SHED MATTERS 2

[Stanley]

Here's my cheat, a 7BA bolt cut off and Loctited into the valve block. Sometimes we have to cut our losses.



Time I fastened the hammer down onto the temporary base. First the anvil. 3/4" Brass round head Number 10 3/4" woodscrews. The colour is because they are old stock.



Then the standard on its base, same screws.



I need to drill the hole through the standard for the cross shaft that carries the operating handle and the link and yoke connecting it to the valve. Lots of sophisticated measures can be used. I opted for punching a mark in the centre of the boss on each side, and poking a 1/8" drill through as a pilot for the 3/16" hole I need for the shaft using the DeWalt drill.



I drilled each side separately and then poked the drill straight through to check the holes line up. It was OK.



Then I drilled it 3/16" for the shaft following the two pilot holes. Notice the piston ring on the drill. Handy tip, if you do that and adjust the orientation so that the piston rod wanders from one end to the other and doesn't head for one end or the other you can be sure that the drill is level.



Here's the result, the shaft fits and is level but a bit tight, there is obviously a tiny amount of aberration in the coincidence of the two holes.



So I popped a 3/16" reamer through and cleaned the holes up. The shaft now fits and is a nice running fit, it's turning freely. That is quite enough for this morning, I didn't get in the shed until after 8AM. Nice result.... we have moved forwards.

[Stanley]

I've decided to go here today. I have to fasten the gland block to the cylinder and then make and fit the gland itself.



I've decided that the best way to get the holes I will need for the studs and fastenings are best marked in line by making a template that registers with the cylinder bore and with the gland housing itself by using the 1/2" bore that accepts the ram. As this is concentric with the register, theoretically this ensures a fit. That's the theory and it's the way I am going to go. I have scribed the PCD for the bolt circle.



Into the front room and Johnny's lathe. Set up for marking the bolt holes with a centre drill and get on with it. By the way, I only need to mark five of the holes as that's what the drawing calls for.



Then under the drill press and drill the holes 7BA clearance.



I marked the template with a centre line through what would have been the sixth hole and lined that up with the centre line of the face on the cylinder. Cramped it up and marked the tapping holes using the 7BA clearance drill.



Now I need to line the template up with the gland block using the 1/2" hole. I can't have anything interfering with the cramp so I used my 1/2" standard.



Here we are at closing time. I think I have got the marking right but there is only one test, when I come to fitting. I can see some enlarging of the clearance holes on the horizon but that's for tomorrow....
I am also giving serious consideration to upgrading to 6BA. I'm very sensitive about 7BA!

[Stanley]

Not a pretty sight! But Elfin Safety will be pleased....



I decided to go with 7BA because there is very little space on the flange on the gland for the bolt heads so this is a 2mm drill....



Then some careful tapping using fingers only! Not too bad because these are through holes and only 1/8" to cut.



Then I found the bolts and tried them. I put them in a separate plastic bag! Saves tipping everything out and searching each time.



Then I fastened the gland body to the cylinder and marked the face of it through the threaded holes with a scribe. However, when I looked at my marks I wasn't satisfied, and there was another small matter, the two flanges should total 1/4" but they are a sixteenth more so I decided to skim the face to clean out my bum markings and get a clean start at the right thickness.



That was when I ran into trouble.... Do you remember me saying this casting had a bad chill in it? I knocked the edge off my cutter straight away. I only have one carbide cutter but here it is. That cured it, I got two good cuts across the face.



Here's the result, it's a good face and more square and the right thickness. I blued it up, bolted it onto the cylinder again and made sure the faces squared with each other.



I marked the fresh blue with the scriber through the threaded holes and got good marks, I put a punch mark in each.



Then under the pillar drill with a 2.7mm drill. That was enough for this morning...... I'll drill it and have a trial fit with the ram installed tomorrow.

[Stanley]

Been held up a bit this morning, I've been watching THIS Doubleboost video of the two engines I made for Debs and Sarah mounted on their new mahogany plinths and running together.

