Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

[Andrew Wildman]

Just thought I would show some pictures of my workshop.  I have moved house in the last few months and so after a lot of faffing it is just about usable.

Cromwell and Harrison lathes and ajax drill
Any old iron (as long as it's British!)


Victoria and AEW mills, herbert high speed drill and a chinese band saw
Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

shaper
Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

surface plate
Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

grinding and welding area
Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

assembly area
Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

clean and electronics bench and CNC centec mill
Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

[Andrew Wildman]

Now the workshop is up and running I can carry on with my tool and cutter grinding restoration project

the vertical way was very worn so I lapped in parallel to 0.005mm along its length.  Pre lapping errors:

Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

aligning the base using a precision level:
Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

scraping ways flat and parallel
Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

machining top of the table
Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

base complete
Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

scraping bottom of table:
Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

measuring x ways
Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

[Andrew Wildman]

measured results
Any old iron (as long as it's British!)
showing over 0.5mm wear!

Machining ways
Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

[awemawson]

I love it! 1 2 3 blocks AND a gardening fork in the same shot.   

[Andrew Wildman]

That is British sheds for you!
The oven was in there for a few weeks, although not working

[Meldonmech]

Hi Andrew
                     Nice feeling to be functional again after moving house, fine  machine shop you have there.
                         
                     Good luck with Grinder Project          Cheers David

[angus]

the ajax drill looks similar to mine.... how many speed ?

mines 5 speed, and a bit on the fast side..... wonder if they ever did a variant with a center idler pully

[micktoon]

Hi Andrew , thanks for posting , looks like you have a really nice shop and some good old machines  , not to mention doing some nice restoration work too , looking forward to seeing more .
  Cheers Mick.

[vtsteam]

Wow, admirable shop and work! 

[Andrew Wildman]

The ajax drill is a b 16l, 5 speed, min 380 and max 2700. It is a bit fast for large drilling but I tend to do that in the mill (aew goes down to 25 rpm).  The lowest speed on the Herbert drill is about 3000 so I usually use that for v small precision drilling.  Easy to smoke even modest sized drills with it but it is very perpendicular with the table and more rigid than the ajax.

[tekfab]

 "English" ?   Better of with good old accurately engineered  GERMAN  machinery !   

Mike

[awemawson]

Fighting talk 

[Andrew Wildman]

German? If you are going to have to use foreign tools you might as well go all the way and use swiss

The Cromwell lathe I have has tenths verniers on all the dials.  I am yet to see another lathe, German or Swiss with that, although in the last 50 years it may have lost some of its original accuracy!

http://www.lathes.co.uk/cromwell/index.html

[tekfab]

German? If you are going to have to use foreign tools you might as well go all the way and use swiss

The Cromwell lathe I have has tenths verniers on all the dials.  I am yet to see another lathe, German or Swiss with that, although in the last 50 years it may have lost some of its original accuracy!

Ah well if you paid attention you would have noticed most Toolroom quality lathes, and milling machines, have dials graduated in tenths.      In fact my own Maho SK250 (1950's vintage) mill does in fact have graduated dials enabling readings of 0.0001" on all 3 axis.

Mike

[Andrew Wildman]

good point. Well made.

[malbenbut]

Hello Andrew I have A AEW mill like yours but with a swivelling table however the horizontal head is quite noisy, In was wondering if you've ever had to dismantled yours and if so was it was very difficult?
MBB

[NeoTech]

One pictures saids scraping the ways, and you have some sort of slitted piece of tube, two blocks, rod and a dial indicator.. gotta ask how does measuring with that go about..  I have a moment of - "never seen that before."

[AussieJimG]

Good move to take lots of phots while it is clean and tidy.

Jim

[Andrew Wildman]

Hello Andrew I have A AEW mill like yours but with a swivelling table however the horizontal head is quite noisy, In was wondering if you've ever had to dismantled yours and if so was it was very difficult?
MBB

Sorry I have had no need to dismantle the horizontal spindle.  The horizontal spindle on these machines are generally daily loud.  There are a lot of gears in the various gearboxes.  It may help if you change the gearbox oil.  I use 32 hydraulic oil which is equivalent of the oil stated on the machine.

[Andrew Wildman]

One pictures saids scraping the ways, and you have some sort of slitted piece of tube, two blocks, rod and a dial indicator.. gotta ask how does measuring with that go about..  I have a moment of - "never seen that before."

I had already scraped the top of the dovetail so the next step was to ensure the other faces of the dovetail were parallel.  The tool I knocked up references two points on the top and side of one dovetail and one point on the top of the other.  The indicator measures the face that will have to be scraped parallel.  Two points are required on the top and side of one dovetail to ensure the tool does not crab.  The tube is a convenient way to do this but it could be done other ways.

 When I get back to my laptop I will have to post the progress on the project.  I have completed the scraping.

[Andrew Wildman]

Good move to take lots of phots while it is clean and tidy.

Jim

It does not take long for it to get messy!

[Andrew Wildman]

I have finally got around to posting some more of the cutter grinder restoration.

V way machined.  Note custom spacers to allow the depth of cut to be taken with the cutter I had:
Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

I produced a straight edge from a section of old cast iron motor mount:
Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

stress relieved in the wood fire overnight:

Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

[Andrew Wildman]

straight edge machining (before stress relief):
Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

Final machining after heat treat:
Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

Scraped flat and square

Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

[Andrew Wildman]

swiveling table top was scraped to mating part:
Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

x ways were scraped parallel to the table top using the new straight edge as a reference.  The picture shows a guage block to average out the scraping marks to get a more consistent reading:
Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

The piece with the male v way was scraped to the x ways (no pics of this) and the alignment was corrected approximately my checking with an indicator on the surface plate.

The underside of this part that slides on the knee of the machine were then scraped to the top of the levelled knee.  the level was used for final alignment:

Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

[Andrew Wildman]

The grinding head spindle being replaced and the motor internal insulated wiring and the terminal box replaced.  The internal insulation was falling off the wires!

Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

Any old iron (as long as it's British!)

Any old iron (as long as it's British!)