Table of contents for June 2024 in Model Engineer & Workshop

Ten years and several chairs later… This morning I realised that the last issue of Model Engineers’ Workshop, number 339, marked the tenth anniversary of my taking up the editorial chair. In fact, I've worn out at two office chairs and I'm on my third, so they seem to have a life expectancy of about five years. I should say, having a proper ‘twenty-four-hour’ rated chair is essential., as is regularly stretching the legs. Taking a look at the contents of my first issue, number 215, May 2014, it's very similar balance of articles to that we see now. There are three ‘constructional’ articles, from a simple lathe stop (see the archive pages in this issue) to an ambitious raising block for the Warco VMC milling machine, via a between…

I have an 8068-series professional digital jewellery scale, which needs to be used on a flat and horizontal surface for accurate weighing, this weighs up to 50g/0.001g, however it's not always possible to find such a surface and if you do have one it may not be in the most convenient place, I therefore decided to make this adjustable platform, photo 1. And it can be used just about anywhere. I made it to be able to fit my Duratool D03409 500g/0.01g digital weighing scale, and it will also accommodate my old PS-200B 200g/0.1g digital weighing scale. I haven't included any drawings with dimensions, as these can be chosen for individual user's needs, but it is 138 x 116 x 24mm, which was governed by the piece of 2mm thick…

The story of Harry Grindell Matthews, photo 1, is possibly one of the strangest stories in engineering. Born in 1880, he became an electronic engineer in the early days of telephony and radio. Around the run of the century he served in the South African Constabulary and was twice wounded in the second Boer War. When he returned to Britain, he embarked on along career of invention that was characterised by a curious mixture of practical successes and outlandish claims. Right from the start it appeared that he courted controversy, if not actually practising deception. His 1911 ‘Aerophone’ was claimed to transmit messages between the ground and an aeroplane up to two miles away. Some have claimed this was the first ‘mobile phone’. A demonstration to the admiralty was organised,…

BEGINNERS WORKSHOP 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 may be 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. RESEMBLING single roller chains in main features, double and triple roller types- sometimes “duplex” and “triplex” chains-meet design needs for greater strength and larger bearing surfaces. At the same time such chains maintain compact drives for the alternative solution, a single roller chain of larger size…

I own a 30mm travel DTI (dial test indicator), photo 1, and discovered that I used it frequently, not for the extended travel, but for the long rod that clears the chuck jaws when working near these jaws. So I came up with the idea of using a standard 10mm travel DTI with a spacer, giving the needed long rod, photo 2. The spacer is a 20mm long 5mm diameter cold drawn steel rod with a M2.5 threaded end to fit the DTI stem, and a M2.5 threaded bore on the other end to fit the DTI tip. Note that it's not wise to use a DTI for measuring, unless a calibration curve has been made using gauge blocks, as the DTI throw is not exactly proportional to the needle…

This project was slowly developing over a number of years, it was prompted by the realisation that I was slowly accumulating a collection of unserviceable blunt milling cutters; in fact I was rapidly approaching the point where I would have more blunt cutters than sharp. As part of my apprentice training, I'd spent a short time on the cutter grinding section where my father was the charge hand, I can well remember him teaching me how to sharpen drills by hand, a skill that I still have to this day, and of him passing on a good understanding of the cutter grinding process. I reasoned that I should be able sharpen my own cutters, if only I had a cutter grinder. Finance and lack of workshop space ruled out buying…

TIP OF THE MONTH WINNER! Ball Ends for Chuck Keys This month's winner is Glyn Davies from Leeds, who recommends a way of making your chuck keys more pleasant to use. Make lathe chuck keys easier on the hands by adding balls to the ends of the cross bar. A Google search for polished mild steel balls results in balls of 12, 16 and 19mm diameters available in the UK and at modest cost. The photo shows a selection of keys with 19 and 16mm balls. I cut a short length of 22mm copper plumbing pipe, annealed it, and used it as a sleeve to hold the balls in the lathe chuck for drilling. I found it better to drill just over halfway through the ball with a spotting drill…

