Table of contents for November 2025 in Model Engineer & Workshop

NEW AUTHOR PACK AVAILABLE Now that the magazine has started to settle into its new format, I have revised the guidance for contributors. If you would like a copy, drop me an email at meweditor@mortons.co.uk. Looking through the articles lined up for coming issues of ME&W and weighing these against what readers would like to see, I have some excellent articles in the pipeline, but I would like to have more constructional articles and short series ready for the medium and long term. In particular, I need more articles that focus on practical machining and making to meet the demand from readers. Whilst articles on tooling and models are welcome, so are those that focus on a single component or process. Don't be shy of offering a potential article, if…

NASA Selects 2025 Class of Astronaut Candidates NASA's 10 new astronaut candidates were introduced Monday following a competitive selection process of more than 8,000 applicants. The class now will complete nearly two years of training before becoming eligible for flight assignments supporting future science and exploration missions to low Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars. Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy welcomed the 2025 astronaut candidate class during a ceremony at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The agency's 24th astronaut class reported for duty at NASA Johnson in mid-September and immediately began their training. Their curriculum includes instruction and skills development for complex operations aboard the International Space Station, Artemis missions to the Moon, and beyond. Specifically, training includes robotics, land and water survival, geology, foreign language, space medicine…

This article is further toolmaking and leads on from that for the manufacture of a chaser gauge (ME&W issues 4768 and 4769). That gauge being for ascertaining the amount of grinding required to correctly re-sharpen a set of Coventry die head chasers. Now we come to the actual jig for doing just that. These jigs are a combination of two arrangements, one part is to sharpen the ‘throat’ of a set of chasers – this is the part that does the actual cutting of a thread. The other is to reduce the height of the angled face at the point where the ‘throat’ runs out. When a set has been sharpened a little the cutting edge gets to be above what on a lathe is ‘centre height’ and ceases to…

Like many other mechanical devices, pumps have become largely of established design according to particular functions -a state which is likely to continue, except for detail alterations arising either from changes in layout, or from introduction of new materials. Always keeping in mind the necessity to limit complication and expense, the reason why such and such a pump is preferred, or is more practical in particular circumstances, is generally obvious when conditions are analysed. For raising a fluid like water from a shallow well, the ordinary hand-operated “lift” pump. A, can be employed. The rising pipe has a flange on which the body of the pump is bolted, the joint washer between them, usually of pliable leather, in-Eorporating a flap valve. The pump plunger comprises an inverted cup leather or…

I have a Myford Super Seven lathe in my workshop, and I love the lathe very much. Some projects in my workshop require me to drill work held in the head-stock chuck using drills of various sizes held in a tailstock chuck. When doing this operation, I have often found the action of controlling the tailstock movement to be tiresome. With the normal tailstock system, the pressure on the drill is controlled by a handwheel on the tailstock which extends or contracts the tailstock barrel as the handwheel is turned. This gives very limited feel to the drilling process giving a danger of large drills jamming in the work and also creating a danger of broken drill bits when drilling fine holes. I have often looked at the lever operated…

In the previous part I described the machining of the larger bits of what, on the original drawings, Arnold Throp calls the ‘air pump’. However, I didn't give any explanation of the name or of its function; what follows is largely taken from pages 73 and 74 of ref. 1. Almost all compound steam engines exhaust to a partial vacuum created by condensing the steam from the low-pressure cylinder and this adds something like 12 to 14 psi to the total pressure drop across the engine. To quote Throp directly “By far the majority of engines had jet condensers in which the steam meets a flow of cooling water sprayed in through nozzles, mixes with it to be condensed and flows away back to the source.” The condenser is either followed…

2025 EVERY SUNDAY Warrington MES Running day. Contact: contact@wdmes.org.uk Wakefield SMEE Public running day. Contact Denis Halstead 01924 457690 OCTOBER 12 Cardiff MES Public Running Day, Heath Park, 13:00-17:00. 17 Rochdale SMEE Annual General Meeting. Castleton Community Centre, 19:00. See www.facebook.com/RochdaleModelEngineers 19 Guildford MES Public open day, Stoke Park. Contact: Mike Sleigh, pr@gmes.org.uk or see www.gmes.org.uk 19 Tiverton & District MES Running day at Worthy Moor Track. www.tivertonmodelengineering.org.uk/contact 21 Nottingham SMEE Bits and Pieces Evening. nsmee.org.uk/events/ 21 Rugby Model Engineering Society Public Running, refreshments, free parking - 13.00 to 16.00 - rugbymes.co.uk. 29 Rugby Model Engineering Society Public Running, refreshments, free parking - 13.00 to 16.00 - rugbymes.co.uk. 30 Guildford MES Public open day, Stoke Park. Contact: Mike Sleigh, pr@gmes.org.uk or see www.gmes.org.uk NOVEMBER 1 Bradford MES BMES Annual Exhibition…