[Stanley]

Nice easy start to the morning.... I set the gland body up yesterday and we have the hole locations clearly marked. There's an old Jewish saying "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans!". I drilled three of the clearance holes OK. The correct clearance size is 2.6mm for 7BA but I am using 2.7mm to give me some leeway, I knew I was going to need it. I started the 4th hole and hit a problem. Remember the chills in this casting? I hit one with the drill and of course it immediately destroyed the cutting edge. No choice, I had to keep sharpening the drill and going back in until in the end brute force won through but at the cost of a slightly enlarged and no doubt out-of-position hole. I re-sharpened the drill again and did the 5th hole.



Then I went for a trial fit..... It took me the thick end of half an hour to get the first 4 bolts engaged in the thread. Here I am spending another 15 minutes trying to engage the last one. It was almost there but I could see I was running into danger of damaged threads, so I gave up, took the bolts out and poked a 1/8" drill through all five holes. This will give me a bit more wriggle room and I am pretty certain I can get all five engaged. I may get the Dremel out and grind flats for the bolt heads as they haven't a flat landing yet.



A bit of lathe work for a change! I need the non ferocious gland for the body. I took the big 3 jaw off and put the smaller 4 jaw SC chuck on, it's a better match for the part. First thing to do is get a flat face on each side. Interesting thing is that the slug is described in the parts list as gun-metal. They speak with forked tongue, it's definitely copper and so is a bit sticky to turn and prone to gall if you don't have a sharp tool.



I changed the jaws for the next stage. Using John's pushing tool to square it up.



Here we are at closing time. Ready to start serious cutting. A fiddly start to the morning but things could have been a lot worse. No cock-ups and we have made progress. That's how we like it!

[Stanley]

I started the morning by re-sharpening my favourite HSS tool, copper is funny stuff! Here you see proof of that and that it indeed copper. Horrible stringy swarf but you just have to put up with it.



I won't bore you with the details but here we are after some careful measuring and turning, we have our blank gland!



I'd scribed my PCD on the gland and marked out the four holes by hand, no need to go to great lengths dividing it because these holes are being transferred straight to the casting and have to be right. Here I am set up under the pillar drill and drilling both gland and casting 2mm which is the tapping size for the dreaded 7BA.



Then I opened up the clearance holes to 2.9mm, a bit bigger than recommended but my usual fault in these matters is to fit too close. I might be learning at last!



Here we are at knocking off time. Notice that I have put a witness mark on the casting and the gland, it only fits one way. I'll show you tomorrow but the tapping holes have followed the casting exactly, they interfere with the body a touch as they emerge on the other side but that's OK.
I know I'm slow, but that was a good hour and a half, once more progress without mistakes!

[Stanley]

First job was to tap the holes for the studs that hold the gland on.



All four successfully tapped and the seats for the bolt heads on the other flange cleaned up with the Dremel. Notice how the tapping holes for the gland studs interfered with the casting slightly.



The gland is fitted with its studs and nuts, next job is to drill and tap the holes for the studs that secure the lid. I have no way of holding the lid in place securely and at the same time get under the pillar drill so I took the high risk route of grabbing it like this and drilling just two opposing holes by hand with the De Walt drill. I shall fit these two studs and nuts and that will enable me to drill the others in the right place under the pillar drill.



Entirely predictable, I broke the drill on the second hole! I had a moment of panic as I assumed it had broken in the hole but when I had a look it had broken because as it emerged from the flange it was interfered with by the body of the casting and it was this deflection that had broken the end off. The tapping hole itself is clear. That was a let off!



I tapped the two holes, fingers only and being very careful!



I fitted the lid. The far stud isn't short of thread, I just haven't screwed it in far enough.



Set up under the drill ready to go. I've run out of 2mm drills so I shall have to order some. Luckily I have my number drills so a No. 47 will do nicely! Very careful pecking and frequent blowing out the CI dust with compressed air. A godsend!



