Recent content by Drawfiler

Lathes with the feed shaft to the rear are pretty rare so this should help narrow things down. The last lathe like this that I saw was in the maintenance shop at a steam engine site and was over 100 years old

I would be ready to make scrap! Making these on a miller is a compromise but you can get acceptable results, have a look at Machinery’s handbook and Ivan Laws book on gear cutting. Basically you turn a cone to the angle of the top of the teeth, set the dividing head to the angle of the root of...

Another solution would be to make, grind or buy a suitable endmill and mill the rack by using x axis feed, the cutter is a simple V shape ground to the pressure angle of the gears.

I also agree the problem is with the dividing system, you may not have the book for the rotary table so start by finding the ratio, the simplest way is to just count the turns of the handle for one turn of the table. I have seen tables 90:1, 60:1 so get this sorted, do the calculation fore...

You make no mention of how you are controlling the number of teeth on each gear, are you using a dividing head? I am with Jasonb, the problem is not with the blank size or cutter, you will get some form of gear with the wrong number cutter but/the right dp, to get so many teeth on the .375”...

Martin this is a most stressful time for you and but I offer advice based on personal experience, I have helped clear 3 workshops for family and close friends in the last couple of years. I dealt with this by advertising the larger pieces on suitable websites and dealing with the responders...

I glue the polishing cloth to a wooden board, wet and dry in grades down to about 800 grade and then use emery cloth for the last bit, I rub in the same direction for each grade. final finish is with Brilliant Polish also used with a piece of cloth on a board but finally by hand. if the job is...

I have heard of people who can remetal your old shells here in the UK, this may be an option.

Brass is a mixture not a genuine alloy, ie the crystals of zinc and copper are discrete and not combined, when subjected to a suitable environment the zinc dissolves leaving a copper honeycomb which is structurally weak and leads to component failure. The other problem is stress corrosion when...

I have been through all of this on two mills, I took advice from Machine Dro and they told me to go for magnetic scales as they have less customer problems with those than the glass ones. The control boxes are mostly made in China and seem to work well. In my experience the digital vernier...

Hi Bosworth Another welcome to you, I am not far away, near Lichfield with a well equipped workshop and happy to help if you need to use my specialist kit - grinders, hobbers etc or I can have a chat by mail or on the phone. Enjoy the hobby

if you are worried about metal gears being too strong to act as a safety device in case of a smash up, you could incorporate a small shear pin between the two gears, .062” dia would probably be big enough

These are made in plastic to deaden noise and vibration and work OK a until the day of the inevitable smash up when using a large cutter. I have made replacements in both metal and Acetal (Delrin) with good results so message me if I can help

Wet liner engines have been around for a long time so this is a problem with your setup, my contact in the UK who prepares competition wet liner engines uses Locktite 572 for this job as it the one they recommend,,I think your problem starts with ultrasonic cleaning, try putting a piece if CI in...

I take your point about backlash so it should be OK. The worms would be better milled rather than screwcut, with a 135 to rack cutter,,it all depends on the kit you have.