Downriver Tools Sherline Cross Slide Table Lever

[gerritv]

I have been remiss in keeping my Fore and Aft Build thread updated, the engine is nearing completion.

After making a pile of studs from M3 all-thread sourced from AliExpress, I needed decent looking nuts. I had bought small nuts from https://www.microschroeven.nl/ but don't have enough of them and they are IMO too small in cross dimension for this purpose. Commercial ones, besides not being machined, are too large across flats.

So out came the GH Thomas Model Engineers Workshop Manual and I made a Sherline version of his chuck backstop. That left the issue of winding the cross slide back and forth to part, face etc. Steamer had mentioned having the plans for the Downriver Tools plans for Sherline, and in the meantime I found that Robert Sudowski is still in business, just not visible on the internet. A pleasant phone call, transfer of US$ funds and I have a full set of plans for the Sherline sized bed turret, related 1/2" shank tooling and the cross slide lever mechanism.

I didn't take any photos during the build, it is all relative plain milling and drilling. Fit of the pivot pins is important to reduce the risk of chatter when cutting.

There are 2 setups needed. One for drilling and parting off the stock into blanks, the other for facing, making the washer step and tapping. Facing and parting are done from the rear tool post with a thin parting blade, the washer step is done from the front tool post with a sharp tool.

The photo shows the 3 types of nuts, I made the one in the middle. Some small refinements in the process, mostly using a file to round edges should yield good looking parts.

gerrit

[steamer]

Thats awesome!    I have a bed turret for my lathe and I want to set it up for screw studs ect.

Watching along!

Dave

[AVTUR]

Gerrit

Thanks for the picture. It should be easy to fit a cross slide lever to a Cowells but I think I will leave it for the present.

AVTUR

[petertha]

That's really cool. I guess the lever travel must traverse the 2 tool blocks from their outer positions as a function of part diameter & setup, across the spindle line to complete its operation. So how much travel does the lever provide? Can you show any further details of how the lever mechanism operates or acts on the table? I'm guessing you must remove or somehow disconnect the cross bed lead screw? (not too familiar with Sherlines).

I had a similar idea on my 14x40 lathe but there is no easy or fast way of disconnecting the lead screw thread, so its either spin the leadscrew back & forth like a mad man within its defined travel, or build some kind of dedicated slide table that mounts on top. So the work to benefit ratio of just changing tools on the regular dovetail tool post seemed to be diminishing for me at least. But I can see this as being really useful on lathes that are more amenable to the mechanism.

[Roger B]

A good addition to the lathe and a good result     

[gerritv]

Thank you Steamer, Roger, so far a pleasure to use.

Travel is 2 inches. The operation is meant to use the Stop block to limit travel in each direction.

For making the nuts, I drill, then face the small rebate for the washer face (the tool only travels a few thou toward the centre), then part from rear but not to centre (since there is hole it is not necessary). That makes a nut blank.
Second set of operations is to face the nut and tap it.
Some file work in both operations makes it all tidier.

[gerritv]

Not sure if this thread or the Lathe Backstop thread is best to demo the process:

I added a depth stop to the rear tool post to set the extension of raw stock relative to the parting blade.

Drill, add washer step and part off a series of nut blanks. I only drill about 2 nuts deep at a time to avoid wandering drill problems.This uses the rear parting blade as well as a sharp tool to make the washer face step.

Install the lathe back stop from my other posting, place nut fully against the holder/guide, retract into jaws, tighten jaws and power tap using a spiral flute tap at slow speed, wind out by hand. Chamfer, use a fine file to round the end of the hex.

It goes surprisingly quick. the photos are all of M3 nuts, 4.7mm across flats.

A great result from 5 afternoons of machining the tooling.
I'm wainting on the arrival of some nut taps, they stack the nuts onto its shank. saves a wee bit more time.

gerrit

[Alex]

This is neat. I also have a Sherline, with stepper motor mounts, but put handles on "to get a feel of the lathe" and to be honest, the handles are still on it a long time later. It's a neat little lathe.

Do you end up using this Downriver slide often, and do you remove it and just use the normal screw driven slide?

I have done the opposite (mainly for boiler fittings) where I tap/drill/ream/etc brass fittings from stock big enough to mill a hex on the end, on my lathe, then on the CNC mill, I have a Sherline Rotary table with a simple g-code program to put 6 flats on something in the rotary.

When I was making lots of fittings, I'd make a fitting up to the point of "hexing" the end, put it in the mill, press play, and go and do the next fitting. Saved a bit of time when making something like 50 nuts at a time.

John.

[gerritv]

I use hex stock for making nut blanks. Some from a friend, some from AliExpress(304 stainless, not the easiest to deal with). And more recently from EKP in the UK. I have plans in my head to make a rotary hollow mill to make hex, kind of the reverse of the ususal rotary broaching of a hole. Hex stock in small sizes is hard to come by in the colonies.

So far the lever cross slide has been in place for over a year, it is a bit like using a graver for machining.

What is more interesting, and I should really post here as well, is my build of DownRiver Tools' bed turret. Along with 14 tool holder so far this is looking to change how I make repetetive parts. For now I stopped on making the next 8 or so tool holders, they are getting more complex and I need a break from them :-)
My King 1022 lathe has cross slide and Z steppers for use with a Rocketronics ELS Pro, so no desire to CNC the Sherline.

[Roger B]

That's a neat 'production' set up   

Do you take orders   

[gerritv]

Thank you Roger,
I am loving my retirement and have no desire to work on a schedule. Proof of this is the full year elapsed in building the turret plus tooling :-) The bigger issue is shipping from Canada of course.

OTOH if you have any extra attachements for a Reglus drill jig, we should talk. I would love to get a #110 v block for the small version. Or dimensions of same. I look on Ricardo.ch with no luck.