Yes Argo I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment. Especially the fact that the nut is one of the causes of the bending. I agree with the idea of making a handle that will limit the torque that can be applied. I think when Harrison designed the lock they assumed that users would be imbued with a modicum of engineering "feel" and would tighten it sympathetically. Clearly that has not been the case throughout the life of the machine. I'm going to be looking to see if there is scope for the dimensions to be subtly increased to make the part stronger, too. Thanks for a very useful and thought provoking post.
Got back going with the project today. I started making the adaptors for the lubrication nipple repair on the saddle. Here is the first one off the lathe. Here's how they will fit. Pressed and Loctited into the saddle where the old nipples came out. I've yet to cross drill and tap on one face, but when I do a nipple will be threaded in.
I drilled and tapped the adaptors to accept the nipples today. The nipple thread was 27 tpi which on a 1/4 inch diameter means gas thread. I don't have anything that can cut this so after careful consideration I used 1/4-28 UNF. The nipples threaded in nicely and I secured them with Loctite. I centre found the first one using the wiggler then I used my clock stand as a stop for the other two parts. Here is one of the finished items. And how they will look fitted to the saddle.
Well after a week at home I have only gone and volunteered to go back on the ship. Like the tit I so clearly am. So all you're going to get here now for the next few weeks is idle speculation and guff about vfd's. So actually not that much different.
Tons of mind numbing cleaning and wire wheeling on the table and saddle. Don't really want to talk about it. Will to live slipping away. Two pictures of the solvent because I couldn't believe how filthy it was.
The second picture is the table coolant drain fitting. Under several layers of God awful hammerite and Christ only knows what else, it turned out to be a very nice brass casting.
Some reassembly of the saddle done. Put the leadscrew nut on. I also fitted the three lubrication nipples I made. I Loctited these in with AA403. This comes in three parts - a pre-cleaner (acetone) an activator and the adhesive itself. The three nipples are now in and solid. I'm also pleased to report that after pulling through all the lubrication runs with pipe cleaners and rifle brushes, I've finally got all of the old grease out of everything. That has enabled me to refit all the BSP plugs that were used to blank off the oil drillings.
I made a mistake in post 249 above and it's now too late to edit. The Loctite I used us called AA307. The procedure for using it is as I described.
