Table of contents for September 2023 in Model Engineer & Workshop

Back in the Workshop It seems like forever, but at last my workshop is fully functional (although it seems to be untidy already). Of course as soon as my lathes were properly set up, a friend called round with a ‘little job’. In this case modifying the clamp washer of a chop saw for a skim off the spigot, so that it can fit 25mm bore saws instead of 1” ones; apparently the cost difference was nearly four times as much for the imperial ones! Admittedly most of my recent workshop activity has involved 3D printing, however judging by the amount of workshop projects I see that use 3D printing along with other more traditional tools, it has become mainstream now. I recently decided to ‘upgrade'some old microphones by converting…

Some time ago, a friend died and left me a small legacy. It seemed appropriate to spend the money on something connected with Model Engineering, so a Repton radius turning attachment was purchased, since it was bound to be needed at some future time. From time to time, it has. The Repton radius turning attachment is shown in photo 1. The normally straight handle has been bent upwards to clear the locking handle on the front toolpost. If a radius turning tool is to produce a truly spherical surface, whether convex or concave, it needs to be set so that it rotates about the centre line of the workpiece. I could not properly understand and get on with the instructions provided, to centre the tool on the workpiece. Sometimes, setting…

Readers! We want to hear from you! Drop us a line sharing your advice, questions or opinions. Why not send us a picture of your latest workshop creation, or that strange tool you found in a boot sale? Email your contributions to meweditor@mortons.co.uk. CNC RouterFeedback– 1 In the last issue John MacPhee asked about the pros and cons of important machinery direct from China. Dear Neil, I bought one direct from China many years ago, the company do not exist now, or rather they have probably rebranded. A couple of points I would like to make, the first may be obvious. My unit was around £600 and I got hit with £100 import tax. Second, be prepared to replace the electronics / control unit. If / when it fails it…

The rotary table is a most useful accessory for the vertical mill. Larger tables (6” or 8” in diameter) generally feature a No. 2 or No. 3 Morse Taper centre. Smaller tables (3” or 4”) often just have a cylindrical central bore. Big is not necessarily better; smaller tables are better suited to the clamping of small components such as eccentric rods or lifting links, photo 1. Larger tables are ideal for milling coupling rod ends; they can also tackle the milling of an expansion link clamped to a plate bolted to the rotary table. It's a good idea to check the accuracy of your table, by which I mean does the table rotate truly about the centre, or is there some eccentricity? I used a 6” rotary table, badged…

I am a retired engineer from the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. However, my experience has always been in management and design in the mining industry and I have only acquired a lathe and mill since retirement and enjoy metalwork and restoration of old cars. After purchasing my Bridgeport mill, I also purchased a Vertex indexing head which I have used for cutting splines and gears etc. However, at one stage I used it to mill a semicircle on the mill. Disaster! I now know that the Vertex indexing head is really only for indexing and meant to be locked when actually machining. When rotating it while milling, I stripped the threads that the worm engages with. They are only really slots cut into the cast iron drum. Fortunately, I…

These articles by Geometer(Ian Bradley) were written about half a century ago. While they contain much good advice, they also contain references to things that maybe out of date or describe practices or materials that we would not use today either because much better ways are available of for safety reasons. These articles are offered for their historic interest and because they may inspire more modern approaches as well as reminding us how our hobby was practiced in the past.…

Alocal builder who knows that I have a lathe, asked me to make him a new plain bearing bush for a rather old power tool that he had. The tool had become unusable because the bearing was completely worn out. In order to bore the replacement bush to be a nice sliding fit with the shaft of the tool, using my lathe, I wondered if I could use my milling machine boring head in the lathe tailstock, instead of boring from the cross slide. My boring head has a 2MT morse taper, the same taper as in my lathe barrel. I did this and it worked very well, although I was aware that simply tapping the boring head into the tailstock barrel with a rubber hammer was not really a…

I like my cup of well-earned coffee made in a cafetiere and have to take my share of the domestic chores associated with it. I had dismantled the cafetiere, photo 1, to give the parts a good clean and poured the washing up water down the sink drain. When I came to reassemble the cafetiere I found that the bottom nut that holds the filter on to the plunger was missing. No major panic: empty the cupboard under the sink, unscrew the trap on the drain and retrieve the nut. Panic: it was not there. It must have got carried outside with the flow of water. I was not going to put my hand down the outside drain in the vain hope of it being there. Having a lathe in…

