Gears Part 3

 We're entering the final stages of making the Myford internal grinder now. The few remaining parts needed have arrived from China. Toothed belt and toothed pulleys. The grinding wheels as I think I've suggested in a previous blog from Good Old Blighty.

Only job remaining now is to bolt the motor carrying bracket to the back of the cross slide. The belt tension will be adjusted on the compound slide if its set in line with the motor shaft. I'm thinking that I can get away with a few more microns back and forth of the compound slide to actually grind the gear to finished size without over stressing the belt.. Micro adjusting the cross slide will not be a good idea without a D.R.O. (which I have, but it's still boxed awaiting fitting. This digital upgrade is booked in for when the lathe is moved into 'The New Sidevalve Bar'....hum!... when it's built)

Just as the above tooling was in the 'Final Work In Process Stage'.  I happened to have to make a visit to a local Wire Eroding Company. I was collecting bespoke engineered parts for one of the machines in the Government workshop. I seem to have a habit of being invited onto factory floors and this day I was on another new one....How lucky am I.  H &S can sometimes thwart this wonderful experience. Must be the way I dress?. or look? In front of me as I collected our small order (in comparison) were 2 x huge gears that according to the owner weighed in at least a tonne a piece. A fork truck had to lift them on the eroding bed. Got to have been at least 0.75mtr x 0.75mtr in size. Down the centre ran a hole for shaft fitting but more importantly they had keyway slots...HOLY MOLY!!!!!!!!!!!!! "Did you cut those keyway slot?"  "Yes, we erode to tolerances of +/- 2 microns"....(Dude, that's 0.002mm.) Alb's brain all of a sudden thinking that's way better tolerance than a 1928 Raleigh needs. "Send me your DXF files and I'll give you a price" "Awesome I will"

So, through Government contacts I had drawn for me 2 x DXF & PDF files at a design studio. (2 of the gears are the same shaft dimension) It's not only what you know but who you know....   A lifetime building and enjoying camaraderie with people who understand dirt under finger nails and can talk the same language has it's rewards. The cost was nil. Free to me !!!! Much appreciated.

 I emailed the files to 2 Wire Eroding Companies on our Government supplier list. Competitive quote hunting as you do as I'd no idea what cost to expect.... By return I received a quote for 3 x gear blank centres eroded to match the 2 x files. Local too, only 4 x miles away, so I can do a collect and not risk postal loss. In todays money I thought the price was good and of course it was going to speed up the Raleigh gearbox rebuild by months or even years.......I'd no idea how long it would have taken to work the gear blanks on the lathe and then after grinding perfect the art of broaching keyway slots....A skill I'd like to have but I'll have to save learning it for later, when I'm older.

That's how a sharp change of direction happened, all the internal grinder fabrication and parts now stored in a box for safe keeping, they'll come in handy one day I'm sure. Hours not totally wasted as far as I'm concerned.

Gears Part 2

 Gears Part 2. Progress continues on Little Walts gearbox restoration. Modification of the gear blanks is now the quest. Arriving within the 8 days promise delivery time all the way from Munger Machinery & Tools Store in deepest China came a 550w 220v Brushless Servo motor with speed controller. Should be ideal for powering the tool post grinder.

Aye, old Ching Wong Munger has a reet selection of stock in his Shanghai store from Mini Rocket Altimeter Recorders to 2ltr liquid nitrogen storage tanks. 

With the motor hand held above the Myford bed for a first eyeballing it looks like a simple but substantial 90 deg bracket of some sorts mounted to the cross slide would fix it near enough to drive the grinder. Assuming both are fitted with appropriate pulleys, which can be ordered when the positioning is finalised..

Super strong custom sized RSJ brackets can be found on ebay. These are mainly sold by a company called UK Custom Parts. I studied their offerings and went for a 120mm x 80mm x 100mm wide x 8mm thick steel version. These are pre-drilled with 12.5mm holes which I probably wouldn't need but no worries. No sooner had I pushed buy the steel bracket was on it's way to The Old Side-valve Bar. Not done yet.....another engineering eyeballing session was now needed to formulate how to firstly clamp the bracket tightly for drilling and what drill sizes were needed.

Digging into the wallet again I sourced a 63mm TCT Carbide Tungsten Tipped hole saw complete with arbour. Usual source....China this time from Wing Woo Chow Mein Onmaiwei Tools Official Store. This would allow the raised boss on the motor to centralise firmly on the bracket and stop any movement when running. If I use the hole saw carefully it should do the distance. More waiting of course... but only the usual 8 days.

Next step - bracket marked for drilling centres and firmly clamped in the big drill press at Government workshop.... let's do some engineering......

Lastly for this blog page...make T Bolts (from 8mm coach bolts) to fix bracket to cross slide.

Gears Part 1

 Progress report on Little Walt. Gears 1

Greetings, Alb here...transmitting from deep cyber space.. Cos that's where I live, my workshop is in 'The Shireshire' though. The lights have been burning brightly and the lathe has been spinning whizzily, so good news...I've a few pictures and informative words I can share with you. Extremely exciting stuff if you love the smell of hot cutting fluid and the clickety click of digital calipers as raw metal gets cut to reveal it's destined shape.

The gears on Little Walt had suffered the same fate as the old crankshaft...probably having been submerged in water for quite a number of years didn't help.. Not like they may not turn again for a few last miles but to match them to the bling new crankshaft would be a criminal act. .

