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Hi folks For those in the UK (or those thinking of visiting the UK!) I thought it would be nice to bang the drum for our Museum - the Anson, at the back on Poynton to the SW of Stockport which itself lies just SW of Manchester. We are on an old (closed 1930s) colliery site, very near Hazel...

Hi Folks Someone gave me a (very) small lathe and as is the way with me at the moment, because it is utterly off the critical path, I have become interested in it. There are no dials at all at the moment, and it seems the cross and top slide are 24tpi. This does not make for a nice division...

Hi folks I have just made a jaw for a small 4-jaw lathe chuck which was missing one. I'm rather pleased with myself - it is the most accurate bit of milling I have done at home, on a very home-made machine. But - it is soft - mild steel. I'd like to harden it, and I have some Kasenit which...

Hi folks This came my way recently - found in a scrap bin at a college. I wonder if anyone knows who made it, or anything about it? Thanks Mark

I just cast some odds and ends using a bunch of cut up chrome-plated brass bathroom fittings. Someone present at the event (something public at a museum) remarked that he had done something similar, and the resulting metal was rock hard. I had a scratch at my results, and indeed, they seemed...

Hi folks I just bought most of a 'Stent' type T&C grinder from ebay, very cheap. It seems to have been worked on by different people - some of it is quite nice, some is very rough indeed! A couple of questions, to anyone who has made one of these or uses one: This slides on pairs of 3/4" rod...

hi folks A friend of mine has been dealing with her late Dad's estate; he was a wild hoarder of engineering paraphernalia, and she's been doing a really good job (with some help :)) of identifying things and finding new homes - keeping as much out of the skip as possible. And there has been a...

Hi folks Inspired by our friend on the 'bench grinders' thread, I have been digging into a pile of induction motors I was given to sort out and sell for a charity I support. There are a couple of nice old Brook Gryphon jobs, all the way from Huddersfield, which are 1/4hp 8 pole 710-ish rpm...

hi Folks I have been thinking about compound gear trains, and trying to get close to a decimal target value (eg, 1:1.2104114 etc etc). I used to know enough to program this into something like Matlab and rank order the estimates based on error magnitude...but that was in a former life when I...

hi folks I am doing OK (I think!) in slowly getting my head around the maths of the relationship between bed travel, workpiece rotation, gear OD and desired helix angle when cutting helical gears. These will be full-size gears. I know there are several very neat methods for making model ones...

Hi Folks Somehow I missed the 'Secret Life of Machines' programmes 30 years ago - I think they broadcast at a time I had no telly. So I only just discovered Tim Hunkin, just in time for a bunch of new videos on making things, on youtube. If you like engineering (probable, since you're here)...

Hi folks I was given some belts in various grit sizes which would be handy on my linisher - except they are about twice as long as I need. I wonder if anyone has found a way to join lengths into loops - some of those I have (in the correct lengths) appear to be joined with something like...

Hi folks I like tool modifications, for the sake of it really. My Boxford (South Bend 9" clone for US readers) uses a 127/100 compound gear to cut metric threads on an 8tpi leadscrew. Original ones of these come up on ebay fairly regularly, but can get quite expensive if a couple of people...

Hi folks This 8" chuck came my way, and I stuck it on my small lathe. I've been finding myself doing a lot of foreigners in work due to being able to hold stuff in a big chuck - and to some extent I can now stop presuming on my bosses understanding nature and bring some of that stuff home...

Hi folks An antique engine museum where I do some volunteering has just acquired one of these machines. Here's some pictures of someone else's: https://insta-stalker.com/post/BtTiw_hgxg0/ I know this is a bit big for a model engineering forum, but I thought someone might be able to point me...

Hi folks The Bridgeport vertical mill I get to do some of my foreigners on has a problem with the RH longitudinal feed handle. One gives it a small twist to make it engage - sometimes it does, mostly it doesn't, and if the gib is at all tight it definitely doesn't. The one at the LH end of...

Not sure where to put this on the forum - hope here is OK. I have a very odd job where (for reasons of access and disassembly) I think I need to make a circlip. It will locate a 52mm OD bearing axially, and a 10-tooth 50mm OD pinion has to pass through it on assembly and disassembly. I think...

Hi all I need to mill some splines in a bar, which means hitting it dead centre - slot drill coming down vertically, bar horizontal underneath. I have a cheap digi-vernier set up as a DRO, so I suppose I can use the Rizla method, work out where both sizes of the bar are with a plain mandrel of...

Hi folks I recently bought a cheap (£35-ish) R8 4-insert 50mm face cutter, and I've been playing with it on the Bridgeport at work. I bought a cheap one as I reckon I've more chance of smashing up the tips by doing something daft, than wearing them out doing appropriate things lots of times at...

Hi folks At the weekend I made some brass, with my foundry mate. The good bit was realising that since UK law has changed on using lead for wheel-balancing weights, most of them are made of zinc. I have been collecting ones found in the road as I cycle to and from work for some time, and my...