Closing time. I am ready to tap the other four holes. One moment of doubt when I realised that instead of 8 x 3/8" 7BA studs I only had six. Then I realised that I had already used the other two to fix the valve rod gland so that's OK!
Slow and careful again but we haven't done too badly. Must go and order some small metric drills!

[Stanley]

Straight into to tapping the four remaining holes. Fingers only and great care! Then put the tapping tackle away. The bench gets a bit crowded!



The lid fits nicely with all the nuts finger tight and the register fully engaged in the bore.



Time for a bit of attention on the standard because the next job is to fit the cylinder but while I was taking it off the base I remembered that the flats on the bolt heads on one side were fouling on the casting so my first job was to take a bit more off so the heads have plenty of room.



Time spent sharpening cutters is never wasted. Keith Rucker's 'lost art'. Not in this shed!



Blued up and marked and under the drill press. I had a moment's doubt when I realised that both sets of holes were 3.3mm clearance for 5BA but a quick check of the drawing reassured me, the fixings are nuts and bolts so that's all right!



Knocking off time. I am ready now to bolt the cylinder on the standard but before that I have to do a bit of work on the gland body, fit it to the cylinder and when I have it fixed I can mark the standard for the two bolts that attach it to the standard as well. But that's for tomorrow. I didn't get in the shed until after 8AM and I'm satisfied with the morning's work. Onward and upwards!

[Stanley]

Remember the drills I ordered? They arrived yesterday, I am now fully eqipped again with all the sizes I broke. Good service from RDG Tools. (LINK)

[Stanley]

First little job was to restock my metric drill boxes and put them all away. Yes, I got ten of each because that way they are cheaper! Some of these were over £1 each on Kennion's site....



Then I started on the torture. I bolted the gland body onto the valve body. This took over an hour..... That's right, you need patience for this game.



Then into the vice. I knew the flat face of the Gland body was slightly out of register with the valve face due to the difficulty getting the holes lined up and that a bit of adjustment with a big flat file was in order.



One more task was needed, I had to drill the clearance holes for the bolts through the flange of the body so that I can mark the standard for the holes. Even this wasn't simple, the first hole was in the chill! I had to sharpen the drill twice before I got through and then resharpen it for the other hole which was OK, good metal. Chills are the worst problem you can have with small castings....



The next job shouldn't have been necessary. The bolts supplied were too long and in consequence didn't have enough thread on them so I had to run a 5BA die down them all.



That's a bit better! An advantage of this is that the nuts were a bit tight on the threads, the last thing you need when it's tricky getting the nuts started so I tightened the die a touch and made the nuts spin freely. One more thing, I was a 5BA nut short but luckily the treasure chest supplied the deficiency.....



Under the drill to pop the clearance holes through for the gland body but it was a bit more complicated than this. Before I got here I had to line the holes up for the valve body as they weren't quite right. I got two bolts fitted and poked the drill through the other two so I could get the 4 bolts on the valve body fitted. Once they were in place and tight I could go back under the pillar drill and drill the holes through the existing holes.



Closing time. I have the assembly fitted to the standard and the whole lot mounted on the base. I shall have a think and decide what to do next. One depressing thought.... All this fitting will have to be stripped back for the final fitting, I shall have all these fiddly nuts, bolts and studs to deal with again. Deep joy! Never mind, we're getting there and so far no cock-ups.

[Stanley]

I doubt whether I will get in the shed this morning because of household duties. However, there is an ancillary matter I'd like to raise which may be of use to some of you. Many a time you'll find a good lump of a machine at a good price but the drawback is that it has a 3 phase motor and very few home sheds have that. For my American friends, we are lucky in the UK in that the normal single phase supply we all have is 240V AC, 50 cycles.
Now, what has triggered this is several videos on Youtube on rotary converters for modifying single phase to 3 phase power. I have never been a fan of rotary converters which are in fact a combined motor and generator that takes in single phase and exports 3 phase. The mechanical element means that they are noisy and tend to wear out over the years.
When I was first staring to build up my shed I bought a pillar drill that was 3 phase. I could have replaced the motor but as I suspected I would get other three phase machines I decided to get a converter. I knew nothing about them but trusted a mate's advice and bought this....



