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24.01.2022 Okay, last few pictures of the end results of splitting all those parting tool holders in half on the Marvel Saw. These are for the larger 16mm and 20mm parting tools and are made from 1 1/2 square x 80mm S1214 (yes I know I’m mixing measurement systems but the imperial stock sizes are more convenient in this case). To cut the 1 1/4 square blocks for the smaller tool holders the two 1/2 rods are exchanged for 5/8 ones which positions the smaller block central on the cutting line. The fixture will take either 5x 1.500 blocks or 6x 1.250 blocks without the need for a spacer. @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia

24.01.2022 Does anyone recognize what lathe or machine this three point steady is from? A customer dropped in with it today but it’s not one I’ve come across before. It’s an unusual design and looks like it might be off a slanted bed as it’s all on an angle. I guess the angled bolt slot would pull the shoulder up hard against the side of a flat machine way when the bolt is tightened @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia

22.01.2022 Thought while I had it set up I might as well shoot a quick video of the step clamp hack/tip from the previous post. I’d like to be able to say I’ve been using this tip for years but the lightbulb moment only happened yesterday when I needed to clamp and unclamp a bunch of parts for a video . See, you never stop learning every day. Unfortunately it’s taken me 40 years to twig this one, hope it’s useful to others

22.01.2022 Parcel day! Package from my sister in the UK arrived today and contained two very cool books I bought on eBay several weeks ago - Modern Power Generators printed circa 1908 - also included was a bunch of back issues of The Model Engineer and Model Engineers Workshop magazines for the MSMEE and last but definitely not least the latest bunch of parts for my Thunderbird 2 model The books have beautiful fold out coloured pages showing the insides of several types of engines.... I already had two other volumes in this series which are Modern Machine Tools Vol 1&2 but didn’t know the Power Generator ones existed until a visit to @vespertools cheers Chris The mags are back issues we had to get for the library for the Melbourne Society of Model and Experimental Engineers. Overseas subscriptions were stopped during the first wave of COVID-19 so this was the only way of getting the missing issues. My wife and boys ordered the Thunderbird 2 model for my birthday last year and D’Agostini/Modelspace send out a package of parts every two months, there’s 12 lots in all and this is number 7 so I’m just over halfway now. This package is all the parts for automatically raising and lowering the brass telescopic legs. A pleasant day of assembling ahead @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia

20.01.2022 Had to get a bit creative to clamp a small engine block down to the mill table yesterday I could only get to one side of the block with the T slots and regular clamps but there were a couple of holes in the ends I could use. An off-cut of 25mm dia bar turned down for a loose fit in the hole, a Starrett #190 screw jack held upside down with the V base accessory uppermost supporting the other end of the offcut, a regular step clamp and a bit of RHS (rectangular hollow section to increase the height of the step block got it done. @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia

20.01.2022 Bit of a montage of making the T nuts for the Marvel Saw. The HSS roughing mill is 50mm(2) diameter and taking a 12mm(1/2) cut. These things just eat metal, with minimal force on the mill I’ve found they work best and smoothest by taking a nearly full width cut. They don’t seem to like taking a smaller cut off one side so much.

19.01.2022 The other half of the foldout pages. My personal favorite is the modern automobile at the end. The amount of minute detail packed into each page really is extraordinary, the colours are stunning too. Question - Does anybody with book binding/restoration experience know what sort of glue should be used to repair some of the foldouts that have come unstuck?

19.01.2022 Video of all the foldout pages from the books in the previous post. It does go for a while as there were quite a few foldouts and I was trying to be as careful as possible to avoid damaging anything. I had to split it in to the two volumes to fit it on IGTV anyway. I figured I’d video the whole lot rather than leave stuff out and then people can skip through if they wish.

17.01.2022 There’s always one or two that have to screw it up for everyone else (first photo ) All set to start slicing and dicing parting tool holders in half on the Marvel Saw using the new fixture I’ve been working on Taken a while to get to this stage but these should be much quicker/easier to make now with the new jigs and gang mill. @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia

16.01.2022 Acute Tool Sharpener - Mounting The Table To A 6 Grinder. I had some issues with this transferring over automatically from my Instagram account yesterday so here’s a re-post The wheel is a 150mm (6) diameter 180 grit CBN (Cubic Boron Nitride) wheel made by Vicmarc machinery with a 40mm wide face and a 25mm wide abrasive strip on the outboard side. Wheels are available from Carroll’s Woodcraft supplies in Vic and Timberbits in NSW as well as other woodworking suppliers in Oz.

