Cheap Chinese Boring Head

Hi guys
A quick update now the "red mist" has cleared. It appears that some fine fellow forgot to put in the tiny ball bearings that go between the screws and the deformable gib strip. Three tiny balls from my model helicopter days (swash plate) and we are away again. Still not impressed though.
Regards a calmer Keith

Hi Keith,
How about using it to make a ballturning tool, horizontal axis rather than the vertical one I showed you? Plans for those on metalworking.com.
----------------------------------------------------------- snipped-for-privacy@boltblue.com -----------------------------------------------------------

John
Hi, certainly an idea that I hadn't thought of, might be a bit limited though as it is only a 2" boring head. Still your idea might well save it from the bin. I had remembered the ball turning tool you showed me and have even managed to collect a couple of hefty chunks of steel ready for the project. I think it's about number 4 in the queue at the moment!
Currently making (swearing at) a QCTP to the JohnS design for the Boxford which has already gained another couple of chucks. I suppose I will need to stop fussing with it and start to use it!! I have set it up in the garage and when I tried a .002" cut over 6" on a 1" bar my old Moore & Wright 0-1 couldn't detect any difference so I'm well pleased with the deal. Offer these good deals too often and you will need to be nominated as a "cynical trader". Hope your Harrison is progressing OK.
Best regards
Keith

2" eh? Well I suppose the 3/4 " or so travel would let you do a 1 1/2" ball? And I suppose there are a couple of offset holes that could get you a bit further out to 2 - 2-1/2"?
Yeah, told you it was a good 'un! Finally supposed to get the Harrison on Saturday ( since February!!!) & am off to Paul Evans museum tomorrow up near Cardigan, with the other Harrison owner (the one that's for sale). That's my second visit there this week. Highly recommended if you haven't been ----------------------------------------------------------- snipped-for-privacy@boltblue.com -----------------------------------------------------------

John I will need to send you an e-mail as I haven't grasped your concept at all, where would you see the pivot going? I would need to get it forward to the centre of the ball I'm producing. Sorry I'm being rather thick on this one.
off to Paul Evans museum tomorrow up No, I haven't visited yet but he has an excellent web page and it is certainly on my list of places to visit. Are you visiting or do you get involved with the restoration - he seems to have plenty of engines available for a little practice. If you visit that often you must be special enough to get the Lister F Sludge Pump running! I believe he has also got a Proteus awaiting installation; one of them in a museum makes me feel very old. It would make that tractor of yours go well though.
Hope the Harrison retrieval goes well; I'll send you an e-mail off line about the other one.
Best regards Keith

John
A good nights sleep and the penny finally dropped - yes it would make a good ball turning tool with just a little adaption to mount to the cross slide and possiblly to lock the head onto the adaptor. I'll need to look and see which method will incur less work as I'm in a lazy phase at the moment. Hope the museum trip was enjoyable.
Regards Keith

A shameless plug here for the Museum of Internal Fire ( whith which I have no connection except as a drooling visitor). Spent yesterday there from 11:30 to 17:40 after a lightning drive up in my mates BMW M3: to say he was spellbound is a bit of an understatement - normally he fiddles with his sons' racing kart engines (16-17,000 rpm) so a 16 ton lump with a stroke of 34" & bore of 16" was a bit of a change for him! If you are ever unfortunate enough to be sent to Aberystwyth, then give it a miss & head down the coast road to Cardigan & give this place a visit. "Model" engineering it ain't ( he's got two bloody SHIP'S engines waiting to go on display for God's sake!), but it's a brilliant antidote to gardening.
Also ... whilst jawing at the end, we started discussing the well known cynical trader Mr John Stevenson. It turned out that though only one of us had actually met him in person, yet all three had been significantly helped by him, both in terms of advice given & equipment/materials sent. Therefore I move that he be justly expelled from the Worshipful Company of Cynical Traders & Shysters & immediately ennobled & sanctified. I'll write to the queen & the pope & see what they say, "Lord Stevenson of Reliant" has a certain ring don't you think? ----------------------------------------------------------- snipped-for-privacy@boltblue.com -----------------------------------------------------------

You must needing a freebie??

John, sorry but as a newcomer to these hallowed portals I can't agree your proposal at all, to elevate John Stevenson as you propose suggests that he should be pensioned off to some senile talking shop (Hmmmm.... not like this forum at all - well not now the troll has gone). I'm afraid that (if he is still willing) he has many more years of advice to give to us beginners yet. You know what they say (sorry do) you must "flog the wiling horses". Of course I fully agree that some recognition is justified but think it should be slightly lesser - you know still something to aspire to. How about "Sir Cynical of the order of the Reliant". As for expulsion from the Worshipful Company, certainly not - due to my slow decision making I haven't been able to take him up on his kind offer of sorting some 3 phase motors for me yet.
Joking apart, as a newcomer to the forum I have been amazed at the help and advice freely given not just by John but by many others as well. Apart from the excellent answers on line several times now my e-mail inbox has delighted me with detailed advice, pictures and pointers to more sources of information. I do hope you all understand how much it is appreciated. Long may you have the energy and patience to answer the "simple" questions us newbie's ask (repeatedly). A reminder to all of those still learning like me, a search of this group on the problem topic will make available hours and hours of very useful reading as well as some excellent tips.
Back to this particular topic, thanks to JohnL for the idea and to the picture of his already complete version from AndrewM, the destiny of this frustrating bit of c*"p is now decided, I wonder how many ball handles I actually need?
Best regards
Keith

