Unique AVO Wave Winder restoration.

[Retired]

Hi,

Having adopted vintage radio restoring when I retired in 2000 to pass away our long winters I quickly progressed from absolute novice to grander things as my experience and knowledge grew. I joined the British Vintage Wireless Society and read many articles on radio restorations which I could only aspire to copying. However as the years passed by I became more proficient to the point I could fully restore the roughest basket case vintage wooden radio; I could repair/fully restore a chassis stripping the chassis of every component then rebuilding it with new components as required until I had it fully working on the bench hooked up to the workshop speaker and isolation transformer. I progressed onto rewinding transformers and eventually could design my own transformers and wind them for home made power supplies. I bought second hand wire winders and gathered lots of test equipment such as oscilloscopes and signal generators. I learned how to veneer and French polish so cabinets became very easy to me to fully restore.

This thread is about an AVO Wave Winder which I bought virtually as scrap but certainly not at a scrap price; the seller initially wanted £200 for the winder and I politely walked away but as the day progressed this rusty lump of junk kept popping into my head and I thought what a wonderful restoration project it would make; it would be a unique restoration because these winders are becoming increasingly rare and there was no information on the net about them so right up my street because I love an hopeless project? It finally got the better of me and I offered £150 cash which was immediately accepted and the winder was collected. The company specialize in all kinds of coil winders and had a large stock of enamelled copper winding wire so I bought a good assortment of wire gauges bumping the price up.

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Back home with this lump of scrap on the bench I thought what have I done taking this on its seized absolutely solid with rust? I soaked everything in oil which must have given it a shock considering no one had been near it with oil for many a long year. After letting it soak in oil for a day I set about dismantling it intending to do a completed and full restoration. A number of parts were missing and it didn't have a single change gear but now I wanted to strip it before worrying about missing parts? Generally the shafts after a fight finally gave in and could be rotated then withdrawn; no way could I simply go at it with an hammer and drift the shafts out because this would surely destroy the castings and was to be avoided at all costs. After a hard battle I ended up with just the main shaft to remove and this shaft was proving extremely difficult simply laughing at me. It was welded solid with rust; I could not grip it with pliers or mole grips etc because this would cause damage to the shaft and look unsightly. I applied heat; lots of heat but it still laughed at me. I looked around the garage for inspiration and pulled some offcuts of metal out to experiment with. I put two thick lengths of metal together but with a packing between; two cross holes were drilled to accept a pair of set screws and nuts these being nipped tightly; next I drilled and reamered a hole to the correct bore size to suit the shaft; with this job done the nuts were removed as was the packing; now with this home made clamp/lever attached to the shaft because of the packing now being removed it allowed a very tight grip without causing damage. Only now did the shaft give in and at first it moved very slightly but at least the rust grip had been broken so more oil was added and after what seemed forever I had this wayward shaft on the bench; this allowed the final strip of the major castings.

What horrible stuff paint stripper is but I had little choice other than to use it to remove all the original paint down to bare metal. By now I had already put in a lot of time just to end up with a pile of components on the bench. With the paint stripper sludge cleaned up and the components washed with meths they started to look better. All the shafts were spun in the lathe allowing them to be polished bright; each casting bore (plain bearing) was cleaned using fine abrasive paper on a metal rod and the shafts in turn were checked for free running. The main castings were reassembled and very; very carefully aligned then I applied undercoat and top coat cellulose off white colour which I had chosen and bought in readiness. What a truly wonderful moment I enjoyed as I looked at the bare winder in its new paint; it glowed with pride; it's such moments as this that make these restorations so worth while. Item by item the winder was reassembled and at last after many days of graft the winder looked splendid but was still missing a few parts.

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Obtaining genuine parts whether new or second-hand would be virtually impossible but this wasn't a problem to me. My background is mechanical engineering and I was taught by top class engineers in the National Coal Board so not to worry I'll simply make the missing parts? The wire guide arm was broken this being aluminium. I obtained by scrounging a suitable blank of aluminium being generously given this by a company in Dewsbury which was politely thanked. I had a battered rare Myford MF36" lathe and set about machining this blank securing it to a faceplate; not everyone knows a lathe can produce dead flat surfaces as well as round so this small job alone might be of interest? A lot of care was needed in making this arm because it had to be bang on regarding size and the bore mustn't have any clearance whatsoever or the winder would be inaccurate in use given the fine wires it was designed to wind. It was very satisfying to successfully make this arm especially since I only had the one piece of aluminium.