15.01.2022 Book Week - Day 3 A mate gave me this great book showing the complete range of Huron (French) milling machines and accessories a few years ago. It’s packed with great photos and drawings showing these excellent machines and what they can be used for. They certainly make a compelling case for its advantages over a mill with the standard knee type configuration If only it had a quill feed as well , they did make a sensitive drilling attachment that mounted directly in the... NT40 taper of the head though. No date in the book but I imagine it was 1960s or early 70s. I’m still a bit puzzled as to what the link was with a French machinery maker and the cartoon pictures of the Native American on some of the information pages and the one on the front cover If anyone wants additional pictures of the available accessories just let me know and I’ll do an additional post to show some more, they made quite a range of stuff for them back in the day. @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia See more

15.01.2022 A few bits of video to accompany the previous post about making the fixture for the Marvel Saw.

14.01.2022 Well the trimming saw works well on a bit aluminium angle I reckon I’ll replace the 1400 motor with a 2800rpm one when I modify it for an abrasive cutoff wheel though. Very smooth action with the ball slides on the table and the over-centre toggle clamp works a treat.

13.01.2022 About time for a haircut now the lockdown’s over Happy Halloween!! #cousinit @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia

13.01.2022 Just been up the street to check the cylindrical grinder at Ben and John’s gearbox rebuilders after a few followers mentioned the three point steady in the last post was most likely off a cyl grinder. Yep it’s pretty clear that’s what it was off but as to what make is anyone’s guess. The grinder up the street is an old Russian one in its twilight years. Thanks for the response everybody @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia

13.01.2022 To say I was happy with the results of the new fixture would be an understatement . The cuts were very clean and square and no problems at all with the blade tracking off. Cycle time was around five minutes which was fine as I could do other work in between, the saw has an adjustable auto cutoff bar on the side. The blade is a 4/6 tooth variable pitch type.

12.01.2022 Toolsday Morning! New tool in the shop I ordered a custom live/rotating centre a while ago from Piper Tools in Sydney and it got delivered to the shop a few days ago. This is one of their 9000 series centres for slender work, usually the 5MT version has a 14mm dia cone on the end but I have other centers I can use for bigger work so I asked if they could supply it with an 8mm dia end instead. I’ve been using a 3MT version for many years and been really happy with that as m...y go-to centre, although it will be nice not to have to stuff around with MT sleeves anymore. I’ll be able to take the smaller one home now to use in the Colchester. Very nicely made guys, thanks @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia See more

12.01.2022 A few pics of the construction of the fixture I’ve been making for the Marvel Saw. The two bosses on the underside in the third picture align the fixture with the T slots on the left hand side of the saw. I could only just squeeze the base plate in on it’s edge under the mill but clearance is clearance The slot in the base was cut with a 6 x 1/8 slitting saw. The 25mm plate was cut in one pass but with hindsight it might have been better to do in two or more cuts as it wandered a bit as it fed across, not a disaster though as the bandsaw blade just clears. @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia

12.01.2022 Cobbled together a bunch of disparate parts today to create a Frankensteins Monster fly cutter. I was in a hurry so it’s definitely not pretty but it works fine and got the job done so that’s the main thing Usually I use a Diamond Tool Holder on it’s side (2nd photo) for fly cutting but because I had to extend the cutter out further than normal I was getting some bad chatter (3rd photo) and it was never going to do the job. The 8 disc was a big lump of misery metal ...(it was a bitch to machine, hence the name ) I had lying around in the offcuts section. It chipped like cast iron but was way tougher so possibly cast steel? I’m only guessing at that. I had a few rough turned BT40 blanks so I turned a shoulder on one of those to fit the bored hole through the disc and tapped an M16 thread in the end to hold the disc on with a big washer. The tool bit is an old brazed tip 3/8 lathe tool and its held in one of the 3/8 square broached inserts from my Acute Tool Sharpener system. The broached insert sits in a 16mm reamed hole and is held in place with a couple of grub screws. What else could I call this thing but Victor @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia See more

12.01.2022 It’s amazing how much grunt you can get from a small electric motor when you gear it down enough Out at Scoresby Steam Museum today for a Christmas breakup for the Melbourne Society of Model and Experimental Engineers. This was my first day out since lockdown started in March, we haven’t been able to hold a meeting all year due to COVID until now. A right angle gear box off the motor then drives a 60:1 worm and wheel which turns over the marine triple expansion steam engine that weighs many tons.

