thing once you set it up but not for one offs.


----------



## TFrench

Making steady progress. Carriage reassembled and all the bits that need painting on it are done:


Carriage reassembled 

With the base looking so good I decided I had to go for it and do a proper job of things. I absolutely hate paint prep!


Paint prep


----------



## AES

Yup, me too "TF" (hate paint prep that is)! But as we both know, therein lies the nice finish we both (I guess) admire with great satisfaction afterwards.  

It's going to be great (and I bet your lead screws look a bit different to my little tidler). 

Looking good, keep up the good work. =D>


----------



## TFrench

Nice little repair job this week for a friend (essential as it's agriculture!) It's part of a PTO driven rotorvator. The dust seals had long gone, allowing it to grind itself to bits. First 2 pics show the wear, compared to the new bearing :shock: 


wear 1 


wear 2

Built up with the mig:


welded up 
(When he told me it was a worn shaft, I was hoping for a chance to play with my metal spraying kit. Bit beyond that though!)

In the big lathe then to skim the weld off:


Turning 

And the finished article, circlip groove at the top and a spacer piece to get the bearing sitting back in the right place:


Finished 

Typically, I won something on ebay after the job was finished that will make the next one much easier - a weld positioner that spins the piece slowly while you weld, saving messing around juggling red hot parts :lol: 


Weld positioner


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## MusicMan

Nice repair. I love repairs and repairing!


----------



## AES

Nice job. =D>


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## TFrench

Thanks guys! Making steady progress on the hardinge too. In fact it's getting very close to being done.






Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk


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## AES

Aren't you glad you painted the lathe as well as the cabinet now???  

Looks really good =D>


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## MusicMan

What a beautiful beast! Nice job!


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## TFrench

Definitely glad I did it, but certainly didn't enjoy it! As of today I'm pretty much finished with the painting. Got a few ancillary parts to do still, but nothing major. Today I welded up a small frame and zapped it to the main splashback panel, painted it all and clad it in stainless. Had some offcuts lying around and thought it would cheer it up a bit! The extension piece will be similar to the one on the harrison and hold the tailstock tools and multifix toolholders. You can just see in this one that I've replaced the flexible conduit for the coolant pump and lamp.


splashback1 


splashback2 

And the money shot:


Painting done 

Still got a fair bit to do, but at least I'm not getting covered in crud every time I go near it now!


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## TFrench

Applied voltage today :twisted: 

It only bloody works!


----------



## Bm101

[url][/url]


TFrench":1kkpwr2f said:


> Applied voltage today :twisted:
> 
> It only bloody works!


Beautiful. =D>


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## AES

Yup! =D> =D>


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## kevinlightfoot

Lovely job ,what's your next project I follow with great interest?


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## TFrench

Next big project is a shaper. I sold the blue one from earlier in this thread when I got the hardinge so I'd have room to keep it. Next thing I spotted one on eBay that had the very rare power downfeed option and I was the only one daft enough to bid. It looked rough, and it's missing the table and vice. Cost peanuts though, even with getting it shipped down from Edinburgh. I've already found a box table that should be the right one so it's already moving forward.





Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk


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## Phil Pascoe

You're try to outwallace Wallace, aren't you? Tell the truth.


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## TFrench

I've got nothing on Wallace!

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk


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## wallace

Lovely job. I'm chomping at the bit to do my big RU lathe


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## TFrench

Can't wait to see that come together mate! What happened with the morticer they dropped?

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk


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## TFrench

Been making lots of progress on lots of different workshop projects recently. Had a big shuffle round and got the hardinge moved into it's forever home up the "machining end". It's not finished yet, but I shouldn't need to do anything major to it (famous last words) that will require the forklift.... Didn't get a pic as nothings really changed apart from the background. Main reason for the big shuffle was getting a new press brake. It replaces a 4ft manual folder and will let us work much thicker material - 3mm aluminium was really pushing it with the old one - this one doesn't even notice it.


promecam
I just need to work out the archaic control system so I can move the backstop!

Ages ago when I plasma cut the big sawblade I mentioned a plan for dealing with fumes and smoke - finally got around to doing it. I got this plymovent extraction fan and arm in an auction last year. Bit of scrapyard engineering for the motor bracket and we're nearly there. Needs power and a duct punching out through the end wall and thats finished.


plymovent 

Finally, the horizontal bandsaw was looking really sad and it wasn't cutting remotely near 90°. The coolant system was gross and silted up, the guide bearings were knackered and the blade had less teeth than the queen mother. Basically it looked exactly like we'd rescued it from a skip 20 years ago... which is exactly what happened.


Bandsaw before 
All new guide bearings, new coolant line, rewired most of it, good clean, fresh blade and its awesome! I really should have done it a long time ago. 


Bandsaw finished


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## wallace

TFrench":2gzc573g said:


> Can't wait to see that come together mate! What happened with the morticer they dropped?
> 
> Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk



They've offered my purchase cost back and I get to keep the machine which sounds good but it was worth way more than I payed. It might be salvageable


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## TFrench

At least you won't lose money on it! Still infuriating. 

This weeks addition to the workshop: 


linisher
Not sure why people put stuff on ebay with terrible pictures and descriptions, but I'm glad they do :lol: I think its the newest thing I've ever bought machine-wise. All I've done is cleaned it and added the castors. 
Pretty much all the work I do with my pedestal grinder is wire wheeling rusty tat. This should make much less mess, with the added benefit of giving me a linishing belt. I think I'm going to add a platen to it as well, just to give a little more verstility. The motor is mounted very far forward on the extractor, which made it a bit unstable on the wheels. I butchered up some bits of box section to mount my old bench grinder to the big open space at the back, which not only makes me bench space, but adds ballast! I'll hopefully even be able to connect the dust ports into the extraction. Fancy.



linisher grinder


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## MusicMan

All good stuff as usual!

Keith


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## TFrench

Finished another part of the hardinge restoration - the original storage in the cabinet was awful. You could fit about 20 collets in two little semi circle holders that swung out. I felt a little bad cutting them off, but the new ones are much more practical! Inspired by Chris Vesper of Vespertools and his immaculate Hardinge clone I made these phenolic ply trays and fabricated brackets for the full extension drawer runners. I have one more to fit at the bottom that'll hold the chucks and changegears.


5 C collet storage

And another cool little machine has joined the restoration queue:


Die Filing Machine 
An excel no.2 Die filing machine. Most of the filing machines I've seen are benchtop sized. The guy had an even bigger one but they'd lost the table for it. Farmers.... (hammer) The rust isn't as bad as it looks - it moves freely so I'm hoping it will mainly be a clean up job...


----------



## Trevanion

TFrench":265vrgfv said:


> And another cool little machine has joined the restoration queue:
> 
> An excel no.2 Die filing machine. Most of the filing machines I've seen are benchtop sized. The guy had an even bigger one but they'd lost the table for it. Farmers.... (hammer) The rust isn't as bad as it looks - it moves freely so I'm hoping it will mainly be a clean up job...