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A friend had kindly given me some aluminium round bar stock and although the diameter wouldn't allow me to copy perfectly the missing knob I could make a smaller but suitable knob and no one would ever know any difference? Making this knob was a lovely little project which again gave me a lot of personal pleasure and once completed it looked perfect. A tailstock spindle was turned in the lathe and a "live" cone centre turned to suit it for mounting bobbins. The crank and winding handle were also missing so a new crank was welded up and a new wooden handle nicely turned from solid oak; this handle was bored to give a close sliding fit allowing it to revolve about its spindle; it pays to think things through and go the extra to make a better job of something. Wire burned rings were added to the oak handle giving it elegance without cost. This was what I now considered part one completed and I now had an immaculate but bare Wave Winder utterly useless without change gears; yes all the shafts and crank worked perfectly but they needed gears to couple them and at this point I hadn't any idea what original gears looked like. What a lovely ornament I now had? I'll add pictures to date and will follow on with part two showing how I resolved the gearwheel problem and boy it was a problem to really test what I am made of; I hope this story is of interest so far but a lot more is to follow.

Kind regards, Col.

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[kellys_eye]

Col, you need a new vocation. Writing books on restoration would be about right!

I've read some of the threads on the vintage wireless forum regarding this coil winder and am green with envy I have plans myself to start winding coils and have been thinking about making a winder myself although my version would be stepper-motor controlled via computer. The 'wave' winding part is the most highly sought version and video examples of them working are a joy to watch.

Your restoration work is simply superb.

Can't wait to read your next installment.

[joinerjohn]

Col, yet another delightful thread started by yourself. As KE says, your vocation should be writing books about restoration. Crikey, I just wish I had a hobby half as interesting as the one's you so obviously enjoy. I'm sure we all bow to your superior knowledge and skill. I personally am in awe at the skill and effort you put into your "little" projects. Keep up the great work.

[wine~o]

The attention to detail is stunning.

[Chop]

You already know what I think...

Don't suppose you're looking for an apprentice are you, Colonel? I make a really nice cup of tea..

[lockie]

Superb stuff and i really love the inovative stuff you do as required.

[Retired]

Hi,

I feel very humbled by your replies; thank you; I'll keep adding my stories as time permits. The second part concerning the gear cutting is rather more complex and took me a long time to resolve so although I've started the write up given the amount of research and work involved during work in progress I can only skim over the surface but hopefully the story will convey it is possible to succeed against all odds; this will follow shortly.

Many thanks k_e for your kind words and encouragement. There are a number of videos on YouTube showing various designs of working wave winders; the AVO winder in this project is about as good as it can possibly get as to design and function; it is described as a progressive wave winder; the designer of this AVO winder must have really known his subject and I take my hat off to him. Your proposed wave winder using a stepper motor and computer sounds like a top project to get your teeth into; I would be very interested as to how you intend to use the stepper motor as to the function you would apply it to? I've just had a quick look on YouTube to add a suitable video link as to what wave winding is about and amazingly I've found one of these AVO winders in action as seen here;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoIr4VT8d80

The action of these winders is to wind wire onto an insulated bobbin (former) but not simply laying the wire on nice and neat but the mechanism also applies side to side linear motion in zigzag fashion creating assorted patterns of winding; the winding wire is also special a lot of it being silk covered and it is worth considering before venturing into making or restoring a wave winder just how incredibly expensive this wire is these days and it is also difficult to obtain the wire; I only had one very small spool of silk covered wire to experiment with but I only restored the winder as a personal challenge just to see what I could do. As the bobbin is rotated around its axis the wire is laid on under slight tension to prevent it being loose and flopping around; standard winding is when the wire is run onto the bobbin just as you see cotton on a bobbin but wave winding is totally different; the zigzag laying of the wire has to be very controlled indeed and the zigzag spacing's are critical to the design of the coil being formed; the zigzag hasn't to be a sudden movement but it is related to each full revolution of the bobbin so it needs to "progress" which is difficult to describe in text but the zigzag motion is extremely difficult to design especially taking into account the many wire gauges involved in the design and making of tuning coils? Shortly after completing my restoration I was contacted being asked if I would be prepared to wind two thousand tuning coils? I thanked the enquirer but politely declined; my sole purpose of the restoration was to test my own ability as to whether I could successfully return the winder into working order not to actually use it in anger and certainly not with the intention of profit. Good luck k_e if you do eventually go ahead with your winder project and if so I'll enjoy following your story here on the forum.

Thanks jj; its actually not too hard doing one of these restoration projects because in practice a car engine is more complex than this winder; yes the winder appears complex but only the wave mechanism is so because the major components are basically castings and shafts; as long as sketches and written details are kept at strip down then it should all go back together straightforward enough; I do have better than average skill here because of my mechanical engineering background but even so this winder was still a challenge to me and I couldn't just rip it apart and rebuild it with ease; I needed to log every detail at strip down as I do with all such projects; many strip machines committing to memory only for said machine to end up in a skip? Good working practices are called for; I have my own way of working and over the years adapted my methods; a digi camera is brilliant for recording.

