Ian Rawlings wrote:
> On 2006-04-08, Karen Gallagher <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Often the hard part is sourcing the right materials - for example,
>> when I left the UK in the early 80's I purchased a stock of imperial
>> sizes of imperial hexagonal stock in EN16T that I simply could not
>> replace easily now.
>
> So can you not fire the lathe up and machine yourself some new bolts
> and nuts? I realise that it's going to take a while to make each one
> but if they're hard to find...
>
> (No I don't know anything about what's involved, if that's not already
> obvious, other than just mildly educated guesswork)
My point exactly, that's how I justified the expense of a lathe. However if
you don't start with the right hex stock to begin with, you have to mill the
flats on yourself, which is just plain tedious. But I've been known to do
it, for example when I purchased my current Fairey capstan winch it did not
have the dog to go into the front of the crankshaft. A couple of hours on
the lathe made the dog, and then I purchased the appropriate thread of bolt
& milled the flats down to an A/F size that was spanner-compatible & yet
still fit into the inside of the dog with space for a socket on the head.
All up around 4 or 5 hours work.
The alternate was passing up on a perfectly good winch that's served me for
years now.
Karen
--
"I'd far rather be happy than right any day."
- Slartibartfast