12.01.2022 Cutting the slits in a 6 insert for the Diecraft chuck on the Marvel Saw. I had the stop for the auto shut off set so it cut to the same depth on both slits. The Schaublin dividing head has a 24 hole quick index plate so once the first cut was done the chuck was rotated 90 degrees for the second one. A few squirts of WD40 were used as cutting fluid.

12.01.2022 Thought I might do a book week starting today and show a few of the more interesting books I have on the shelf. These are some pics from the two circa 1908 volumes of Modern Power Generators I received from the UK yesterday. The foldout sections are amazing and beautifully coloured. It’s difficult to show them properly in a still photo so I’ve videoed the pullout pages and I’ll put up another post showing them later. Some very nice plates in the books showing all sorts o...f types of engines, power plants and powered vehicles. The White Steam Car and the Electromobile electric car from 110 years ago () were neat. There’s a couple of our club members that are in the process of rebuilding a White Steam Car and they’ve brought bits of the steam generator in for show and tell over the years. Now to see what I can find for tomorrow’s book exhibit @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia See more

10.01.2022 Well it took three goes but I finally got a Douglas Compositors Trimming Saws that won’t need too much work to modify it for my needs These were made for cutting lead type for printers back before it all went computerized. The idea is to replace the cutting blade with a 6 cutoff grinding wheel so I can chop up HSS on a compound angle for the Diamond Tool Holders and cut small all-thread etc to length. Currently I cut the HSS and Crobalt on my Hercus tool and cutter grind...er so it’s never available for tool sharpening. This is the third one of these I’ve acquired, the first one only had the table and base , the second one had a motor and stuff but still no ball guides for the table movement and the fence was all seized up but this one, ala Goldilocks, is juuust right Now I just need to get rid of the crappy ones Douglas who made the saws in Sydney also made the well known shapers that are still kicking about in reasonable numbers in Oz. @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia See more

10.01.2022 Treasure acquisition day! A few bits and bobs I picked up last week. The 6 3 jaw self centering chuck is a Taylor brand and despite it looking a bit grotty and being about 50 years old looks to have been hardly used as there’s no wear marks or damage on it. They were an extremely expensive chuck back in their day. The scroll is an inverted cone rather than the usual flat scroll. Not sure how common these are in the USA but they come up reasonably often in the UK and Oz, a...lthough usually missing the other set of jaws like most second hand chucks I also have a couple of four jaw ones and an 8 two jaw. As far as I know they only made self centering chucks not independents. The T slot setup blocks are made by Eclipse (UK) and must have been ex army equipment as they have the defense forces arrow stamp on them. A few of my machines are ex army and they all have the arrow insignia stamped somewhere. The little milling cutters are pretty cute, there’s a few different radii and they are stamped with the radius in mm, the biggest being 1.2mm #12 and going down to .45mm #4.5 The bore is a real handy 7.3mm though @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia See more

10.01.2022 This was the job I needed the 6 aluminium adapter for in the previous post. The gearbox and diff is off a British Cooper racing car from the mid 60s that was driven by Jackie Stewart (very famous name in motor racing) and is being restored by Dutton Motorsport in Melbourne. The replacement clutch plate was tight on the spline and originally it was thought the splines were the wrong angle. After blackening the shaft with a texta marker to see where it was tight and shining a ...torch at the back it was clear it was just a matter of taking a skim off the ID. Certainly a lot quicker and simpler than grinding up a tool and having to re-cut the splines in the plate with the slotting head in the mill I forgot to take a picture of the back side of the plate but I only had a 2.5mm wide x 70mm dia shoulder to hang on to The Diecraft chuck adapter was bored out to take the curved 30mm deep boss and 70mm dia shoulder and the OD reduced so it sat flat on the inner section of the plate. I did consider drilling and tapping a couple of holes in the adapter so I could screw through the holes in the plate as a safety on the interrupted cut but ended up just taking some very light cuts with a HSS boring tool and there were no problems. The last picture of Jackie Stewart is off the net, I assume the car he’s sitting in is the same one that Dutton is working on. @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia See more

