Here is the process I used to make a square head bolt for the restoration of a J. A. Vance Planer/Matcher along with some instruction on how to cut threads on a Lodge and Shipley Model X metal lathe.
Hi Keith... Thanks for your brilliant videos. I've inherited a 1948 Myford "M" series lathe and I'm restoring it while learning to make things with it. I've even used it to make its own parts! Your videos help a lot. By the way, please don't say you're just a volunteer - you're giving great help to the Museum even if you enjoy every second of your time there. Places like the Museum just wouldn't exist without volunteers like yourself.
Keith, I really liked how you did the video in a "two steps". Giving the instructions on each step of the process and then going back and showing the entire process in fast forward
I haven't seen a Lodge and Shipley Model X in a long time. That was the first lathe I had ever worked on. We used to refer to it as "Mr. Shipley". There's a lot of memories with that machine. Thanks for keepin one going!
Thank you for an excellent example. I graduated Tech school a year ago, Lathe, Mill, CNC Lathe and CNC Mill, Heat treatment, Surfacing, and the CNC Software was all included. What I found especially nice about your video was that your method was exactly the way it is still being taught only using a different Lathe. I subscribed because I can relate to your method.
+S. Warren Thanks for the subscription and for watching. The methods of doing things manually are pretty much the same as on a CNC. I personally think it is best to learn the manual machines first but that does not seem to be the way it is being done much any more.
Keith, thanks for the informative video, and for answering the questions in some of the comments about the material used and options for work holding. I also liked seeing the view of the job that included the operation of the lathe. Completed the info I had from the close ups. It seems that there are no standards whet it comes to lathe controls...though there are some commonalities as far as functions go. I don't currently own a lathe or mill, but will as soon as I can arrange for space and money...maybe next year. In the mean time I do some woodworking, and what metal work I can get done with what I have (grinders, drills, welder, files, saws, etc). I appreciate you, Keith Fenner, Tom Lipton (OxToolCo), Adam Booth (abom79), mrpete222, and some others sharing what you know with all of us who are watching. It's a lot of work, and you don't have to be doing it. I'm sure some of the less appreciative comments make you wonder if you should bother, so I just wanted to say thank you so you know that not everyone agrees with those comments. I've learned a lot from the videos I've watched, and it's been fun learning. Thank you. -- Mike
I imagine the folks who built the machines you are refurbishing and if they could see how the work is done these days. I think they would be amazed but could also interject things they had learned too. Well Done.
It is a great machine and a pleasure to use. Truth be known, we have done very little to this machine to keep it running - it is one well built machine and I suspect it will be going for many years to come. I love the "Mr. Shipley" name - I may have to adopt that myself. I have heard of some machinist refer to the line of Lodge and Shipley machines as "Large and Shapely"!
I like the calibrated eyeball, or TLAR (That Looks About Right) method of measuring the non-critical dimensions. There's still a lot more of that in play than one might think, but folks in my Grandpa & Great-grandpa's era didn't have the tools to do production work to today's fast CNC methods and repeatability.
Great stuff Keith....... I went out to the country the other day and walked a re constructed rail line and picked up a whole bag full of railway spikes and good but old, medium carbon steels... I've been making a up a lot of square headed bolts... A lot of uses they have plus they actually feel and look better than anything you buy.... Maybe a big shy on tensile strengths etc but good enough for all the uses I put them to.... I enjoy your videos as always....
Awesome job! I noticed that you don't cut a relief at the end of a threading job: but I see that the tool seems to clean out its own groove. Interesting since that is quite different than most folks and literature recommend. One thing I learned from Mr. Pete (Tubalcain) is when grinding a parting tool, if you put a small angle on the cutting (front) edge the part falls off clean without the small bit on the end. The cone on the face of the remaining bit chucked up can be cut with the parting tool or faced with a facing too.
Just finished the gear cutting video for the blacksmith shop and the first video on the sawmill clutch, and.....too many to quickly recall. That home-built small hammer is neat.