It's a solid state 2hp converter and all I did was put it on the shelf, wire it to the motor, plug it in and away we went.



Later, when I had 4 machines on 3 phase, the drill, the Harrison Lathe, The Harrison horizontal mill and the Clarkson tool and cutter grinder I bought a second one, a 4hp unit, working on the premise that I had redundancy, if one failed I had the other. See THIS for details of the converters which are still available.
I have heard people say that static phase converters are less reliable than rotary ones. I can't comment on that because I have only used the static ones. All I can tell you is that I bought mine in about 1985, they were reasonably priced, the only sound they make is a low hum when switched on and touch wood, they have been trouble free for over thirty years. That'll do for me!

[Magnu420]

Stanley just before christmas i bought 4 faulty digital phase inverter for £28 from ebay
2 were 1Hp the other 2 were 3Hp so i took them to a mate of mine ( whos a electronics engineer )

Within a couple of days he phoned me saying he got 2 of the inverters working when i picked them up i noticed he got the 3Hp ones working he used the bits from the other 2 inverters to get these 3Hp working

Now just got a 1/2hp 3 phase motor for my grayson lathe ( which i will update the grayson lathe refurb thread eventualy ) so one of the inverter is gonna go on that im just on the look out for a decent benchtop mill so i can use the other inverter

You all gonna say why dont you use both machines of one inverter but im gonna make a remote pendant so i can controll the speed of lathe and this will interfere with the mill ( when i find one in my price range )

The name of these inverters are

Teco E2 digital inverters

I was shocked to see how much they sell

[Stanley]

From my experience you'll be fine with them.

[Stanley]

I decided I would start at the top for my next job so this morning the target is to make the piston valve. I discovered one thing when I tried the piece of 5/16" steel stock in the valve body, it fouls the casting slightly at the bottom so I shall have to remember to ease it when the cylinder comes off for fitting. As you can see, the first job was to do a fag packet drawing to get it firmly in my head and convert all the fractional measurements to decimal.



Once I had all that clear I worked out the positions for the various features of the valve. The easiest and most accurate way to do that is to set the top slide to 90 degrees and use the top slide as a micrometer, marking the locations with a point tool.



I did my calculations, got set up, cleaned the chips off Mrs Harrison and started with the locations in front of me.



All I had to do was concentrate and check everything three times!



Once I had my marks, I worked out the depth of the ports, 47 thou, and wrote it down on the cross slide. I touched the insert of the parting tool on the green grit wheel to make sure it was sharp and did some very careful cuts with plenty of oil, remember it's silver steel, so it's tough stuff to cut.



Once I had the ports cut I parted the rod off at the correct finished length, reversed it in the chuck, centred it and drilled it 3/32" for one inch to form the exhaust port. One inch deep in silver steel with a small drill like this is high risk! So very careful, lots of pecking and oil but I got there in the end.



We're making progress! The mark on the far end denotes the location of the flat for the clevis connection to the operating rod so that's the next job.



Set up in the mill. The time spent making the square collet holder wasn't wasted! Careful milling and old fashioned measuring to get the 1/8" followed. Remember I haven't got DRO so it was the old fashioned vernier calliper. No problem and I got it done with care.



Next job was to drill the clearance hole for the clevis pin in the flat. Then I repositioned the rod and drilled through into the exhaust port hole in the centre of the rod. I had to do it by feel and when the drill is breaking into the exhaust passage it gets a bit hairy but I did it OK.



Closing time, we have a piston valve and it's as accurate as I can make it. I did a bit of cleaning up with the coarse diamond hone, I'll finish it off tomorrow. I may have to take the cylinder off and ease the way for the valve rod into the standard so I can get my measurements right for the operating rod and the rest of the linkage. Slow work as usual but good progress with no mistakes......

[Big Kev]

A good morning in the shed by the looks of it, top job

[Stanley]

Thanks Kev. Fiddly and demanding......But you're right, a good result.