My search for a gear cutting specialist began in Minskip. A small 1 x street village just off the A1 in 'The Shireshire'  An overnight stopping place in years gone by for the drovers as they worked their way south towards old London town with cattle and sheep. A lone engineer known as Trevor had a small industrial unit next door to a chum of mine. "Trevor's your man" said my friend. So we popped next door to ask about gear cutting. Hummm...do-able he said. He recommended that I buy gear blanks from the largest manufacturer of such things in Blighty a company called HPC Gears (Chesterfield). Their catalogue was huge. I first had to learn about DP's and P.A.s then reference the replacements to match the Raleigh gears. I needed x5 gears to sort the 2 x speed transmission and valve timing gear. Gear blanks are oversized width ways and undersized on the centre bore to allow re-machining to fit most applications. Made of the correct steel too. 

 Once in possession of the gears I reached out to Trevor the engineer.  .emailed... No reply ......sent another email...No reply again. Hey you could bet money on this happening...Now what? 

Our window cleaner..(a biking chap) reminded me of a long established small engineering shop in Bradford. Located deep in the city of curries. No fear, down there I went....Phuff. Old skool engineering chap he was, past retirement age but still there hanging on to life. Didn't look too keen on doing the job. You could tell. At least in the end he told me straight up he wasn't.. Did get a workshop tour though. Not one machine in his shop had a D.R.O.  All work measured with vintage Moore & Wright micrometers or eye racks and feel. He continued to tell me the business used to be his fathers, passed to him. Trade slowed as the factories around shut and cheap replacement parts were the way to go on repairs rather than mend. he just likes to be in his shop now, small jobs and ebay sales on a conversion bolt he'd invented to improve the one on a VW Golf engine that shears a grub screw or something like that. By the time he'd finished talking old days and how many skilled operators used to work the machines he had a tear in his eye. No worries, I can relate to what he was telling me.  Skills lost for good. Shame on the youth of today...at some point this disinterest in working with hands will bite their arses, but there's no telling um..

Place your bets again...odds on that your Uncle Albert will be working the gear blanks. Correct!!!!!!

At this point I knew that the chances of me getting an exact fit on the gear internal bore to match the crankshaft was not going to happen with a general internal boring tool. Tried an adjustable reamer on a test piece of gear steel but that didn't fill me with confidence either that I could do all 5 x gears. 

Hang on...in amongst the engineering treasure I have a little grinding arbour that fits a Myford lathe tool clamp. Made by my Grandad. (cos he was Myford thru and thru) Who'd have thought after all these years I'd be in need of it..  He'd be proud and of course I'm proud to own it now and hopefully use it...In fact just like the engineer down in Bradford, connecting with those gone through their tools and teachings has got to be the best inheritance left.

Let's get the grinding arbour fully stripped of the tallow grease, oiled then rebuilt. Unfortunately no motor to drive it. I was planning on doing internal micro passes with a spinning mini grinding wheel just taking cats cocks off it till the gears are a perfect slide on fit. 

Ali-Express...dream it and they have it. Like Alladin's magic lamp but with a cost. Everything guaranteed to your door in 8 days. So I purchased a small motor complete with speed controller. Internal grinding wheels I sourced UK. Pulleys and belts to follow when I get the fixings sorted.

So,     I just need to wait now for the arrival of the motor and controller... 

Stay tuned for the latest news from 'The Old Sidevalve Bar' 

Unlocked in Yorkshireshireshire.

 Phuffff...Phuffff....Phuffff.....I'm quickly blowing off all the cobwebs so I can see the vintage keyboard.....(last used in June '23).  Greetings, it's me. Yes, your Uncle Albert back with our Little Walt. Both of us survived Covid. In fact wasn't Covid a load of old bluster compared to the world problems now? Anyway I'm gonna make an effort to stay with the main theme and not ramble off track. 

Recap from '23 - In the last post Little Walt was granted an age related registration number from the great powers that be. (Vehicle Licensing H.Q.) Neat to have an age related plate which is a number that could well have been given to a motorcycle in the 1920's..Obviously it wasn't but it's been lying in a file unwanted till now. So got the number and related paperwork but progress didn't follow quickly....The highly polished engine cases slipped back into dull normality, looking like they always did. The rolling frame still under an old sheet in the workshop, just like it always has been...The sand slowly running through the year glass clocking another and then another year off. Little Walt appears to be sleeping undisturbed towards his 100th birthday.

But...behind the scenes a massive raid on the Crackle-piggy bank was in operation. It's very sad that the original crankshaft is destined to be forever a boat anchor, what's the plan now?  For Little Walt to have any chance of burning some petrol and seeing the countryside again the only alternative was to call the best crankshaft specialist in the UK for help. Alpha Bearings in Dudley. yes, down in the black country, one of  'Britains' engineering areas left over from when old blighty ruled the world!! Yep, that's where there's still old skool guys that can work with their hands and turn iron ore into working steel.

A visit to their works...and a chat about my needs in the old board room that possibly hasn't changed since the 60's. The long solid oak table coated with a thick layer of dust, the glass fronted display cabinets fastened to the walls containing trophies from race wins over the last 60 years..It's times like this I knew I was experiencing REAL time travel. Hey!!! Don't anyone tell me that they wouldn't go back if they could!!!!!!!

Took quite a few months for the 'Wizards of Lathe' to work their magic.. Quite a few emails and hand drawn sketches changed hands...forever checking....doing their best to replicate a broken, misshaped and abused (by previous owner) near 100 year old Raleigh part. 

The cost of skill didn't come cheap, and why should it? Do you work for nothin? I'm about to present to you a 'work of art'. Best bit... It's a one off and it was commissioned by me, made by proper engineers!!!!! It's my 'Work of Art'. As good as any Banksy.

So there...Little Walter has a new heart. Still lot's to do before it will be pumping though. Keep looking in for the latest news.. Alb.