Needing to make a number of hooks for the shackles and the ends of tie down chains I decided to make another jig. Initially I made up a couple of hooks to gauge the length between the bends then I drilled a couple of holes in yet another plug pin and added some piano wire. i confess that I was very sceptical about how well the piano wire would hold up being quite thin at 0.8mm but in practice it’s been more than fine.

Once I had made a few I cut some lengths of copper coated chain that I had left over from a Connoisseur kit and fitted hooks to each end

Finally I started adding a hook to each end of the shackles. like making up the D links it was another steady but quite therapeutic job.

Now that my Bolster wagons are nearing completion my thoughts turned to loading it and by good fortune my good lady had recently trimmed out apple trees. So I found a couple of stout branches amongst the offcuts which looked like they might make suitable timber loads.

The next thing was how to tie them down and I decided to have a go to see if I could make some screw shackles – think screw couplings without the hook for the vehicle body.

I started by making what I call the trunnions and centre pins lots of small turnings. Some of them were cross drilled using my Proxxon mini pillar drill. The major diameter of the rod is 2mm and to centre the drill on the part, I popped a 2mm drill bit in the chuck upside down and dropped that in between the vice jaws.

I made the bob weights from 1.6mm rod which was turned down to 1mm nominal for the shaft but in hindsight I should have made them a little bit thinner.

I drilled and them cross drilled more 2mm rod to make the bob weight collars but since making these I experimented with making the collar and centre pin as one piece and in future when I make more I shall do that as soldering the bob weight in, and then soldering it central on the shaft was a bit of a pain.

The final piece was a small washer to retain the other trunnion.

And with the obligatory 5p piece for scale. magnified so much the solder looks a bit messy but it’s barely visible at normal viewing distances.

Finally I had to make up the D shackles so I made a bending jog to ensure that they were all pretty much the same size.

The jig is made from another redundant plug pin with holes drilled in to determine the length between bends with short lengths of 0.8mm piano wire loctited in to create the pivot points. The observant amongst you will note that initially I drilled a third hole to insert a tail to start the initial bend but after doing the first one I realised that it was much more efficient to make the first bend with a fine pair of round nosed pliers then placed the formed eye on the jig to bend the other end.

I made four pairs in this session of making them. All that remain are hooks to attach to the chains.

I have done further trials with my Vallejo Old Gold paint mixed 2/3 -1/3 with Vallejo Natural Steel then let down for spraying with Johnsons Klear.

In the first two photos I used the same brass safety valve cover as a comparison piece but realised after taking the photos that the brass had tarnished slightly in the intervening time since I did the last comparison.

I used an image editor (Picasa 3) to add some contrast to the same image.

Then I took another photo after polishing up the brass valve cover again so the comparison is more like for like than the first photo.

And again with a some contrast added

I have reached the conclusion that it is possible with good preparation of the whitemetal casting to make a decent fist of painting it with brass paint as long as there is no actual brass in close proximity to allow a direct comparison. I thought that I would pain the dome too to see what a difference a bigger subject made and while it looks okay to use it in practice I would need to fill some holes in the rear of the casting that you cannot see in the images.

Back in 2023 when I was restoring the Moore And Wright Scribing Block there was a discussion on one of the forums which went along the lines of “you cannot have too many toolmakers or engineers clamps” At the time I had 3 sets that were cheapo imports. Since then I have added another single 2″ Eclipse example to the collection but I was also thinking about a pair that could be used for holding parts for soldering without going rusty.

I happened to have a length of 1/2″ square brass bar that I’d had for a number of years without having a use for it. A quick measure up worked out that I could get two pairs of jaws from it so in the intervening 3 years I have been slowly building a pair. I made the screws from stainless M6 threaded rod and the knobs and nuts were made from 10mm nickel bar.

They have been substantially made for quite some time and really only needed the angles putting on the jaws and some way of retaining the nuts in the absence of having any spring steel. In the end I milled some flat brass bar to fit around a slot cut in the lower section of the nut.

