33. Making gears

Time to hit Jose's site...

Also Lindsay may still have "How to Make a Form Grinding Attachment for the Watchmakers Lathe" a very nice little pamphlet on making hobs and flycutters for machining clock gears. Also a much older text on the subject that you might be able to get used or from a library is

"Practical Benchwork for Horologists" by Levin. It has a very nice section on toolmaking for clock repairers.

Metal Working and Machine Shop Books:

"Metal turning lathes : their design, application, and operation"  by Edgar T. Westbury **
Does cover what the title says, but there are many similar books out there. If you don't have a basic lathe book, this one would be OK but I would recommend Sparey's book first.

"Lathe accessories : practical instructions for making and using numerous ingenious accessories for metal turning lathes" by Edgar T. Westbury **
Has some good hints and tips but the George Thomas books are much better.

"Various" by Guy Lautard ***
Author of a fair number of fun machinist articles, I've read two of the Machinist Bedside Readers and enjoyed them. Lots of interesting reading, kind of like listening to 'war' stories from old machinists. Slightly less useful as a reference but a few of the gunsmithing tips are quite good and probably pay many times over for #1 if you clean a lot of guns. Its possible that story about gunsmiths have no commercial value but I enjoyed the extracts in #1, it would be nice if some major publisher picked them up, but then I like Stephen Meader and Nevil Shute which are hopelessly not with it as far as the mainstream is concerned.
In addition to his own books, he carries a select few other books on his web site, I know at least a couple of them are great so I suspect the others are great as well, I'm very tempted by the clock books he carries, though lately model railroading has been sucking most of my building time!
Guy Lautard's Home Page

"Machine Shop Trade Secrets" by James A. Harvey ****
Mr. Harvey was kind enough to send me a copy of his book. I finished my first pass through this book recently, I say first pass, since I will refer back to it often. This book is a very dense collection of tips and hints by an experienced machinist. It reads a bit like some of the Guy Lautard and Dave Gingery books but there's a lot more content. It's aimed at the professional machinist and the machinist in training but it's a great book for home shop machinist types as well. It's close to 300 pages and every page has several tips on the average. Don't worry though, the author has broken these into 18 well thought out chapters, you will be able to access the different types of hints in a sane fashion.

In general the hints are of the following types:

• Working faster and with less effort.
• Getting good fit and finish.
• How to properly setup a job.
• Making specialty cutters.

One example of number one, use stub drills to avoid center drilling. Number two, machining a part so that it's easy to deburr. Three, THE BEST article on squaring blocks for beginners that I've ever seen. I wish I had this book when I was taking classes, because it's way better and more practical than any college text I've yet seen. Finally I've never seen the style of small cutters that he custom makes listed in the amateur publications, they are great if you need a small custom milling cutter and I think most of us have everything we need to make them in our shops.

I highly recommend this book to beginning and experienced machinists, especially if  you are thinking of making money at it!
Available from various places and from the author.

"The Taig Lathe and Accessories" by Tony Jeffree **** I just received mine in the mail, it's a great book. If you are a beginner with the Taig lathe, I'd say it's required and it's got a some stuff for the more experienced as well. One of the best books on using small machines that I've seen.
For those interested in doing their own casting work I can recommend a couple of books for our little 'gems'.

"Practical Casting" by Tim McCreight****
This has a fair amount of information on making wax masters, burning out investment (hi temp plaster) and some low tech approaches for casting small non-ferrous parts. I payed $8.70 for my copy about 10 years back. A very good introduction to various aspects of casting.

"Handbook of Lost Wax or Investment Casting" by James E. Sopcak****
This is a little how to pamphlet that shows you how to make the equipment required for doing your own wax casting. It shows you how to make: a vacuum investment mixer, burnout oven, pressure casting machine, wire wax extruder, rubber molds, and wax injectors. Metal is melted with a torch.It costs $3.50.
Check out a good jewelry supply place for books and materials. I was lucky, my local city college taught classes in this subject.

"Advanced Machine Work" by Robert H. Smith ****
This book was originally published in 1925 and contains basic operating instructions for machines of the period and schedules for various machining operations. Well illustrated! For hobbyists, the older books are good references. We don't have those fancy NC machines (yet!) so the older techniques will work for us. Examples in the text include making nuts, screws and gages as well as how to run older lathes, mills, grinders, shapers, etc.
Available from: Lindsay Publications

"The Model Engineers Workshop Manual" by George H. Thomas ****
Published by Tee Publishing ©1984 305 well illustrated pages
How to build a whole pile of very useful tools for the model engineer. Many of these projects are oriented around the Myford ML7 but are useful for many of the lathes in this range. The instructions are clear and the drawings are well done. Projects include devices for marking and laying out, cutting tools, boring heads, threads, retracting top slide and many others. Well worth it!
Available from:  Tee Publishing

"Modern Toolmaking Methods, 1915" by Franklin D. Jones ***
For button usage, laying out division plates, etc, the very old fashioned way. Sometimes when your away from your modern tools,
you need to use the older techniques. Also it's a fun read.  Available from: Lindsay Publications