Alexander master toolmaker

[David BroadbentParticipant @davidbroadbent33226]

Michael Gilligan posted a link to a set of exploded drawings of a similar machine made by Deckel. In my opinion the problem lies within the mechanisms illustrated on pg20and pg18.

[Phil PParticipant @philp]

I wonder if it is possible to get the bottom bracket/nut pulled off the front of the column enough to spring it past the small spiral bevel. Or even wind it off the bottom off the screw ?

You might have to drill and tap the dowels to extract them from the bracket.

Phil

[mark smith 20Participant @marksmith20]

Posted by Phil P on 23/12/2019 16:21:51:

I wonder if it is possible to get the bottom bracket/nut pulled off the front of the column enough to spring it past the small spiral bevel. Or even wind it off the bottom off the screw ?

You might have to drill and tap the dowels to extract them from the bracket.

Phil

That would probably work with the tapered gibs removed as it will give alot of play. But if i remember on mine that bottom nut bracket was extremely hard to remove and i think i left it as it was and just cleaned it all out when i stripped mine.

I cant remember if the dowel pins could be possibly knocked out from inside the column or whether they are just accessable from the front.

[Ian WelfordParticipant @ianwelford58739]

David

the photos Phil posted are better than the diagrams in the manual which just shows piling pints etc and general arrangement.

I remember Phils dad very fondly for his useful guidance and advice to me before I bought my Alexander.

Hope it works out well for you.

Ian

[David BroadbentParticipant @davidbroadbent33226]

Eureka – a Major Breakthrough!

Today I had a serious go at my one remaining option I identified earlier – and it worked. I decided I had to remove the motor drive shaft and bevel gear in thew bottom bracket and push the shaft back into the central pillar of the machine. I managed to tap around the retaining screw to get it moving and thank God it wasn't very long or I could not have got it clear of the motor shaft. By fiddling about with the changewheels inside the central pillar I was able to do two things; firstly to remove a grubscrew which allowed the drive shaft to be withdrawn into the pillar and also to access the taper pins locating the bottom bracket casting and tap them out from within. Having done that it was only necessary to wind down the leadscrew into the bottom bracket to allow the bevel pinion to be removed – and then we were good to go. I had a bit of a practise lift and it is free to go all the way up. . Yippee! After Christmas I will get the engine crane to actually lift off the carriage and then I can see the mechanism I have been blaming and see what the problem actually is.

In the words of Winston Churchill; This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is the end of the beginning!

Thanks to everybody for good avice and general support. I will continue this thread to record what the problem actually was and the rebuild of the machine for future reference.

[Phil PParticipant @philp]

Good to hear you are finally getting somewhere, keep us informed as to what you find.

Phil

[David BroadbentParticipant @davidbroadbent33226]

Thanks Phil. I've just added a couple more pics to show the bottom bracket successfully removed. Not the way Mr Alexander intended it, but it works!

[mark smith 20Participant @marksmith20]

Well done. I would advise you to put new oil wicks in any place you can and thoroughly clean out everything first . The wicks in mine were totally blocked with gunk and all hardened so no oil gets through.

There are wicks all over the place . The all mechanism connected to the joystick lever in mine was particularly bad for dirt and tiny metal particles.

The wick channels are not exactly like the Deckel FP1.

Edited By mark smith 20 on 24/12/2019 00:14:04

[David BroadbentParticipant @davidbroadbent33226]

What a cracking sketch! Thankyou for that. I am particularly interested in the oil way that has some effect on the sightglass behind the saddle. I have been unable to make any impression on the sightglass irrespective of oil sent down the oil cap so had already decided to give the whole thing a birthday before it goes back together. Regarding wicks – from where can they be bought?

The whole thing has gone to my head really. I am not the polishing kind of chap – preferring functionality over bling, but your pictures of a seriously well restored machine – and the fact that my workshop currently looks like an explosion in an Alexander factory, it would be the ideal time to give everything a clean and a paint….

Have a good Christmas – hostilities will resume shortly thereafter!

[Phil PParticipant @philp]

You have probably already found some photo's of my Alexander, but here is one for some inspiration. The machine was my late fathers and he rigged it up to use for gear cutting using the Sunderland principle.

A few more in my albums

This is one of my set ups for shaping a 3 lobe spiral claw coupling for the barring engine on Agnes.

