Compound slide improvement

[mechman48]

Back with another mod,
On my lathe I have found that when using the compound slide, & I have needed to reset zero, the gap between the slide & the handwheel is too narrow for my non too slim fingers to grip the spring loaded calibrated dial so I thought 'got to improve on this'  so having removed the handle I measured up the OD of the knurled portion of the dial for my new adaptators ID, I then machined a piece of aluminium (the correct spelling for our US cousins..check periodic table    ) to an OD of 45mm IIRC. This OD was then knurled to provide a good grip when fitted. I wondered how to fix the adaptor & considered expanding the aluminium for a shrink fit onto the original dial, not having a blowtorch I opted for the hot water method & duly boiled up some water in my shop 'tea kettle' & plumpt the dial adaptor in for a few minutes, not having the thermal expansion rate for ally' to hand I opted for guesstimate.. no luck.. on measuring the OD of the dial & the ID of the adaptor I found I had mismeasured the ID..  which confims the adage.. measure twice cut / machine once. Onward & upward Geordie I sez; so I decided to go for a press fit (Interference), I  machined the adaptor ID to .003" less than the dial OD.. (ok you purists, I didn't conform to BS4500    but I wasn't fitting bearings    ). I machined up a dolly to fit over the dial boss & using the bench vice, pressed on the finished adaptor..sorted  then just a case of refitting the handwheel to the compound, I can now reset the zero point without having a struggle to grip the dial  simple ..but effective!
 
1st pic original dial.. the rest follow on.. last pic all refitted to slide..

Cheers
George 

Edit: Reduced photo size. Don
 

[dsquire]

George

Nice little improvement there. I'm sure that will save some frustration down the road. Thanks for sharing that with us.

Cheers 

Don

[Lew_Merrick_PE]

I then machined a piece of aluminium (the correct spelling for our US cousins..check periodic table)

George,

As somebody who started school in a priory school in Lancastershire before being returned to the Colonies, I can tell you that, here in the U.S., the official spelling is aluminum.  God only knows how much grief having learned British spelling before being exposed to American spelling caused me.  I was a teenager before I could spell color rather than colour and recognize it.

The flip side of this is that the younger of my (two) elder sisters made the mistake of asking to be knocked up for school after we returned to the States.  The entire junior high school heard of her "request" before the end of that day.  She was soooo glad my father was assigned to a parish 150 miles away a couple of months later.

[AdeV]

As somebody who started school in a priory school in Lancastershire before being returned to the Colonies,

One presumes you have deliberately mis-named Lancashire... yes, named after the county town of Lancaster, but like many counties, not taking the FULL name of the town as the name of the Shire.

Yes, there are many subtle differences between American and English - a sufficient number these days that, I feel, the two languages really ought to have different names. It's not a criticism, you guys just don't speak English any more...

One oddity, we Brits have always been particularly proud of the fact that words like "surprise" or "enterprise" all end in -ise, which we widely regard as correct, and the American "ize" equivalent being some evil bastadisation of the language... in fact, it turns out, "ize" was the old 17th century English way of writing, and "-ise" was a nasty French import from sometime after the American Revolutionary War.

So, whilst we (rightly) mock you for your inability to spell colour, flavour and aluminium; you can point and laugh at us for using "-ise" instead of "-ize", and all will be right with the world.

Incidentally, my stupid Norwegian browser (Opera) insists that I've just spelt "colour", "flavour" and "aluminium" incorrectly, despite my best attempts to force it to use a British English dictionary. It doesn't even like "spelt", wanting "spelled" instead 

[AdeV]

PS: Nice fix George, that will make life much easier! 

[andyf]

Ade, if you look at the Oxford English Dictionary, it uses -ize as standard, with -ise as a variant.

English has become so internationalised/ized that we can now only claim ownership of that part of it which is used in writing and speech within the UK. It's our own fault; we spread it all over the globe.

It's interesting how much feedback there has been into English from other completely unrelated languages. Much is obvious, like "bungalow" (a one storey house) from one of the Indian languages, but some of it has taken a more convoluted route, like "compound" in the sense of "the diplomatic compound". That came from a Dutch word which in turn came from the Malaysian "kampung", meaning village.

Andy.

PS I have seen many c19 English property deeds which refer to colors, rather than colours, on their plans. 

PPS For anyone interested in English as it has developed offshore, Bill Bryson's "Mother Tongue" is a great read. Good for a shufti when in the khazi (both from Arabic).

[vtsteam]

        

I didn't realize that there was a proper English, since it appears to vary so dramatically throughout the main island and through the centuries as well. Is there some historically static linguistic population speaking the real proper variety that we might study to improve our speech over here? Would it sound more like James Mason, or Michael Caine, or Cary Grant? I understand Dick Van Dyke did a wonderful job of reproducing it in Mary Poppins. Always enjoyed it when Lord Peter Whimsey said "ain't", myself! 

ps. I like the sound of aluminium, better than aluminum, but will get charged double if I use it at the scrap yard.


I really do like the lathe knob upgrade. I'm going to have to do something similar. 

[mechman48]

Wow, whoa up there guys    didn't intend to fire up an international debate on the whys & wherefores of the Englih vernacular  , just a habit we brits have of poking a little humour at our cousins across the pond                of which is most often reciprocated with the same amount of jolity, & appreciated 

Still it's nice to diversify occasionally 'innit', whatever the language, at least we communicate our ideas,methods & tips to all & sundry which is the whole concept of forums like these, it would be a poorer world if we didn't. 

Cheers
George 

[vtsteam]

Oh, just poking a bit of fun back, there. Great fan of you cousins, including your strange accents! 

[krv3000]

well  dun a good mod

[Pete.]

It's interesting how much feedback there has been into English from other completely unrelated languages. Much is obvious, like "bungalow" (a one storey house) from one of the Indian languages, but some of it has taken a more convoluted route, like "compound" in the sense of "the diplomatic compound". That came from a Dutch word which in turn came from the Malaysian "kampung", meaning village.

Andy.

Actually, the term 'bungalow' was invented by an old builder called Paddy McShoestring. He ran out of money on a 2-storey development and decided to 'bung a low roof on'.