Monthly Archives: September 2021

Shop Made Tail Stock Locking clamp for the Unimat III

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I mentioned in my Parting tool upgrade post that I planned to upgrade the locking clamp for the tailstock too.
Like many locking clamps on the Unimat III the locking clamp for the tail stock is an M6 cap screw. It being tucked down the side of the tail stock body it isn’t always convenient to get to. Watching the videos from the GOG virtual shows done by the late David Smith (DLOS) on workshop practice I noted that he had done a similar upgrade and it prompted me to think about it. I finally go to it.
As luck would have it I have a small stock of 50mm stainless M6 cap screws. These are only threaded for part of their length so I started by threading one of them along it’s entire length. Not an easy task in stainless but I got there. Next I cut of the head and cut it approximately to length. 
Then I drilled and tapped a short length of 16mm aluminium bar M6 and turned a 20% taper on the closed end. Having tried to fit it all together so that I could work out the handle length I realised that I had it too tall and it wouldn’t screw past the body of the tail stock. I parted off 5mm and that cured the problem. I screwed it on hand tight an marked where the handle was gong to be and had to change plans again.
My initial idea was to use another M6 screw for the handle and make a knob similar to the pinch boss to fit on the end. My test run proved that there just wasn’t enough room for any kind of knob so I was pondering what I might do when I remembered that I had a short length of steel bar in my tool box that I had had for years and it usually found use as a drift so was a little battered on the ends.
I faced one end off and turned it down to 5.85mm to thread M6 again it being stainless, made this a bit of fun but once I got it started it wasn’t as hard as threading the screw. Then I decided to taper the rest of it to make a handle shape so I centre drilled the threaded end and used a live centre to support it while I turned the taper. After initially completely forgetting that I needed to turn the topside feed not the carriage feed I ended up with the handle below which I was quite pleased with.

Shop made Tail Stock Clamp Handle.

Having cross drilled the pinch boss I assembled it all and it looks like this

Shop made Tail Stock clamp


This is the unlocked position and a quarter turn locks it

Shop made Tail Stock clamp

Carried away by this success I have ordered some more 8mm stainless rod to make another to replace  the cap screw on the quill lock.

NER Boiler Fittings Trials Trials and Tribulations

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After my efforts to create the lovely safety valve bonnet yesterday I was dismayed when I learned that I had orientated the ellipse at the top in the wrong direction. It should run in line with the boiler….

Today’s first task was sorting that out. All was not lost as I learned a bit more while correcting it and I have an even better end result for my efforts.

Next up I drew up a replacement chimney to the correct dimensions for the Class J and initially I added rivets around the base but Tom alerted me to the fact that the NER used countersunk bolts so nothing was visible on the chimney base after painting. A few steps back on the Fusion timeline removed them. It’s certainly much easier to remove them than to add them…

Although the Class J didn’t have a brass cap to the chimney the drawing that I worked from showed it so I couldn’t resist depicting it on the photos at least.

Finally I drew up a replacement dome so that should draw a line under this particular little project if you will pardon the pun.