10.01.2022 A bit of video from the previous post cutting the bottom of the shanks. Long time followers would have seen this setup before but thought it was worth showing again for later arrivals Cycle time is about 30 seconds to do the tops and 35-40 seconds to cut the bottoms due to the heavier cut, the jig rotates so tools can be loaded and unloaded from the opposite station during cutting. There’s a different top section for machining the tool bit seats and cycle time for those i...s around 15-20 seconds (5 seconds cutting time). Depth of cut might seem light but it is an interrupted cut as only one tooth is in contact with the workpiece at a time and I’d rather not put unnecessary strain and hammer on a 50 year old machine and risk trashing the bearings. The machine is a Nichols (USA) air/oil operated semi auto mill. See more

09.01.2022 Been a busy couple of weeks, hence the lack of posting Testing out the amount of flexure we’re getting on the adapters for the new Flexi-Chuck this morning and comparing them with the original pattern Diecraft Chuck. Pretty damn happy with it to be honest as we’re getting more movement than the same size Diecraft chuck adapter, even though these ones are 7075 high tensile aluminium. These are the three sizes of consumable adapter (2, 3, 4 / 50, 75, 100mm) that will be avai...lable to fit the chuck body. The 2nd shot of the 50mm adapter has the locking ring fitted so it can be used on a mill, rotab etc without the adapter coming undone. The locking ring works on the same principal as the chuck locking ring on some Schaublin lathes. It’s taken way longer than expected but we’re almost there now @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia See more

09.01.2022 The little known Marvel universal dividing attachment in use on the saw. Very handy for all those times you have to bandsaw a helix I had a bunch of aluminium inserts for the Diecraft chuck made up a while ago but never got around to splitting them. I needed a large 6 insert for a job so this was one way of splitting it and less of a pain than using a big slitting saw on the mill. I’ll rig up a better system when I come to do the rest but this sketchy setup did for now.... In my next post I’ll show cross sections of a Schaublin dividing head, Pratt Burnerd four jaw and Diecraft chuck all cut in half . @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia See more

09.01.2022 I reckon I’ve experienced all of these apart from the last one An American customer sent me this cartoon from the Model Engineer magazine a few years ago and I’ve had it pinned up in the shop ever since. Ring any bells? @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia

08.01.2022 Book week - Day 2 Sovereigns As Turners, printed in 1985 in Zurich and as far as I know this was a limited print run of 1500 copies, this is #1492. I bought this new around 1998 at the Australian Ornamental Turners Group seminar weekend which I was a member of at the time. The book is in German and English and details the strong link between the European aristocracy and ornamental turning from the 1600s to the 1800s. In those days it was the nobility doing the actual turni...ng as they were the only ones who could afford the astronomical cost of a well equipped lathe, they did have a servant to power the treadle of course Most of the examples shown were from Germany and Austria but turning was popular across all the royal courts of Europe and the UK. They certainly went for ostentatiousness in everything rather than simplicity or practicality. The lathe in picture 4 would be a nightmare to keep clean and there’s catch points everywhere you look Hard to even see a lathe under all that decoration @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia

08.01.2022 Came across this old Canedy-Otto catalog on my bookshelf the other day and thought it was worth a share. Love the embossing and gold on the front cover Some pretty cool old iron in there, especially like the portable crane. @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia

06.01.2022 What can we squeeze on the mill today? This was actually a job from the other week that required an unorthodox setup. Long explanation ahead!! you have been warned The job was to re-drill and tap a bunch of M5 holes up to M6. The 4x discs were 600mm dia 304 stainless and each had a circle of 12 tapped holes that needed modifying (48x in all). The only way to secure it to the 12 rotary table was through four small holes so I bolted a piece of yellow tongue chipboard floo...ring to the rotary table and screwed the discs to that with pan head wood screws after aligning the holes with the mill ways. The rotary table was centralized with the mill spindle and the DRO zeroed so I had something to come back to each time a new disc was mounted. The central hole in the disc was a blind one, I couldn’t use a centre spigot mounted to the rotab so I had to turn an alignment piece to a sliding fit on the disc bore out of a bit of brass and held it in the collet chuck to centralize the disc to the rotab. Before screwing down the disc to the chipboard the original ring of holes had to be aligned with the X axis so two shoulder bolts with 20mm dia bushes fitted to them were screwed into two opposing M5 tapped holes and a straight edge used to align the two 20mm bushes with a piece of pipe bolted upright to the bed, it’s circumference was set 10mm (half the diameter of the bush) forward of the centre line of the disc and bushes. The pipe was set at the right position with the Haimer dial gauge running along the straight edge until there was no movement/angle. Once the disc was centralized on the rotab and the opposing holes were aligned with the X axis the disc was screwed down to the chip board and the brass alignment piece lifted clear, the table was moved to the pitch circle diameter and the holes were opened up to M6 tapping size with a carbide endmill (a drill would have wandered on the tapped holes). The rotab had a 36 position spring detent so the 12 holes were easy to locate by indexing on every third position. After opening them all up an M6 Guhring spiral flute tap was used to re-tap the holes Took a few hours to set it all up but all went well after that. @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia See more

