Thanks Jo, Ian & Don
Ian, I forgot about the lighter wheel knurl - and I have a whole bunch of old Bics lying around... Actually I must just pull my finger from "in there" and make a proper knurl; I've got loads of silver steel lying around and it shouldn't take too long to make one.
Today I made the cranking handle from some aluminium and the counter weight from stainless steel, as I wanted the counterweight to "stay out of the way" in use:
Next followed some finishing touches. The front of the bracket was rounded over at the bottom, the feedscrew was trimmed to proper length on both sides, and all corners were generously knocked off with a file. I stamped numbers on the micrometer dial as well. Then I took a family photo of all the parts:
Everything was assembled again, and adjusted with a bit more care than last week - backlash is down to 0.01mm which I'm pretty pleased about; the feed nut isn't even split yet for adjustment; I'll do that at a later point when things have loosened up again:
Some turning tests followed, and I'm very pleased with the results. The direct readings works a charm; I arbitrarily turned a bit of rod down, measured it at 10.27mm with a micrometer, dialled in 0.27mm, turned and measured 10.00mm on the dot with the mic. The slightly lower feedrate compared to the standard feedscrew works a treat for parting off as well; a couple of parting tests gave a nice "feel" and extremely good results.
Now it's time to clean and service the machines for a change, and pick an engine project - it's a long time since I built an engine...
Kind regards, Arnold