Much ado is made of setting lathes level to persuade them to turn true with no taper along the job. But the term “level” is a misnomer and refers simply to using an expensive precision level to make sure both ends of the bed are aligned in the same flat plane, within tenths of a thou per foot, regardless of whether truly level overall or not. It is indeed possible, and quite easy, to set a lathe up to turn parallel, photo 1, without using a precision level at all. First you need a firm base to work from. After the rebuild and wide-guide conversion of our Myford ML7,the time came to move it from the overhaul bench to its permanent home. But, oh dear, that bench was a flexible…

The Airbrush Company has been holding courses since 2006. They are often told that there are very few companies who are offering air brush courses, so we have students travelling from all over the UK, and even further afield! The courses are for those who are struggling with their new airbrush, those who want to progress their current skills, or those who simply want to try airbrushing before they commit to investing in equipment. They are ideal for anyone who wants to get started in air brushing, or who has problems getting started with their They. We offer airbrush training taught by expert tutors on nearly every application, from beginners to advanced. These include custom painting, art & graphics, model painting and even cake decorating! Students have the chance to…

Readers Tips TIP OF THE MONTH WINNER! This month's winneris Derek Spedding who found supplied fuel was too chunky for his steam wagon. Another nice example of traditional skills matched with 3D printing as well. At a rally recently in place of the usual coal allowance we were issued with briquettes, a variety called Newburn, which I found to light easily, burn cleanly, and give plenty of heat. The only problem was that the briquettes were too big formy 4½” Foden Wagon. For the duration of the show I coped with that by smashing the briquettes up with a club hammer, but that was a messy business with a good deal of waste, and a better method was required. We have £30 in gift vouchers courtesy of engineering suppliers Chester…

Each of the cylindrical bearing housings held two ball races. Each housing would then be clamped in a steel plate. The two steel plates being mounted at right angles to each other. The mesh of the bevels was intended to be adjusted by sliding the cassette in its clamp. Photograph 15 shows a single steel plate already bored to take the two cassettes, but not yet separated into the two separate plates that would be needed. The slitting saw mounted on the vertical spindle of the mill has cut horizontal slots that were intended to provide the clamping arrangement. With the clamping arms drilled and tapped M4,the plates were separated, and the edges cleaned up. A pair of spacers was machinedto locate the motor mounting plate. The plates were all…

My bench grinder rest utilises the cross-slide from an early Unimat lathe, described in MEW231. In addition to the fine screw feeds towards and across the wheel provided by the slide, it also has two perpendicular tilt axes, height adjustment, and it can be positioned in front of, or perpendicular to, the wheel, photo 1. Like most home projects, it has continued to evolve. Major improvements include the use of indexable handles instead of fixed ones, and the fabrication of a new base to allow the table to be lowered further to accommodate bulky tools held in newly-acquired ER collets. The three M10 threaded pillars that support the table have been replaced with longer ones, and the original knurled aluminium adjusting nuts have been replaced with steel versions whose extra…

Many readers will be more familiar with Neville Shute Norway, photo1, by his penname of Nevil Shute, under which he was a novelist. He wrote many highly successful books, some of which were turned into movies, and example being On the Beach, an apocalyptic story of the aftermath of a third world war. His writing brought him wealth to the extent that he abandoned the UK and moved to Melbourne to escape what he felt was an oppressive tax burden. But there was far more to his life than just his novels, he was an accomplished engineer – and a model engineer. Borne in 1899, in the First World War he served in the Suffolk Regiment, having been unable to join the Royal Flying Corps – he felt this was…

Filengrène was designed by a teacher (MrAndré Meyer) specialising in gear machining. There is a video description ofthe software, ref 1 at the end of the article. The aim of the software is to design any type of gear (with all the possible refinements) and to machine them with plain milling cutters on a five axis CNC. You pay only if you want your machine to be able to use the software results with your machine. The interest is that any type of gear can be machined with plain cutters, so low tooling cost, but of course the cutting time is longer than the one of dedicated gear cutting machines. This is convenient for one off jobs or small batches for gears having a big module. The interest for model…

To celebrate 125 years of Model Engineer magazine and the Society of Model and Experimental Engineers, each issue in 2023 features fascinating historic content from Model Engineer relevant to workshops, tools or techniques. These pages are ‘Workshop Notes’ articles from earlier Model Engineers. The first, from Volume 9, No 128 – October 9 1903, features an offsetable tailstock for taper turning and an alternative to an emery wheel. The second is from Volume L (50) No. 1184 – January 3 1924. I can recommend the modified D-bit for flat bottomed holes and countersinking tip, but the bell chuck could present a hazard with all the protruding screws – if you copy this, use a suitable guard.…