Factory Shutdown: June 18th - July 10th 2013
We are enjoying our annual holiday - we have worked hard, but right now... we're not!.
Please continue to place orders with complete confidence; we'll be both raring to go and skint when we return!
Definitions:
Holiday = vacation, vacances, vacaciones, vacanza, urlaub...
Raring to go = keen, eager, enthusiastic
Skint = broke, penniless, poor
Enjoying = "finding pleasure in" or enduring (British ambiguity!)
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Saddle Chip Tray - Myford LathesHow much fun is it to clean down your Myford after a cast iron "session"? Handfulls of gritty swarf sprayed along the bed, sneaking under the saddle felt and cascading down onto the feedscrew and rack....
Fear not - WE HAVE WHAT YOU NEED!
If you have a post-war Myford (7's, 10's, 254's) then you can benefit from this beautifully designed Saddle Chip Tray. The single alloy casting fits to the saddle, ahead of the cross slide using the existing travelling steady tapping. Fitted and removed in seconds (and without tooling) it will save you many hours each year on clean-ups and will protect your bed and saddle surfaces from abrasive debris.
The Saddle Chip Tray will happily pass under a Ø5" chuck and takes up only a minimum amount of axial length. The kit includes material for the forward felt wiper, a captive screw and a cross drilled sump plug to drain away coolant.
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Metric Fasteners at Hemingway - DON'T PANIC!!We've now completed a comprehensive changeover from BA & BSF to Metric fasteners on all of our Tooling kits. With your next purchase you'll find that drawings and construction notes show metric threads and that material packs include metric hardware.
We know that a significant majority of our customers prefer Imperial dimensions and have lathes and milling machines with Imperial feed screws so please note:
* This change affects ONLY manually cut threads (taps & dies) - where a thread must be screw cut, you'll find that it is still detailed in Imperial units.
* Lengths and diameters continue to be given in inches.
* Since hex-headed and slotted BA fasteners are still available from a number of smaller UK manufacturers, Hemingway's range of Engines will continue to be detailed with Imperial threads.
Whilst all good Englishmen have a soft-spot for them, we doubt that more than 1 in 1,000 of us have ever "screw cut" a 2BA thread (47½° rounded form with 0.81mm pitch [31.35tpi])? So, typically, the only change in the workshop will be in the taps and dies that we reach for.
For Goodness Sake WHY CHANGE?
The world famous BA thread system was deemed obsolete by British Standards in 1966. However, with strong demand and supply, engineers continued to specify BA threads and manufacturers continued to turn out fasteners. Recently however there has been just one Indian manufacturer of socket headed BA fasteners and just one main European distributor brave enough to order the huge runs of each BA thread size, head configuration (cap, grub, countersink) and length.
This distributor ordered his last BA batch in 2012, since when the world has been simply using up stocks. Following the ancient and inevitable rules of economics, 4BA x ½" cap screws now sell for £450 per 1,000 compared to £45 for M4 x 12mm. Not only are the metric items more reasonably priced but they are of notably higher quality, having been produced recently by leading manufacturers.
Since socket headed fasteners are more-or-less essential in the world of tooling, we have decided to jump, albeit at the last minute, before we are pushed! We beg your forgiveness and understanding….
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Instrument Maker's ViceAs in so many fields of human endeavour, suitable tools are a prerequisite to progress. Once the sideline of cutlers, instrument making has a long and distinguished history with elite craftsmen working hand-in-hand with surgeons, chemists, physicists, astronomers and industrialist of every flavour to develop the equipment necessary to analyse results then exploit new scientific findings.
Within the instrument maker's workshop, highly prized manual skills are developed over many, many years. Filing, sawing, lapping, chasing, honing, scraping and polishing small parts to within infinitesimal tolerances to create world-changing devices.
This versatile vice provides movement in virtually all planes, allowing a workpiece to be firmly gripped then locked in exactly the right attitude for further finishing. The 1½" wide jaws open to 1" to accept flat or cylindrical work. The vice's iron base is cast with an integral 4" long tenon so that it can be securely held in a larger bench vice. The kit arrives with all necessary material, drawings and construction notes for this hugely useful platform. Click the image for a closer look.
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Sensitive Tailstock Drilling AttachmentThis is a very useful device for the small workshop - relieving the stress we all face when drilling small holes at high speed! The attachment consists of a hollow Morse Taper shank supporting a ground ram with a small capacity chuck. The chuck supplied with this kit is a German Röhm unit with a nominal capacity of Ø5/32" - a very well made item, ideal for small diameter drills and taps.
A lever handle operates the ram through a linkage giving just over 1" of travel and offers lots of feel with miniature drills - something that is absent using the standard tailstock barrel. This attachment should reduce the occurrence of drill breakages as one can better monitor the drill's progress and quickly back the drill out to clear swarf. Tapping (up to 2BA/M5) is also a delight since the chuck will self-feed once the tap engages with the job. Click the image to learn more?
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Quick-Set Keats Angle PlateWhilst the Keats Angle Plate has long been associated with offset-turning on the faceplate, this application was never mentioned in Harold Keats' 1918 patent nor in early adverts. Indeed, the standard Keats plate is among the world's MOST diabolical items to offset accurately!
However, our unique variation on the original is a good deal easier to work with. The workpiece is clamped into the fixture which is then clamped loosely to the faceplate. The workpiece/fixture is centralised on the lathe in the conventional way before being tightly clamped to the faceplate. To create the offset it is only necessary to loosen, then slide the vee block along its base - the exact amount being measured with a vernier caliper.
In addition to its use for turning eccentric features, the 2 castings can be assembled as a sturdy vee block that can be clamped to the milling table to facilitate the machining of crank webs, cross holes and keyways.
Click the image to learn more about this new item.
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B. Hick & Son - Crank Overhead EngineSituated in the centre of Britain's cotton and coal industries, Benjamin Hick grew his Bolton foundry business to employ over 400 men before his death in 1842. His son John then partnered with William Hargreaves in 1845 to form Hick, Hargreaves & Co, supplying a vast range of stationary and locomotive steam engines, boilers, water wheels and mill gearing to customers at home and overseas (including India, Russia, Spain, South America, China, and Japan). In 1864, they were also responsible for the introduction of the highly efficient American Corliss valve gear into the UK.
This particular 10nhp engine was shown by the company at the Great Exhibition in 1851, alongside their diminutive 2nhp Oscillating Engine. Geoffrey King, a professional Engineer and member of the Newcomen Society, detailed this 1" to 1' replica in 1956 from the original Hick drawing set. The vertical layout made this engine particularly suitable for driving "manufactory" line shafting, with the cylinder, valve chest and feed pump installed in a pit below. Where more that 10nhp was required, gangs of engines could be coupled together and managed by a single boiler and "engineer".
Complete with its 7" x 8½" plinth the model stands almost 14" tall propelling a 7½" flywheel. With a bore x stroke of ¾" x 1 7/8", the engine has a double acting slide valve, an eccentric driven feed pump and a Watts type governor, driven directly from the crank with bevel gears. An imposing runner, the 'Crank Overhead' shows a great deal of movement when underway.
Click the image for more information - including a video on the engine in action!
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