Projects

This page contains a potpourri of things created in my shop.. My collection consists mostly of tooling used in clock repair, model railroading, and miscellaneous interests. I do most of my own repair work at my business (unrelated to the machining industry) as well as minor machining projects for others. This can be a problem as it gets in the way of things I would like to do for myself. It is hard to say no. Someday I may learn how.

This is a collet closer which I made for my Maximat 7. It is constructed from a standard Morse to Jacobs adaptor. It is made to fit ER-11 collets. ER collets are the double-split style. Thus one collet will fit a small range of sizes. As a result fewer collets are needed. A drawbar was constructed from 3/8" all thread rod. Since the collet holder made for the Maximat 7 is no longer available this has been a pretty good substitute.

This is the WR Smith tool rest featured in HSM some time ago. It is an excellent design as are all of Mr. Smith's designs. Get his books and videos. They are a wealth of information. His web site is http://www......... It is designed to be used with hand gravers on the Sherline Lathe in the same manner gravers are used on a watchmaker's lathe.

This is a little wobbler built from a plan downloaded from the internet. Unfortunately I don't recall the designer and am unable to give proper credit. If I relocate the information I will give the proper credit. Note the delrin piston. Works well as the piston is relatively friction free. Nifty little project to occupy a couple of evenings.

This is a WW Collet Adaptor made from a standard Morse to Jacobs drill adaptor. I have made many specialized holders from these drill adaptors. They are easily machined and the Morse taper is already finished. I made it to fit my Maxmat 7. It was a nice idea but pretty useless as my collets fit my Sherline and watchmaker's lathe. The Maximat 7 is over-kill. It was fun tho.

This is the system I use when testing for runout after straightening a bent arbor. This particular wheel is from a Ansonia movement whose mainspring exploded. The dial test indicator is mounted on the lathe bed with a magnetic stand..

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.

Ephesians 2: 8,9

The Problem:

This is a warbled out worm grear from an O scale locomotive. The problem is obvious.

Boring the ID is the next step. For small holes I use old twist drills for boring bars. They are small, cheap, easy to grind and work very well..

An important step is to turn a Go-No-Go gage. It is a blank turned to a proper diameter to check for fit. This works well since measureing small holes, even with small hole gages, is difficult for me. I have scrapped more parts by giving it that extra little cut because it seems like the thing to do.

Not much to explain here. The blank is being parted off and will pretty much finish the blank..

The most difficult part of the process is making the cutter. I am using a hand graver on a watchmaker's lathe to turn the profile for the new gear. I use the old gear to check the profile. I turn and compare by eye and turn some more until I am satisfied with the profile. This could also be done on the Sherline lathe using the W.R. Smith steady rest shown in a photo above. Do not use a 3-jaw chuck for obvious reasons.

The cutter is milled in half to make something like a "D" drill. This makes a single point cutter. The cutter is made from W-1 drill rod. After hardening and tempering the cutter is complete.

We are ready to begin cutting the gear. In this photo I am using the original gear to set the depth and angle of the cut.

We are now cutting the teeth on the blank. If everything goes well we will have a set of full teeth. If we end up with a half tooth we are in serious trouble.

Luck's been with us. All the teeth look. A final visual inspection shows that this is a completed worm gear.

This is a wheel and gear puller made from a piece of UniStrut channel. UniStrut is an industrial material used by many electricians for industrial type installations. The puller is patterned after the NWSL puller. The big difference is the open bottom into which, as seen in the photo, plates of different size slots can be incorporated for various size shafts.

This photo shows the puller in action. In addition to being very usefull it is very stout. I made a winged brass screw to prevent marring the shaft being pressed. For more force a 10-32 hex cap screw can be used with an allen wrench.

What is pulled off must be pressed on again. This is a small homemade arbor press. Unfortunately I cannot take credit for it It was made by a friend, Caroll Weis. Caroll was one of the pioneers scratchbuilding HOn3 locomotives in the early 1930's.

The table that comes with my Grizzly is flimsy as well as inconvenient. I seldom use it. I do not have use for so large a table so when the need arose for knocking the corners off some small pieces I made a mini table. The size is the size of the scrap 1/4 inch aluminum I had. It is held in place with a small clamp. No screws or bolts to fiddle with.

This is the underside of the mini table. A pocket was milled in the unerside of the mini table to fit over the little plate surrounding the blade. The hole in the mini table was in the piece of scrap but it has come in handy for hanging on peg board.

This is a nifty little device that allows one to center in a four jaw anything that needs to be drilled, bored or reamed. I have several drawings of such a device but they required a little more effort to make. This system is the easiest and quickest one to make that I have ever see. Someone on one of the Yahoo groups posted the instructions. Whom ever you are contact me so I can credit you.

Parts which protrude from the chuck are easily centerd with a dial test indicator but centering an object shown in the photo is another problem. If the drilling and boring were done on a mill the center would be located with a traditional center finder. In this case a centering wiggler works on the lathe and is quick and quite accurate.