Its good of you both k_e and jj to suggest I write a book covering my endeavours; I've had a number of articles published following encouragement from my lovely Bron and fellow vintage radio friend Martin Scobie; I found having the articles published to be a rather "cold" affair; write the article; submit the article to the editor; the editor checks it over and returns it in the format as it will be printed with a brief thanks then that's it; the article is published end of story? A number of my friends have had such articles published only to be attacked in print being picked up by some "know all" trying to show the world he has superior knowledge but these know alls are actually quite thick and shallow because they never ever submit an article of their own putting their own head above the parapet? I much prefer the friendliness of a forum such as UHM; being able to interact with members and exchange ideas and opinions receiving not only glowing replies but also on occasion a critical reply but in such a manner no malice is inferred or intended merely a different opinion? Please have a look around jj; I'd encourage anyone to adopt an hobby and I'm sure there are plenty of hobbies to choose from? I've got friends in such diverse hobbies as allotments to woodturning all in each case being very happy; I don't really have an hobby as such; I'm just happy to be here and still healthy enough to do anything; I turn the most mundane of jobs into a project then I can take interest in them and do my best; leaking drains; yuck of a job; but turn it on its head and consider it a project now comes the research as to locating the fault; how to access the fault; what tools or kit are needed; do I have the necessary skills to repair the fault and if not now is the time to study before just jumping in; what materials do I need in fact what are many of these materials called? I brush up and by the time I visit a supplier I can at least talk the talk and armed with a wish list of items correctly identified I can understand what I'm about but also discuss with others my needs without feeling silly or stupid? Offsets and elbows are the language of plumbers; MDF and OSB is the language of joiners; you are doing hobbies everyday jj without possibly realizing it? Sorry if I sound to be preaching but it's the way I am; I'm so interested in everything with so much still to learn. I'm in a 67 year old body with a 5 year old enquiring mind and there is so much I don't know but I'm still asking the silly questions. What are you interest in jj and more to the point what would you like to do given the chance or opportunity; I'd also be happy if other members posted their ambitions and dreams here. My dream is to have a huge warehouse with a nice big Lancashire boiler; line shafts powering lots of huge machines; space and light and no one other than Bron interrupting my work. I'm happier on big machines which could tear me apart than the smaller DIY machines that can impart a nasty nip with a visit to A&E; give me big machines any day with all the moving parts fully exposed where I can see them not enclosed like a tin can.

Over the years I've bought scrap machines and rebuilt them bringing them back into useful service; it beats me why many machine owners/operators think they can keep pressing the start/stop button for years and not even consider the machine is thirsty and needs a drink of oil; oiling a machine is so important and certainly little skill is involved but eventually the machine dies and is replaced usually with a modern inferior machine; I've bought many of these scrap machines and very much enjoyed getting dirty rebuilding them to as new as possible then I'm rewarded with top class heavy duty machines which will last many years. Here are pictures of a couple more machines I restored; a huge Startrite Volant 24" bandsaw it being 3 phase 415V 10 speed with inbuilt blade welder and blade grinder; I used this a lot but it proved too big taking up a lot of space so I sold it on at a very fair price and bought a smaller Wilmac bandsaw which again was scrap and I enjoyed rebuilding. I bought the Wolf double ended grinder through eBay collecting it locally and subjected it to a full rebuild with new bearings; it still runs a treat. There is so much satisfaction in doing this kind of work and a novice could start with a small machine like the grinder to rebuild and then step up to something slightly larger; this is an excellent way to obtain really top class machines for less money than a modern tinny machine and once fully restored the old machine will still give good service whilst the modern machine goes to be recycled; I much prefer heavy cast iron machines for my rebuilds. I do lots of very small projects such as making a special brass knob for a project; a bit of knurling keeps my hand in on the lathe.

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Thanks wine~o; I admit I'm my own worst enemy and critic but if I do any job or task to the best of my ability I can then live with the result and be content; second best is never good enough and although on occasion I'm forced to compromise I never like doing so; many times there is little involved between doing a good job and a shoddy job; I still mess up though and can measure a length of timber very accurately five times only for it to end up being short once cut; the result is usually frustration and utter despair because the length of timber is always the last length?

Thanks Chop as always; if you was my apprentice I would make the tea to allow you to concentrate on the job you had been given without breaking you off? I went through a hard but interesting apprenticeship in the pit and the skills taught me remain with me always and have been the base I work from; I bless the day I was introduced to top class engineers who beat me up and pushed me head and shoulders into the 45 gallon barrel of water aside the forge; I was taught to respect others and not answer back; it's never done me any lasting harm but it has done me enormous good; these days assault charges would be pressed but I'll always maintain it is the best and quickest way to learn; we've become too soft by far? What's wrong with a good slap where deserved; over with in seconds; lesson rudely but permanently taught and no verbal or written warnings to bother about or put on record; I'm not into abuse but I was taught in this way and to this day still highly respect all those who taught me so many good skills.