[Stanley]

More fiddly work!



Today we'll address the valve rod and the two clevis jaws. First job was the usual fag packet drawing and then look in my box of bits for the materials. One small problem, the piece of 1/4" brass stock was too short to get two clevis jaws out of it.



I put that to one side, cut the 1/8" silver steel to size and threaded the ends 5BA to fit the clevis jaws, the 5BA nuts are just a check to make sure I have got it right, have you tried threading silver steel lately? It's tough stuff. Then a good furtle through the treasure chests and lo and behold.... I found an identical piece of stock, I think it's left over from the last Stuart kit. Whatever, we are sorted.



I squared the ends up on each piece in the lathe, blued them and marked the length and the depth of the cut for the end of the rod.



Nice to have sharp cutters! I set the two pieces under the mill, put a nice 1/8" cutter on and adjusted the position of the vice using the micrometer scales on the mill and whistled through them at one cut. The saw cut perfectly....



Now all we have to do is put them in the lathe, cut them to size, chamfer the end, drill for the 5BA tap and tap them. Easier said than done! I was OK until I got the BA threading tackle out and found that I only had one unbroken 5BA tap. I knew I was getting low but didn't realise that things were this bad. Then I got a shock when I started to tap the hole and the tap fell in two before I had even entered it. It must have been cracked. I ground it back and had another go (after trying the other broken taps). I eventually got a threaded hole but it wasn't easy as I had drilled it slightly undersize to get a tight thread. The next one will be 2.7mm!





One clevis jaw fitted, all it needs now is the holes for the clevis pin but I shall do the other one first before I enter that bit of pain.



Knocking off time.... You can tell I have been busy! Tomorrow I'll do the other jaw and fit the clevis pin. One strange thing, the exploded drawing of the hammer shows a collar on the end of the clevis pin, problem is that it doesn't exist and there is no drawing for it either! So, I have just ignored it.
By the way, I have just ordered a set of HS 5BA taps from RGD.

[Stanley]

We started where we left off and made the second clevis jaw.



Then I addressed rounding the end of the piston valve to ensure that it can swivel freely in the jaw. I used the clearance drill as a hinge and rounded the end in the VM.



That's better. Then I dressed the edges with a coarse diamond hone.



Next I made sure the inside of both jaws was clean giving the rounded end of the valve plenty of room. This enabled me to mark the jaws for the clevis pin which is a 7BA bolt.



I drilled the jaws. First I put the tapping drill for 7BA through both sides and then opened up one side to 7BA clearance. Then I tapped both the clevises in the vise by hand, made easier by the fact I ordered new 7BA taps if you remember.



I got the bolts out and checked they were right by making sure they ran easily into a 7BA nut. This is the safest way I have found to make sure you have the correct sizes, if the bolt and a 7BA tap both fit into the nut you know where you are. There is so little difference between BA sizes in this range that measuring is a waste of time.



Both clevis pins fitted OK.



Next we are going to make the intermediate lever in the linkage between the operating handle and the piston valve. I did the usual fag packet drawing to get it clear in my head and get the decimal measurements in as well as the fractional ones. Then into the parts box to sort out the stock supplied.



I cut off the length I need and included this pic just to reassure you I still know how to use a hacksaw!



Knocking off time. I have my ducks in a row and know where I am going to start tomorrow to carve out this odd shaped piece from the solid. I could have made a start this morning but it's a good place to stop. Onward and upward!

[Stanley]

My new 5BA taps came yesterday. A set of three and with postage they were over £25 but they are good ones, HSS and made by Presto.....



I often say that the biggest part of our work in the shed is taking lumps of metal and making them smaller. Today is no exception. I drilled a 3/16" hole in the end and set about rounding it under the mill.



