Westbury boring head

Adrian, You may be barking up the wrong tree! I went through GHT Model Engineers Workshop Manual- (Tee) as he had modified one.The striker and star wheel are not shown. The clue is a tenuous one. And I am going to get some more flak for going round the houses. 'Dore' is Arnold Throp and he was/is a part of Model Engineer Services of Sheffield. Ivan Law and the Quorn/ Dore Westbury/Kennet et al. The next clue is that Throp is/was a member of the SMEE. I nattered with him on the stand at Harrogate a couple of years ago. Hope this helps( and unless someone can do better- they can belt up)

Norman

Blackgates Engineering list it as ME8. Sorry, I don't have their new address. That will be the Westbury- not the Dore! N

Adrian et al, I have in front of me two sheets of proper foolscap paper, originating from Model Engineering services. Subject heading is `The Dore Boring and Facing Head'. There are 4 pics on the sheets, 3 of which show the doo-dah for tripping the feed when facing. If you want me to scan and mail just ask. I've actually got a Dore head to sell but am less sure whether we've got the doo-dah to go with it. All resultant on a workshop clearance from a deceased club member. I'll `up' the search process. Geoff Johnson

I may be way out of line here, but I've gone through the whole ME index (the d/l online one - Chris Heapy?) and can't find any ref. to a boring head in conjunction with Edgar Westbury's name. There are LOTS, but one I'd look at is by Duplex, who turned out some great stuff. Mike in BC

I believe the one being talked about is the one designed by Ivan Law and made by MES.

This was based on a cylinder, instead of dovetail slides, with the back faced of to finish up D shaped and was designed to be built on a lathe and no milling machine required. The star wheel and trip was optional and used for facing operations in the lathe when screwed onto the spindle. The spindle thread was the same as a Myford and also the nose of the Dore Westbury machine.

I built on in the early days as they were cheap and affordable, before the imports came on the scene.

They were a bit large and bulky but they did a good job. I did build mine with the star wheel but removed it in favour of a large calibrated dial as it suited what I did more.

Mine was sold on when I also sold the DW mill

At no point do I wish to contradict! I assumed that this was 'Ned Westbury'if only for the association with Arnold Throp who founded Dore Engineering, where he did the Dore Westbury until 1971 when Model Engineering Services took over. Whether Ian Bradley, half of Duplex or Norman Hallows was also involved is unknown( by me) but GHT went on to alter the design of the Dore head and the Rear Parting Tool from Duplex castings. Then GHT took the drawings of the Myford Dividing head from Jack Radford who had put it on the head of his Super 7 in New Zealand. GHT then altered the head to take smaller division plates which were interchangeable with the Versatile Dividing Head,

This is all documented stuff but I would suspect that someone will contradict both of us. There is a connection between them all . but not here, please!

Norm

Thanks for all the comments, folks - I have indeed got the wrong name (probably because the Dore-Westbury mill mixes the two together for me).

The one I've got is as John describes and is the one pictured (with a vernier instead of a star wheel) in chapter 22 of GHT's book and attributed there to Dore.

-adrian

Thanks, Geoff - that sounds ideal. Just a pic of the doo-dah bit would be great, there's probably no need for detailed drawings unless there's something cunning about it.

I couldn't get a message to your email address above, but mine should work.

-adrian

This is what I was looking at :

But it turns out I was probably looking at the wrong thing anyway, so I'm glad I asked !

-adrian

It amazes me, that a company could go to the trouble of sorting out a website like that, and not be bothered to supply a decent picture of each of the projects that they are selling the plans for.

I truly wonder whether they have their heads planted deeply in their anterior parts, or if they simply have not got a bloody clue.

I am positive that they would actually sell more sets of plans, to new folk, esp. those not endowed with a library of back issues of ME on hand, rather than just to those that already know what they are looking for.

Cheers Trevor Jones

Adrian

If you have access to Model Engineers Workshop, there was a 7 page article describing the construction of an updated Westbury boring and facing head in issue no 78 (Nov/Dec 2001). This included drawings and photographs (and details of the striker mechanism).

HTH

Mike

Thanks. I have pictures of the Dore striker now, but will look that up as well - the local MES has a good library.

-adrian