That's good of you lockie thank you. Making things has come so easily to me over the years; by the time I've spent days trying to obtain an original part I can many times make the part to an even better specification or even do away with the part altogether with a bit of thought and redesign; just because something has always been done a certain way doesn't always mean it is the best way.

I'm pretty sure you will by now think I've already taken your advice and started to write a book k_e and jj; thanks everyone for reading my stories if you've managed to get this far without falling asleep?

Below is a picture showing the front view of the fully restored winder in all its glory. The upper right hand aluminium knob is the copy I made; it also shows the new tailstock spindle and live cone centre. I've been trying to find pictures of how I made these parts but so far without luck; a number of my restoration discs won't open which is a pity. I'm still bogged down with Christmas but I'll continue the story shortly.

Kind regards, Col.

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[kellys_eye]

Each time you post I could spend hours typing a response! Maybe teaching is your vocation (as well as writing!) certainly your experience of life needs to be spread amongst the younger generations to get them to understand and appreciate how an apprenticeship SHOULD be savoured.

If anything your posts are an encouragement to ME too. I may have various skills that you don't have but might find useful/interesting but your dedication and determination is inspirational.

Top man (and, by all accounts, Mrs Retired (Bron) is a top woman too. Hope you both have a great Christmas).

[Retired]

Hi,

You really are too kind k_e; what praise you so generously give me; thank you. I think these days most kids would rather push buttons than get their hands dirty; they like comfort in front of a TV or computer; schools have sold all the equipment that was used to educate them with such as lathes etc; This is possibly at the hands of the Health and Safety because we no longer can accept little Johnny nicking a finger in case the parents sue the school; add to this many of the older machines no longer reach the specifications laid out in current legislation as to guarding and emergency stopping unlike the days when a machine was turned off and allowed to coast to a full stop. I didn't see any serious accidents during my school years but then we respected our teachers who's hands were not tied by another foreign countries rules and regulations imposed upon us? Apprenticeships were true apprenticeships; I didn't know anyone who went on to university when I left school; we went straight into jobs and immediately started to earn money whilst training on the job; I was down the pit aged 15 hindering the engineers. I am however very pleased you like my ramblings but I'm now regarded as a dinosaur brought up in the true dark ages when electricity was a pure luxury; we had gas lights and old fashioned cooking range fuelled by coal or wood; I don't think I ever travelled in a car until I was seven years old; we had proper money too in those days and I can still remember a farthing being worth having in my pocket. Old weights and measurements would scare kids these days if they had to learn them; we were taught the old way without computers to distract or slow us down; I wonder what will happen in future when the time comes when no one knows how to make the buttons the kids so enjoy pressing; still we can always ship in such things? No jobs these days? True; many jobs disappeared together with companies when our heavy industry went abroad; to think the industrial revolution started here in the UK; pity it looks to have ended? I was always encouraged to learn and to better myself so it's only natural for me to try to do my bit and encourage others to attempt new things. You will indeed have lots of skills k_e which I do not possess and once any skill is learnt then picking up other skills does become much easier. The sad fact though these days is apathy with so many people who won't attempt anything or try doing anything new? I'm not criticizing I'm happy in my own little world and don't want to throw stones or upset anyone. Right back to the plot.

Having now fully restored the bare wave winder I needed to set about equipping it with gears to replace the missing originals and I just knew I was in for it. Obviously given my mechanical engineering background and training I have been involved with gears for around 50 years but never had to make a gear from scratch? I didn't have a dividing head for the lathe in fact I didn't even have a vertical slide for the lathe so it could only get better from here? Unusually for me this is a very long story but I'll shrink it for a change.

I browsed the net for ideas and inspiration but all the information I could find related to expensive attachments for the lathe? I did however find on the net the correct AVO Wave Winder owners manual which gave me a good start as to what change gears were supplied with the winder when it was new; now for the bad news; 45 gears were in a complete set with even more available to special order from AVO? I didn't even have a single gear and didn't know what a gear for this winder looked like either. I spent many restless nights in bed giving this problem a great deal of thought and slowly formed a method allowing me to make the gears on my lathe. I got out my old drawing instruments and drew a circle on plain white paper but could I heck as obtain very accurate tooth spacing around its diameter using a protractor; my eyesight and the thickness of the pencil lead were an hopeless combination. I never had success with CAD either in fact I still couldn't draw a straight line to length; what a dilemma but I'm stubborn. I joined a vintage radio forum and my very first thread was to ask for assistance in accurately dividing the circumference of a circle? Wonderful; no one laughed at this and although I received lots of encouragement and replies I was no nearer to finding the solution which I desperately needed.