Ooo! You don't see many die filers about! Can it take hacksaw blades with the overarm? I've seen a couple that could be used as a saw as well as a filer which would make it a pretty precise cutting tool in steady hands I would imagine.


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## MusicMan

Nice job, Tom!
Keith


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## TFrench

Making steady progress on the Hardinge, nothing really photo worthy yet - but its getting there. I did do a small job for a forum member the other week which turned out pretty well. First up was turning this pin:


adapter pin 
I've no idea what metal it was - an old shaft of some kind that was the perfect size. Couldn't get a chip to break no matter what I did - fast, slow, deep and shallow cuts and every combination in between. Whatever I did it came off in horrendous long springy chips. 

Next was rescuing the original stock:


original hole 
The hole was very irregular so I plunged a long endmill through it to bring it back into line, then drilled and reamed to final size. Also drilled and tapped for the lock screws.

Finished article:


finished job


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## hawkeyefxr

In the mid 60's i was doing my apprenticeship and City & Guilds. Part of it included setting up a lathe to make sure the bed was true and it turned to perfection, we were on that for about a total of one day in total........................you blew that to dung ( i didn't write dung i used the right word)


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## TFrench

carbide insert tooling is very flattering! :lol:


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## TFrench

Been a while since an update... Little while ago a good mate rang me and told me there was a really nice wadkin sander on eBay at a "can't turn it down" price. It was listed as having electrical problems but there's not really much to be wrong with one. Collected it - turned out to be single phase and someone had fitted a DC brake to it. Disconnected all the nonsense and it worked. My old one I repainted was missing the platen on the belt side and all the dust extraction hoods, so I ebayed it off and now have a near perfect single phase one. I've added stop/start buttons to the front as well to make it more usable. Winner!


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## Trevanion

Ooo, I've always wanted one of those disc/waterfall sander combos!


----------



## TFrench

Trevanion said:


> Ooo, I've always wanted one of those disc/waterfall sander combos!


It can't half shift some wood! I need to make a couple of adapters so I can plug my extraction into it properly.


----------



## TFrench

Another new machine day! 300 mile round trip and was back at work for 11 this morning. Veeeery early start!
It's a deckel LK jig boring and grinding machine. Obscenely heavy, and most of the weight is high and at the back so unloading was a bit of a pig, especially with the rain today. The machine itself is in quite poor condition, but the accessories it came with will fit my milling machines, so if it's beyond saving I won't be too fussed. If I do try to get it running I'll need to have a doctorate in vintage electromechanical systems - there are a LOT of wires that have been disconnected. It's got 2 full panels of electrical switchgear! It came with the fine boring head that's on the machine and a planetary grinding head that is an absolute work of art. I also talked him into selling me the original tooling cabinet (pic 2) which is a great starting point for seeing how deckel did it so I can get most of my other accessories stored better. 3rd pic is the centering microscope - you put it in the spindle, centre up on whatever your mark is, then swap to your cutter and you know it's on centre. Last pic is an original deckel sensitive drilling attachment - very rare thing! Seriously cool stuff. /nerd


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## MusicMan

This is some quality toolroom you are assembling there, Tom!


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## TFrench

Cheers Keith. It's more like an orphanage! 
Here's a short video on some of the functions of an LK. The planetary grinding head is such an amazing piece of engineering. Happy to have saved it all from the scrap man/export. Doing some more research, one of the power cabinets is purely the high frequency power source for the grinding head. Not sure if it could be swapped to a VFD - hopefully it'll all work as is and save me the headache.


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## MusicMan

Tom, that's an amazing machine! Hope you get it sorted!


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## TFrench

Lots of little jobs happening in the shop, nothing really worth a post of it's own. I've fitted a new 16a circuit for the welders which has made a big difference to how smooth the mig machine welds. The big arc welder shouldn't trip things out now either! Wish I'd done it a long time ago. I've got a new tig welder - a jasic 200p single phase machine. Tig is something I've wanted to be able to do for a long time, and with all the brackets and fabrications we do at work it should pay for itself in no time. I've started out with some basic bits and bobs and I feel like I'm starting to get a feel for it. Don't dip the tungsten quite as often anyway... 
Which brings me onto this - quick change toolholder storage on the hardinge. 3mm sheet stainless, punched 5mm holes in it and welded 5mm stainless pins in - one to hang the tools on, the short one stops them rotating.
Plan is to finish the hardinge before I start any other projects, I've got too much half finished at the moment...


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## TFrench

Really closing in on the hardinge now - today I fixed the oil leak on the apron, which should mean it's mechanically good to go. Couple of bits left to paint but nothing that will keep it from working. Fingers crossed I'll be making chips on it tomorrow!


----------



## TFrench




----------



## TFrench

I've made a couple of parts in the hardinge now. Its incredible how accurate it is. Bit of a revelation compared to the Harrison I will get some proper "finished" pictures when I clean up the swarf from the last job. 
Already got the next patient in the surgery - the excel die filing machine. Should be much easier than the lathe, mainly a derusting and painting exercise. Of course that comment will probably come back to bite me! It's mainly stripped down to components now, and I've got the base section cleaned up and ready for paint. Once that's done I can begin to assemble it as I get bits completed.


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## TFrench

Pictures of the completed hardinge restoration. It's not 100% yet, but it's definitely usable. The main thing mechanically I need to finish is the flood coolant system - just a case of piping it up, the tank and pump are all clean and work fine. In the future I want to add a DRO, but that's not the easiest on a Hardinge. Because I have a taper attachment (pic 4) the scale has to be mounted on the front of the bed. It's taken about a year to get it done, but I'm so happy with the result. I bored a piece the other day and hit my diameter to the thousandth, first time.


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## Droogs

Looking really good Tom


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## Jelly

TFrench said:


> I'm so happy with the result. I bored a piece the other day and hit my diameter to the thousandth, first time.



You damn well should be as well! It's turned out beautifully.

That level of performance makes me more than a bit envious though, I spent ages building a gun-drilling attachment to make a couple of precise deep holes when all I needed was a lathe with some *real* rigidity to it!


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## TFrench

Thanks guys. Having watched a lot of youtube the method of using equal cuts to keep tool pressure the same certainly pays off! Being able to hold work in collets is fantastic as well.

In other news, work on the die filing machine is pressing on. Got the base primed and a first coat of colour on it. The amount of fiddly little bits I have to paint to get this one finished is a bit daunting! Tested the motor and it's all good and rebuilt the air blower with new bearings.


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## KingAether

Ive just been through and admired the whole thread; some great work and some lovely machines! That union grinder is a beauty. 
Do you restore to use or is it your business buying and restoring?


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## delaney001

Just read the whole thread also. Its absolute Golddust!!


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## TFrench

KingAether said:


> Ive just been through and admired the whole thread; some great work and some lovely machines! That union grinder is a beauty.
> Do you restore to use or is it your business buying and restoring?


Thanks, appreciate it! Generally I restore stuff to use. If it's to sell I just clean it and get it working. Occasionally I'll sell a restored one if I get a better model. The grinder went last year when I got the belt linisher.


