Making a float-making lathe.

Made some other form of traditional fishing tackle.
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Watermole+
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Re: Making a lathe..for making floats!

Post by Watermole+ »

Part 6. Finishing the Tailstock..almost.

Profuse apologies all round for lack of posting of late.
Have not been able to do too much recently, consequently, the project has had to slow down to tick-over. However, it has not stopped altogether & I believe (hope!) that things are on the up again so will try and get a bit more done to it, as-and-when possible, but please note that there may be longer breaks in between now..

Have almost forgotten where we were!
The Tailstock of this mini lathe is now all but complete. Last time, it had been roughly filed out and ready for fitting. The barrel of it was tapped through with a coarse M12 x 1.75 pitch thread in order to take an adjusting sleeve. This sleeve was made by cutting the thread on a piece of stainless bar, then drilling & boring the bar to a good internal 8mm fit. The reason for this is to accept various attachments-yet to be made-to do with float making.

A small hole was drilled into the side of the tailstock, into the threaded bore and a small boss turned and temporarily fixed there by means of a screw. This boss was then carefully welded to the side permanently, the screw withdrawn and the hole drilled and tapped M5 through into the bore. A brass lock screw will go here, when made.

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The hole was not tapped under power, I swiftly add! The tap is held in the drill chuck in order that the thread will be square to the barrel and the chuck was rotated slowly by hand. A similar M5 hole was also drilled & tapped into the base, to accept the main position lock screw. I also drilled an M3 clearance hole, vertically at the back end of the tailstock so that a fixed position screw can lock it down to the bed for repeat ops. The bed is fixed by M3 screws at 1" intervals and the tailstock can now be fixed to any one of these tapped holes.

That just about completes everything on that so it just needs a bit of a clean up with emery strip before painting. I thought it would look better if it was painted black to match the motor casings. Smooth Hammerite is going to be the paint of choice..

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Now it was time to make the small fittings for the tailstock.
The M12 threaded sleeve was turned down on one end on to which, a hand wheel would be pressed on. The wheel was turned from brass with a high zinc content to give a fine finish, with the periphery concave radiused & cut to give grip. Here you see the second side being finish turned and then bored to be a press-fit on the sleeve.

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To make the little locks, I turned the M5 threaded parts and the bosses from brass, then drilled & tapped 8BA threads into their sides. The spacers were from brass tube and the 'ball-ends' were made by drilling & tapping brass beads, everything being joined up with pieces of 8BA studding from cut-down screws. The M3 tailstock lock-down screw was made from ordinary steel.

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..And here are the components. I have assembled & permanently soldered all the lock screw parts together now.

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The next step will be to paint the tailstock and then make the adaptors etc. which fit into the barrel. After that, we come to the tool rest set-up..

Regards to all,

wm+

"Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? Yet one of them shall not fall without your Father knoweth" ..Jesus of Nazareth, King James AV

Estaban

Re: Making a lathe..for making floats!

Post by Estaban »

Brilliant work WM+ the quality and attention to detail is amazing. Did you finish the screw and adjusting wheel with a knurl or by broaching in the manner of making a gear?

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Watermole+
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Re: Making a lathe..for making floats!

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Part 7. The Tailstock complete.

Have finally managed to get this part of it done, although there are still the little float holders, guides and other odds & ends of tooling to make for it. These can be done later on..

In answer to your question Estaban, all the grip 'teeth' on the brass wheel were cut in the same manner as before, i.e. by passing an angled tool over the periphery. I did try using a parallel knurling wheel but the results weren't very good to say the least. Because brass is brittle, the knurling tool tended to crush and break off the top of the 'teeth' and it didn't look very nice. I have devised my own method of indexing direct from the lathe gear wheels so it was in fact quite easy to cut the grip on this occasion;-only two passes of the tool per 'tooth'.
Incidentally, a very sharp High speed steel tool produced an excellent finish on this brass, using coolant; far better than the stellite tool.

