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Workshop
2022 September - Blacksmith's Leg Vice
Back in 1950 my father rented a garden with a greenhouse, at the end of the greenhouse was a small workshop with a rusty Blacksmith's Leg Vice. In the 60s when the garden had to be given up to have houses built there the vice was stored in the garage and then the corner of my workshop. In September 2022 I wire brushed it, painted on rust remover which dried to a hard finish, sprayed it black and mounted it on a small board which can be bolted to the end of my bench or clamped on the 2016-11-03 - Workshop-table outside. The wooden block is to compensate for the height of the bench/table.
storedin usein use

2022 September - Carving Vice
My friend Charlie gave me an old rusty woodworking vice which I cleaned up, derusted, painted, made new MDF jaws, and mounted on a bench-hook which can also be clamped down. The final picture shows it stored hanging from a roof beam.

2021-November 20 - Carving Clamp
I refurbished and modified a home made Carving Clamp for use at my local Wood Carving Club.
The wood at the top of the pillar is a safe place to keep the screws when no piece is attached.

2021- November 18 - Clamp-on Woodworking Vice
Over thirty years ago I bought a Stanley 'L' shaped clamp-on woodworking vice. Although the design is old, cast-iron versions are on sale on eBay, I found it poor, the jaws were always orientated the wrong way and the table edge got in the way of the tightening bar. So I bought a new cheap Acme threaded 6" clamp-on vice. It needed work!
The clamp screw protruded past the edge of the clamp plate and would have chewed into any table/bench it was clamped to. The jaws were 1/16" out of parallel and with rather a lot of toe in to the top and due to the radius on the casting the vice would not fit snug to a bench unless the top corner of the bench was rounded off.
I welded a repair washer onto the original clamp plate so the clamp screw end is recessed.
I made a wooden mounting plate with a rounded top edge, fastened on with M6 screws into woodnuts and made 1/4" long sleeves from 8mm/6mm steel tube to centre the M6 screws in the 8mm holes in the vice. I made wooden vice jaw facings from MDF, mounted the back one in place with double sided carpet tape then drilled M5 through the M6 mounting holes in the rear jaw, cleared out the MDF to 6mm from the front, countersinked, and fastened the jaw with M6 screws.
I mixed Steven's Bridger (chopped strand paste), buttered it on the front jaw and holding the front jaw facing against the back jaw nipped up the vice squeezing the excess Bridger out which I trimmed off. I was going to fasten the facing with M6 scews through the holes in the front jaw, but I don't think it will fall off.
After filing off all the sharp edges from the casting I am now really pleased with it.

2020 - New Emco Unimat Lathe Tailstock clamp screw and lever
Made a clamp screw for the Unimat instead of having to use the Allen Key.
The bar had to be thinned down to miss the tailstock barrel. After turning the screw and spindle it was screwd in place and the top marked for the tommy bar hole so it was at the correct angle for easy nipping up.
The ends of the tommy bar were screwed M4, nuts screwed on and then turned circular.

2019-September - New Top-slide mount for B920 lathe
Everybody complains about the top-slide mount, it just isn't very rigid so I decided to make a Pitkin Donut mount as designed by John Pitkin.
Fortunately I had a bar end of just the right diameter and thickness. The clamps in the photos are made from angle-iron. The 'T' studs are M6 threaded rod welded in 2" long bars which just fit in the T-slots.
The new mount makes a tremendous difference.
Pitkin-Donut Compound Mount for the 9X20 Lathe.pdf
Pitkin-Donut Compound Mount Machining Instructions.pdf

2019-May - Saddle-clamp for B920 lathe
The saddle can be clamped using an Allen key in a bolt in the saddle. The key was always somewhere else or fell out so I made a new clamp. I turned a piece of 12mm bar and threaded one end M6. The handle has to be removable to get the clamp screw in and out of the hole. I screwed the new clamp in by hand and marked where the handle hole should be, drilled and tapped a hole M6 and made the hande with a slot at the end so it can be tightened in (and removed) using a screwdriver.
Yes the photo shows the Pitkin Donut, I didn't take the photo when I made the clamp.
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2019-04-08 - New Cross-slide handle for B920 lathe
Ever since I got the lathe I have found the throw on the cross-slide handle was too small. I decide to improve it and rough sawed a piece of 3/8" aluminium plate to just over 80mm diameter, put it in the 3-jaw and faced it and drilled and bored a centre hole about 47mm, just smaller than the cross-slide handle disc. Gripped it by the centre bore and faced the other side then turned the diameter to 80mm. Holding it by the outer edge I bored it so it would just slide over the original disc, drilled and tapped a hole to take the original handle and fastened it in place on the original disc using threadlock. When the threadlock had set I moved over the handle. Now with the larger throw I have so much more control of the feed.

2017-03-14 - Flexible Drive coupling
A friend bought a flexible drive and second hand sewing-machine motor and needed them connecting. The drive had an 8mm shaft and the motor a 1/4" spindle cross drilled and tapped near M3. The thread was a very good fit for an M3 screw but it would only go 3/4 of the way through from either side - goodness knows what the thread really was so I ran an M3 tap right through. I made the coupling from 30mm of 3/4" bar, faced off in the lathe and bored 8mm dia. x 20mm at one end for the flexible drive and 1/4" dia. x 10mm at the other. Four M6x6mm set screws at 90deg hold the 8mm shaft in place and a recessed M3 screw fastens the motor shaft.