Now all that remains is to loctite the knobs on he ends of the threaded rod and put some on the bottom of the threaded rod where it screws into the front lower jaw.

Since buying and later modifying a tap follower back in 2023 I have used it many times and I wouldn’t be without it. However one thing about it is a bit of a pain, or perhaps I am just bit lazy. That is swapping the piston over end for end depending on whether my tap has a point or a dimple.

As a rule of thumb most of the bigger size taps have dimples whereas the smaller sized ones tend to have a point or at least a tapered end.

To get around this I dedided to make a second smaller tap follower with lighter springing that could be dedicated to the smaller taps that I seem to use a lot.

I decided to make it from a couple of pieces of rod recovered from a printer drum unit. The main barrel being 8mm in diameter which will fit in all my Jacobs drill chucks without issue and the piiston end made from some 5mm rod, again from the drum unit.

Springs from my spares box and an M6 grub screw and away I went.

I chose M6 because the tapping size is 5mm which meant that my piston could be a 5mm rod with the end turned down to pass through a smaller hole in the end. So it was a case of drilling the main body 4.8 mm and then reaming to 5mm with a 2.9mm hole in the other end reamed to 3mm. Sadly all didn’t go as planned because in a moment of inattention I broke my 3mm reamer in the hole. After trying a couple of pins to knock it out and a 3mm carbide end mill I turned a little off the length until I exposed the broren end of the reamer then using my vice as a press I managed to push it part way through. Then I found in my bits box a short length of rod with a smaller stub which fitted in the 3mm hole. Using this as a drift I managed to push the reamer a little further in, then I turned the small stub end a little longer and repeated the process it took turning 3 more sections down before the reamer popped out. Then I ran another 3mm end mill through the hole to tidy it up and get it concentric before finally turning the small end of the piston to be a tight but sliding fit in the hole.

A fun little project that had I not broken the reamer would have only taken an hour or so. I’m sure that it will see much use in the future

As a complete aside, and those with a bandsaw look away and start sniggering now.

Despite attaining poor results at accuracy with a file, I have long prided myself on my ability to follow a line with a saw.

This morning I made a 140mm (5-1/2in) cut in a piece of 10mm thick steel plate with a hacksaw to within 0.5mm end to end. Which I will take as a win – That said it did take me an hour (I had a coffee in between two sessions with the saw) and apparently it’s character building. I feel that I must have a mighty fine character after that effort.

The other piece (this is the offcut) is destined to be a fixture plate for the mill at some point.

A friend (Richard) were discussing painting whitemetal safety valve covers with ‘brass’ paint. I had idly mentioned to Richard to polish the metallic paint after it dries with either a cotton bud or kitchen paper. It was during this discussion that it occured to me to use a buffing wheel in a mini drill instead.

I dug out a whitemetal safety valve casting from my H2/J79 kit and after buffing up the casting I brush painted some Vallejo Old Gold onto it. and then when dried overnight buffed it with the mini drill. Getting decent photos of it proved quite a pain but I got something.

Then it occured to me to to add a coat of Johnsons Klear

I still wasn’t too happy with the result but at this point I thought that it was down to the finish of the casting so instead of using a buffing wheel I used a wire cup brush in the mini drill. At the same time I thought it prudent to also polish up a brass casting so I could have a proper comparison the casting in question is a Gladiator example as I had bought a number of them from David to replace the whitemetal casting in a number of ex NER loco kits.

It was at this point that I realised that my Old Gold was not the right colour but I was part way through the next experiment so I ran with it.

My third example is another whitemetal casting this one from my J71 kit and the sequence was was polish the casting with a wire brush then spray rather than brush more Old Gold but this time let down for spraying with Johnsons Klear.

Here are the three together. The polished and sprayed example is by far the best in terms of finish but the colour is wrong when in direct comparison to the actual brass.