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## TFrench

A while ago I got a small RJH ferret/trimtool tool grinder as part of a trade with a mate. Only snag - it had no wheel. I spent ages trawling through grinding wheel suppliers to try to find a suitable one, but it seems no one makes what I needed. Next option was to get a 6" diamond cup wheel from arceurotrade and modify it to suit. Finally a use for the starrett 196 indicator set - couldn't get a standard indicator close enough to work, this was perfect for the job! All done, mounted on an offcut of worktop and donated to my old man (that's his birthday sorted this year!)


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## MusicMan

Another pleasure to read. Harrison lathes are very good, but Hardinge are REALLY good. At Warwick Uni we used a Hardinge for precision machining research because of the quality of its bearings.

Can't wait for the end of lockdown to come and drool over your machines, Tom!


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## delaney001

TFrench said:


> Finally, the horizontal bandsaw was looking really sad and it wasn't cutting remotely near 90°. The coolant system was gross and silted up, the guide bearings were knackered and the blade had less teeth than the queen mother. Basically it looked exactly like we'd rescued it from a skip 20 years ago... which is exactly what happened.
> 
> 
> Bandsaw before
> All new guide bearings, new coolant line, rewired most of it, good clean, fresh blade and its awesome! I really should have done it a long time ago.
> 
> 
> Bandsaw finished




TF, could I be a pain in the backside and ask for your help. I’m half way through restoring this exact machine at home and there’s no motor nor pulley for the gearbox. Would there be any chance you tell me what the largest diameter is of each pulley, or are they both the same size with one inverted?


----------



## TFrench

delaney001 said:


> TF, could I be a pain in the backside and ask for your help. I’m half way through restoring this exact machine at home and there’s no motor nor pulley for the gearbox. Would there be any chance you tell me what the largest diameter is of each pulley, or are they both the same size with one inverted?


I'll try and remember to check next time I'm in the workshop - PM me and remind me if I forget!


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## TFrench

I've been on the lookout for a wadkin BGS table saw for a very long time. It's got all the features I want, without being the massive dead weight of a PK. They seem to go for silly money, or are dog rough whenever I spot them. Anyway, one popped up on ebay close to me (caught it within 10 minutes of it being listed!) for a buy it now price that was less than the littlest craft saw that axi sell. Its practically mint - came with all the fences and mitre attachments, as well as an extension table. I bought an axminster mobile base and fitted it. Made unloading it into my workshop a breeze!


Bgs12 

The extension table and long bars were a little too big for my workshop so I've cut the bars down and left the table off. I've faced and bored the ends of them and I will make a joining piece so I can put it back together should I ever need to. You can just see in the picture I milled flats either side of the cut. That was the best way I could come up with to be able to measure what material I'd removed so I can make a spacer so all the mounting holes line back up. We'll see if it works when I make them! 


Bgs 12 fence

Finally I've managed to gather up the parts I was missing for the metal shaper (mainly the box table and a correct vice). Had a quick look today and the table is correct externally, just the big hole in the middle is still a rough casting. I'm pretty sure its from a plain machine without the tilting table. When it gets its turn in the surgery I'll have to bore it to size. 


Shaper parts


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## TFrench

Latest project complete. Bare casting for a gap bed extension piece for the wadkin lathe. It allows you to take the gap out but still get your toolrest in the right place. Completely maxed out the travel on the milling machine - had to change setup halfway across the underside to allow me to skim the whole thing. I was particularly happy with the setup to drill the lock lever hole - I couldn't work out an easy way to hold it as it's such an awkward shape. I found a couple of original wadkin handles on eBay and I think it looks pretty original now.


----------



## TFrench

Ages ago I found an original wadkin blade guard from a big old rip saw. It's old as it's "wadkin and co", not just wadkin. Sandblasted and painted it, finally remembered to make the bracket after I'd finished work on Friday. Couple of bits of scrap pipe, bit of lathe work and welding, came up with this bracket. Worked a treat!


----------



## Ttrees

A good place for remembering where you left your overhead guard.
Now where's that old riving knife, I fancy making a door handle
Not jealous at all of being able to knock up precision 'do da's for fun!


----------



## TFrench

I picked up another pantograph over the weekend - I've been looking for a knackered one for ages for a couple of parts I needed. Last one I had was absolutely mint and I couldn't bring myself to break it up! This one fit the bill nicely, cheap and nicely rusty. I stripped it down to get the bits I wanted, then had a bit of a brainwave. The work table has a X-Y movement like a milling machine and I realised it'd make a great table for my drill. Took it to work with me today and made a really good start. It just fit in the bandsaw to cut the bulk of the material off. I had to use the 9" grinder to cut the elevation housing off so the saw would clear - serious brown trouser moment when the disc decided to part company with the grinder. I've no idea why it happened - I wasn't abusing it or anything. Anyway, it missed me and all was ok. I milled it flat on the bottom so it's now ready to mount on the drill. Final picture is a quick mock up on the drill to work out where it needs to sit on the base plate.


----------



## TFrench

Success! That was an easy one. Just need to check my stock of spares for a suitable handle.


----------



## TFrench

Had a little time this evening and got the switchgear reassembled for the filing machine. Just needs a power cable and plug now. I've not bothered changing the motor or switches as
1. They're original and look cool. The top isolator box is very art deco - I'm going to highlight some of the casting on it. 
2. I've got 3 phase at work and an inverter at home so wherever it ends up living it'll work ok.


----------



## TFrench

Really starting to come together now! My new manual forklift came in very handy getting the big heavy lump placed back on the stand without knocking any paintwork. Best £24 I've ever spent! I've got room on the bench now to get the next few bits cleaned up and painted. 
I spent some time working out what bits I've actually got in the bucket of tat that came with it and I do have the really rare sawblade attachment that lets you put a hacksaw blade in it, but not the bits that actually let you put a file in it. Found someone on Instagram with a similar Thiel machine who is going to get me some pictures of how it works so I can machine up something suitable.


----------



## TFrench

Project die filer is getting very close to completion. All the components I have are painted, cleaned up and refitted. Pretty much all that's needed now is for me to machine the components to hold the files. I have scored a bunch of NOS machine files as well, so I'll even have something to use in it.


----------



## TFrench

And in other news, I recently bought a deceased engineers home workshop tools. The lathe made a funny noise when I turned it on, looked in the cabinet, saw a plastic bag touching the belt and thought no more of it. When I got it unloaded at work and started cleaning it up I found it was the old boys collection of mucky magazines. Thank God I didn't open it in front of his daughter!  
In amongst all the bits and bobs I got was this beautiful Hilger angle block set. The scraping is incredible on them! The chart shows how to stack them up to create any angle you need. Super happy to have saved these from a rusty death!


----------



## AES

But what have you done with the "mucky magazines" TF?  

Seriously, nice find mate.


----------



## TFrench

I felt like I should have put them in a hedgerow to give the youth of today a blast from the past!