Phil

Edited By Phil P on 24/12/2019 10:12:24

Edited By Phil P on 24/12/2019 10:13:17

[David BroadbentParticipant @davidbroadbent33226]

Gentlemen, we have a result – and a special prize goes to Phil P for almost spelling it out for me. I got the carriage off the machine and was dismayed not to find the smoking gun within the mechanism. It was then I realised that the sliding bevel gear and its associated bush was rusted on tight to the smooth, keyed shaft. I currently have it soaking in WD40 as it was reluctant to respond to an exploratory tap. This is the result of its several years under a tarpaulin in a friend's garden! It seemed to have been well sheeted off, but obviously not well enough. I am assuming that it worked until one day in selecting upward movement it worked until the bush was forced over the previously exposed rusted part of the shaft – and that was that?

I need to give the rest of it a good examination before it all goes back together – but I will be very pleased if this is all it was – despite the deep surgery that was required to figure it out.

One thing that has struck me it my brief examination is the the power select lever appears only to have two corresponding positions in thge mechanism for the vertical drive. These are obviously up and down, but all I can see within the internal mechanism is the dog clutch either in mesh or not. I assume there is a third position as yet unwilling to select which corresponds to the UP instruction at the select lever – thus giving down – neutral – up?.

Thanks again for all help and forbearance!

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by David Broadbent on 28/12/2019 14:19:00:

.
Gentlemen, we have a result – […]

.

Great News, David

MichaelG.

[Brian HParticipant @brianh50089]

Well done David, I'm glad that your perseverance has finally paid off.

Brian

[VicParticipant @vic]

I’m glad that it sounds like you’ve sorted the problem. The Alexander is a fine machine that is a pleasure to use when working correctly.

[Phil PParticipant @philp]

David

You should find that there are TWO dog clutches in there, one for up and one for down.

The clutches have a ratchet form of tooth so that they only work in one direction, once you get the machine running you will find that when under power feed if you manually wind the respective feed handle in the same direction as it is power feeding, it will disengage the power feed by riding the sloping sides of the dog clutches out of mesh.

This design feature also means that there is little point in having a reversible motor on the machine, if you run it in reverse the power feeds will also reverse direction and the trips will no longer function which could lead to disaster. ( I think that is the case, either that or the clutches will just not engage at all )

Another little quirk is that it is also possible to engage both vertical and horizontal power feeds at the same time, they are not interlocked to prevent that happening, I cannot think when I would want it to do that, but just be aware of it.

The vertical feed dog clutches had been removed from my machine when my dad bought it, so he had to reverse engineer the design and work out what was missing and make all the new parts for it himself, I still have all his notes and design sketches from when he did it.

It runs in the family, my grandfather was chief engineer at a West Yorkshire mill back in the days of steam, my dad was Chief Deign Engineer at a company in West Yorkshire, and I have the same job title at a firm in North Yorkshire. I just wish I was as clever as my dad was sometimes !!

 

Phil

Edited By Phil P on 29/12/2019 12:37:20

[David BroadbentParticipant @davidbroadbent33226]

I have now discovered the second vertical dog clutch. Progress is slow at the moment with lots of house guests etc limiting the time one can spend in the garage. Having found it however it also seems as though the detent lever that selects up or down is somehow astray? It sits against the threaded stop in one direction (DOWN) but stops well short of the other? I think its the UP selection which is currently not engaging the lower dog clutch. I need to explore further as I suspect it may be a result of the siezed bevel gear causing excessive and repeated load in one direction only?

[David BroadbentParticipant @davidbroadbent33226]

I have now managed to steal an hour away from Grandfatherly duties to get oily. I think I have discovered the second problem I have with the mill. Although when I first got it going, it would power up and down quite easily, but that facility ceased. Now as I examine it I can see why. When the hand control selects DOWN, the upper dog is engaged . However, the detent device is only in the mid position, confirmed by the mechanism being equidistant from both threaded end stops. When the lever is knocked back to neutral, the upper dog is disengaged, but the detent device is then hard up against the lower threaded stop – so there is no ability to select UP and engage the lower dogclutch.

The cause appears to be that the shaft has somehow moved down the machine! There is a gap of about 4mm between the upper dog and the machine casting, whereas the lower dog has almost disappeared from view – perhaps flush with the machine casting at the lower end. How it can have done this is baffling as both dogs appeared to be pinned to the shaft, it shows no sign of wanting to move any further – and the bevel gear at the very top of the shaft is still in deep mesh with its cross slide counterparts! Seems like this shaft is the next thing to have to remove form the carriage!

I will add a couple of relevant pics to the growing gallery and await your comments.

[David BroadbentParticipant @davidbroadbent33226]

I think this is the most telling shot – the 4mm gap above the upper dog clutch.

