Dore Westbury Mill Restoration

[Canobi]

Hey guys

Being as I haven't been doing anything new or overly intersting of late, I've not posted as I didn't want to bore you all with me repeating tasks of heat blacking the rest of the bolts, followed by short bouts of simple turning to make brass washers. I've have nearly finished all the levers, which again is more of the same as well, though I hit a snag with my alternating colour scheme as the belt tensioner and course feed levers have ended up needing brass knobs, not black ones and I've not been able to find a good match for the existing knobs. I did however find a shop made ball turner on eBay that looks well crafted, so I'm going to have a crack at making them in the near future.

So now that most of the cosmetic work is done, I've started to re-essemble her again and was surprised at how little there is left to do:



I still need to make yet another pair of brass washers for the motor mount castings, I put the bolts in place simply to stop me losing them:


I got bored of making straightforward washers and made a fancy recessed one for fine feed essembly retention bolt, though I had to modify it a a little by turning a .5mm deep boss on the mating face to stop it binding with the casting:

[Canobi]

Hi folks

Sorry for the lack of updates, I got stuck when it came to installing the new quill bearings. Now, I've wanted to add welding to my shop capabilities for a while and a freind loaned me a welder to learn on, so it seemed the perfect excuse to make my own hydrolic workshop press, though due to limited time with the welder, most of my learning was done on the fly while fabricating the press (my press build can be found here: http://www.homemadetools.net/forum/n...op-press-69622).

I now finally got it to the point of being functional and gave it a "stress" test before work yesterday and made no noise at all during the test, so I was rather happy with how well it turned out, considering:


It needs a little refinement here and there but I can now at least install the quill bearings, so expect more restoration updates soon

[Canobi]

[Canobi]

Hi guys

Having pressed the races into the quill, I gave the bearings a bath in some white spirits to remove the shipping grease:


I then made some calculations for bearing grease quantity, in my case .2oz per bearing:



It was after packing them and getting near to fully assembling it that I noticed a major issue. It seems I overlooked a critical dimension when choosing the taper roller bearings. While the outer races are a perfect match depth wise, the inner races aren't and both protrude enough that I can't fit the second rear spindle nut to lock off the preload nut and they also prevents the brass bearing cover from doing it's job:



A few solutions came to mind after some ponderings and while they would work, I'd rather not have to modify the quill or it's components. Paradoxlocally, I'd prefer to stick to taper roller bearings after seeing the condition the old deep grooves were in and I found myself in a catch 22 situation for a little while.

That was until a DW Mk1 quill came up for auction on ebay a few days ago, I rarely do auction bidding but on occasion, it can pay off. What got my attention is that the quill is only half finished, the outside has been ground and the rack has been cut (luckily, the two jobs I can't do myself) but it still requires the keyway and bearing seats to be machined.

I do wonder sometimes, a more perfect solution to my predicament couldn't have presented itself if it had tried, it was the only item the seller had for sale and I was the only bidder, I even waited till the last 10 seconds to confirm my bid, just to be sure but in this case however, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth and just call it fate.

The new quill should arrive in the next couple days so I'll be back again with more soon...

[olderdan]

Hi Canobi, you must have a guardian angel to find that quill on ebay. Had you not been so lucky could something like this have been an option.

It is the end float adjustment on my SB lathe and has worked fine for over 60 years, it is a split threaded nut.

[Canobi]

That's a great idea actually, good call olderdan

[Canobi]

Hi guys


Well, thankfully the new quill arrived in good form. I am however facing another interesting challenge as I found that it was too big for my lathe's fixed steady.

Line boring sprang to mind but the only bar I have that's suitable to make the boring bar out of has been tagged for a required future tool project.

I'm not keen on the amount of stick out there is but without any alternative to fall back on, I'm going to risk it for a biscuit.

Given the circumstances, I felt using the 4 jaw would provide a better grip and it also allowed me to dial it to within a few microns, so at least I know the bearing seats will be on centre if all goes well:


It'll be light cuts all the way so it's going to take a fair bit of time to finish both sides, wish me luck.....

[olderdan]

Thats the trouble with small lathes, we often have to push them beyond their comfort zone. I have had to do a few set ups like yours and with patience it should be ok. Frequent checks that nothing has moved and at times have had to resort to holding a piece of wood against the part to damp out vibration and chatter. May the force be with you.

[Canobi]

Thanks olderdan, your encouragement is much appreciated and may the force be with us always

[Canobi]

Hi again folks


Well, I decided I'm not going to attempt to work on the quill myself as I was just too dodged out by such a sketchy setup.

Instead, I've contacted another machinist with a bigger lathe and he has initially agreed to help out with it, though I'm still in talks with him but a solution looks to be forthcoming at least.


Meantime, I thought I'd see about fabricobbling a bigger fixed steady out of stuff I have laying about my workshop but given a lack of raw material variety turn to, I'm playing the repurposing game, though in all honesty, its one of my favourites any way.


To that end, I hoiked off one of the flange mounts from a damaged reduction gearbox. I chose the flang mount as it has some interesting features I should be able to make use of, once I've opened up the bore, which handily is only a little smaller than the quill itself.

Once I got the thing off, I mounted it to my faceplate and started boring it out:






Having some larger diameter round stock in my collection, I made the bore big enough to take those as well and I ended up removing the webbing completely from between all four protrusions.

Afterwhich I faced it to give two referance surfaces and removed it from the faceplate:


I then made use of the flange mount holes in each of the four protrusions by tapping them as it meant it could be firmly affixed the other way round, without risk of warping the workpiece as there was a fair gap between the holes I'd used previously and the faceplate:



With that job done, I set it up to fly cut the flanges flat spot on it's outside edge as it will give me a way to mount it at 90° to the bed:



Thats as far as I've got so far, it was late by the time I finished it and I'm still working out some of the details as I'm limited by a short swing cross slide and nonfunctional mill but I did at least find a piece of square that would be a suitable foot to mount the thing to the ways.

Anyhoo, have a great Christmas one and all and I'll see y'all round.

Until then, stay safe, stay happy, and keep those chips flyin' (= [ >*