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## MusicMan

Drooling over your Hardinge and Tiger buys! Nice work as usual.

Keith


----------



## TFrench

So fitting a new kitchen has meant I've actually been using my machinery rather than just tinkering with it which makes a nice change! Does mean I still haven't finished the die filer though. I'll get to it. I did pick up my next long term project though - a Mossner Rekord bandsaw. Very high quality toolroom saw. It's got a compound table, three speed gearbox and variator for infinitely adjustable speed with max torque. There's also a blade welder and it came with reels and reels of blades. It'll keep me busy in my lunch breaks anyway! 
It's not all great though - looks like a lot of additions and bypassing has gone on over the years with the electrics and there are some big cracks in the cast aluminium doors. Looks like the original owner was Lucas which probably explains the dodgy wiring! The tyres look shot as well, hoping I can get some PU replacements. 
Apologies for the awful pics as well - my phone camera is only working on fully zoomed out mode.


----------



## Ttrees

Be interesting to see this one, as a bandsaw fanatic myself, I'm keen to see all the bells and whistles.
Guessing the tables around somewhere, or is that trunnion sitting oddly for a reason?


----------



## TFrench

Yeah, we took the table off for transport. I've been trying to buy this saw for 3 years and my mate finally gave in. Probably paid too much for it given its condition but it's going to be awesome when I'm through with it. One of my first jobs will be to get it bolted to some box sections so I can pallet truck it around easily and it can't fall off the pallet! I'll get better pics when I get my new phone but there's a really cool job selector wheel that gives you blade speeds for different materials, then the glass fronted wheel below is the speed variator. A lever on the side works the gearbox. I know a couple of guys on instagram with them so I should be able to get some help if I get stuck with anything.


----------



## Woody Alan

Hi,

If it helps I used these guys Bandsaw Parts - UK supplier of Quality Urethane Band Saw Tyres and emailed the company (Andrew Cross replied) to ask what size my SBW4300 took and he was very detailed in his reply. Tough to fit but I managed with a piece of correct sized bar clamped in metal vice to rotate wheel on and some Bessey clamps to lock tyre on one spot and stretched reclamping etc until it went on, just needs a bit of thought.


----------



## TFrench

Had a quiet day at work on Thursday so I spent some time ripping into the saw and assessing what its going to need. Started by removing 60 years of bodged up, bypassed unnecessary electricals:




(all this came off it!)



While I was at it I thought I'd give it a go and power it up. Motor works perfectly and the gearboxes are working. Big relief! Hopefully I'll be able to work out the original switchgear as well - its all still there, just replaced with modern stuff. My plan to bolt it to box section as a base won't work - it only has 3 mounting holes in a triangle pattern which won't let me get a pallet truck under it. Might go with just building a stronger pallet.
Freed up the trunnions so the table will go back on. While I was at it I found the worst thing so far - the bottom blade guide bracket is missing a chunk on one side and is nearly cracked through on the other. Need to come up with a plan to fix it - probably machine it back to a suitable point then braze a new piece in. Quite delicate parts though. Should be interesting....


----------



## TFrench

The biggest cosmetic issue on the saw is the broken doors, so I thought I'd have a go at that first. The handle on the rear door had been rammed with something which popped the weld. Started like this:



Much trial and error and grinding later




Then it was the turn of the front door. Just removing it proved to be a big challenge, I had to resort to the hot blue spanner to get things warm. I think the steel screws had corroded to the alloy. The crack runs from the bottom of the door and stops at the thicker casting at the bottom of the R in the logo.




I clamped it to a heavy box section and burred the crack out on both sides



And this is where I got to:







I do have a bit more grinding out and welding to do on it to cap the fracture fully, but I'm definitely making progress - my tig skills aren't up to much yet but I'll get there.
I've also found a local company that may be able to re-rubber the tyres. They're 410x40mm which seems to be bigger than most of the urethane tyre makers go.


----------



## P.j.Ofurey

Just read every word and enlarged every picture, what an enjoyable read.the deckles are superb machines.nice job.
I spent 25 years moving industry around Europe as an electrician/ mech fitter, everything from donkey saws to 450meyere production lines to robots, this great thread reminded me of a lot of those times all over Europe.


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## Ttrees

Great to see some progress, looking good.
Why would one want urethane tires?
Seem more trouble than their worth to me, from looking at them on youtube.
I've never seen anyone dress them, although unsure if it's possible to scrape the stuff.

Did you happen to come across this thread before?








anyone had success with homeade bandsaw tyres?


We used it in work to make gaskets for access doors/hatches into very large oil/water emulsion tank. It is a fibre reinforced rubber. I cannot remember what adhesive I used other than it was a contact type See link to an e bay add. No idea of that particular product quality but just an example...




www.ukworkshop.co.uk




There's a link for rubber and gasket material that you can buy in differing thicknesses etc
A fella by the handle Van Husky, who is a real bandsaw guru you will find elsewhere, reckons the best type of adhesive is the 3M rubber and gasket glue, and for bigger machines again, a 24hr slow cure epoxy could also be used very well.

Ps those are some mean looking clamps

Following with interest
Cheers
Tom


----------



## TFrench

P.j.Ofurey said:


> Just read every word and enlarged every picture, what an enjoyable read.the deckles are superb machines.nice job.
> I spent 25 years moving industry around Europe as an electrician/ mech fitter, everything from donkey saws to 450meyere production lines to robots, this great thread reminded me of a lot of those times all over Europe.


Thanks. I really need to get the FP2 wired up and running, then I can strip the FP1 down. Someone has pumped grease into the oil nipples and its a complete tear-down job to remove it. Not looking forward to it but it needs doing sooner rather than later. Still on the fence about what to do with the jog borer/grinder. Can't see me ever using it to its capability but it seems a shame to part it out when it all works....

Ttrees, the clamps are carvers. Best welding clamps you can get. I need to find out if the wheels need a crown or should be flat - mine are so worn I can't really tell. I think I'm going to get them done properly - the quote I've had wasn't ridiculous and it's done properly then. I've got doubts as to whether PU would hold up to cutting metal?


----------



## TFrench

Been busy recently. First up was a cast iron bench for my dad's new workshop. I bought the top a long time ago with the intention of using it for a welding table. It's a bit big for the welding area at work though so I never did anything with it. Found some cast iron legs on Facebook recently and they fitted together great. I donated one of my restored vices to it as well, so that's another one off the list.


----------



## TFrench

Next is one of my current projects, a deckel SO cutter grinder. It was a complete nail and listed as spares/repairs. Plenty of oil, scotchbrite and patience and it's almost all freed up. I gave it a good soak in evaporust which freed up nearly everything - I just have one dovetailed slide that won't budge.


----------



## TFrench

Last up is my new "little" lathe for my home workshop. The metal spinning lathe is going to draw too much power for the inverters I have at home to run it, so I'm planning to move it to work where I've got proper 3 phase. All the sheet metal equipment is there as well so it makes sense. Just working out how to redo the wiring as the genius I got it from removed everything!

