Making Dickson style tool holders 

Thank you. Cheers

Hi, thanks for your very kind comments.

hi, thanks for your comments.

velosapien Hi, thanks for watching, ..... Chickens milk, lol.

Thats good to hear, the one thing I have always taught my apprentices, and something you could just bear in mind is this - “all machines are dumb, they have two tasks in life, one is making chips, the other is maiming or killing the operator, both are hazardous to your health.” remember this and you will have a good time in your workshop. regards

Hi, thank you for your comments, I am glad that you are inspired, I hope to inspire many. It would be even nicer if the inspiration was shared by the very young. thanks again for watching. regards.

Hi, you’re welcome

Hi Mark, thanks for your comment. plenty more to come..

ClayZ If I did have an EDM I'd be doing more than a few simple tools. Thanks for watching.

Thanks pal.

Thank you for watching, thanks for your comments

Hi Jason, thank you for subscribing and for your kind comments.

hi, thank you for your comment. I have viewed your channels and i enjoy watching them, very entertaining.

Hi, thanks for your comments.

You're welcome, Thanks for watching.

Cheers.

Hi Silverbullet, thank you for your very kind comments. Regards

Fluffy Zyox Hi, thanks for your comments.

Hi, I hope you enjoy making things. If there is one tip I could give you, it would be this, "never work on any machine without safety glasses”.

Hi, thanks for watching. A friend of mine many years ago did the same, only, he had several machines in his front room because he hadn’t a garage. He made some nice stuff. Regards

Thanks for watching..

Hi, thanks for watching.

Hi, thanks for watching. You don’t need a grinder, but using a bit of ingenuity you can do everything with a mill or a lathe.

@@Thesheddweller I do have my Dremel setup in the lathe, mostly for grinding rubber pinch rollers but its ok for very small metal grinding jobs

@@campbellmorrison8540 a long time ago(probably just before I was born), many things were made using a forge, hammer and a file/scraper. just look at may things Brunell, Watt or Eddison had presided over.

Hi Jon, thanks.

Thank you for watching and thanks for subscribing.

Hi thanks. cheers

Thanks for watching

Hi and thank you for subscribing. The shaper is just as good and you can use a little very fine emery cloth or a precision stone to make things look nicely ground(no one will notice).

thank you for watching.

cheers

Hi, thanks for your comments.

Thanks for your comment Sam. I’m glad you enjoyed the video. The most complicated part of the video was making the 45deg setting tool, but the video wasn’t about that so I didn’t include too much about that. I’ve heard about Drumond Machine tools but I’ve not worked on any. Good luck with keeping that as original as possible.

Hi thank you for your comments.

Hi, thank you. Regards.

Dudley Toolwright I must admit that after using a J&S this one took some getting used to. It's an Eagle with suds pump, I saw it in the corner of a second hand machine shop, made an offer and he accepted. It's still 3 phase and works well, but it really needs the table resetting by a micron or two because there is a shadow on the outboard side.

Hi, thanks for watching and for your comments. The coolant has not yet affected any of my machines. I say yet, because those that have had experience of coolant knows that it’s a good paint stripper. The coolant on the lathe and mill is a generic coolant, but in the grinder is specific for grinding and this can be a dangerous bacteria medium unless it is constantly airated, Ive fitted air pumps they are running 24/7 in both tanks.

Hi Alex Y, I believe the material was Cold drawn steel. I can’t be more specific than that because they were given to me. I did consider heat treatment, but I’ve used them as is and I’ve had no issues. hope this helps.

Well I’m sure everyone has heard the saying ‘size doesn’t matter’ and it doesn’t. Ok I suffer from range anxiety when it comes to wheeling stuff the length of my workshop. But that’s the trick making the best of what you’ve got. In my woodwork section it is 4 x 2 metres yet I can cut full 8x4 sheets of ply on my table saw, hows that I hear you ask, wheels...! Everything is on wheels except for the metal machines they are placed around the outside walls out of the way. That means my wood shop can be 4 x 12 meters. My first turning job I ever did at home was on my pedestal drill using it like an up ended drill. Never looked back.

I ment up ended lathe..😂

Hi, Thanks for watching.