[David BroadbentParticipant @davidbroadbent33226]

I thought I would continue tinkering and started to strip out the motor drive shaft, first by knocking the pins out of the dog clutches and then from the bevel gear at the top of the nut to try and fix the problem. The dog clutch pin moved nicely but the bevel gear one is solid. Reluctant to hit anything too hard until all possible alternatives are exhausted I cast about a bit for other opportunities. Out of curiosity I took a copper mallet and tapped the botton of the motor shaft – and it moved! A couple more taps and the 4mm gap in the photo had disappeared! (I hadn't removed the dog clutch pins at his point, just tapped them about a mm loose) Immediately I could get UP neutral and DOWN on the select lever and everything thing was meshing and spinning wonderfully. Remarkably the bevel gear had not moved at all! It clearly has a taper pin holding it on the end of the shaft, but it appears that this pin must run in some kind of slot?

I tapped all pins back in as they had been and the whole system works fine! Presumably the pin has failed that secures the bevel on to the drive shaft, presumably due to the motor drive trying to raise the table but the rusted bevel stopping any upward movement – so the drive shaft was pulled down instead and sheared that upper bevel pin?

I think I now need to apply myself to drilling out the upper bevel pin (now it is in roughly the correct location on the shaft) , and try and get the shaft out of the machine to replace the taper pin? This is not going to be easy, but it's the sort of thing that would work really nicely until the nachine was boxed back up again – only to allow the bevel to freewheel merrily the first time the power drive was engaged!

Can anyone confirm with me that all I need to do in order to withdraw the shaft is to remove the pins in the top bevel gear, upper and lower dog clutches and the shaft should then just pull down out of the carriage?

Never a dull moment.

[Phil PParticipant @philp]

I wish I could remember, but its years ago since mine was in bits, and then it was my dad doing most of the work apart from the heavy lifting.

I do know he told me of some difficulty in removing the drive dogs, but I am reasonably sure that would have been the horizontal ones as the vertical parts were missing when he got it.

It sounds like you are on the right track though, and those pins are designed to shear if you have a crash.

Do you have a manual for your machine ?

I have just sent you a PM

Phil

Edited By Phil P on 30/12/2019 19:44:53

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

I think I now need to apply myself to drilling out the upper bevel pin (now it is in roughly the correct location on the shaft) ,

Exactly how do you know the bevel pin is in the correct position, to drill it out, if you cannot see it? Roughly is not near enough. I would suggest you move the bevel sufficiently before simply tapping out the broken pin from the shaft, thereby avoiding drilling into the shaft. Removal of the bevel drive (no longer pinned to the shaft) will allow the broken pin to be tapped out without any drilling

I don’t think I have ever come across a tapered pin running in a slot, so a new one on me.

[Phil PParticipant @philp]

A cross section of the Deckel FP1 is the same as an Alexander.

I think if the shaft had dropped a few millimetres, that would mean it was already coming adrift from the bevel gear.

So if the pin has indeed already sheared the shaft will probably drop out of the bevel gear fairly easily once the other pins are removed, after which you can remove the remains of the pin as described by NDIY above. 

Phil

Edited By Phil P on 30/12/2019 22:24:40

[David BroadbentParticipant @davidbroadbent33226]

Well the shaft actually moved quite well after a tap, so I was hugely relieved and quite optimistic about getting it out of the bevel without much further effort. The problem of course is that you cannot actually get behind it with a drift to tap the shaft back down again! I wasn't actually being serious by the way when I suggested that the bevel gear pin must be running in a slot to allow for such movement on the shaft.

My outline plan was to knock out the pin in the upper dog clutch and then hope the shaft can be persuaded to slide down through the detent mechanism on its way to freedom? The diagram you have posted seems to confirm this?

The job will be tackled in the morning – before the next wave of family turn up for the New Year celebration!

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

I wasn't actually being serious by the way when I suggested that the bevel gear pin must be running in a slot to allow for such movement on the shaft.

Really?

[David BroadbentParticipant @davidbroadbent33226]

Yippee! The shaft was extracted this morning and remains of taper pins also safely extracted. All I need now is a new taper pin to replace the old one and I can start the reassembly. The Deckel handbook identifies the pin as a "4 x 30 Din 1" which would probably not be far away but would be a different taper than an Imperial pin? Measuring the holes in the bevel gear seems to suggest 11/64" x 1 1/8" as the nearest fractional imperial size, so it looks like a job for the old Raglan – unless anyone knows where such a thing might be bought in quantities of less than 100?

Thanks again for all the help and advice given on this forum,

Dave

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