Anyway, the new lathe is a Smart and Brown model M mk2. Looks to be in great condition, tight ways and the electrics are totally unmolested. Only got a couple of pics as I've got it stashed away until I have space to bring it home, but I'm looking forward to getting stuck into it.


----------



## sploo

TFrench said:


> Last up is my new "little" lathe for my home workshop.


Very jealous. I do like my little mini lathe (Chinese special, Sieg SC2 clone) but I'd love a "proper" old one like that. Quite a few come up for sale around where I live, but the unknowns of specs/sizes/weights/transport always makes me chicken out.


----------



## TFrench

sploo said:


> Very jealous. I do like my little mini lathe (Chinese special, Sieg SC2 clone) but I'd love a "proper" old one like that. Quite a few come up for sale around where I live, but the unknowns of specs/sizes/weights/transport always makes me chicken out.


It's pretty easy to see if a lathe's been abused - visible damage on the ways, any movement in the apron/carriage/slides. So long as thats all good and the main bearings sound and feel good, everything else can be fixed. Assume its chuffing heavy and if you dont have the kit to move it, pay someone who does and knows what they're doing. Unless you're an silly person like me who does this a lot then its a one time expense.

Got the last dovetail slide on the little deckel grinder moving last night - a few taps with a Thor No2 persuading stick and it gave up resisting. Tonight I pulled the work spindle apart and reassembled. The workholding part is all free and easy now, just need to get the old wheel off, rewire it and it should be good for a test.


----------



## TFrench

Been making steady progress with rewiring the metal spinning lathe. Nothing picture worthy but I've worked out where almost everything goes. Once I get it rigged up I'll take just the motor and switchgear to work so I can test it. Once I know it works I can assemble it all for good. I really don't want to fit it and then find out it doesn't work - it's a real pain to get at in the tailstock leg pillar. 

Today I had a bit of time so I started on the bottom blade guide for the bandsaw. One side is long gone, the other was nearly cracked through. I ground it out, preheated, tig brazed it and wrapped it up in insulation for a slow cool. Seems to have worked! Now it's secure I can work on the other side. I was going to machine it back and braze on a new piece of cast, but someone on Instagram suggested just building it up with braze and machining it back. Not sure which way to go yet.


----------



## Dutchie74

TFrench said:


> Thanks guys. Coley, the paint pen makes it really easy to follow, it almost glows! I do wonder if some of the smoke was from the paint as well though. The peonies are not my department, I just create the canvas for the gardening department to work with :lol: I had to cut the big sections up so they would drop out - with so many small shapes they were hanging up when I tried to leave them big.
> 
> Next project was a really cool vice I got on ebay. Its a German Leinen, the rear jaw slides in dovetailed ways and the screw is completely enclosed and protected in a tube. Really neat design. Took it to pieces and found the jaws should have an insert bushing to keep them secure. There was only one left for some reason, so at least I had something to work with. Turned up 3 new bushes from an old bolt and made some new counterbored cap screws to hold them on with (chucked them in a battery drill and ground them down on a bench grinder - works a treat!)
> 
> 
> vice jaw inserts
> Forgot to get any other pictures, but here is the finished article:
> 
> 
> Leinen Vice
> Using it is really weird at first - kind of like when you're on a train and the one next to you moves. I've moved it onto my bench at home in favour of my big old record so wel'll see how I get on with it. After this being the only one I've ever seen I picked up another, slightly smaller one off facebook this week.


My vice is the very same as this one but I was unable to figure out the make of it. Now that I've seen yours I'm going to do a bit more checking of my own vice. Using it is a bit weird compared to your typical Record vice but a cracking vice none the less. Nice one!


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## TFrench

Dutchie74 said:


> My vice is the very same as this one but I was unable to figure out the make of it. Now that I've seen yours I'm going to do a bit more checking of my own vice. Using it is a bit weird compared to your typical Record vice but a cracking vice none the less. Nice one!


There are a couple of similar ones - could be a boley?


----------



## Dutchie74

TFrench said:


> There are a couple of similar ones - could be a boley?



I'll check this evening. 
Great thread which I've enjoyed reading from beginning to end. You've a great eye for the old machinery. 
I've a recently purchased Meddings MF4 Mk 2 floor standing drill that I'm trying to bring back to life. It's missing the pulley/belt guard which is the the 2 stud fixing type. Any ideas where I might source one; maybe you might have one in your parts stash??
Keep up the great work breathing life back into the old stuff!


----------



## TFrench

Dutchie74 said:


> I'll check this evening.
> Great thread which I've enjoyed reading from beginning to end. You've a great eye for the old machinery.
> I've a recently purchased Meddings MF4 Mk 2 floor standing drill that I'm trying to bring back to life. It's missing the pulley/belt guard which is the the 2 stud fixing type. Any ideas where I might source one; maybe you might have one in your parts stash??
> Keep up the great work breathing life back into the old stuff!


Is that the boxy looking one? If so I'd see if you can find a friendly fab shop who could fold one up for you. If it's the pressed rounded one then I've no idea, other than keep watching ebay! Sorry. I tend to sell most spare parts I get as 1, it gets them back out there and fixing machines up and 2, I'd run out of room in about 10 minutes flat. It's bad enough already without me hoarding spares


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## Dutchie74

No unfortunately it's the pressed rounded one.  Yes I'll keep watching eBay. A Meddings pressed rounded cover came up on eBay recently but it was the slightly smaller single stud fixing type. I can certainly understand your problem with room for spares!


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## TFrench

Finally had a day to get stuff done in the workshop. My next door neighbour came round and gave me a hand with the spinning lathe control panel. I'd worked out where everything went but the 5 wires to the control panel. He's a genius with industrial electronics and it took him a good while to work it out, so I had no hope! Tested with my inverter and it all seems to be working ok. Not tested the motor as I don't think my inverter will run it, but I think it will be fine. Nice to be moving along with this project again!


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## TFrench

So, returning to the bandsaw blade guide. Went with the braze buildup option. Tig brazing went fairly well, wish I'd done it with the oxy acetylene but I didn't have flux. Mainly because it would have been a lot quicker! Today I machined it back into shape. Had to cut a block of aluminium to fit the slot - it was the only flat machined piece on the part that I could use as a reference. Once that was done it was fairly simple, just a little nerve wracking opening up the slots again with a small end mill. Final pic is it all fitted back together on the saw.


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## TFrench

Had an epic day yesterday. I bought a couple of machines in an online auction - a sandblasting cabinet and a guillotine, both for work. Turned up to collect it yesterday and ended up buying all the stuff they hadn't put in the auction. Good job we took the big trailer 



Two more sandblasting cabinets with extractors (the gloves had perished, so their H&S department condemned them!)
Smart and brown lathe on a really nice bench:



A lapmaster lapping machine (I'll have the flattest plane irons going!)



A Leinen watchmakers lathe that was in the scrap pile 



Collection of bench grinders, mini arbor press and a nice 4 jaw chuck



The biggest bench centres I've ever seen



And a couple of crates of tooling - most of which was on shelves that were due to be scrapped!




