Tally Ho Capstan Project: Turning a Tapered Bore on the Capstan Cap 

Is there a master machinist more knowledgeable and capable than Keith in America today? I don't think so!

@@amham48 You have got to be kidding!

Clarke Easterling at Windy Hill Foundry is almost as unflappable.... keeps going until he gets it done !!!!

...and his ability to draaaaaag out a job to the n'th degree.

Of course there's the comments and reactions left on the editing room floor... It's soothing to watch the rough places become plane. I wonder if the original capstan was a one-off piece or if there was a full-scale production line. It's a lot of work for that part.

Well said. 👍

These craftsmen display what I call "native intelligence." In their way they are just as intelligent as any "professional". These are the men that built our country. Hats off to them all!

I did an apprenticeship as a fitter/turner/millwright back in the 1980s, not a CNC in sight (not many of our machines had a DRO either!). Today, I build race cars, and I have a manual lathe and mill in my shop, and always chuckle at highly educated customers and friends, when they watch me do a complicated job, and how they say "wow, that's incredible, how did you learn to do that?!" and gee, you spin those wheels and flip those levers like you are connected to the machine!" 😂 A lifetime of working these machines, my friend... Never, ever sorry I never went to uni for some useless degree and desk job. Love what I do.

People talk about working with your hands and being a desk job professional-type like they are mutually exclusive. That's always bothered me a bit. I have a college degree. I have a professional desk job. I have built a wooden boat. Framed a house. Restored two 1960's cars from the ground up with no outside help. I write music. I restore guitars. I build furniture. A person doesnt have to only be a tradesman or an "educated professional". You can be both, either, or neither.

Until you get sick.

That's fun to think about. Hidden depths. It's like being a regular at a diner and one day being told by the waitress that the sweet, unassuming old guy that always comes in for coffee at 7:30 is a highly decorated WW2 veteran who fought in every major battle in the European theater and was part of the group that captured the Eagles Nest. Hard to tell the amazing stories behind things just by looking at them.

I'd be nervous doing what might be a final operation on it.With all the sweat and tears getting to this point Id hate to mess it up.

It's like a silent witness and with every step completed it's story deepens. One day, relatively soon, it and the rest of the capstan will reunite with Tally Ho and then will return to where it all started in the UK and beyond. That's an amazing thought and to think of all those men and women is humbling to me. That a thing can contain so many spirits kind of makes a mockery of modern 'products' that are lusted after so shallow.

I too respect all the craftsmen and their hours, passion

Not only this part but the man hours of the whole of the Tally Ho project is just mind-blowing. I've followed both with avid interest

And everyone else who helped: Steve Watkins, et. al... That part was a cast iron.... well I don't have to say the rest, really... to cast.

The foundry cast two , one he had minor reservations on , but he thought it would clean up OK, but cast this one to be sure . If someone drops this one ( God forbid) then all is not lost , which is a nice position to be in . I enjoyed going to patternmakers then foundries and watching our machine shops finish the items many times during may career , and it was a privilege to watch and speak with those craftsmen )

Fortunately, Clark made two of them. The first attempt where he came up a little short on the pour wasn't a fail because Keith said that area would be machined out anyway. I don't know which one Keith used in this video, he didn't say.

​@@A2Z1Two3Unless they drop it from a height on to concrete it will be fine. God help anyone who drops it on their feet or worse, onto that beautiful wood deck Leo's crew made. lol.

LOL, Me too.

Complaints!?! WTF?!? I have watched Kieth, and subscribed, since BEFORE Tally Ho began. I have watched Windy Hill Foundry, and subscribed, since BEFORE Tally Ho began. I _knew_ this part was too big for Windy Hill. But I was _certain_ they would get it done, and they did. Who ever is complaining, is ignorant of the seniority of these RU-vid channels, and the status of their creators as Masters of their crafts.

Having done some of this work I know how badly that could have come out. He was happy for good reason.

I took 6 semesters of architectural structures - a basic treatment of statics & strength of materials - & always used a slide rule. Except for one month when I had a calculator that had been left behind in a classroom. The only time I attempted to use it for an exam, the on/off switch broke! Stayed strictly old school from then on.

The Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Saturn 5 moon rocket, all built without computers, much less pocket calculators. My third year of college was the first year the Physics Department allowed calculators to be used during the tests.

English lathe for an English boat too. 8-)

Maybe some day it will be used on the Stoker Engine.

Good point there Jay, the original manufacturer 100+ years ago used heavy machines made much the same way they created this one. Watch some of the Pakistani Machining videos now and you will see what English and American manufacturing was like back then. The sandals are not used in the English or US shops but the back breaking labor was still the same. In fact the footwear for the men working those shops was made in similar conditions back then. That was all anyone had for job. The era of Capitalism at the cost of labour and lives reigned supreme then. On both sides of the pond folks were dying for their jobs and got little in return unless the foreman was related to the poor sod who paid with his life. Even then the widow was not set for life anymore than that is true today. Always one paycheck away from eviction and one meal from starvation. The specialized tools and metrology equipment came out these conditions as did the unions and labour organizations that grew to the groups we see today. I do not plan to start arguments here and I won't entertain any. Bad blood on both sides doesn't make any more than three wrongs make a right.

One of my lathes is over 100 years old. Precision machine tools have been around a long time.

I get that but considering they didn’t have computers, CNC machines or any of the specialized tools that are available today. We don’t give the people who were responsible for what we have today the credit they deserve.

@@jaypruss3236 I agree. Some of the apprentice exercises done by hand would challenge us with modern tools. One that comes to mind is: Take a piece of round bar and file it into a cube. Take a piece of flat stock with a round hole and file the hole square. The cube needs to be a nice sliding fit through the hole in all orientations. The hole must be very square and the cube perfect on all sides and angles. again, by hand with files the apprentice made themselves. When you showed you could do basic things you got to the machine tools.

That is called a hub micrometer, the bore mic is a lot different. Hub mics are made to measure lengths rather than diameters. Before hub mics the normal means of setting a hub length was to go to the bench mics and check the guage rod created by a tool maker for that specific hub... The bench mics were made to be used by several groups of jobbers and were heavy enough to stay put in the place they were installed. Find old pictures from the mid 1700s when mics were actually installed on the shop floors near the men using them if you can. Before that in the 1600s all gauging was done in a tool room and the secondary gauge was brought to the machine by the in-place inspectors. Workers had wood measures with fire hardening ends to guess where they were in the process. Maybe wiki has this and more if you wish to dive down that rabbit hole and explore. Remember though, tiny doors means tiny people and the way to achieve that state is one for those pills, which was it again I do not remember...

@@CothranMike yeah that was a mistake. I meant hub.

Maybe that's the train looking for the Stoker Engine!

Yup, me as well... those gas vents are not anything that needs saving and the true surface will help in the future. In fact I would have gone further than just knocking them off, I would have rounded both inside and out to keep handling cuts to save my fingers.