Brilliant video. Hand held?!! Crikey SAB* {Smooth as Butter}. Very interesting, thankyou for educating us mere mortals in what wizardry you two get up to. Your depth of knowledge concerning dipping, machining, metalergy and "olde stuff" is admirable. A good friend of mine who passed away a few years ago had some interesting WWII machinery in his workshop. And his knowledge and depth of understandings of archaelogical threads and mechanical production thereof was as you quite impressive. When he retired, the town pleaded with him to start up his business again, as no-one could do what he'd done for that town for decades. He would take on all those "impossible" jobs, as he really understood "the game".
Thanks for commenting. I just count myself lucky that I was exposed to great tradesmen as a young apprentice, who more importantly, were willing to impart their knowledge. That information certainly helps now with what we are doing.
Thanks Dean. We are getting through it with some early starts so we can exit the shed early in the afternoon as we are getting temps +30c lately. A week or 2 and we'll hopefully be back on top of things.
Yes the stuff is in such demand that we wholesale back to retailers in the UK for some parts. If you look at our website you'll see we're the only retailer in the world for some parts as well. Add to that the wholesalers in the UK are dropping product lines as well, which has created challenges......Thanks for supporting the channel.
Just found this. I was Apprenticed, in the UK, as a Machinist back in the 60s and remember the Ward turret lathes well. I used them many times in those days and they were good reliable lathes and can be pretty accurate once you got the hang of overcoming the wear and tear and lack of maintenance they had to endure. I also rode to work on a tuned up D5 with a George Todd head, Amal TT carb and close ratio gears. Not the best in Basingstoke rush hour traffic 😂.
Curious that you didn't tap the thread on the Ward using a floating tap holder. That would have ensured that the thread axis was running true to the nut's clamping face. I assume nut material was S12L14 and the mudguard stud 4140. 'Er indoors had a D3 Bantam when she was 16. Believe the Bantam was derived from the German DKW as part of the War reparations to BSA. Interesting that BSA tried a large number of subsequent small bike designs (Beagle, Dandy etc. ) all of which were market failures whereas the Bantam endures to this day.
Hi and thanks for commenting. You're correct on both respects in relation to the material specs. Nut wasn't threaded in the first process as it has to go back in to have the opposite side chamfered. I prefer running the tap through after both chamfers are machined to achieve a clean cut through both. It also avoids the potential for the chamfering tool folding over the edge of the thread slightly. In order to tap through on the first process you'd have to also use a plug tap as it's a blind hole, which isn't ideal. By thread cutting from the other side with a taper tap it reduces wear and tear on thread cutting equipment. Runout isn't an issue as I have collets the same size as the reduced diameter and the hex is flush with the collet. Yes the Bantam was designed from the DKW RT125 and there were about 5 other variants of the DKW plans built elsewhere......including the Harley Davidson Hummer. Beagle & Dandy..........You'd really have to ask what on earth the designers were thinking. It's no wonder they were not popular.