Last time, the Tailstock body was ready for painting. I firstly degreased with thinners and put on a thin coat of grey primer; then two light coats of satin black and allowed to dry over several days. By masking off all the screw holes and putting a piece of M5 threaded bar into the side hole, it made it easy to handle for painting.
This is all the parts made thus far put together..

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One of the main functions of the tailstock is to be able to drill, or core out the hole in float bodies and to do this by constantly winding that wheel in-and out would take ages, so here is a way of rapid drilling-without the 'hassle'.
I firstly bought a mini drill chuck from my local hardware shop for holding the small drills needed and this particular chuck is the one is made for the 'Dremel' rotary tool and cost a little over £8. The first step was to make a suitable shaft to attach it to. As far as I could measure, the internal thread of this chuck was a bit of an oddball.. 7mm diameter, but having 40 TPI (threads per inch). I thought it must be 9/32" (0.281") but this was definitely close to 7mm (0.276") in round figures. If somebody knows different, I would be interested to hear, what this thread is.
Be that as it may, I cut a 7mm x 40TPI thread on the end of a piece of 8mm diameter, stainless bar and the chuck fitted perfectly!

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The next step was to drill a 4.3mm hole through the bar, which was as big as I could go to match the chuck end. Now that the chuck could be attached and adjusted to whatever size drill, the next thing was to mill a 3mm slot, 2" long, into the shaft, in order that a pin can travel up-and down in the slot, but prevent the shaft from turning.
I used the lathe to do this for me by firstly setting up the shaft in the toolpost, clocking it up true;-

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..and 'milling' it out with a 3mm slot drill.

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I then turned up a press-fit, brass knob to go on the end of the shaft, to be fixed permanently in position later.
Then a hole was drilled & tapped through the brass thumb wheel and M12 thread, to accept the little guide pin..

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..The screw-in pin was also turned up and here you see the shaft components assembled. The shaft was then cut to length and then the brass knob was pressed on.

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These are most of the components; I have since exchanged the rubber friction washer 'O' rings for fibre washers, which are more durable. This isn't a very good photo as the flash kept flaring off the polished shaft but you can see the general idea now of how it is intended to work..

Image


The tailstock is put into the desired position on the bed and locked down. Then by means of the guided sliding shaft, the drill can be manually pushed into-and withdrawn (for swarf clearance) from the float body by a series of short movements, thus allowing rapid drilling; also, it will be possible to accurately perform repeat drilling ops. to required depth-or through, as the case may be. By means of the sliding shaft holes up to 2" depth can be repeat drilled, or deeper when using the 1" of adjustment of the brass thumbwheel.

Here is the tailstock assembled with the rapid drilling bar & chuck..

Image


The next job will be to make a start on the tool holder..

More next time,

Regards from wm+

"Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? Yet one of them shall not fall without your Father knoweth" ..Jesus of Nazareth, King James AV

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Robbi
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Re: Making a lathe..for making floats!

Post by Robbi »

outstanding !!
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LuckyLuca
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Re: Making a lathe..for making floats!

Post by LuckyLuca »

Astounding!

It's a joy to have a glimpse into the world of a craftsman!
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I knew the pathway like the back of my hand
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Sat by the river and it made me complete.

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GarryProcter
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Re: Making a lathe..for making floats!

Post by GarryProcter »

Wonderful work WM+, can't wait to see the finished lathe and the first few floats you make using it.

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Re: Making a lathe..for making floats!

Post by The Sweetcorn Kid »

As expected from you sir.....first class engineering. :Hat:
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Mark
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Re: Making a lathe..for making floats!

Post by Mark »

Brilliant wm+. :Hat:
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Re: Making a lathe..for making floats!

Post by Beresford »

Fabulous creative workmanship as always.

Perhaps your next project will be to create and market the metalwork components for a Walker style landing net!!
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Re: Making a lathe..for making floats!

Post by Nobby »

That's just lovely to look at....pure art in engineering!


As to the thread, I can only recall that originally Dremels were American....I bought mine in 1988 and it was made in Racine, Wisconsin. Might it be an AF thread?

I'd imaging they're made in China now like everything else... :-(

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