When I had to mount square stock, I usually tried to find a pipe with matching inner diameter or bored it out and cut a slot along the length of it. In a threejaw, the pipe gets squeezed and grabs the square stock. For small stock I now just use a collet chuck (ER25), its collets have eight segment cuts from each side, so square stock can be mounted very true and firm with its corners in the collet´s cuts. Works only up to 16mm (~10/16) diagonal with the ER25, but that´s more than needed in most cases.
Keith: I know what you are talking about when doing restorations on old machinery. I restore old Caterpillar tractors and there is some stuff on them like bolts, nuts and other things that are only used on them.
I’ve even noticed that on some modern equipment & products that they sometimes do use odd size combinations of bolt size and treads so it’s not easy to replace/fix when it fails.
Keith. At 29.5 deg, the ratio of the Compound against the Cross slide is 1.1489. Meaning if the Thread Depth was 50Thou, the compound would need to move inwards off the very first scratch by (50*1.1489) = 57Thou. In other words since the cross slide is always returned to 0, then the depth of the cut is Plus 57Thou of whatever was the compound's reading on the first scratch. Thread depth multiplied by the 29.5 constant always....
why don't you manufacture a die for future thread cutting, then you would have it for future bolts? I do like watching an artist at his best, thanks for your time Keith
If you wanted to put a chamfer on the head what do you think would be the best way to hold the bolt the threads in a chuck? Some videos that I found suggest a collet or a tube with a split down the side.
Good video! I have one question, when you are threading and make a cut, then back out on the cross slide, to zero, isn't there backlash in the gear when you go to re-engage the cutter that messes up the reading? How do you overcome that? Hope that makes sense!
MattsMotorz There is some backlash in the cross feed, but as long as you set your zero on the in-feed, it should always go back to the same point time and time again. The backlash, while there, is always the same.
***** Being an absolute novice with my little Atlas 10" lathe, I did purchase some 12L14 hex stock to make some one off nuts and had good success, but didn't know about its strength or durability as a fastener, hence the question.
Mic Ibarra Here is what we have on Von Wyck on my web site at VintageMachinery.org: vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=4152&tab=0 - Not sure about your particular model but looking at some examples of their lathes, most appear to be capable of cutting threads. There were two basic setups on these old lathes for doing this. One was with a quick change gear box on the front of the machine to change thread pitches. The second was a stack of change gears that would mount to the left side of the machine to adjust thread pitches. The quick change gear box is much preferred as it is quick and easy to change. You can accomplish the same thing with the change gears but you need to make sure that have a complete set (the gears are often lost over the years) and changing gears can take some time and really slow a project down.
Mic Ibarra Probably not. Some old lathes had a flat belt that drove the lead screw, but it was for powering the feed for turning, not for cutting threads. If the belt slipped at all when cutting threads, you would loose your timing and the threads would be messed up. Sounds like a lathe for turning only and was not capable of cutting threads.
it could have happened to anyone, so don't get to down on yourself. I served my apprenticeship at Heli-Coil so ... I've MADE my share of oddball threads.Both left hand and R/H. It's got to be 2nd nature for me to take a closer look and not just assume...but that just me. I do appreciate the videos. Takes me back to the day. I guess you could say i'm a bit of a thread snob !!! Sorry for that. I used to got down to Tifton Alum all the time. they were a customer of mine when i sold CNC's. To bad I didn't know about your operation then. It would have been nice to meet you and see all your good work. Thanks for the return note. Good luck to you Sir.
Accetta un consiglio, cerca di essere meno prolisso! Chi ha poco tempo a disposizione non può vedere filmati così lunghi nei quali ci sono molti fermo-immagine, nei quali le spiegazioni si dilungano oltre misura inutilmente.
Accept advice, try to be less verbose! Those who have little time available can not watch movies so long in which there are many freeze-frame, in which the explanations are unnecessarily linger beyond measure.