06.01.2022 Handy and cheap tip to stop the clamp bar dropping down when machining multiple parts whilst using step block clamps. Cut off a suitable bit of old rubber heater hose and place it over the threaded stud. The hose will compress down to give a fair bit of movement and you can have a few set lengths to cover a bigger range. It also keeps the clamp and T nut from moving about between changing parts. @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia

05.01.2022 IT’S ALIVE!! My creation in action . I had to remove .009 from the top so I took a three thou cut first to see how it went then removed the other six thou on the second pass. The speed was 212rpm and the feed was 1.2 a minute with no sign of chatter on the finished surface.

04.01.2022 Pulled the Schaublin 53’s high speed head apart the other week as something didn’t feel right with the quill. I was worried it might be the clock spring return about to break which is an absolute pain to replace (been there done that ). After pulling it all apart and checking the spring it all seemed fine and I never did find a definitive cause of the problem, perhaps just a chip caught on the rack teeth A tip for anyone who has to pull one of these things apart. The quill... handle shaft is locked on to the gear pinion with a taper so to pull it apart you have to loosen the cap head on the end, give it a wack to release the taper and then you can remove the shaft and pull the rest of it apart. The taper is so you can set the spring tension on the return spring correctly and then the taper locks it in place. All good now and back in action @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia See more

03.01.2022 Finished!! Just got done machining a batch of 230 left hand Diamond Tool Holder bodies. Once they go around in the rumbler for a few hours they’ll be ready for heat treat on Monday I was pretty happy with the cutter life, It took 3 edges of the double sided inserts on the Sumitomo face-mill to get through about 650 passes on the shanks of between 1-1.5mm doc and 1x 12mm five flute Garr carbide end-mill (40527) to cut all 230 square seats for the tool bits, the end-mill wa...s still in pretty good condition by the finish as you can see in the picture. The same 4140 high tensile steel lost wax casting does for three different holder sizes (12mm,9.5mm and 8mm tool heights). The top surface is cut first on the entire batch which gives the datum to cut the shoulder and once that’s done the bottom of the shank is cut to produce the different sizes. The largest is cut once and the medium and smallest cut with 2 and 3 subsequent passes of about 1.5mm (.060). Ended up with 110x 12mm, 60x 9.5mm and 60x 8mm tools with no losses @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia See more

03.01.2022 Some more pictures from the Huron Milling Machine book I showed in the last post. I like the small quill for drilling that’s mounted in the NT40 taper, a project for the Schaublin 53 head one of these days For all the accessories they offered I’ve only ever seen Hurons with the standard 45 degree knuckle head but there must be some well equipped machines still out there. @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia

02.01.2022 Good grief! These things seem to multiply faster than Tribbles, had no idea I had that many different types In response to @caspiancmonster and @thanos_vgenis posts here’s my collection, mine’s more of a working relationship than a love affair though Some I use all the time whilst others I didn’t even realize I had till I went looking. Figured it would be easier to identify what they all were in the video than list them here. If anybody has a machine that takes the F38 Schaublin collets let me know as I no longer have the old 122 pegboard auto turret lathe they went in.

01.01.2022 Got stage 7 finished on the Thunderbird 2 kit last night Not my usual sort of engineering post but I was pretty impressed with the ingenuity they used to operate the telescopic legs function . Long extension springs go down inside the brass sections of the legs and are attached to nylon racks actuated by the gear wheels in the centre of the body. A motor gear box at the front drives the gears via long shafts. A gearbox at the front and back also operate the locking system... to keep the cargo pod in place or release it, and two limit switches turn the motor off when the legs are fully retracted or extended. Top marks for whoever came up with the engineering for this thing. Hats off to ya, you did a fucking good job of it When stage 8 arrives in a few months I’ll be able to operate the telescopic legs under power. @ Moorabbin, Victoria, Australia See more