Bridge parts

[martauto]

Just on with making some new parts for the Teviot Viaduct in the borders.
These are for the foot bridge just above the river which is being repaired built in 1850 !!
I have made other bits for a heritage railway footbridge and all are made from solid steel.
Apparently they are not allowed to cast these like the originals were back in the day
Somebody seems to think the Victorians "missed" something when it came to building "things"
I have made some other bits and tried to argue may case that we should not be using M36 x 4 threads as it would not be period correct and also the drawings (I use that term very loosely) which are in metric but also had english in brackets with fractions as well !!!!
They thought I was joking, how very dare they!!
Mart.

[aimlessrock]

as a pencil pusher i really respect the craftmanship when i see post like this- love it.

Nice work Mart.

[martauto]

as a pencil pusher i really respect the craftmanship when i see post like this- love it.

Nice work Mart.

Cheers mate, programmed and all made by me.
12 off this time .
I will get some more pics up next week of the finished article and some more bridge bits I have made.
I still love doing this even after 46 years

Mart.

[onthames]

Can we get a workshop tour?

[martauto]

Can we get a workshop tour?

I`m not in until wednesday but will take some pictures and pop them up on here.
It is a very old ,small building belonging to a rather large collection of massive fabrication buildings.
We are only nine strong and as with the machines 50% of the workforce are over 60

I made this a couple of years ago when I worked in Leeds for the oil and gas sector.
It took me two and a half days and was tide down to the hilt and was made from round bar as it was the only stainless they could get hold of small enough as a one off, 17-4 pre hardened.
No idea what it is

Mart.

[martauto]

The finished "Clevis" parts went out this week, Well I really like them, I started them before Christmas from scratch and I hope they last as long as the Victorian ones did !!

Here are some other bits I made early December .
I made the 80mm hex X 100mm X M36x4 " (Nuts )" from round black bar and only put the slots in the "Pins"

The Threads were "thread milled" with a very good Horn cutter and solid carbide holder, very nice to use but not cheap.
Hope you like them

Mart.

[martauto]

We think they are the links that go under the walk way as we are in the process of turning two meter 50mm dia bars to join them all up using the "nuts" .
They have been picking parts up all week as and when they are ready .
I would LOVE to see this when completed !!

This is something like I have been used to making, half of a pistol drill.
Dashboard parts, bumpers (christ they were big !) Toys, Vending machine fronts etc.
Anything that needs plastic to be injected to form a component .
Have a look around at the stuff in your house !!

Mart.

[martauto]

A big lump of @750kg`s EN8 Steel, It`s a blank for a gear @750mm x 250mm and I have the job of boring the centre hole to within 0.06mm
Yeah, no sweat !!
I made this boring bar to be as big and sturdy as possible with a "micro bore bar" for the adjustment.
I took it to within 2mm today and will finish it next week.
The bar has to be in place all weekend and the machine not turned off so to keep the same conditions as today.
Am I being fussy ?, hell yes but that is what gets the job done properly.
My "Lad" set it up , not 100% but strong set up. He had never done stuff like this before and was crapping himself as I had him do all of it.
He did well, I would not have let him do otherwise.
Mart.

[boiliebasher]

Very impressive work Mart! I like that a lot

[martauto]

Very impressive work Mart! I like that a lot

Cheers mate, I still enjoy doing this a lot !
Mart.

[martauto]

Another gear this time but Cast Iron this time.
1000mm x 200mm six spoke nice casting as well.
Here we are milling out the bore which is cast and rough and hard as hell in places too.
Then I went on to use another boring bar but some arse hole in the past "bodged" it so I lost a few hours trying to find an alternative, hope it works in the morning.

Just under 500kg so not as heavy and we could use the crane too.
I would love to know what they are for.

Mart.

[steve_k]

all i can say is WOW

thats some very very impressive work there mart,
i love to see this kind of thing, allways been a massive fan of old skool engineering.

next time i want any brackets (or some such) making up i know where to come

[Dlb26]

Great work, I'm the engineering manager at an iron foundry and machine shop, we cast and machine this sort of thing, I miss the machining side sometimes from before I moved "upstairs". I presume you don't have a large lathe or vertical borer in your machine shop? I can't help thinking it would be so much quicker for you. Do you gearcut in house or sub it out?

