In the absence of any advice, I bought the first lathe that I saw in a tool shop window. This was a Portass plain lathe, which was obviously limited to just simple turning, yet I had visions of building 3½" Gauge locomotive on it. There were no ‘T’ slots in the cross slide, so any milling operations were out of the question, that is, without drilling bolt holes in the cross slide. At that time, I was also so naïve that I expected the motor and countershaft to be included in the purchase price just as the lathe was displayed in the shop window. It was an awful disappointment to me when the machine was delivered with just a faceplate, catchplate, and two centres. So a further setback to getting started became inevitable whilst I accumulated yet more funds. I did buy some lathe cutting tools at the time of purchase, but even so, I now realised that I also needed at least one chuck and a tailstock drill chuck!
My ‘workshop’ was my father’s 6ft x 4ft shed, now that the chicken hatches had been filled up. The shed also housed three bicycles; this not only limited the bench room, but the bicycles had to be shifted out before any work could start. Plus, I always got it in the neck if the saddles got wet while they were outside! The shed was also likely to get full sun on it for most of the day, so it was often impossible to even go inside in warm weather. During frosty weather, the sunrise also subjected my workplace to rapid temperature change. Cold metal tools soon began to sweat and rust problems became a total nightmare.
I finally got the flat belt lathe headstock turning with leather trouser belts held together with bent nails, or copper wire. In my ignorance, I had the lathe running far too fast and I was quick to learn that when the machine was running, if the click-clicking associated with the belt drive stopped, a quick step to the right was necessary to avoid a slap in the face with flying belt work! I became quite adept at these avoiding tactics after learning the hard way and finding myself going to work looking as though some female had found it necessary to ferociously resist my advances. This was rather like going to work with a boil on the end of your nose and thinking that no one would notice. Young men were always fair game for banter from the mature in any industry.
Early days at Birmingham S.M.E.’s Campbell Green. Reg Harding and myself discuss his 3½" Gauge 2-8-0 locomotive.
I also had no idea what the extra gears were for on the lathe headstock, when these gears were engaged the lathe spindle locked. Having no literature with my new machine, it was some six months before I found a secreted bolt which when loosened allowed the back gear to engage so that slow-speed turning could be brought into effect. High turning speeds and casting sand embedded in my newly purchased castings for the proposed 3½" Gauge Great Western ‘County’ class caused havoc with all my new cutting tools. Both the cast iron and phosphor bronze castings had proved frustratingly impossible for me to work with. The only thing I found reasonable to work with was brass.
My next necessity was a grinder, and again another disappointing purchase was made. The company who made my electric drill had now come up with a bench drill stand to fit my electric drill. The tool by this time had been mostly relegated to a shelf, in favour of a hand drill and brace and bit. An advert showed a grinding wheel held in the chuck of the drill with the inverted tool set up and mounted on the bench. Ideal for what I wanted, I thought.
The chuck on the drill was of the keyless variety and with the new product finally mounted on the bench, I switched on. Being able to grind my own tools, that is, without mounting a grindstone in the chuck of the lathe, was going to make a vast difference. Nevertheless, within a few seconds of the first sparks flying the gyrating grindstone came loose in the chuck and before I could get to the switch it went spinning into orbit in the very confined space of the workshop. For some very long seconds I ducked and dived to avoid this now lethal rotating object. A period of contemplation on the loo then necessary for me to eventually regain my composure! I was in desperate need of a tutor, or at the very least, someone willing to point me in the right direction.
Having pointed out my early downfalls, my first lathe did teach me an awful lot. Having ‘hands-on’ experience, and undaunted interest, was to give me my first taste of engineering. I initially used callipers mostly, in conjunction with a one-inch micrometre; these needed the right ‘feel’. At first when measuring with my micrometre it was all too easy for me to get a different reading every time on the same work piece.
Compulsory military service was now about to intervene.
CHAPTER TWO
Few young men looked forward to National Service, me included. I didn’t want to lose my home comforts, leave the job that I loved, or the interest of my workshop. At work in 1952 the new British Railways Standard locomotives were coming off the stocks and I was keen for new experiences. Due to staff shortages, by this period of time my promotion to fireman saw me already getting on some long runs with express trains. This was despite the fact that I was still only seventeen years of age. I just loved my work, however physical it got.
It was a well-known fact to us youth that although you were asked which branch of the armed forces you wished to serve in, no one ever got what they asked for. I was eventually interviewed by a man in uniform resembling General Kitchener on the poster, ‘Your Country Needs You!’
During the brief interview the inevitable question arose, to which I replied that I would like to go into the Railway Section of the Royal Engineers. Heartened for a few seconds, I thought that I had impressed this superior character who had already frowned at me with some distain. He then said he would put me down for lorry driving!