Then a breakthrough; John a member of said forum contacted me saying he worked in "the trade" when these winders were being used in anger and that he had a working winder with change gears; he would take pictures and send them to me which he kindly did. I still could not divide a circle but at least I now could see the gear wheel design so had something to work with. I had been trying lots of CAD programs out and still was having great troubles but I then came across "emachineshop" CAD an American program; I kicked this around for many hours and made a little progress then I noticed an option "Spur gear wizard"? I tried to access this wizard spending ages but without success; the CAD was a totally free download but I wondered what would happen if I registered as a user which I did; suddenly the spur wizard was available and clicked open. This was a truly wonderful revelation to me; obviously it didn't all suddenly drop into my lap but by now I was becoming more familiar with this CAD program and would settle down to watch the video tutorials demonstrated by the delightful Aurora Nestle; two such videos here on YouTube;





As usual I got everything completely wrong; I was working on PCD (pitch circle diameter) as taught to me all those years ago as an apprentice but each time I entered the data the printed off gear drawings were miles out; as I say this was one huge learning curve taking a long time for my poor head to grasp. I hadn't even realized it was my printers settings giving me 8" diameter gears each time I printed a gear drawing off? It did however start to dawn on me little by little what I was doing wrongly. I went into the printer menu and adjusted to "actual size" also selecting the finest line available; now I started to make steady progress. With a lot of research I discovered all the terms described in the spur gear CAD program; this was far from easy but once I had grasped how to enter the correct data into the program I printed my first ever perfect spur gear drawing which at the time I thought to be fantastic and still do. We all fully understand; pressure angle; diametrical pitch; backlash; module; pitch dia; outside dia; base dia and circular pitch to name just a few don't we? I didn't even have a gear to take direct measurements from as a starting point and looking at the pictures didn't give any indication as to tooth profile or size; yes I was in trouble and knew it. I studied the gear wheel pictures John had kindly supplied and I spent ages staring at the winder pictures in the manual; it was all going straight over my head then a breakthrough; two of the gear shafts are in a fixed position so the gears installed onto these two shafts must have something in common regarding actual size for them to mesh correctly? A bit more time was spent before I found two 60 tooth gears would mesh so I then set about playing around with the Spur Gear Wizard; I got lots of strange sizes and each time I printed off the gears were nowhere near correct; I looked at HSS involute cutters on eBay but these were available in lots of different sizes; I had been adding Pitch Circle Diameter as to my training so many years ago and eventually found by experiment the printed out gears were getting nearer to what I wanted all this time kicking the 60 tooth gear around; after what seemed a lifetime it all suddenly clicked into place and I printed off two perfect 60 tooth gear templates; I believe the shaft centres were 2" so I laid the templates on the desk and spaced their centres at 2" the gears overlapped to tooth depth; now I was making good progress but I was also growing older due to the many hours so far expended but I was pleased.

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By now I had a firm plan of action to follow and these printed out drawings of the spur gears were a vital part because I was trying out something totally new. The idea was to cut the gears in the lathe using a between centres "fly cutter" this being a single point tool set in a 1" diameter mild steel bar nipped in position by a grub screw. I bought a book covering gear cutting and how to make single point tool bits of the correct (Involute) profile to pretty good accuracy however I didn't follow the shown method instead I reasoned that if I could use my diamond wheel dresser it should be possible to dress a small grinding wheel to shape; I bought a number of 4" diameter grinding wheels to experiment with; a long story but I succeeded and now had the single point high speed steel cutter I needed. Not having a means of mounting the gear blanks I needed to do something about this so looked around my steel offcuts and simply designed and made a suitable vertical slide to fit the lathe just for this one off very special job; sounds easy but I was designing and working around what I had to hand but at least I was on familiar ground and fully understood what I was about.

It was all now starting to come together but as yet my theory hadn't been put to the test. Unsure how the old lathe would cope with the vibration of the cutter in motion I decided to experiment using "Whale Tufnol" for the gear blanks. I had very carefully worked out all the maximum diameters I needed and printed off the paper spur gears. I turned a pair of Tufnol blanks to finished maximum diameter using the bore to mount them with onto a dummy mandrel to ensure concentricity. Now to try out my theory; I mounted the fly cutter into the bar and in turn set this in the lathe gripping one end in the chuck the other with the tailstock brought up with a live centre to engage it. The new vertical slide was attached to the lathe bed and the first Tufnol gear blank secured firmly to it; fly cutting is old as the hills and I take no credit for it but now to my idea; I used double sided self adhesive tape and very accurately aligned one of the paper templates attaching the template to the upper face of the blank.

