Old Mart –

I like that technique for making and fitting bearing liners, but here I am making a clamp so need an appreciable joint gap so the liners will close down on the bar.

You could hold the halves together for soldering by twisting wire round them; by an old, so sacrificeable, worm–drive clip; by brass screws just outside what will become the liners; or by simple G-clamps made from a bit of channel or bent steel strip and an ordinary set-screw. (I think that was LBSC’s way!)

Dave –

Good point I’d not really thought when I started. I gave the second sleeve a small lip to stop it sliding in one direction at least, but had envisaged perhaps a couple of simple dowels / roll-pins / screws to act as retainers.

Then realised I could use two 1/4″-BSW tapped holes already in the casting. I drilled the still-cylindrical sleeves with the tapping size (5.1mm) then turned little tails on two set-screws to engage with that hole. Only after dividing the shells into two, realised this placed the cut obliquely to the clamping.

Then……

I hit the problem that one split shell fitted, sort of, the other didn’t.

So I spent this afternoon experimenting.

I had already used one of the original sleeves, by halving that lengthways.

I adopted, I think, if I understand them correctly, Diogenes’ and Andrew’s suggestion of slots along the remaining original sleeve. Using the slitting-saw, and rotating the sleeve by eye from position to position in a T-slot as “Vee-block”, I cut very thin slots almost through the wall.

Oh, and the “Haunted Workshop” ghosts then added their bit by hiding one half of the split, faulty sleeve!

So eventually I finished with a reasonably satisfactory compromise. One of the new two-part sleeves in the front eye, the original sleeve for the rear eye, with thin axial grooves to make it flexible.

The photos show what’s what:

The Denbigh H4 Horizontal Mill, for line-shaft drive, with its non-original, 2″ diameter over-arm and the makeshift sleeves that came with it; and the (broken!) even more makeshift, drop-bracket on an eccentric spigot to allow its alignment with the spindle.

Note the two link-belts. Many owners of similar machines put the modern drive motor and pulleys out to one side, so as to use continuous belts. This works well but is very ungainly and steals a sizeable volume of workshop.

I want the drive above this machine, neater and more compact in a very cramped shed. That DRO unit in the background is on a Myford VMC mill, and side-mounting the Denbigh’s drive to the right could obstruct easy access to the Myford, but to the left, to an adjacent bench-drill! Yet going too high above could obstruct the travelling-hoist’s journeys.

That is the next part of the project, and thankyou Diogenes for that worm-drive unit, offering a spindle speed of around 75rpm (1350 motor / 18:1 worm-gear), depending on the intermediate pulley. I can live with a single speed, especially if I restore the table-feed drive.

And without the fittings. The 2.5″ dia apertures as machined by the Staffordshire company. The “Cyclop’s Eye” in my Haunted Workshop piece. It was making the new sleeves for this, that had created the eerie sounds. This picture shows why I am very wary of either an excessively tight fit, or of having to pull the clamps-nuts down too tightly. That little bulge just visible beyond the eye is a puzzle. It is a protrusion holding only a vertical blind hole about 5/16″ dia, and perhaps originally was to hold a lamp.

The sleeves:

Left: one of the previous owner’s efforts, fully halved by me.

Centre: one half of my replacements showing the half-hole that engages the locating-screw. It was one of these sleeves that had “Shrunk” (curled inwards).

Right: the other sleeve as it came with the machine, with one saw-cut right through; and now with five sawn slots along the outer wall, opposite the through-slot.

Sorry if I did not understand what you meant.

The problem I was trying to solve by cutting those longitudinal slots, was that the sleeves made by the previous owner had used, were too strong to safely be sqeezed down to grip the over-arm without very unfair strains on the casting. The original (Denbigh-made) over-arm would have been the full 2.5″ diameter.

I first thought that mystery bulge was for oil, but it isn’t. Its hole is blind and there is no similar feature on the rear bearing.  The spindle oilers are merely simple holes drilled at an angle from small, raised facings on the body, and the front one is visible in my first photo. It would make sense to fit them with lidded oil-pots.

Denbigh’s small H-series mills were quite basic, apparently primarily for batch-work by low-skilled operators – the lower-number “aitches” even had lever-operated tables –  and lack much finesse.

Mine, an H4 so the series’ largest, even has 6 tpi table screws with very few, stamped, divisions on the tiny dials. (Why on Earth, 0.16666″ lead ?).

Thankyou chaps! I have just re-examined the measurements, finding I’d misquoted the original over-arm diameter above. Not three-inch.

Over-arm supplied (prob. not original) :  2″ diameter

“Cyclop’s Eye” (as manufactured):          2.5″ bore

Long Feed.      6TPI leadscrew, no dial. (0.1667″ lead)

Vertical Feed:  6TPI, dial calibrated in 5s and 5s (so 0.007″ / minor division. Awkward.)

Cross Feed:    8TPI, dial calibrated 5 X 5 so 0.02 = 0.005″ / minor division. Sensible!

Somewhat unintuitively, and oppositely to my vertical mill, rotate the handle anticlockwise to raise the table.

Michael –

Funnily enough I wondered if this machine was specially fitted for twelfths, perhaps for making parts for printing-machines as that trade uses 1/12″ units. It was even possible to buy rules calibrated in them. Though I would expect all the screws to be of 6TPI.

Diogenes –

Or to hold a suds-pipe bracket? Possibly: good suggestion. No reason it could not be used so, whatever its original purpose. I will have a closer look to see if there is an oil-way hidden in muck. Odd that this is not repeated on the other journal, though.

Old Mart –

Errr, yes. I did think of that. Only the existing 2″ diameter bar is heavy enough without one nearly half as heavy again for the same length! Nevertheless a full-diameter bar would be the most elegant and indeed correct solution. My workshop’s travelling-hoist would cope with it much more easily than my muscles, and once located it would normally stay there. Expensive though – perhaps not justifiably.

The material I used for the adaptor sleeves was two separate lengths, neither long enough on their own.

If found some new-to-me bar of oversize diameter it might just fit my Harrison lathe for turning to size.

I pondered a suitable steel tube of smaller diameter with welded-on sleeves, skimmed between centres. I very much doubt 2.5″ o.d. stock tube would be accurate enough.

On a machine like this the drop-bracket is clamped individually to the over-arm so the arm’s orientation does not matter. Though I do see the risk of the problem you describe, that of the bracket moving round as it is tightened. The former owner who made this arm had added the eccentric end to allow adjustment…. by rotating the over-arm. Circular reasoning? I need make a new bracket, and with a proper clamp.

Regarding the peculiar pitch, I created a spreadsheet to give me some idea of nearest binary-fraction equivalents of bits of sixths. It would be easier to fit a simple digital indicator, or simply (and appropriately) a rule and pointer.

I think no long-travel dial because milling-machines like this were normally used for through-cutting, not partial or incremental distances, on the long traverse.