Take me a little while to work through this lot!
The one thing I really wanted though was the 4ft powered guillotine to replace our treadle one at work. Powered it up today and either the blade is blunt or it needs adjusting because it leaves a horrendous burr on the cut. Good job I checked before I started moving stuff!


----------



## sploo




----------



## Dutchie74

Super res


TFrench said:


> Had an epic day yesterday. I bought a couple of machines in an online auction - a sandblasting cabinet and a guillotine, both for work. Turned up to collect it yesterday and ended up buying all the stuff they hadn't put in the auction. Good job we took the big trailer
> 
> 
> 
> Two more sandblasting cabinets with extractors (the gloves had perished, so their H&S department condemned them!)
> Smart and brown lathe on a really nice bench:
> 
> 
> 
> A lapmaster lapping machine (I'll have the flattest plane irons going!)
> 
> 
> 
> A Leinen watchmakers lathe that was in the scrap pile
> 
> 
> 
> Collection of bench grinders, mini arbor press and a nice 4 jaw chuck
> 
> 
> 
> The biggest bench centres I've ever seen
> 
> 
> 
> And a couple of crates of tooling - most of which was on shelves that were due to be scrapped!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Take me a little while to work through this lot!
> The one thing I really wanted though was the 4ft powered guillotine to replace our treadle one at work. Powered it up today and either the blade is blunt or it needs adjusting because it leaves a horrendous burr on the cut. Good job I checked before I started moving stuff!


Super result.
Keep on keeping on!


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## TFrench

Latest milling machine project. Hold down clamps for the vice. You can buy them new but I thought it would be a nice little experiment in doing a small production run and keeping everything the same size. Made some brass washers and blued them as well just to make a proper job. Quite pleased with this one!


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## TFrench

Today I put my big boy pants on and had a go at the wheels for the Mossner bandsaw. I had a quote for re-tyring the wheels and it certainly wasn't cheap. The bottom wheel had a real groove worn into the tyre and the top one was a bit rough looking with all the embedded metal in it. While I had the gap bed out on my wadkin RS for a big bowl I'm working on, I thought I'd give it a try. Used a metal chuck and held the inside bore of the wheel, then took a 4" grinder and worked away at it until it looked like it had a crown again! It worked fairly well, apart from the mess and stink of burning rubber in my workshop. As you can see, everything near the lathe is coated in black rubber dust, it's taken me a good few hours to clean it up! I won't know how well it's worked until I get it reassembled and working again, but I'm fairly hopeful it will work.


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## Ttrees

I'll be interested to see the result in this, as I found I had real trouble with one tire a lot more cambered than the other, and coupled with misaligned wheels was a real disaster.
Things got so bad for me, at one point the blade completely refused to cut, imagine friction cutting
blade dived either way of the line rather than cutting.
Both tires looked very similar to what you have now, my lower wheel was cambered by me to get mostly past the damage, which I shouldn't have done really.
Looking again, I made it much more radical than what you've done.

Even with the wheels aligned correctly, it still is likely will be troublesome,
I have yet to finish off scraping the lower tire on my bandsaw, done by hand on the machine
without gloves, near got infected blister between the fingers, and just about healed now.

I think you have more work to do, definitely worth scraping IMO, as it might be very easy to do,
Hard to know until you try, both my vulcanized tires seem original, but yet the lower one is easier to scrape.
It took me some time to figure that out, and I was blaming my technique.
Can't tell you why, baffling, and I'm definitely sure of this.

The way it looks to me now is a recipe for compressing the set of your blades I reckon.
Well that's the impression you might get from looking at the box of mostly thin gauge blades I have, which seem not terribly blunt, but unusable as is.
Seems thicker gauge are less likely to compress set as much.
Another thing that one might or might not notice, is the thicker gauge blades might track notibly different on the wheels than the thinner ones,
Hard to know if that was my alignment or the different profiles, just saying.

Did you use the grinder to power the wheel?, works well for small things.
Watching with interest
Thanks for posting
Tom


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## TFrench

In the side by side pic, the right hand one is the one that was in better shape. I hardly took anything off it so the shape is fairly original. The picture makes the other one look worse than it is. Not so concerned about the set of the blades as metal blades are beefier and have less than a wood blade. If it isn't any good I'll get them done properly - as it stands though I'm close to £400 better off if it works, so it was worth a try. I just ran the lathe at low RPMs in low speed (got a VFD on it) running it faster just made it burnier.


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## Ttrees

Four hundred quid!
You have loads of meat there to practice with, just have at it again if it doesn't work.
Curious if you tried a fixed cutting tool on the rubber or not,
and also if you used a pen to see if there was any hollows if you hadn't the grinder fixed?

...and if you could program the VFD to stop at any resistance?
I have a VFD on my machine also, but wouldn't chance a fixed dressing tool
(the side of a plane iron) rigged up on the saw, so I chose blisters rather than amputation.

Even with little set on the blades, I think you'll be back to the lathe.
Good luck
Tom


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## TFrench

Honestly, I expect I'll have to send them off to be done properly. It's worth the try though. Been up to lots of things recently, still plugging away at the spinning lathe but nothing picture worthy. 
First up was an emergency customer (Dad) squished his finger at work and after a day or two had swollen pretty badly. Wedding ring was titanium so we were going to go to hospital but decided to have a go ourselves.



Managed to work a screwdriver under it on the palm side to give me room to work, had a big pot of water to keep things cool as well.



Very nerve wracking but it went well!




Next was this interesting indexing powered work head from a cutter grinder. I picked it up with loads of other stuff and got it cheap because the motor was cracked.



With a bit of detective work to determine what speed motor it should be I found a replacement locally on ebay for a tenner. It isn't an enclosed one so not ideal for a grinding environment, but should I find myself needing it a lot a decent motor won;t be too expensive. The 3 jaw chuck is on a 4 Morse taper arbor with no way of removing it smoothly and it was stuck pretty hard! I was pretty wary of hitting it hard as I didn't want to damage any bearings in the head. It wouldn't fit in the press either so I ended up knocking a brass wedge in behind the chuck, which popped it loose quite easily.






Quite pleased with how this one turned out. Just need a suitable sized surface grinder for it now!

Last up is a set of clamps for the milling vice on the Deckel. Gerardi vices come with the correct clamps but my second hand ones didn't. To save material and to keep them all identical as far as possible I milled all the profiles with the blocks clamped together, then sawed them in half and faced the tops. Really enjoyable challenge to make them as identical and perfect as my limited experience allows. (you can see the old setup with the toe clamps in the background)



They came out so well I went the whole hog and made some brass washers and cold blued them as well. Quite probably the best looking parts I've made.



And in place


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## Phil Pascoe

Round the ends of the ring and wear it. I did this with three gold ones - I lost the rings but kept the finger. Titanium might not bend so easily as gold, but it could be prised off in an emergency.