I've been asked a few times about this and I might have to make a video on this subject, but it will not be an accurate piece of equipment, that can be guaranteed or certified, I can't use mine for that. I have a smaller cast iron one that I can use for gauging and more accurate work. The concrete part is made from pavement (sidewalk) slabs and the tiles are from a kitchen tile supplier, then they are bonded together. regards

Hi Colin, thanks for your subscription and comments, alas I don’t know what the make or model is I bought it at an open air junk market. one thing I do know is that it isn’t a one off, because a subscriber has told me he has one and he uses it a lot. sorry I can’t give you any more info on it. cheers

@@Thesheddweller Thanks Paul, I'll keep a look out for one.

Hi, I didn’t have to find the centre I simply used a pattern and copied that and swapped the tool holder for a work piece. my machine is a small machine and it wouldn’t bend a bit of toffee if I tried. but, I would recommend hardening and then tempering for a larger and more capable machine. Regards

Hi, I didn't consider hardening them, I could case harden them I suppose, but I'll probably leave them as they are. I have never cold blued anything, I might do it one day. cheers

Meme Master, hi, thanks for your comment. The only tool holders that I had ever used with a swarf relief groove where those that rotated. All the kenametal boring tool holders had a small radius in the inside corners and the tool it’s self had a slightly larger chamfer on each corner. The pressure created on a fourteen foot diameter twin ram boring machine would break a tool holder easier if it had a small recessed relief. Come to think of it I don’t remember seeing them on the smaller 36” borer tool holders.. but I can see why it would be advantageous on a small home lathe..

Hi, i’m not sure what the material was I used, it machined quite well so i believe that it was medium carbon steel, they came to me as off cuts. I have not hardened them. Regards

Thank you for your comments..

Hi, to be honest, I’ve never had to bother too much with that. However, since you asked. The locking cam has two functions, one, the top cutaway flange, is a gateway to make sure the cam lock is in the fully open position before the toolholder is inserted, after all when the tool holder is in place you don't want it to vibrate, or worse still get pulled out. The second full flange is to prevent the tool from dropping right down and to provide a repeatable stop so that tools, that are set, always drop to the same place, repeatedly, sometimes, due to mismatch, the catch ring on the tool often misses it, and can be a pain to use. it’s still way better than taking tools out of the tool post and resetting them every time. But dickson tools have disadvantages, that is they have considerable overhang, this can cause tool vibration especially while trepaning or perting off. hope this helped.

@@Thesheddweller ok thanks. I get it about the top flange, but I'm just not certain about the bottom one. As soon as the thickness of that flange is not consistent and parallel, like on mine, the toolholder starts to get clamped in position at a particular height, then the effective wedge shape of that flange will want to change the height in inconsistent ways. Add to this that pieces of swarf easily get pulled into this moving part. I'm not sure why the toolholder doesn't just sit on the main block, which never moves. Most other qctp designs have this feature, so I'm just confused what the benefit of having it over not having it. Anyway, thanks for the reply

@@lawmate so it’s not a faulty one then…?

Hi, think I mentioned in the video that I didn't know what material I used because, the material was donated to me at the time. cheers

Oh yes, I know I’m partway through my next video, it includes a standard 60deg dovetail and, an offset dovetail, it didnt start off as an offset dovetail, I just tried it out to see what would happen part way through the video.

Like an aloris style? Theyre actually pretty easy to make, really all square cuts, no complex setup, just make sure the floor of the slot is a little lower with the endmill before you go in with the dovetail cutter so its not cutting on the floor while taking the dovetail cut. Also, tram your vise and head like you mean it.

Hi, Miguel. I'm probably the last person you should ask about material performance, but I would say that If I had a choice of material, I would buy medium carbon steel like F-114 1045 so that if I wanted to harden it for this job, I would probably hold the hardness to a maximum 50 to 55 Rockwell, I do believe F-114 is suitable for this... but don't quote me on that. Regards

Hi, thanks for watching. yes it was a lot of work for some spare tool holders that only cost £20 each…! However, I’m in posesion of twelve well fitting tool holders that cost me about £40 to make, and I got to show lots of people how I did it and thats got to be a good ain't it.