Time spent on the T&C grinder is never wasted! I gulleted the end, backed the it off and and then sharpened it but as a bit of an experiment, instead of my usual 6 degrees (backed off at 15 degrees) I set the angle at 7.5 degrees. (it cut OK but I shall go back to 6 degrees at the most)



I dropped the head of the mill as low as possible, This is going to be some tricky milling and the more rigid the mill the better. In case you haven't tried it, set the cutter to the height of the piece and take successive light cuts rotating the work on the hinge formed by the close fitting rod in the hole. Then do the same on the other side. Works like a charm!



That's a start! I have lost the pics but I first reduced one dimension and then went on to the other two.



I have to reduce this plane to 1/8" from 3/8" so I have to take 1/8" off each face. I've done one side and now have only 1'8" to grip so I have set it to give me all that in the vise. This means that my last cut is at the level of the top of the jaws. What I've done here is wet a cigarette paper, stick it to the face of the jaw and then drop the cutter slowly until it grabs the paper. That way you know you are as low as you can get.



I think you can see here how close I got. The right hand side of the jaws are perhaps a tenth of a thou proud so I was polishing them at the end. I sharpened the cutter again when I had finished.



Closing time, the meat is cut out of the lever. I have some more cutting to do but that will wait until tomorrow. My last blow was to have a chip chase and leave the shed somewhere near tidy.

[Stanley]

Sorry Lads but I got a full set of new glasses yesterday and have been pushing them to the limit today to find whether 1) they were OK and 2) To find whether the fault with my computer glasses which has been causing me problems was alleviated. I'm happy to say that on both counts they passed. See you tomorrow.....

[Stanley]

I was in the shed before 7AM this morning and the job this morning is to get some shape in this intermediate lever while at the same time reducing it slightly in thickness so that it fits in the clevis but that will happen when I'm cleaning it up with a big flat smooth file.



Once I had some marks on it I went under the mill to get the meat off accurately so it could be easily cleaned up by filing.



After a while with file and coarse diamond hone I got to this stage, it fits the clevis. Eventually there has to be a hole through the middle for the clevis pin but I'll leave that until I get to the final fitting because then I will be absolutely sure of its position. I did a bit more on it like rounding the end, forming the boss and breaking all the edges.



Now we need the hole in the boss for the tiny 7BA grub screw which locks it to the cross shaft. Quietly away with a 2.1mm drill!



I put the starter tap through while it was in the drill press, fingers only of course. Than I transferred it to the vice and popped the bottoming tap in. This is the one I broke last time! Bugger me if I didn't break it in the hole again but this time it's serious, no way I can get it out without making a mess. Only one thing to do, put another hole through the boss and tap it again even more carefully!



The obvious thing to do was drill the new hole at right angles to the other in the boss but this would be a mistake because the final assembly has to be done by tightening the grub screw inside the boss through an access hole I have yet to drill through the back wall of the standard and if it's at right angles I won't be able to get the screwdriver at it! That's why I have drilled the new hole as near the original as I can. Unfortunately..... just at bottom of the hole a tiny part of the tap is sticking through the wall of the new hole. I knew this because when I drilled the fresh hole (2.2MM this time to give me a chance) sparks came out of the hole and I had to be brutal to get it through. I sharpened the drill again afterwards but that's another story! I got the starter tap through OK but then I had to use the broken tap again after grinding the end off to get a full thread in as far as possible. I couldn't get it right through it jammed again but as you can see I got enough good thread in the top of the hole to get the grub screw in. I had to take my gloves off to be able to hold it with my fingers while I entered it.
All this of course involved some very close small work and what I discovered was that my new safety glasses aren't good enough at close work so I went back to my old pair which are far better. I took the guards off the safety glasses, they are for normal wearing only now. All exciting stuff!!
In case you're wondering how I will manage to get the grub screw to grip the cross shaft when it won't bottom in the hole. I shall either put a slug in the hole for the grub screw to bear on or more likely I shall use a 7BA bolt with the end reduced to pass the obstruction. Sufficient until the day!