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## TFrench

Just realised I double posted about the vice clamps. Teach me to copy and paste 
The metal spinning lathe is very close to completion. Made a new captive T nut and stud for the toolrest:




Pulled the spindles and fitted a rubber multi-vee belt. Possibly won't be wide enough but I'm hopeful it will work.




Wired the motor, fitted all the guards and replaced all the bolts the previous owner had binned. Whitworth stuff has got expensive recently! One of my few remaining jobs is to add some cable tie plinths to neaten the wiring up properly.




Finished article:




Tested with my little static inverter and it all works. Pretty sure it won't have the juice to run it so it'll be moved to work when I get the chance. I'm also going to make a little mobile trolley to hold all the tools and forms I have to keep it all together. I do wish the motor was configured like the wadkin RS and didn't stick so far out behind it.


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## TFrench

Been busy with lots of stuff recently, but thought this one was worth sharing. Right back at the start of this thread (2018) I posted about a workshop of a farmer friend I'd bought. I got most of the machines out with a tractor, but there were still two big table saws. Since then, we've had a pandemic, the owner's alzheimers deteriorated and he passed away and every time I've cleared a space at work to bring them back, something else came along to fill it. Last weekend I finally recovered the first, a Sagar LT. It's basically Sagars version of a wadkin PK - sliding table, 18" blade, heavier than depleted uranium, that sort of thing. Went very smoothly - pallet truck to the trailer, then winched it straight in. No drama. 


Sagar

Seeing it in the trailer gives some scale as to just how monstrous it is. The green T shaped casting is the outrigger leg for the sliding table extension.


Sagar 

A LOT of hooving, cleaning and wire wheeling and here we are:


Sagar 



Sagar 



Sagar

Mechanically it all works - table slides, blade goes up and down and tilts, she spins up and runs forever when you turn it off - the bearings are amazing! Its actually in really good shape - even the original switchgear which is pretty unusual these days. I'm getting some copies cast of the sagar badge and spanner rack, which I thought was super cool, the moment I saw it. Nice to have saved it from the scrap man anyway. Next up is the wadkin BGP panel saw, which is probably an even heavier lump to get out.


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## TFrench

As I mentioned in deema's Jones & Shipman 540 thread, I've just bought another new machine. I've wanted a 540 for ever as the little manual Herbert surface grinder we had was just a bit too small to do anything on. The footprint isn't much more and the capacity is nearly double - plus it's fully automatic. Bit of an eBay gamble, but it looked ok from the pictures (I know that doesn't mean much!) Took a trip down to Buckingham to collect it just before Christmas. Luckily I'd researched how to lift them, and taken my own lifting strops or I'd have struggled to get it in my van. 
First picture is it coming out back at our yard. Don't look too closely at the rigging, it was only to get it out and sat on the floor!
2nd is once I'd got it screwed to some bearers so I can move it around easily with a pallet truck. 
3rd pic is after a couple of hours spent cleaning it up. Clutch cleaner and fine scotchbrite are a pretty unbeatable combination, along with a Stanley blade scraper for the thick stuff and rusty bits.
4th is the pump chain - this is adjusted to maximum. Should be 5mm slack there. It was so loose I took it off the cogs without moving anything. I'm probably just going to take a couple of links out and put it back together.
Last pic is the motor and pump all cleaned up, ready to go back in.

The aim is just to get it serviced and back to working order, hopefully before we're back from the Christmas break. I've got too many machines in pieces already to start another full rebuild! I've had it running before I pulled the hydraulics and everything works. So far the obvious problems are the missing wheel guard, chain needs shortening a couple of links and I think the hydraulic cylinder will need new seals as it's leaking a bit. I can make up a dust extraction nozzle and connect it to the fine dust extraction I have on another grinding machine. Should save me some space.


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## TFrench

Second day on the grinder. Took 2 links out of the chain and it fits perfectly. Put the tank and cover back together and buttoned the bottom end up. I'll fill it with oil when I get it sited and levelled, no point sloshing oil all over the place when we move it. Then made a couple of t-nuts and lifted the table off while it was underneath the hoist. Gave everything a good clean and put back together. I've not dived into the saddle as it seems ok and I really want to run the machine to see how far I need to go with it. 
Next I think I need to check the spindle oil and adjustment, but it's nearly ready to go.


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## TFrench

Thought this was worth sharing as a repair technique. I bought a meddings drill cheap on eBay. No idea why, but no one else bid. I knew it was the geared head version, so it was a really nice surprise to find it was a 2 speed motor as well - giving 20 speeds from 40 to 4000 rpm. The starter switch had the coil removed and jammed on with a piece of wood, which was a new one for me. 
The table was pretty well drilled with an arc of shame, which is the point of this post. Lots of ways to repair it, but most of them involve heating/welding/brazing which lets face it aren't all that easy, and would need you to strip the table off the column, which isn't easy given the weight. My experimental way of doing it was to degrease it really well and apply several thin layers of JB weld. As it's an epoxy it shouldn't absorb oil and swell like a filler would. When the last layer had gone off I just filed it flat with the level of the table. It doesn't look perfect, but it's a lot better than the craters that were there before. Cheap and easy for anyone to do!


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## Spectric

Blimey I have not seen thermal overloads in a starter like those for a very long time, used to be common.


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## AES

As a "cheap & cheerful repair" TF, that doesn't look 'arf bad! As you say, easy & quicker than weld or braze.

But that lump of wood to hold the relay/s closed, that does take the biscuit (though I 'spose if someone was clumsy/uncaring enough to mark the table that much, we should be SO surprised)!


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## TFrench

AES said:


> As a "cheap & cheerful repair" TF, that doesn't look 'arf bad! As you say, easy & quicker than weld or braze.
> 
> But that lump of wood to hold the relay/s closed, that does take the biscuit (though I 'spose if someone was clumsy/uncaring enough to mark the table that much, we should be SO surprised)!


I'm quite pleased with how it came out. Definitely one to keep in the mental toolbox! 
The drill actually came from a proper dealer - if I'd paid good money for it I'd have been furious!


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## AES

Yeah, agreed. Though I've heard of it often, I've never tried JB Weld myself. Must get a tube (s?) for "just in case". (NOT that you'll see marks like that on MY drill table I hasten to add).


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## TFrench

Better to leave it on the shelf and buy fresh when you actually need it! Dad had trouble with some that he'd had in the garage for years, it took about a week to go off.


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## Fergie 307

TFrench said:


> I'm quite pleased with how it came out. Definitely one to keep in the mental toolbox!
> The drill actually came from a proper dealer - if I'd paid good money for it I'd have been furious!


Quick metal is very good for this sort of thing, and will probably wear better than JB weld.


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## AES

Fergie 307 said:


> Quick metal is very good for this sort of thing, and will probably wear better than JB weld.



