QUORN

This is not necessary with the previous scheme

where the hollow cotter can itself be faced back on
final assembly to adjust the ball handle position.
The system adopted on the Quom is that shown
at c. The casting is split, but providing that the
TOOL AND CUTTER GRINDER clamp bolt is as near to the spindle as possible
and the bosses through which it passes are reason-
by D. H. Chaddock, C.B.E. ably massive it is not weakened. A flat on the
head of the lock bolt engages a step milled in the
Part X From page 435 rear boss and prevents the lock bolt from turning
when it is tightened. A replaceable and renewable
distance washer enables the ball handle to be
THE IMMEDIATE COMMENT of everyone who sees brought into the correct position when locked
the machine for the first time is “Look at all and in the event of excessive wear or stripping
those ball-handles! “..They are there for a pur- of the thread the entire assembly can be replaced
pose. It suddenly occurred to the writer, after without any damage to the casting. If, as it should
using his trusted and well-beloved 3-1/2 in. Drum- be, the spindle is a close fit in the casting very
mond lathe for nearly a quarter of a century, that little pressure is needed to clamp it and with
whereas the tailstock could be moved and locked the proportions given it is practically impossible
without using any tools at all, it took three to fracture the casting even with the most gross
separate spanners of diffierent sizes to set a tool overtightening.
in the toolholder, bring it to height and set the
top-slide. When, therefore, he came to build his
Dore-Westbury light vertical milling machine he
decided that it should be built so that it could
be operated without the use of any spanners what-
soever. It works, and the saving in time and
frustration in looking for spanners which one

-. _.-_ .
has only just put down but which have never-
theless mysteriously disappeared has to be ex-
perienced to be appreciated. In the Quom tool
and cutter grinder a large number of adjustments
are necessary, indeed a larger part of the time in
sharpening-a single cutter is spent in setting it
up than in the actual grinding and all of them
can be made without the use of a single key

B
spanner.
But there is a right and a wrong way of apply-
ing ball handles as with everything else and in I i
Fig. 46 I have sketched some of the options open
_-j_-. ‘.
to the designer. The very best is undoubtedly the
/ i
double cotter shown at a. Freely floating in the
casting when the two halves of the cotter are
drawn together by tightening the ball handle, they Ml
exert a balanced thrust on the spindle without
any tendency to deflect it sideways. Also the
casting is not weakened by being split nor is it
subject to any bending moment on tightening. It
is, however, rather difficult to machine. Either
the cotters must be fitted to the casting, and
locked temporarily in position, before the central
bore is machined and then machined with it, or
they must be machined in a special jig.
A simpler “bicycle” type cotter is shown at b.
It has the disadvantage that the shaft is pulled (4
to one side on tightening and a distance washer
must be fitted under the head of the ball handle
to bring it into the correct position when locked. Fig. 46

MODEL ENGINEER 17 May 1974

 A simpler version of the same desien is shown machined without any further measurement.
at d, The ball handle is through drilled and tapped Owners of power hacksaw machines will no
which makes the length of the lock bolt non- doubt cut up their bars this way, but as the
critical, but unless the ends of the exposed threads writer does not own such a machine and hates
are well chamfered there is a risk of cut fingers. hard work he cuts up long bars in the lathe. The
The head of the lock bolt is left circular and may set up is shown in Fig. 47. The tailstock is re-
be turned to position the ball handle in the moved and a tied steady put in its place. The
locked position. It is prevented from turning length of bar which can be worked upon this
after final assembly by drilling and fitting a dowel way is only limited by the size of the workshop
pin. The simplest and most compact device is and short pieces can be cut off the end near to
shown at e. A key must be used to operate it, the chuck with absolute security and freedom
but as there are only two sizes of lock bolt from chatter. With an inverted parting tool in
used in the Quom, 5/l6 in. and 2BA a special the back tool-holder, the lathe in open gear and
double ended key would at least reduce the num- the auto cross-feed in, the cutting off time is
ber of tools required to one! The disadvantage is shorter than a low power saw would do it.
that if it is over tightened or suffers from serious After all the blanks are prepared, the next
wear the thread in the soft cast iron will cer- operation is to form the balls each end. Although
tainly go before the much tougher material of a number of spherical-turning attachments have,
the cap screw. Socket head cap screws are not from time to time, been described in Model
too clever if the sockets are liable to become Engineer and of them that described by Mr. Rad-
fouled with swarf or grit and the National Coal ford is in the writer’s opinion far and away the
Board has an interesting regulation in that in all best, they do present clearance problems if, as
underground machinery where socket head cap in the present case, over 80 per cent of, the
screws are employed they shall be fitted upside periphery of the ball is to be machined at a
down! It looks odd but niakes sense because the single setting. The writer therefore decided to
dirt falls out instead of in! The least acceptable make the form tool shown in Fig. 48 which would
scheme is shown at f. A plain hexagon nut and not only form the complete ball in a single
bolt would need box or ring spanners to operate operation but would also leave a shank of the
it and unless something was done to prevent the right diameter which would serve as a witness
head turning two hands as well. The only situa- for the final turning operation. By a miracle of
tion which- the writer can recall as being worse foresight in design only three sizes of form tool
was the old Morris “8” which required three are needed because the small balls on the large
spanners, and three hands to adjust the tappets. handles are the same size as the large balls on
As 9 of the larger size and 8 of the smaller the small handles! In fact all three are incor-
size of ball handle will be.. required, it pays to porated in a single tool made from an old flat
set up to mass produce them and do the whole file softened and then machined to shape. Since
lot at a single sitting. The first operation is to
cut up the requisite number of blanks from 3/4 in.
and 1/2 in. dia. b.d.f.c. mild steel 2-5/8 in. and 1-15/16
in. long respectively. It pays to get the blanks to
rule size for length because they can then be
Fig. 47. Parting short pieces off a long bar in the lathe