I brought the fly cutter to horizontal and in turn raised the vertical slide bringing the blank into close contact with the cutter; I used an engineers square to centre the cutter but then adjusted the template by eye aligning the cutter to the template drawing and I was very happy to see it looking so good. The profile of the new cutter perfectly matched the profile of the tooth on the attached drawing template. The vertical slide was now locked securely into position and the blank lowered until it cleared the cutter as the cutter was turned by hand; everything was double checked and checked again as to alignment and the cutter not fouling then with a deep breath the lathe was set in motion. I slowly engaged the cutter and blank by winding the vertical slide upwards and to my utter amazement cut the slot to full depth in one pass with incredible ease; I was over the moon by this; I hadn't cut a tooth in fact teeth are not cut at all it is the slot to each side of the tooth which is cut the remaining material being the actual tooth. The blank was quickly adjusted and each slot was cut leaving a full sized gear with decent accuracy; certainly accuracy good enough for this project. The breakthrough at the bottom of the cut wasn't perfect but such gears would prove serviceable? After a great many hours I had not only produced my first gear but done so using my own new method and it was the success of the method rather than the actual gear which gave me such joy; I know I'm sad but I love to experiment trying new ideas and techniques; I now not only had a reliable method of gear cutting but a very simple and tried way of doing it. All I needed was 45 gears?

Looking at the Tufnol gears installed on the winder they displeased me by their appearance simply not being in character with such an old machine and me being me this really bugged me; what would happen if I attempted making cast iron gears using this method? I visited Blackgates Engineering and bought a few rounds of Meehanite to experiment with. I had recently bought this rare Myford lathe which was described by the seller in Wales as in excellent unworn condition? I was quickly to find out just what a heap of scrap I had been sold; I had bought it unseen until it was collected and then I had to strip it in order to lift it into the hired van. I set everything up but there was something very wrong as I tried to face the first cast iron blank; I would put a light cut on and the lathe would "run off"? Increasing the cut slightly and suddenly the lathe took a heavy cut? Lathes are something I'm very familiar with; I adjusted the headstock alignment and removed mandrel end float but still couldn't get any sense out of this wayward lathe; I then grasped the chuck to see if I could detect any play in the mandrel bearings; the mandrel was flopping around due to lots of play; further investigation revealed the headstock casting to be broken across the main bearing? So much for the lathe being in excellent unworn condition; also I found as I wound the carriage along the bed it would stop midway; the rack had gums where there should have been teeth; this lathe was nothing but scrap but I had just spent so long sorting out all the gear details this lathe was surely not going to stop me? I made up a strong steel clamp and clamped the broken casting together securely but without nipping the mandrel; now the lathe behaved at last; I hadn't noticed the problem whilst cutting the much softer Tufnol.

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With the first cast iron blank brought to size on width and maximum diameter I set the blank up as I had the Tufnol blanks and hoped for a small miracle as the lathe was set in motion and the cutter engaged to the blank; WOW & WOW in utter astonishment I wound up the vertical slide and the cutter very cleanly and neatly did its job in removing the full depth slot; my theory actually worked; having the paper template attached to the gear blank was pure inspiration on my part; so easy now explained but it sure was a difficult problem to resolve and now how simple as everything fell into place and worked perfectly; for each slot I stopped the lathe and realigned the blank and by the time I had done a few I could cut a full slot in less than a minute but please bear in mind the largest gear had something like 96 teeth so an hour and a half of start/stopping the lathe just to cut this one gear but what joy I felt with the 60 tooth cast iron gear sitting in my hand.

I emailed Blackgates requesting them to cut 45 Meehanite blanks of assorted sizes asking them to please let me know when they were ready and I would pop over to collect and pay for them; I was charged £80 but £10 of this had been added just for all the cutting involved which I was happy to pay. Now I could forge ahead and refine the method. Each blank in turn was faced both sides in the 3 jaw bringing them to correct width and whilst each was chucked I ran a drill through on axis just under finished size then ran the correct reamer through to finish each bore. Now a very accurate dummy mandrel was turned; the end drilled and tapped to accept a set screw. Now each blank could be mounted on the dummy mandrel secured tightly with the set screw and the blank brought to correct maximum diameter; this I know sounds long winded but I'm only describing the turning of one cast iron blank so guess just how long it took me to repeat this 44 times?

I turned a mild steel punch which if my memory is correct punched out the paper template holes bang on 7/16" dia. A length of 7/16" dia BMS rod was nipped in the big engineering vice and with self adhesive tape added to each blank the paper template could be very accurately located and secured to each blank to ensure concentricity. I spent many hours at the lathe cutting the hundreds of slots in the blanks and the lathe motor decided to object; I had hooked up a nice 1.5hp single phase motor and this expired in a cloud of smoke; single phase motors do not like cycling with the hundreds of start/stops I was subjecting it to; I pulled another suitable motor from stock and after fitting it was back in business but this time I watched for the motor heating up; when it became warm to touch I would stop it allowing it to cool down before proceeding. As cutting steadily progressed the piles of gears started to rise and I was delighted to cut the last slot with a huge sigh of relief; I'd had enough of gear cutting by now.

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Gears installed on wave winder.JPG (145.13 KiB) Viewed 4874 times

Eight of the gears which fitted on to the two fixed centre shafts I cut to extremely close tolerances eliminating backlash; I stamped the teeth numbers on each gear but these eight I also centre popped in front and behind the number to distinguish them from the gears which could be fully adjusted. Looking at the stacks of shiny new gears I thought you've really put me through a ballistic learning curve; this story is only a small part of making these gears from the design stage to finish but to add every detail and experimentation I did would take too long.