I learnt to drive in a lorry with a gearbox that screamed to such an extent that conversation was impossible whilst running in the lower gears. Once the initial training was over I was sent to a Royal Engineer Assault Regiment on Salisbury Plain. Here, the major in charge of the squadron interviewed me again on arrival and quizzed me about my general interests. I told him of my keenness to do engineering and again this man seemed relatively impressed. He said that he would put me into the Motor Transport Section and he would also enter me for a vehicle mechanics course. As expected, this proposed course never materialised and I spent the remainder of the two years on general duties. I never drove another military vehicle. For the final twelve months I took charge of the Sergeant’s Mess bar and learned how best to keep beer, which at that time was delivered in wooden barrels.
Whilst working in the mess, some of the higher ranks never let their authority lapse when in the presence of subordinates, yet at quieter times I did have heart-to-heart conversations with some very nice people amongst my superiors, once the alcohol took over. It was on one of these quieter occasions that I mentioned to one of the young sergeants that I had an interest in engineering. He then told me he had been doing an engineering degree, but had now decided to leave the army. To my great surprise, a few days later, he passed on to me all his text books at no cost. Included among these were three bound volumes, and a data book published by Caxton, ‘Engineering Workshop Practice’. I still treasure these books today and often refer to them; particularly as few engineering books published these days seem to speak the same language as someone my age.
This gift seemed to save my sanity during the last six months of what I felt was a two-year ‘sentence’. I now worked only on alternate days, as we had to keep the bar open all night as long as someone was drinking. I often worked until dawn; therefore, on my day off I was able to bury my head in my newly acquired literature, particularly the engineering maths sections.
My bank balance was severely lacking once I did get back home. Fortunately, on returning to work I was paired up with a driver who, once he got to work, fully intended to stay there as long as possible. Over the bitter cold winter of 1954-55 long hours at work put good money my way and my first purchase in the spring was a new workshop. This came by way of the largest shed Birmingham Corporation would allow. You then had the option to paint this 8ft x 6ft structure any colour you liked, as long as it was brown or green! My elder brothe
r now worked in the research laboratory at Bakelite Plastics and he was able to get hold of some of the latest technology phenolic foam to insulate the inside of this new structure. This certainly solved the problem of rapid temperature change and also helped to reduce noise levels. Regrettably, a drawback I now faced was that a neighbour next door but one worked regular nights in a car industry factory. This was to suppress my eagerness once I started to get my hand in again.
Once sufficient funds were available I purchased a new Myford ML7 lathe, along with a cabinet stand, chucks, vertical slide, and many other accessories. The swivelling type vertical slide I found a bit disappointing and not quite up to working on some 5" Gauge castings. I felt that a fixed type would have been more stable and a wiser choice. Also, I bought a boring bar for use between the lathe centres; this has been used once in fifty years!
With the lathe installed, I examined my 3½" Gauge ‘County’ chassis and decided that much of it was failing in standard. A number of the key castings I also now deemed unserviceable due to my amateurism.
L.B.S.C. had just published his drawings for ‘Speedy’, a 5" Gauge, new design G.W.R, 0-6-0 Pannier tank engine and I really felt that I would like to give this a shot by starting afresh. I was now really eager to put into practice much of the theory that I had been reading about. My head seemed to be bursting with untold ‘knowledge’.
With the new blueprints purchased, I set about doing everything methodically, reading up again on things that I was unsure of. With the main frames marked out I set about cutting them out with the hacksaw. After a short while there was a knock on the front door; our neighbour, who was working nights, was already complaining about the noise I was making. This appeared to be a little over the top to me, as with the workshop wall insulation and the door shut, hacksawing mild steel plate appeared to make very little noise. However, I felt that I must respect his wishes and stop work; indeed, I worked shifts myself, as did my father. I could sympathise with him as I felt like death myself at night if I hadn’t slept well during the day.
1955 – myself working on ‘Speedy’ in my new shed.
My new Myford ran very quietly, so I felt that I could at least do turning jobs during the hours that our neighbour went to bed. Again, all the theory in the world was no substitute for ‘hands-on’ experience. Despite reading about turning speeds for specific metals, tool rake angles, and ‘Moments of Inertia’, I still managed to suffer occasional tool chatter. This again brought further complaint from our neighbour, which again was disconcerting and disappointing. This meant that the only time I could work was in the evenings, a time when as a young person I naturally liked to be out on the town. Many of my shifts meant working afternoons, giving me plenty of time during the mornings to go into the workshop, so I was now to suffer very badly from exasperation.
The eventual turning of the driving wheels went well; I followed the sequence described by L.B.S.C. so that they all came out the same size in quick time. My theoretical knowledge was now to let me down again when boring out the wheel centres for the axles. I bought a brand new reamer and followed the theory to the letter, yet when I examined the bores they all looked more suitable to fit onto a gearbox spline! None of the text that I had read gave any indication that engineering tradesmen tended to use reamers that were slightly dulled – if they used a new reamer it was lightly burnished before use. Doing this would have avoided the chatter in my wheel bores. Going up a size in the bores would have easily cured the problem, that is, if I had not already wasted time turning the axles only fractionally larger than the finished size on the drawing.