FORM TOOL I OFF TOOL STEEL H&T

Fig.40
MODEL ENGINEER 17 May 1974 485
 larger ends in the 3-jaw chuck, with a piece of
soft packing to prevent the jaws marking the
finished surface, and with the tail ends supported
in a female running centre. “Tubal Cain” in his
advice on Workshop Equipment and Materials
classified a running centre as essential for those
who are able to afford it. This is true, but they are
also very easy to make and one of the few exam-
ples of the correct use of a single angular contact
ball bearing without preload. The writer’s running
centre was made many years ago and has inter-
changeable male and female centres. Supported
this way the central shank of the ball levers can be
readily turned down to size and once the top-slide.
has been set to pick up the witness marks at both
ends, the rest of the levers can be turned without
further measurement.
The final operation is to drill and tap the
Fig. 49. Form turning a 3/4 in. dia. ball in a single screwed hole. Here it is important that the 20 deg.
operation. offset angle shown in the drawings is adhered
to, otherwise the handles will foul one another
the work produced by a form tool can be no when they are fitted to the machine. Unfortun-
better than the tool itself the various radii are. ately the jaws of the average 3-jaw chuck are not
best produced by internal turning with the work long enough to allow the levers to be held by the
clamped off centre on the lathe faceplate. This larger ball for drilling and tapping and for the
not only ensures that they are of a good shape shanks to be set back 20 deg. before they come
but by setting the top-slide over to an angle of into contact with the chuck face. A piece of
5 deg. gives accurate control over the clearance tube was therefore chucked and bored out to
angle. The clearance angles on the flat faces receive the ball ends with a cut-away to clear
are most accurately put in by milling. the shanks. Although it was also split on one
After hardening and tempering to a light straw side the closing pressure of the chuck jaws was
colour, the, tool is used upside down on the back not sufficient to hold the levers securely enough
toolpost as in Fig. 49. This may appear to be a for drilling and facing. Therefore a stout “C”
rather formidable operation and although one ring with two Allen screws was loosely fitted
can start with the lathe in open gear, as the width around the tube and when the grub screws were
of cut increases it is necessary to “change down” tightened held everything with a remarkable
finishing in low back gear in order to provide degree of firmness. Incidentally 20 deg. of offset
the torque necessary to sustain a cut over 1 in. angle is achieved when one ball end is 0.809 in.
wide. In Fig. 49 the witness mark of the original higher than the other, which you can check by
bar diameter is just about to disappear-when
it has gone the ball is to size and the cut is stopped. Fig. 51. Facing, drilling and tapping ball handles.
The work needs to be very firmly held in the
chuck: close examination of Fig. 49 will show
that it has, in fact, slipped, but this is no matter
because this part of the blank will be completely
turned away in a subsequent operation.,
When all the blanks have been dealt with the
next operation is to reverse them in the chuck
and rough down about 3/4 in. length to 1/2in., again
holding the diameter to rule sizes. The 1/2 in. balls 4
can then be form turned by the same procedure
and while the tool is in place the large balls on
the small blanks produced at the same setting.
Finally the small balls on the small blanks, by
which time the lathe will have acquired an im-
pressive pile of broad curly swarf.
The worst is now over and for the next opera-
tion the immature ball levers are held by the

488 MODEL ENGINEER 17 May 1974

 still make some spares in the first place! Dimen-
sions for the overall length of the lock bolts are
not given because it will depend on how much
is faced off each casting to provide a seating
for the distance washer. So measure up each
casting after it has been machined and add 9/16
in. to it for the larger and 7/16 in. for the smaller
to get the shank lengths of the lock bolts. As a
final check on assembly, remove the distance
washer and make sure that each ball handle has
about 1/2 a turn free movement from the normal
locked position before it becomes thread bound.
Apart from miscellaneous nuts, screws and
studs which have not been detailed, the only
other item to complete the machine and its ac-
cessories is the tailstock which is used in con-
junction with the long bar bed as shown in Fig.
53. This is particularly useful in dealing with long
work such as taps and reamers which are best
Fig. 52. Ball handles in various stages of machining, ground between centres. The long bar bed has
with the tools used to produce them. already been detailed in Fig. 28 on page 187 and
the tool holder bracket is that shown in Fig. 29 on
using the leadscrew micrometer index and a dial page 242 carrying the Morse taper mandrel of
test indicator, but an 0.8 in. rule setting will do! Fig. 33 on page 244 with an ordinary lathe centre
If blind holes are to be drilled and tapped, and the in it, but either of the workheads could be used
writer strongly recommends them on the grounds with any mandrel to suit the work in hand.
of neatness and- absence of cut fingers, the depth
of the hole must be carefully gauged to be as DRILL AND TAP 2 B.A.
deep as possible but without breaking through
and tapped to its full depth with a plug tap. The
fmal operation is shown in Fig. 51 and a group
of components in various stages of machining, CLOSE, FIT FOR
together with the special tools used in Fig. 52. --f T A I L C E N T E R
When fitting the ball handles to the machine
it is important that they come, in the locked
position, to the angles shown in the various draw-
ings. Each is fitted over a distance washer of
1/8 in. nominal thickness which is intended to be
faced down to suit its individual ball lever. Bear- CLOSE FIT
ing in mind that 5/16 in. BSF is 22 t.p.i. 0.011 in.
off will move the ball lever one quarter of a turn.
If you overdo it make another washer or better
A

TAILSTOCK I OFF. C.I.

l+----2”-

LONG BAR BED ASSEMBLY

TAIL CENTER I OFF S.S. H. & T
Fig. 53 Fig. 54
MODEL ENGINEER 17 May 1974 487