There have been a number of published methods of providing a means of installing or removing heavy lathe chucks and face pates from rails attached to the overhead providing one or two directions of travel and often incorporating a powered cable winch as the lifting medium, another option is a commercial jib crane that can be bolted to the lathe tool post or alternatively on a mill table via the Tee slots. If there is reasonable overhead height and the lathe is positioned parallel and close to a wall the following method is an alternative worth considering, needing only two attachment points and a sturdy wall. In my workshop the large (16”swing x 60”bed) lathe's accessories all weigh between 45 and 85lbs and there isn't a safe or easy way…

Free hobbing is a technique for generating matching worms and wheels without having any advanced dividing equipment. I have used it to make both a tiny 1” diameter pair for a small dividing head and a2” diameter pair for a rotary table. The basic concept is very simple, a cutter is made in the form of a screw thread to match the worm gear, cutting teeth are shaped around it, and it is used to ‘drive’ theblank for the wheel, cutting the teeth in the process. This is generally achieved by holding the hobbing cutter in a lathe chuck, while mounting the gear blank horizontally on a spindle on the lathe's cross-slide. Inpractice there areseveral simple steps that can be taken to ensure success: Make sure the blank for the…

ER collets are a good way to hold material for turning on the minilathe especially if it is important to preserve concentricity when items are removed and then returned to the lathes for more machining. Sometime after purchasing the minilathe I bought an ER32 collet chuck mounted on an MT2 taper, photo1. This could be mounted in the lathe spindle using an MT2-MT3 adapter sleeve. This worked really well, and it was ideal when it was important to preserve concentricity. It is very useful for gear cutting because I can turn a gear blank on the lathe and then transfer it directly to my rotary table on the mill for cutting the teeth. The downside to the ER32 chuck on a morse taper is that the length of the work…

Iturned sixty late last year and my three daughters gave me an Ender 3 v2 3D printer. After theinitial setup and breaking in it has become a muchused tool. As part of the learning curve, I drew simple parts in Freecad for printing but also made sure that they are something practical too. I made two angle gauges for use in setting the angle of the compound slide on my lathe, photos 1 and 2. The first is 30 degrees for single point thread cutting. The second is 14.477 degrees the sine of which is .25. The reason for this is to achieve finer adjustment of the micrometer dial on the compound slide. The smallest increment on the micrometer is .025mm so for each increment I remove .05 mm in…

We recently moved house and I was forced to put my tools and machines into store while the new garage is converted it into my next man cave. Once the chandeliers and marble floor are finally in place the tools will be unearthed and my wombling can start again. Meanwhile, I searched around for a simple project to keep the creative neurons buzzing. Our local bookshop had the answer:a Meccano kit of the iconic Lancaster bomber - one of a series of metal aircraft models produced by the Imperial War Museums,photo 1. The Lancaster is the most challenging of all, comprising 389 pieces of sheet metal, nuts and bolts, packedina glossy box that includes pictorial instructions, a spanner and screwd river, photo 2. With a recommended age range of 14+…

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. Thread Chasers Dear Neil, no doubt you've had several responses to the enquiry from Neil Bromilow about thread chasers. Chasers weren't only used for finishing off threads but sometimes to cut them. My great uncle Andrew Wild of Ashton-Under-Lyme worked in a brass foundry. He and colleagues used chasers to cut screw threads on brass. They did this by eye and hand. With the workpiece turning in a lathe they'd run the chaser along the piece to cut a perfect thread. They probably had a tool rest…

Many readers and forum members remember the late John Stevenson. As well as being a contributor to MEW, John was known for his larger-than life presence on the Model Engineer forum and his willingness to advise on practical issues and often offer practical help. Funded by many donations in his memory, the Stevenson Cup was first awarded in 2018. The cup is engraved “John Stevenson, 1948 – 2017. Remembered by his many friends” with “Awarded for Excellence in Practical and Useful Workshop Equipment” on the plinth. The John Stevenson Trophy is presented for just that, a well-made and usable piece of tooling, a modification to a machine or an accessory for a tool where the fact it works well is more important than making it look good. Unlike judged trophies,…