[martauto]

Great work, I'm the engineering manager at an iron foundry and machine shop, we cast and machine this sort of thing, I miss the machining side sometimes from before I moved "upstairs". I presume you don't have a large lathe or vertical borer in your machine shop? I can't help thinking it would be so much quicker for you. Do you gearcut in house or sub it out?

Cheers mate
The lathes are too small but we do have a "Webster Bennet" vertical borer which did all of the outside work but is not good enough for very tight work any more, we think she is @ from the 1940s but cant be sure. Nothing digital or "cnc" about this old girl. lol.
When he did the first one on top ,with there being no speed compensation on diameter , tore the surface a bit on the smaller diameter bit.
We dont gear cut and I have never seen it in anger but would love to as it`s very involved, alot of science goes into a gear.

Mart.

[Dlb26]

We don't make many gears but they crop up from time to time. I usually sub the gear cutting out to a company in Rotherham after casting and machining on site. Virtually all our machines are old manual type, we have a couple of CNCs but with the iron dust shortening the bed life even they are fairly old, at least for cnc anyway, 1994 and 2004. Its not something I'd want to put a new machine through. We have a facing lathe that swings 1400mm so we'd really need a 6' Webster but we dont have the head height under the cranes.

[martauto]

We don't make many gears but they crop up from time to time. I usually sub the gear cutting out to a company in Rotherham after casting and machining on site. Virtually all our machines are old manual type, we have a couple of CNCs but with the iron dust shortening the bed life even they are fairly old, at least for cnc anyway, 1994 and 2004. Its not something I'd want to put a new machine through. We have a facing lathe that swings 1400mm so we'd really need a 6' Webster but we dont have the head height under the cranes.

I will post pics if you will ?? winkey
I served my time in the glass mould trade and cast iron was 85 % of what we did.
Crap.
1400, radius or diameter ? (not a turner. lol)
We have a DSG center lathe which must have a length of 12 foot.
But you need people who can use these and we are all too old now.
SHAME.

Mart.

[Dlb26]

Excuse the quality, its 11 years old now, but here's a video of a cast iron swing bridge turntable we produced only from the old pieces as drawings were non existence. Stuff like this is very much a rarity as in the size and being a whole assembly.

[fixedwheelnut]

The finished "Clevis" parts went out this week, Well I really like them, I started them before Christmas from scratch and I hope they last as long as the Victorian ones did !!
Teviot 3.jpg

Here are some other bits I made early December .
I made the 80mm hex X 100mm X M36x4 " (Nuts )" from round black bar and only put the slots in the "Pins"
Teviot 5.jpg
The Threads were "thread milled" with a very good Horn cutter and solid carbide holder, very nice to use but not cheap.
Hope you like them

Mart.

Beautiful, I wish I could remember how to use a lathe, we used them at School , they have a lathe and milling machine in the workshop at work but only a few people are licensed to use it

I made a small steam engine for my O-Level engineering theory and practise , it was on the curriculum as it entailed everything in the workshop

[boiliebasher]

Excuse the quality, its 11 years old now, but here's a video of a cast iron swing bridge turntable we produced only from the old pieces as drawings were non existence. Stuff like this is very much a rarity as in the size and being a whole assembly.

WOW!! just WOW!!! That entire video from start to finish was nothing short of amazing! The hours that go into something like that must by phenomenal. You just don't see that type of engineering anymore, and even less so, the actual people with the necessary skills to put something like that together! Very, very impressive!

[martauto]

Excuse the quality, its 11 years old now, but here's a video of a cast iron swing bridge turntable we produced only from the old pieces as drawings were non existence. Stuff like this is very much a rarity as in the size and being a whole assembly.

WOW!! just WOW!!! That entire video from start to finish was nothing short of amazing! The hours that go into something like that must by phenomenal. You just don't see that type of engineering anymore, and even less so, the actual people with the necessary skills to put something like that together! Very, very impressive!