2016-11-19 - BL-920 four-jaw chuck
While making muscle ends for the Shadow-Leg-Mk2 I used the four-jaw chuck supplied with the lathe and the best description for it is 'agricultural'. Twenty years ago Patrick had givn me a 6" four-jaw intended for a previous lathe but I couldn't get a backplate for that lathe. I eventually found that Chester Machine Tools sold a backplate for the BL-920 and ordered one but it didn't fit - the nose register was too small a diameter! Non of their other stock fitted their 920s either - hmm. So I scraped the backplate register to fit the lathe nose register, turned it to fit the recess in Patrick's chuck, cleaned off all the surface rust from the chuck and fitted it. Fantastic.

2016-11-17 - BL-020 lathe back-gear problems
Of course repairing the bearing wasn't the only problem. I have always used the back-gear because it was almost impossible to get the V-belt onto the motor and spindle pulleys, it was dangerously tight. How the belt arrangement was originally set up I don't know but accountants/time-and-motion-people seemed have been involved in a re-design. The first step was to position the motor so the V-belt could be slipped onto the motor and spindle pullies and then tensioned using the tensioning arm. Of course with the motor in the right position the back-gear mounting plate, which is held in position by two screws by the spindle, had to be at a crazy angle for the back-gear toothed belt to fit on the pullies, which meant the gear cover didn't fit properly and it all looked like a train wreck. So I adjusted the back-gear plate nice and square with the lathe and determined that the back-gear stud needed to be about 1/2" higher so the toothed belt was at proper tension. I filed a slot in the back-gear plate so the stud was in the proper place and the tension could be adjusted. That done the belts can be repositioned and changed and the guard door fits.

2016-11-17 - BL-020 lathe back-gear bearing problems
Continued from 2016-10-27
The Oilite bearings arived, so I polished the Back-gear stud, turned out the old phosphor-bronze bearings and turned recesses in the back-gear hub to take the new Oilite bearings. Polishing the stud left it a little undersize but it will be a lot better than it was and I bought six Oilite bearings so have four spare if I need to replace them in the future.

2016-11-07 - Black and Decker Jobber
While making a window box I used my Black and Decker Jobber on my new outside workshop table, however it was difficult to hold the wood because it really needed four more holes for the dogs, one at each corner. In addition one of the plastic handles was quite tight on the aluminium so I took the Jobber apart, cleaned up the handles and used a Forstner bit to drill four new holes.

2016-11-06 - Pillar-drill depth-stop
The depth-stop-lock on my pillar-drill has always been difficult to use - it is too short. I got another handle in a box of bits from a friend and swapped them over. Now adjusting the depth-stop is easy.

2016-11-06 - Bandsaw table
The area of my bandsaw table round the blade had worn and remembering a bandsaw project on California Gears I cut a square out of the table and made a drop-in piece.
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2016-11-03 - Workshop table
For some time I had been considering where I could fit an outside table for dusty/dirty work then I realised I could make one that folded up. I bought two treated "gravel-boards" and three sturdy hinges, sanded the gravel-boards and used an offcut of a treated 3" fence post as the wall mount fixed to the wall with two frame-screws. I was going to fit a spike to the drop-down leg which would go into the lawn to stop the bottom of the leg moving but it turned out not to be necessary and the table is very rigid. A simple wooden swivel lever holds it in the up position.

2016-10-27 - BL-020 lathe back-gear bearing problems
The Back-gear bearing started to make noises and when I stripped it down it was obvious why. The oil had not been getting to where it ought to have gone because the oilway was gummed up. However that was only part of the problem, the back-gear stud seemed to have only been rough turned and not polished, consequently the phosphor bronze bearings were quite worn. What to do? I could turn new bearings from Phosphor bronze bar but decided to get some Oilite bearings instead. Continued on 2016-11-17
I wasn't the only one - "When my ~ 10yr old 9x20 was new, the shafts for the "a" gear and idler gear were bent; while the surface finish on the clutch pulley shaft was rough and it quickly ate up the brass clutch pulley bushings. All fixable, but still a nuisance. Bill" 9x20Lathe@yahoogroups.com 2018-01-19

2014-03-17 - Angle Grinder Attachment for Lathe
I needed to cut some rings from a steel tube for muscle ends. Last time I did that I chucked lengths of tube in the lathe and held an angle grinder by hand. It worked well but I did loose a couple of rings as the cutting disk skidded over the tube and marked it. This time I decided to try out a holder for an angle grinder which turns it into a chop saw, I bought it last year from Lidl for about £15. I was surprised when I assembled it, it was actually very good. My friend Jim Whiting made an attachment to hold an angle grinder on the cross-slide of his lathe and I had thought about making one then I wondered could the Aldi one be adapted? It turned out it was so simple.
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2012 June - Bandsaw - longer jaw for vice + small part extension
The vice as supplied is suited to cutting pieces off the end of long stock but will not hold shorter than about 6". I added a longer face and tapped the far end M6 for an M6 screw, made a knob for the screw from wood and plumbing pipe. The screw stops the vice jaw from twisting when holding short lengths.
I filed a flat on the side of the vice base to mount a piece of angle iron with an extesion welded on the back, 6mm plates were then welded on as in the photo, leaving a gap for the saw blade. A removable angle piece was added inline with the back vice jaw. Now very short lengths can be held and with the finger plate even shorter lengths.
I made a drawer which slides under the base, used for the table and keys, and which also can catch the sawing swarf.

2012 June - Bandsaw - vertical conversion
I bought a small metal cutting bandsaw because sawing by hand made my elbow hurt. The larger saws allowed the blade to be set vertically but the small saw wouldn't do that. So I filed a notch in the saw frame, cut a hole in the base for the pulleys and cut the bottom off the pulley guard. Now the saw will stand vertically - HOWEVER if it is not firmly bolted down it will tip over! For the cutting table for when the saw is vertical I used the table which could be attached to the side of the base, it is attached with the screws for the bottom cover for the guides and I faced the table with 6mm MDF which allows the screws to be recessed.


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