I consulted my good lady as to what I might need to add to the old gold to make it more like the brass example and she suggests white or silver to make it paler. I don’t have anymore safety valve castings to hand so I was going to use a dome instead but in the interests of keeping them all similar I elected to stripp the paint off the first expample so that I could polish the casting with the wire brush before trying again with a lighter hopefully more brassey colour. TBC

As an aside I thought perhaps I could cut out the stripping stage by attacking the painted casting with my wire brush in the mini drill. I was really surprised that it didn’t budge it. Despite giving it a good going over all it did was further polish the surface so those who doubt the toughness of modern acrylics take note. Now the casting is soaking in some clean spirit to soften the paint before i have another go.

Way back in 2018 I bought a Warco Branded MiniFormit combination Guillotine, Bending Rolls and Folding brake.

As it came I found that the guide which is the small dark block on the bottom right of the machine really wasn’t much use indeed it allowed the material being cut to pivot around it and thus not cut straight

So I replaced it with a strip of aluminium which was better but not great

Further improvements had me remove the spring loaded bar that is designed to hold the material flat but in reality it stops you from being able to see the cut line. I also made up a more robust block of steel to make a better guide

Since buying this back in 2018, I have mostly used the guillotine function, for cutting sheet brass or nickel and on occasions aluminium sheet recovered from shaving foam cans. I have also rarely used the rolling bars although having a similar set of rollers that are independant really does make it only used when I cannot be bothered to lift the rolling bars onto my workbench (they live underneath)

As sold the bumph claims that it will cut up to 1mm in steel and there is a bending brake function which apart from slipping a piece of crap sheet in as a test not long after buying it, I haven’t used it since or in any kind of ‘real’ situation.

Fast forward to the last few weeks. Knowing that the fitting of a DRO to may lathe would require the removal and modification of the swarf shield at the back of the lathe I bought in a couple of pieces of 1mm x 150mm x 500m (6″ x 18″) sheet steel. I chose the size based on the measurements taken from the existing swarf shield and knew that one of the pieces would just fit along the bottom of the shield to effectively push it 150mm further back. The other piece was planned for filling in any gaps left by the way that the existing shield had been cut out to fit around features on the back of the lathe.

Having finished fitting the Digital Readout scales to the lathe (to be reported in more detail in the relevant thread), my thoughts turned to the swarf shield. I had already drilled one of the pieces and bolted it to some aluminium angle to extend the bottom plate and then needed to fill in the gaps at the chuck end.

I measured the biggest gap which extended from the upper portion of the original shield forward to the rear of the lathe and then it required a right angle bend to fill the remaining gap just behind the chuck. I didn’t really fancy hacksawing it off so I decided to see if the manufacturers claim of it cutting 1mm sheet steel was true. I am pleased to say that it is.

Albeit, that I foolishly left some big bolts at the side of the guillotine and as the metal cut through. The force I was having to apply, sent the handle downwards at speed, trapping one of my fingers between the handle and one or more of the bolts. It made my eyes water a little but no real harm done.

Next I tried out the folding brake and again I was really pleased with the outcome. The first fold was relatively easy, but getting the bent sheet back out took a bit of jiggling.

For the last infill piece, I needed a much smaller piece which had a double bend. Cutting the smaller strip off was much easier and making the first bend was quite simple. But there wasn’t enough clearance for the bent material to feed into position for the second bend. I got around this by removing the anvil for the guillotine section which required unscrewing four caps screws. Two for the guide strip and the others actually holding the anvil in position.

As an aside I have also used the guillotine to cut several pieces of an old aluminium number plate that had fallen off a vehicle and some kind person had tucked it in a fence (I suppose in the hope that the the person who lost it might see it and recover it). After seeing it tucked in the fence for a couple of years, I got fed up of looking it and decided to bin it. It was only as I was about to put it in the litter bin, that I realised that it was aluminium rather than plastic and would be useful as material at some point. During my fitting and refitting of scales to both lathe and mill I have used it to make several spacers. Although much thicker than 1mm, being aluminium, it cuts quite easily with the guillotine.