I have no more words .
It`s such a massive shame that we are the last of the few who have been trained and now have the expertise to do one off engineering .
I`m 63 very soon and nothing phases me when it comes to "silly" jobs, in fact the more silly the jobs the better.
But I am very tired now after all these years and it hurts me that very very few younger ones know what I know and time is fast running out for the trade.
It has always been an "unsung" profession but just look at what this country has done around the world.
German engineers are no better than us, they are simply held in much higher estime.
I have had a bright young lad with me all week to help me and mainly to learn and things were going soundly ................until he blobbed on Thursday.
Mart.

[Dlb26]

I'm only 48 so only a baby
You are right about the next generation though. Back when we made that we would take on any job that was within capacity but now I think twice.
A couple of the lads we had as apprentices back then have gone on to manage other machine shops which makes me proud but they moan about the lack of good machinists or apprentices as well now

[martauto]

Well we now have a "Decent" size lathe.

It took us @4 hours and three of us to bring her inside and pop her in position.
We "stole" an eight tonne set of forks and that could not lift it so we thought it was around ten tonne but we managed it in the end .
Hell it was cold
Built like a Brick Shit House in Halifax and still looking as solid as the day it was made which is maybe around the fifties ??
The chuck is just over 40" (proper four jaw) diameter and has a very useful swing due to the permanent bed gap and is around 7 to 8 foot distance between chuck and tailstock.
Measurements in English as metric was not invented when this old girl was made. lol.
Behind her is a "Webster/Bennet" vertical borer ( @1930`s ?) and followed by a "Kitchen/Walker " radial arm drill (a new ish 1970`s model).
We had to remove a Horizontal borer to make room, (was made in 1915 and still worked !!!!!).
Hope the lathe works . lol.

Mart.

[fixedwheelnut]

Well we now have a "Decent" size lathe.

S 2.jpg

It took us @4 hours and three of us to bring her inside and pop her in position.
We "stole" an eight tonne set of forks and that could not lift it so we thought it was around ten tonne but we managed it in the end .
Hell it was cold
Built like a Brick Shit House in Halifax and still looking as solid as the day it was made which is maybe around the fifties ??
The chuck is just over 40" (proper four jaw) diameter and has a very useful swing due to the permanent bed gap and is around 7 to 8 foot distance between chuck and tailstock.
Measurements in English as metric was not invented when this old girl was made. lol.
Behind her is a "Webster/Bennet" vertical borer ( @1930`s ?) and followed by a "Kitchen/Walker " radial arm drill (a new ish 1970`s model).
We had to remove a Horizontal borer to make room, (was made in 1915 and still worked !!!!!).
Hope the lathe works . lol.

Mart.

Beautiful but can it turn a set of M6 x 1.0 25mm long bolts for an M20 sump?

I wish I could re-learn how to use a lathe, did some bits at school but forgotten.

We have one in the workshop at work but you need to be licensed to use it. ;(

[martauto]

Should be able to do anything
What type of license do you require, never heard of that before?
We also have a very old "Ward" lathe which is thought to have been from the forties but not sure as they never changed their designs for years.
You see there is still a place for older stuff and that goes for the workforce as well, out of eight of us four are over sixty
A massive shame to loose all this knowledge but no one in this country seems to give a shit about using us for what we could pass on to other people, still three more years and I wont give a shit either .lol.

Mart.

[Dlb26]

Proper old solid lathe, that will take a cut the CNC's can only dream of. We have an old DSG that does the same.

[martauto]

We have a DSG as well, quite a usable length but is falling apart but we still cant break it lol.
Throw some pics up please ?

Mart.

[DanThe]

Fancy selling us out to the metric system, imagine what Thomas Telford and his mates would have to say!

[martauto]

Fancy selling us out to the metric system, imagine what Thomas Telford and his mates would have to say!

If they only knew how much easier and simple the system is and how length, weight and capacity all tie in together they would have jumped all over it.
Back in the day I was trained in both systems as nobody really thought it would take off the way it did but have only worked in one shop that was only imperial. You do get used to both as they are only numbers at the end of the day.
Mart.