This is the last pic this morning but not the end of this morning. I started looking at the cross shaft. I squared the ends in the lathe and did some measuring and found that I have to take more off the bosses on the side of the standard that carry the cross shaft. So I made sure I knew exactly how much had to come off, if you're interested it's 15/64" off each boss! At the same time I will bore the access hole in the standard for getting at the grub screw on the cross shaft. The drawing calls for a 3/8" hole but I shall make it bigger because I know I am going to be in trouble! I might even go up to 3/4" but I'll decide that when I have it in the mill. This means stripping the cylinder and piston rod gland off the standard so I will leave that until tomorrow.....

[Stanley]

I lied didn't I. I forgot that yesterday was cooking and housework. Never mind, I was in the shed at 7AM this morning.



I have to sort the standard out.... So the first job was to take the cylinder and valve block of it as a unit. The first thing I had to do was make sure that whilst a good fit, the piston valve slides freely in the valve block. Once I had that right I could offer the assembly up to the standard and get an idea how much had to be taken out of the aperture to allow the piston rod and linkage to operate.



Then it was filing and fitting, continually offering the cylinder and valve to check progress until I was satisfied I had it right. It was surprising how much I had to take out!



Next job was to make the access hole in the back of the standard to enable me to get in and tighten the grub screw that locks the intermediate lever on the cross shaft. Remembering what a bugger it was last time and also remembering the fact that I am handicapped by breaking the tap in the hole and having to modify the boss I went from the 3/8" on the drawing to 1/2" and if I have to I can make it even larger.



Next I have to reduce the bosses to ensure I have enough on each end of the cross shaft to attach the operating lever and retaining collar. I grabbed hold of the casting as best I could, levelled it with the spirit level and knocked both bosses off.



I think I have the basics of the standard right now but there is still the possibility of further modification.... They call it fitting!



The next item is the operating lever. I made a fag packet drawing to get the idea in my head.



Then I got my piece of stock, the same that the intermediate lever came out of. There's quite a lot of sculpting to do here and so I knocked off at this point, I want to get the method and progression of stages clear in my mind.... A bit of thinking to do!

[Stanley]

I found the centre of the stock. punched it and put a centre mark in to use to centre the bar in the 4 jaw chuck. I wasn't wasting time when I made this old chuck of Johnny's fit Mrs Harrison! Just right for this job.....



The fag packet drawing kept me on track, I knew this handle was buried in bar! I won't be able to hold it to turn it later and this is the way I have decided to go.



I blued the stock up and measured for the first cut to find the rest of the lever. If you remember, last time I used this cutter I tried a different primary angle and decided it wasn't as good so I started afresh, dressed the wheel, backed the cutter off at 15 degrees and put a new cutting edge on at 5 degrees, slightly less than I usually go for.



I have an idea this is key steel which is a bit tougher than normal mild steel. That could explain why the finish isn't as good as I was expecting. I can clean this up later, we are only roughing out. I started at 7AM in the shed and if I tell the truth I'm not on top form so at 09:30 I knocked off and took Jack for his walk. I shall look after myself!

[Stanley]

I told you I wasn't on top form yesterday! I'd taken too much off one side of the operating lever. Not terminal but I shall have to accommodate it later when I am fitting. I have drilled the hole for the cross shaft so I am ready for rounding the end. Easier to drill it while I have two parallel sides for the vise in the drill press.



I milled the meat out of the lever for the taper I need. It will be finished by hand later. Both sides done.



Getting closer, now for cutting to length and rounding the end.



Ready to go under the mill for my favourite trick using the cross rod as a fulcrum.



Knocking off time. Not my best work..... I have left plenty of meat in the wall for the grub screw....
I'm not pleased with this morning's work, still not on top form but I can massage it into shape later. If I can't I shall just have to make it again!

[Stanley]

Busy morning so I was late in the shed and only had an hour. I am improving my lever. Here's a tip for you. I love my big Parkinson Vise but when you are doing small things it's an advantage to do this. More precise, nearer your eye line and an all round improvement.





Here's two views of where I was at closing time. An improvement but I will do more tomorrow and make it even better. Quietly away and make sure that everything you do is actually an improvement.