Well it's not just ball handles although it does do a nice job.
There is always the taper turning attachment (?)
Where one is able to do long or short tapers without a taper turning attachment, use of the top slide or even do tapers steeper than allowed by other means.
Best bit is you don't have to touch the tailstock offset. That's something I have never agreed with. It takes ages to get a machine turning parallel and then you shift it to do one job and spend the next 3 months trying to get the bloody thing right again. Sounds as interesting as fishing to me.
-- Regards,
John Stevenson Nottingham, England.
Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:-

Indeed. It took me a lot more than three months to get the tailstock on my old Student bang on centre. I farted about with centre drilled bars and dial gauges, bits of silver steel held in the tailstock and headstock chucks and dial gauges, a bar the same diameter as the tailstock held in the headstock chuck and dial gauges..What I finally determined was that the spring washers under the tailstock clamps were the cause of the problem. They moved about and thus every time I moved the tailstock and clamped it back down it shifted a bit.
I replaced the spring washers with solid ones and it's stayed centred ever since.
Oi!! You were doing just fine until you knocked fishing. I love fishing. -- Dave Baker - Puma Race Engines

John
Thanks, another use I hadn't even dreamt of. I have been trying to make a couple of Morse tapers and always suffer with a poor finish using the topslide. I'll have another go now with the set up you have shown.
Your picture has also helped with my current project which is one of your toolposts for my Boxford. I haven't got any cap head screws and hate using normal hex heads screws to clamp the tool in the holder, the answer I hadn't thought of but is in your picture, grub screws - I have loads of them and never knew what to do with them until now. Its ideas like that (simple to you guys) that never seem to come easily until you see what someone else has done. I suppose they call that experience. I remember as an apprentice that you always learnt most by watching the "old" boys do a job, you could read the book a thousand times and still not know where to start but watch it once and you were away. Surprising really because I don't think any two guys use exactly the same process to make identical parts.
An interesting piece on your lathe in the picture? That finish also puts my attempts to shame, I know that finish is not always that important but when you are making something for yourself you always want it to look the part - at least I do.
Thanks again for the suggestion and the picture which has been most useful. I think all of you experienced guys should post a "setup of the week" picture. They do really speak a thousand words and would build up into a very useful reference library for us newbie's who haven't seen it done (idea for a CD?).
Dave, thanks I have just put my cheap Chinese thing back together using spring washers - I'll change them back to plain. Don't suppose it will turn it into a "silk purse" unfortunately but every little helps.
Thanks again
Best regards Keith
PS Sorry Dave,I don't want to start a war but watching paint dry and fishing are on the same page for me. Still each to their own, I suspect many find my "other" hobby of watercolour painting equally mind numbing.

Having 2 lathes with taper turning attachments, it's not a problem, now, but last century I used to offset the tailstocks whenever necessary, without any hassle. If you use a DTI at the time of offset to determine actual offset, it is a relatively pain free exercise to restore axial alignment. A drilled block to mount the DTI in, makes it easy to measure the displacement of the tailstock housing to it's base.
Tom

I remember the late Teenut (Robert Bastow) describing this on RCM years ago, when they actually discussed metalworking there.
Of course you need to start with the tailstock aligned - "first catch your hare" as Mrs Beeton might say!
"Put a piece of .75" to 1.0" cold rolled in your three jaw chuck. Take a skim over the o/d to true it up. Face one end and center drill it carefully. Now part off a slice about 3/8" long.
Face the remaining bar end left in the chuck.
Accurately measure the diameter of the "Slug" and the "Nub" (they should be the SAME. Right!!) and make a note of the dimension.
Now bring up your tailstock and, with the tailstock center in the center hole, hold the centerdrilled slug up against the piece left in the chuck so that they are flat face to flat face.
Now measure the diameter across the JOINT between the two. Any difference in height or sideways alignment will be apparent. The error is HALF the difference measured and the diameter of the slug originally measured.
It takes longer to describe than it does to do it..it is the way I realign my centers after taper turning. "
If you turned a set size for the slug, say 1 inch, (& didn't lose it in the interim!) then next time you neded the tailstock realigned you'd just need to turn any old bar end to 1.000 & face it. I've never tried it, but whadya fink? ----------------------------------------------------------- snipped-for-privacy@boltblue.com -----------------------------------------------------------

When used like this does the head movement have to be parralel to the lath bed or can it be at any angle?
I ask as there has been much dicussion in the past re tool height errors in relation to turning morse tapers?
Steve Larner

Not too sure which method you finally used but I've had best success with a lever type dial gauge mounted by a 3 or 4 jaw chuck with the measurement tip bearing on the INSIDE of the tailstock bore.
Because the dial gauge is rotated by the chuck it uniquely defines the headstock rotation axis. This eliminates all errors from the headstock end.
Because the tip bears directly on the tailstock bore it eliminates all errors relating to the use of tailstock centres.
Best of all it shows up directly the shifts resulting from clamping the headstock to the bed or the barrel to the body. It is also easy to check the change in alignment at different extensions of the tailstock barrel - this can be surprisingly large!
The only real downside is that it needs a mirror to read the dial gauge when it is rotated by 180 deg.
Jim
PS If you value your dial gauge, disable the motor start switch before you start!

Pray tell us how you managed to glean this snippet of wisdom Jim -- Regards,
John Stevenson Nottingham, England.
Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:-

Must've been the same day he put the cat in the spin drier
Regards, Tony

I think it was the day I put my shirt in the washing machine with my cellphone still in the top pocket. I must have the cleanest cellphone in Lincolnshire - after drying out for a whole week in the airing cupboard the phone still works!
Jim