Hi, i don't know much about the wm290v, I belive it has an extra auxillary drive shaft. Anyway the compound slide on my machine is a big problem and i would suspect your machine would have the same issue. The compound slide effectively sits on a large washer held in place with 4 bolts in-turn held to the cross slide with 2 bolts over a slim locking plate, that combination does highlight a stability problem. you may want to look at that. regards

@@Thesheddweller i have seen others here making a 4 bolt plate but the problem of the big swivel washer may still be a problem clamping the tool table from moving as its winter i will have a look at modifying something in summer . another idea was told to drill a hole to put a pin in the tool block

@@creed6.549 my cross slide top surface had one shallow location hole in it and i don't see any reason why yours shouldn't...

Andy Taylor Hi, thanks for watching, I believe the steel offcuts were low or medium carbon steel.

Hi, thanks for watching. I also have a woodwork section in my workshop 20thou in wood is the difference between a good fit and a sloppy fit. 2thou in metal is the same thing. Regards.

Hi, to be honest I don’t know what the material was I think is was a basic black hot rolled steel. It was given to me as offcuts.

That is true. but, I explained in the video that these blocks where offcuts from a scrap bin. regards

Witam, zaznaczyłem każdy otwór do ustawienia pod wiertarkę kolumnową, lubię używać jak najwięcej różnych narzędzi.

@@Thesheddweller dzięki za odpowiedź super robota

Hi, i know, I still need more… lots more

Hi. A good question....🤔, i don't know , why is it called a Dickson??. 😁

@@Thesheddweller just curious. My great uncle owned a tool and gauge company in Detroit. His name was Freddy Dickson and his companies name was Dickson Tool and Gauge.

Hi, thats fine, thanks for looking anyway. cheers.

thank you.

@@Thesheddweller Thank you for your civil reply. I would have expected you to curse me six days to Sunday for my opinion:-)) To make locators with redundancy is always problematic; you yourself stated that the commercial Dickson tool holders were not a very good fit on the commercial Dickson tool post. This would have driven me to drink! You will notice that practically all modern lathes have one prismatic guide only for the carriage; a second such guide at the rear would be completely redundant; yet one American lathe maker persisted with this unnecessary practice. I imagine that considerable handwork by scraping was necessary to fit those carriages to their respective lathe beds. On heavy planers the double Vee guides are used to resist the heavy side loading on the table, but this is an exception. In the mid 1990's I designed and built a QCTP and 2 dozen tool holders using the dovetail principle. I learned very quickly to always use the same dovetail cutter for tool holders with that tool post, because commercially available dove tail cutters have an unacceptable variance on that 60 degree angle! Were I to do this again I would purchase a good quality dove tail tool post (NOT the pump style!) plus a few tool holders, and make the rest of the tool holders myself to suit the various purposes. I'd then take the QCTP to the tooling vendor and select a dove tail cutter that fitted the tool post's dove tail as accurately as possible. Myself I sharpened a dove tail cutter so that the angle matched my tool post's angle. With the female dove tail on the tool holder it is very easy to ensure that the tool holders are sufficiently alike such that the clamping lever winds up very closely in the same position with the different tool holders.

@@BasementEngineer I agree with your sentiment regarding the dovetail and rearward locking system. but if I could afford it I would have the original four position brick with 1 tool holder fitted and the rest spare. The tool holder would be the drop in cam lock cartridge insert holder that I used to use, before I retired. In a boring machine or on a lathe and sometimes the old NCs. One cartridge holder could be loaded with any number of left right or neutral position cartridges with whatever insert, including internal, external, trepanning, parting, threading,... 12, 16 and 19mm inserts whatever you want really, all off one cartridge holder held in the tool brick. I had some of the cartridges re-machined to hold very small profiled carbide inserts as well. However, deep boring was always done using a more dedicated tool. I also used a twenty meter long planer re-purposed to a four cutter milling machine, and yes the vee slides on them were big enough to need climbing ropes to get over them. In truth with these old or cheep home workshop machines, a repeatable indexing system is not worth the money beyond saving time with setting up for common used tools. Yeah some people might feel justified with scratching your eyes out for an honest comment, I've worked with many good engineers in my time and they all had a valid arguments, but the boss had the best. Regards. P.S. who said I wasn't driven to drink... 😉

Hi Les, Im afraid they weren’t that bad that I didn’t want to use them, I use them for my tool swops and roughing cuts. sorry… hey, thanks for watching.