The cylinder castings were much larger than I expected too; machining them on the Myford ML7 was, again, a problem. I was too inexperienced to have mounted them on the lathe saddle using the boring bar, so I therefore decided to machine them on the face plate. This meant that I could only turn them at slow speed, which wasn’t ideal for phosphor bronze, but again, I was totally lost trying to obtain any kind balance for faster turning. Having said that, the finished product did come out quite well, I was able to get under the ‘skin’ of the castings without having to grind the tool too often. Then again, my new lathe did turn the bores nice and parallel.
The steam chest liners were turned on a mandrel between the centres, but again, inexperience let me down. At a critical time on the last cut I noticed a .002" taper on them. Being a new lathe, I had not altered the offset on the tail stock, so it never occurred to me to put the micrometre on both ends of the job early on and set the tailstock accurately! The fit on steam chest liners is critical; they have to be right, otherwise steam will blow directly into exhaust. This error meant more expense and time to make a second set of steam chest liners.
1965 – my first steam trial with ‘Speedy’ whilst my father and younger brother look on. Note, the back garden gate is the escape hatch from the old Anderson air raid shelter.
It was ten years before I completed the locomotive, during which time any number of components were thrown up the garden in frustration. Then, on the original drawings the valve gear design was found to be unsatisfactory. A further two years were then necessary working out what was wrong before the engine did actually run with satisfaction.
The boiler was brazed up in an old oil drum filled with coke on the back yard. I purchased one of the first butane gas blow lamps that were available to the amateur. This worked off a 9lb Camping Gaz cylinder, without a regulator, which tended to lose pressure quickly with a big nozzle attached. I supplemented the heat with a paraffin blow lamp and a tube attached to the cooker in the kitchen. The domestic supply was coal gas at that time and it was easy to remove one of the cooker rings and slip on a rubber pipe as the gas pressure was quite low. When brazing a boiler at any time you tend to need two pairs of hands, but frustratingly, usually at about the time the silver solder was about to flow, the butane gas pressure fell, particularly if it was a cold day. This meant it was necessary to shake the bottle furiously to maintain the heat. As each section was brazed it was also necessary to thoroughly clean everything again before further assembly. Also, as the boiler got bigger the more difficult it was to get sufficient heat to do the job. At that time it was general practice to screw the firebox stays as in full-size practice, these were then sealed by running soft solder over the stay nuts. This was a devil of a job for someone like me who was already feeling their way.
For the first three times in steam the boiler foamed like crazy, continually filling the cylinders with water; if it blew off at the safety valve you needed to be wearing a raincoat. This, along with the original faulty valve gear, was particularly soul destroying. However, I did get it right eventually and it was to give me and the children many a happy hour.
House purchase was now to set my workshop projects back again for a while, but with a longer garden I did eventually find time to lay some track. I paid ten shillings for some redundant point rodding from the railway signal and telegraph department. This was sawn down ninety feet in length to turn the channel section into angle. I cut a couple of feet each day, as it was hefty section. There again, I could afford nothing else.
1972 – my nephew and friends have driving turns on my ten-shilling (50p) railway.
By this period in time I felt that I had become sufficiently skilled to attempt to make the injectors for ‘Speedy’, although there were one or two things here that were against me. Commercial injectors were not widely available and were very expensive, I had little alternative but to at least try to make them. The top speed of a Myford ML7 at that time was hardly enough; I think it was 650 R.P.M. This made turning small taper reamers from silver steel to a fine finish difficult. Then again, using number drill sizes above No. 60 at this speed was also to bring me many further disappointments.
The problem with the finish on the taper reamers was eventually solved by drilling an old oil stone with a masonry drill. The stone was then sawn roughly to a circle with the hacksaw, this was quite easy as it was only slate which is qu
ite soft. The rough shape was then mounted on a mandrel and turned in the lathe with a tipped tool. The taper reamer was then mounted in the chuck of the lathe and the oil stone mounted in a Heath Robinson toolpost grinder. This amounted to the stone being mounted directly onto a 12V motor spindle and the motor somehow held in the toolpost. With the toolpost set at the correct angle and both items running in the opposite direction, plenty of oil was supplied to the job. The final finish on the reamers meant that they were polished to a high degree. With half the taper cut away, and the hardening and tempering completed, these little tools proved their worth time and time again.
A magazine tip solved the problem of using small drills over No. 60. The pin chuck holding the small drills was held loosely in the lathe tailstock chuck, the jaws of the tailstock chuck then made just tight enough to allow the pin chuck to be moved in and out without any side play. After centring the job accurately and the lathe running at the fastest speed, a tiny hole can be drilled by pushing the pin chuck onto the work by hand. This gives a sensitive feel to drilling, but you do have to be very careful where you put your fingers! A drop of oil on the shank of the pin drill chuck is a good idea and as long as the work is centred correctly it is unlikely any small drill will break whilst drilling just brass rod.
I followed L.B.S.C.’s instructions and my finished injectors did supply the boiler, but after making several I never got one that would quite work dry at the waste pipe.
The Mettle for Metal Page 2