I intended to add this story in two parts but there is yet more still to come. I had now done what I set out to do in fully restoring this wave winder into full working order; I had made missing parts and now after a great deal of time and effort the full compliment of change gears accompanied it; I thought I had finally cracked it at this point but looking at the new gears I thought they need a new home and off I went again with yet more designing and making but this will follow in the next part. Not only do I write long stories I love to tackle these hopeless projects; many of my projects are unusual so I'm forever breaking new ground and dreaming up mad ideas?

Many thanks k_e for your Christmas greetings; Bron and I also wish you and your good lady all the very best for Christmas and a wonderful New Year. Yes Bron is the best thing to ever happen in my life; I think given how old fashioned I am in both my ways and method of work I must be an endangered species?

Kind regards, Col.

[Chop]

It's all very well KE and JJ telling the Colonel he should write a book, he'd have to build the press to print the copies on!

I love how nothing fazes you, Colonel, no matter the problem you always find the solution.

PS. Mine's a coffee with two and milk if you insist.

[Retired]

Hi,

Many thanks Chop; now please don't encourage me with ideas of knocking a printing press together because I've started projects on such a whim before. I realized many years ago that jumping up and down swearing doesn't help when things go wrong; yes I went through such a stage which was short lived but as I've grown older hopefully I've grown much wiser and these days as you kindly say absolutely nothing fazes me and I regard set backs as individual challenges to be overcome in fact I quite enjoy a spanner in the works just to add more interest as my projects unfold. If ever you visit us Chop before you get your coat off a drink and biscuits will appear; we always have cappuccino sachets ready for guests and you would be made most welcome to our home.

I'm grounded today and tomorrow for the two days of Christmas; tonight I'll have some quality time and watch a few old movies with Bron but in the meantime I might as well finish this saga of a story off. When I start a project I never know where it will lead me or what new skills lay before me; one thing though is certain my projects however small always end up testing my patience to the limit but if they didn't I would quickly become bored. Such a small machine giving me so much grief but what a journey it took me along; restoring the wave winder was challenge enough but starting from scratch to make 45 cast iron gears with so little kit and to succeed really gave me a buzz.

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Having just cut the gears and looking at them neatly stacked in piles I couldn't just leave them like this could I so off I went again extending this project quite a bit as I set about making a bespoke home for all the gears. I spent ages measuring and drawing until I was happy with a solid hardwood lidded box design; now I had the idea in my head I could simply make the box? I selected lumps of hardwood offcuts from stock and reduced these to finished dimensions on the saw and planer/thicknesser. Now what corner joints did I want; butt; dovetail or finger joints? Lets go for finger joints; I could make a jig for the saw bench but I have a little used router so I'll try the router out for fun. My chum David had emailed me plans of a finger jointing jig which couldn't have arrived at a better time; I made the wooden table to mount the router and set it up as a jig to accept a 1/4 dia cutter. I've cut such joints previously on the saw so knew where it was likely mistakes could be made and in no time I had all the joints cut; the basic box was glued together and this left the internal packing; lid and feet to make. The feet were a nice little turning job on the wood lathe using offcuts of matching timber. The lid too was an easy job but all the internal packing took quite a while to cut out accurately but eventually it was sitting on the bench. Box finish; bare; oiled; paint; varnish? No I'll stain and French polish to keep in line with the age of the winder; as I like doing such projects I also designed in the spanner for good measure.

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The box was sanded then stained followed by French polishing; I make up my own french polish from shellac flake and meths then I always know it to be fresh. with the gears nicely homed job done; well not quite yet? What's in the box to a casual observer and would the box become divorced at some future date from the winder as so many of these gears do? Let me give it a bit of thought; it needs some form of identification but a sticky label won't do will it because it won't wind up the big key in my back it being too simple a solution. Why have it easy when for a lot more effort I can make my life so complicated?

I like brass nameplates and such a nameplate would suit the age of the winder whilst hopefully adding a bit of elegance to a plain wooden box. Off I went again with a couple of sleepless nights dreaming up ideas. Would it be possible to fabricate a nameplate because to build a foundry might take too long? Such a simple job but I've never seen a nameplate made this way before so I'll have some fun? I get my best ideas around 3am when I should be asleep and am unable to sleep until I have formed a plan to resolve any problems; I had a plan when I got out of bed. I visited Blackgates Engineering and bought some sheet brass bringing tears to my pocket. I selected suitable font and printed out the letters I needed in the correct sizes; at this point I thought I'd try out my ideas to make a prototype nameplate for my chum David for his Lorch Schmidt lathe collet box? As usual this all took ages it being new to me; the printed out letters were attached to the brass sheet using double sided self adhesive tape and painstakingly cut out one by one using a hand fret saw fitted with a very fine piercing saw blade; this also was new to me because I had never before used piercing saw blades; I had bought a pack of six dozen of these blades from Blackgates to experiment with, I think I only broke two blades whilst making two nameplates which wasn't bad going at all. Holding the tiny cut out brass letters was extremely fiddly but I clamped a piece of timber in the woodworking vice and used this as a support to file against; whilst cutting out the letters and filing I was seated at the vice in comfort. Nothing seems quick these days to me but after fettling the letters I then cut out the backing plate with separate border.