This year Britain marks 200 years of the modern railway, and the Royal Mail has issued a striking new set of ten stamps celebrating the rich heritage of British steam locomotives and the pioneering development of the UK's railway network. Six of the stamps will celebrate British steam locomotives and the development of UK railways. A further four, presented in a miniature sheet, mark the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, in 1825. The stamps and a range of collectible products are available to pre-order at www.royalmail.com/steamlocomotives and by telephone on 03457 641641. The main set features six iconic locomotives that helped to shape the history of rail travel in Britain: Locomotion No. 1, Rocket, City of Truro, Mallard, Duchess of Hamilton, and Evening Star,…

The next stage of the platework is the cab. There are eleven laser cut parts as tabulated, plus some hand cut bits and pieces and some angle needed. On this assembly, again, twist tabs on tabs are used for holding prior to soldering. The cab front and rear views are shown in fig.67. Start with the cab front panel. This has a cutout for the boiler but will probably need some fettling to make it fit, and the cutouts for the two boiler top bushes need to be put in. When fitted it's hard to resist putting the backhead cover in place and admiring it all, photo 140. Fit the steam manifold, make a little cradle for it from 0.7mm or 0.9mm brass and tack rivet and soft solder it…

I am still suffering under the misapprehension that the next magazine will be published a fortnight after the last. Then I feel something is lacking for the next two weeks and hoping to hear the sound of the letterbox. Oh, woe is me! In this issue: radio, a ‘trolley acc’, the Mighty Hood, walking the dog, a high point, Tapas fugit? and a well-travelled train. St Albans & District Model Engineering Society Newsletter, prints a very attractive picture of A1X ‘Terrier’, Newport, with matching coaches, a fine example of railway preservation. The Society's new containers have been moved with the help of a JCB telehandler. (A sort of crane-cum-forklift truck, M'Lud). Mike gave a talk on the BBC Microbit, programmed in Python. Don't Panic – the seemingly endless complaints by the…

There are three drain cocks either side of the BR Standard Engines and I am sure that other people have asked ‘why?’, apart from me when I was a learner. The thing was, that cylinder cocks were steam operated so everything had to be steam tight. Well, if you hadn't noticed, the centre one is much smaller than the ones at each end and this is because the centre one just acts as a steam chest drain, so all it has in there is a ball. Photograph 193 shows the drain cocks on my 4MT and photo 194 shows the set quite clearly. Machining of the lost wax castings took quite a lot of thinking about as nothing was cored out. The main thing was to bore the little cylinders…

Easier Collet Closing This tip for modifying Myford collet nose pieces comes from John Bauer, who states it appeared in Model Engineer many years ago, but we agree that it bears repeating (and could apply to other difficult to tighten items): As hands age tightening the Myford collets becomes increasingly fraught. By modifying the nose piece as shown a suitable C-spanner can be applied, in this case one of 53-55 mm size. A 1/4 inch 4-flute milling cutter fed carefully and without cutting oil was used to make the recesses in 0.035 inch depth increments. The recesses need to be sized to accommodate the C-spanner to be used. In this case the end mill was brought to the outer ring in the centre of the nose piece to an eventual…

Having made a boring bar setting tool with an imperial micrometer, I needed a metric version. I then came up with an idea to use a redundant digital calliper with some of the measuring parts removed and a base made to support it on the top of the boring bar, photo 1. This makes it easy to adjust the cutter height to the calliper. The boring bar and the problematic cutter is shown in photo 2. The redundant digital calliper is shown in photo 3 before the modifications are made. You will need to remove the cover sticker on the back of the read head photo 4, to get at the screws that hold the head to the main body. Photograph 5 shows these screws and photo 6 shows the…

Having designed and built the comparator we now come to its application. Two examples are given. Before looking at these examples some general principles of usage, for any application, are stated. The first is cleanliness. Making measurements as small as a micron or two requires everything involved in the measurement process to be scrupulously clean. This includes wiping any preservative oil from the base of the comparator, the item being measured, and the surface plate. The surface plate must be flat to within at least the level of accuracy sought. Determining surface plate flatness to a within a micron or so is likely beyond the capability of even a well-equipped home workshop. A practical mitigation to this problem is to limit movement on the surface plate of the comparator and…