Tabla de contenidos para December 2023 en Model Engineer & Workshop

The New Forum Readers who use the forum at www.model-engineer.co.uk will be aware that the planned changes have run into a whole range of technical issues. The change in the forum was essential due to the very out of date software the old one was running on. Unfortunately, this very issue has meant the changes have taken far more work to address than was expected. One consequence was the big delay in getting the forum back up; in the end it was decided to go live even though there were many issues still to be sorted, as the delay was becoming just too great. We continue to see improvements, but there remains a long log of outstanding technical issues that is being worked through as a priority. There are other…

SUBJECT INDEX This index is arranged by Subject, listing Articles, Quick tips and letters to Scribe a Line. Column five: C = Construction, P = Process, M = Miscellaneous, Columns three and four, e.g. 299 21 refer to the particular issue and page number. Column six: A = Article, T = Trade, L = Letter, Q = Quick tip, S = Subject. INDEX BY AUTHOR, SUBJECT, ISSUE AND PAGE NUMBER Credits This index compiled by Barry Chamberlain. Supplies of Barry’s computerised version CAHW are now sold out. For information of alternative computer searchable indexes please visit: www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/topic/latest-mew-index/…

My Hobbymat is an overworked wee lathe. I am quite happy parting off with high-speed steel however I have had occasions when some stainless has greedily eaten some of my carefully ground tooling. I chose to invest in the RDG Tools TCT parting tool SLTBN10-02. When I purchased my lathe, I also invested in the Essel Engineering four-way toolpost. This accepts 6mm HSS tooling and if one grinds tools on this and leaves the steel at full height it will be pretty much spot on centre. The RDG parting tool holder is oversize and leaves the tool above centre. As this is the smallest size, the holder has to be reduced. I found that the centre of the tool is level with the top of the lug that clamps in…

Aircraft capable of changing their shape during different flight conditions is proposed as a way of addressing two of the most important challenges for the future of sustainable aviation: weight reduction and increased efficiency. These challenges are being addressed by the NABUCCO research project by Professor Chiara Bisagni from the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology at Politecnico di Milano. This is a new area, different from existing ‘swing wing’ technologies. NABUCCO develops radically new concepts of adaptive composite structures capable of changing their shape by exploiting the phenomenon of structural instability. This will be applied to next-generation aircraft. In aeronautics, structural buckling is generally avoided as it can instantly generate large deformations and even cause a catastrophic collapse. Conversely, NABUCCO no longer sees structural instability as a phenomenon to…

Model Engineer Archive 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. To conclude we thought we would take a retrospective look at something that has long been a bugbear for many hobby engineers – metrication! This article by BK Butler is from volume 138, number 3440, May 5, 1972. It’s fascinating that 75% of industry would change over in three years, but over fifty years later we can still obtain plenty of imperial materials. That’s the final instalment of our archive series, but not the last excerpt from a vintage Model Engineer – in future we hope to produce modern drawings of some of the…

Few people having an interest in model engineering will be unaware of the Universal Pillar Tool (UPT) which was designed and first constructed by George H Thomas (GHT). It is likely that hundreds, and perhaps even thousands, of these machines have been built since the design first appeared in a construction series published in Model Engineer in 1974. The UPT has featured extensively in model engineering exhibitions, some examples featuring exquisite workmanship. Approaching the 50th anniversary of the birth of this classic model engineering tool, it seems appropriate to reacquaint ourselves with this still evolving project The Historical Perspective GHT was a prolific designer and builder of tools designed especially for model engineering. Each of his designs thoroughly serves its intended purpose, the fundamental concepts are sound, versatility is a…

Liberating The Hoard I now had to decide what materials to use from my collection of “hoarded items” that I mentioned in the first words of this article. I’d already concluded that it had to be made from wood and I had accumulated a lot of it over the years. I tend to collect hardwood, rarely saving softwood unless it’s a dense, straight grained specimen. For instance, many years ago I obtained some nice pieces of mahogany from a timber merchant that was selling up and closing, which I’m still slowly using up. Other woods have been salvaged from unwanted items of furniture. Oak can be found in discarded solid-wood kitchen unit doors and I’ve dismantled many of them to accumulate quite a lot of that. Oak is a marvellous…

Get a grip on small workpieces. TIP OF THE MONTH WINNER! This month’s winner is Graham Sherwood of Northwich with a handy solution to holding small objects in a bandsaw. One for bandsaw owners - holding very small items for cutting: I don’t expect this to be an original idea but has saved me a load of time so thought I would pass on. We all know a well set up bandsaw can make a reasonably accurate cut, the issue using one with small parts is usually securely holding small parts for cutting. This idea uses an appropriate work holding device - a lathe chuck in this case - in the saw vice itself. I am working on a job that involves lots of turning then parting off. On smaller…

I was engaged in what started out as a straightforward threading operation on a piece of 6mm diameter mild steel rod. It was not a high tolerance job but an incidental task on a bigger project. The threading was started holding the rod in the lathe, more on this later, to get reasonable concentricity, followed by gripping it in the vice and transferring the die to a die stock. As threading progressed the torque on the die started to cause the rod to slip in the vice: a quick nip up on the vice jaws then - Crack! The job then seemed to free up a bit. So what had happened and why? Split Dies I always purchase split dies as these enable a certain amount of adjustment on the…

Beginners’Workshop GEOMETER details the removing and fitting of some modern locating devices NOT SO MANY years ago a circlip as locating device was something of a rarity, not inspiring full confidence in engineers. Some thought it likely to work loose or jump out of its groove in use, to break from vibration, or soften or distort when subjected to heat-with more or less disastrous results. Some circlips did, in fact, give trouble-from wrong material, wrong application or fitting. But modem examples are among the simplest and most reliable locating devices, if a few simple rules are followed. Circlips, like split pins, are advisedly regarded as expendable items and used only once. Where side thrust is likely to be encountered; they should be of rectangular section, seating properly in accurate squaresided…

In 1931, Fred W. Portass introduced the Adept lathe. This new machine was tiny, barely a foot long, and lacking a moveable saddle. It was about as basic a machine as you could get. But it was a working lathe, and despite its tiny mild-steel spindle running in plain cast-iron it proved surprisingly popular. The cost was low - 12/9d or about 64 pence in 1936. Not a casual purchase then, but within the reach of many ordinary people. In response to demand the Super Adept was released, benefiting from a proper moveable saddle operated by a leadscrew. The main limitation of the lathe was the spindle with a custom taper far smaller than MT0. The Super Adept I bought was mounted on a baseboard, complete with a motor and…