What's quick metal please Fergie? Genuine Q. TIA


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## Sideways

I had a really positive experience of JB weld type epoxy several months ago. I drove over what I think was a broken branch on a country lane and after landing home found that it had kicked up and punctured the plastic fuel tank.
Faced with a 1/4" hole and a stream of petrol pouring out, the only way I could think of stopping it was a JB weld equivalent bought several years before. 
Knead it well, shape into a blunt cone and bung it straight into / over the hole while the petrol was still running. I kept pressure on for several minutes but amazingly is held - and for over 10 days more while I found a secondhand tank and lined up a garage to drain and swap the tanks.
Plastic welding isn't a reliable fix and if you've never priced up a new plastic fuel tank, you're in for a shock !


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## Fergie 307

Apologies it's actually called Quiksteel, now I check the tube. It's basically an epoxy putty. Comes in a tube with the two elements one inside the other like a Swiss roll and separated by a thin film. You cut off a chunk and then knead it to Break down the film and mix the two parts together and make it workable. Sticks like the proverbial s**t to a blanket. Once cured it is very hard wearing, and actually looks quite like metal, so might give a better match on a job like yours, although it would still be visible. It can also be machined and tapped etc. I have used it a number of times on damaged castings, both Iron and Aluminium. It's particularly good where you need to shape it as when it's ready for use it has a consistency like plasticene and will hold a shape while it cures. Not to be confused with Quick metal by loctite which is for fitting bearings and keys etc in worn parts. Plastic Padding also do a metal filler, but I haven't personally used it.


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## Fergie 307

Sounds like Sideways is probably referring to the same sort of stuff. I have never used it on plastic myself, but will certainly best it in mind for the future. Looking on the net I see that JB weld do their own version called steel stick, hadn't seen that before. I would imagine they are all very similar. I can certainly recommend the Quiksteel in a silver and black printed tube, that's the only one I have used and it is very good.


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## Devmeister

The running joke is that half the tractors in Kansas are held together with JB weld. The stuff works well. I repaired the tube on my washing machine with it and that’s been years now.

As for the arc of shame…. Never ceases to amaze me! If you ever do a proper fix, I drilled and then tapped the holes. That was easy. Then I used my lathe to machine some bolts out of cast iron which you buy in rod form. The bolts are counter sunk meaning they fit flush within a counter sunk hole. I back cut the bolts about 1.5 mm above the table line. Lock tire them in and the slowly torque them down till the bolt breaks off. Finish with dremel tool, scraper and sandpaper. You will not be able to see repair!!!!!!!!!


----------



## John Hall

JB weld is fine for filling cosmetic holes and dents that are to be painted , but no good for structural repairs


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## TFrench

Had a bit of time today and got the new switch on the meddings. Fired up perfectly. While I was at it I've made a pair of new knurled nuts to hold the pulley cover on. Ready to find its new home! Definitely one of the best featured "lighter" pillar drills I've had my grubby mitts on. Realistically you'd almost never need to move the belt off the middle pulley, it gives such a good range of speeds.


----------



## TFrench

I also did the old machinery shuffle and got the new surface grinder down into its new home the other day. After work today I fitted the levelling feet and got it rough levelled. The level is actually from a Jones & shipman wheel balancing machine, but it's great for rough leveling a machine as it works in both dimensions at the same time!


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## TFrench

Wow. Almost exactly 4 years since I started this thread because I'd bought the big Harrison lathe. I've made a lot of parts on it and learnt a hell of a lot since then! Don't think I ever realised how fascinated (obsessed) I'd get with precision engineering when I bought it. Today was the day I bought it's replacement home. Same trailer, same landrover but much better weather! 
The new one is a graziano sag 14. Italian made, very well specced machine. Metric and imperial gearbox, 2" spindle bore, taper attachment, threading stops, instant forward/reverse with multi plate clutches. The dials are dual metric and imperial by some wizardry - turning the collar changes the gearing so they read correctly. I was blown away when the previous owner showed me! The ways are fully covered so there is minimal wear - everything feels really tight. I do have some light restoration work to do before I move it into place so it will be a while before it's making chips, but I'm really excited to use it in anger.


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## TFrench

Had some time today to start on operation cleanup. Lots of old chips, oil and general gunk. So far I haven't found anything untoward! There is a 4th rod that is quite hard to see in the pictures under the leadscrew that has 4 stops on it. They were seized with dried oil and rust, so I've got them freed off and sliding nicely. There is a lever on the apron that lets you select which stop you want to hit - handy if you're making a batch of parts. 
I'm still really torn on whether to paint it - the paint is really flaky in places but masking it up will be a nightmare  also on the agenda is installing a DRO and fabricating a chip tray. The original design pulled out to the back which won't work in my workshop. Luckily someone has already binned it so I've got a clean slate for designing a new one!
There was a little end float in the leadscrew which I've adjusted up and the clutch drags slightly in neutral so I'll adjust that while I have good access as well.


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## TFrench

Another job I'm currently working on is an absolutely colossal boring head. It's a d'andrea TA220, in case you're interested. I've had a couple of these in the last year and I have a (much) smaller one of my own for my deckels. This is by far the biggest I've seen! I can't actually lift the box on my own with all the parts in it.The taper is ISO 50. The longest bar is 600mm, so in theory you should be able to bore something around 1m diameter. The head itself isn't too bad, but the extension bars were all a bit rusty. I knocked up a nice warm bath of citric acid for them - the "after" picture is after just an hour in soak. It's good stuff!
Just need to do some more cleaning to the head and some repairs to the box and it'll be ready to go.


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## Moriwaki

TFrench said:


> Finally, some progress! Made a decent lid for the collet chuck box (I've added a latch as well since I took the photo)
> 
> 
> Collet chuck box
> I picked up another job lot of tooling for a ridiculous price on ebay. As well as these brilliant old engineers boxes there was a red mechanics topbox full of tooling and a plastic tub with loads of cutters. It then took me a week or so of lunch breaks and odd hours here and there to sort it all out into the proper tooling drawers so I can find everything!
> 
> 
> More tooling!
> 
> We finally got a free afternoon at work and set about making room for the new lathe. First time this area has been tidied out in years! First job was to get the tool cabinets in place at the back - had to remove all the drawers to be able to manhandle the big one into position - its seriously heavy filled up!
> 
> 
> Space!
> 
> To move the lathe we've got a set of machine skates, but they are a bit temperamental - moving over any uneven surface allows them to drop and whatever is on them becomes very unsteady! It's also hard to change direction with them - you need to keep jacking up the machine to adjust the angle of the skate. This is my solution:
> 
> 
> skate boots
> The box drops over the skate, and you can bolt them to the machine. They then pivot on the bolt easily just by tapping with a soft mallet. They also allow the skate to drop by 2" before they come out, so they can go over a lot trickier surfaces. Here they are bolted to the lathe:
> 
> 
> On the move
> Made it a very easy job - 2 pushing the lathe and one tapping the front skates to steer. Easiest machine move we've ever done!
> 
> 
> Eagle has landed!
> It still needs to move back to the wall quite a bit but I still need to finish cleaning it up and swap the motor back to 3 phase. Big step closer to having a man sized lathe though!


Lovely thread btw


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## TFrench

Well it came out pretty well. Included a picture of it next to a (admittedly small) drill press just to give some scale to the thing. What a beast!


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