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With everything aligned and the glue allowed to fully set I took the rough nameplate into the garage; a full sheet of wet or dry abrasive paper was placed on the cast iron bed of the Startrite planer and the plate "faced" flat by gentle rubbing. Dusted off the nameplate was then sprayed with gloss black auto paint from a rattle can with no undercoat allowing the paint to flood into the recesses; fortunately it was sunny and very warm so the nameplate was allowed to bake in the hot sun and this dried the paint a treat. Again I rubbed the plate on the abrasive paper which revealed all the outer brass faces of the border and letters; WOW I was mightily impressed and immediately blew over with clear auto lacquer to seal the exposed brass; David was delighted with the new nameplate and I was equally delighted that the idea had worked so well; I then made my own AVO nameplate and when completed it was attached to the box lid finally completing this epic of a project.

I wrote an article and submitted it to the editor of The British Vintage Wireless Society and in due course the article was published. I then moved on to other projects and completely forgot about the article; I was at the top of a tree with the log saw when Bron called me to say a guy was on the phone asking to speak to me and she didn't know who he was? The phone call was to inform me that I had been honoured with top restoration award 2009 which at that moment in time didn't really register with me because my thoughts were still up the tree. I opted to have the award posted to me and when it arrived I was pleased to see it was a really lovely thing in a beautiful box. I sent a letter of thanks which was published and I was going to leave the award in its box but Bron insisted it be displayed in our front room where it is still displayed. What cheek I had in the first place in submitting such an article after all "The Bulletin" is a prestigious magazine the contents written by experts in all things radio/TV related; I had not only introduced a mechanical engineering article; had it published but was honoured with the award.

I've successfully done many projects but for complexity this wave winder; gear cutting and box making has been the biggest challenge to date. Once my projects are completed I then rapidly lose interest in them because to me the pleasure and interest is solely in the doing and never in the owning. I eventually sold the winder at no profit to a genuine vintage radio enthusiast knowing it was going to a decent guy and a good home; I didn't lose a penny on the ale and although I didn't make a profit I did gain tremendous experience learning lots of new skills whilst coming up with an entirely new method of gear cutting and making my own brass nameplates; in short I enjoyed all the headaches and massive frustration finding it did me a lot more good than sitting in front of the telly all day long?

Many thanks to all you members who have remained awake long enough to withstand my story to the end.

Now for my quality time with Bron after all its Christmas day.

Kind regards, Col.

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[Mooncat]

I'm really envious of those guys with brilliant eyesight! Sadly, mine succumbed to measles, otherwise I'd still be indulging in my hobby of making and mending things.

[camallison]

That box for the gears looks a lot like the box that my mother-in-law's ashes are kept in. Can you do similar, lined boxes, Col?

Colin

[kellys_eye]

Restoration award? Methinks the Queens New years Honours list is missing a trick

[Retired]

Hi,

I'm sorry to learn of your eyesight problems Mooncat; it must be hugely frustrating and upsetting for you; I feel sorry for anyone disabled in any way and by the way disabled people are generally treated; no one knows what the future holds and I would never ever shun anyone with a disability; I'd rather help them.

Good to hear from you again Colin. In short I think the answer would be yes as to me being able to make such a box but it would take quite a bit of time which I don't have given the list of projects and jobs I already have to tackle. Could you make such a box Colin as a nice project? I dream of the day I can use my newly restored Graduate and Lorch lathes; I'm hampered by the bad weather; I went into the garage a couple of days ago but after ripping a dozen strips of MDF I felt too cold to carry on; if I go into the garage for a full session I switch the heating on and quickly settle down but for the odd hour or so its more of a punishment than a pleasure. I'll be in touch shortly Colin.

Many thanks k_e; very much appreciated. I'm keeping my head down in case HRH wants something making; I haven't the time?

Fingers crossed I can have my machines singing again tomorrow after two days silence; I hope they aren't sulking? Coffered ceiling to complete; wainscoting to make and install; decorate. Rip out the old fireplace to the front room; design and make a new fire surround; install the surround with wainscoting; decorate. Large random stone wall to bungalow end to repoint; then it might warm up forcing me into lumberjack and gardening mode until winter drops in again; been here 27 years and the jobs are never ending; will I ever settle to a bit of relaxation on the lathes?

Kind regards, Col.