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drilling holes

Morse said:
Apologies but what is a roller box. ?
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It's used on a lathe , usually on turret lathes where it would bolt to the turret with the original 4 holes , it has two rollers and a turning tool and is used to turn long lengths of material without using a steady , also known as a stripper box
 
I didn’t know either till @Vard told me about them

Sort of like different take on a traveling steady

For doing long thin things
I dont really get on with my steady
 

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Fatbob 59 said:
Have you tested it yet ?
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just got it mounted and going tonight it seems to like a decent cut . which i suppose is the point .

ill have a better practice tomorrow . i think its going to be good when i get the hang of it
 
Hmangphilly said:
just got it mounted and going tonight it seems to like a decent cut . which i suppose is the point .

ill have a better practice tomorrow . i think its going to be good when i get the hang of it
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I'm not sure the cutting tool is correct , it's probably 40 years since I used one on a Ward capstan lathe but if my memory is correct the rollers support the material whilst the tool follows behind reducing the diameter , your tool looks to be in front of the rollers
 
Many years ago I had a Ward2a capstan lathe with some tooling including a ball chuck (with collets) and a 3 jaw one so it was suitable for many jobs. The turning tool/steady was very useful and was able to take heavy cuts if required although ideally the stock material would be close to size. Another favourite was the die box for cutting threads which it did in a single cut and reversing the feed lifted the cutters off the job. A capstan in decent order is capable of extremely good work and able to turn out large numbers of identical parts very quickly. My late mother was a setter on these lathes during WW2 in a factory in Southend, making parts which she believed were for submarines so speed and accuracy were vital in their work.
Can't remember what all the capstan tools were, the first was a stop for the bar feed and there would be turning, threading, drilling, boring and reaming. I found them very satisfying to use and I imagine they can be bought cheaply now.
Fatbob 59 said:
I'm not sure the cutting tool is correct , it's probably 40 years since I used one on a Ward capstan lathe but if my memory is correct the rollers support the material whilst the tool follows behind reducing the diameter , your tool looks to be in front of the rollers
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Yes, the rollers are a steady so precede the cutting tool but the stock does need to be round or there will be chatter. Otherwise they could follow closely behind the cutting tool and run on the turned part which would be true.
 
Fatbob 59 said:
I'm not sure the cutting tool is correct , it's probably 40 years since I used one on a Ward capstan lathe but if my memory is correct the rollers support the material whilst the tool follows behind reducing the diameter , your tool looks to be in front of the rollers
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Yes the tool is Chuck side of the rollers. I assume that the feed is towards the chuck..
I’m sure it has the incorrect tool holder, but I think it kind of works. It’s a very old ward roller box and as far as I can make out, these were superceeded by a firm called.Tangi flow.

Heres a pic from the current website . I assume the current model .
Looking at the line drawing , it appears the tool is very very very slightly in front of the rollers .
Which kinda makes sense as the rollers should then be running on a round machined surface .

Im off for another play in a bit , I want to set the rollers so the full flat engages the work rather than just the leading edge at the moment . and ill see if i can move the tool a mm or so further back so its closer to the roller .

i think this will work well once i get the hang of it

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Watching with interest , if the rollers are meant to run on the turned diameter how will you set the rollers correctly before the diameter is turned , I don't believe these are capable of precision work but happy to be proven wrong , we used them on bright bar and set the rollers on the bar diameter so they supported the bar before the cut started
 
Fatbob 59 said:
Watching with interest , if the rollers are meant to run on the turned diameter how will you set the rollers correctly before the diameter is turned , I don't believe these are capable of precision work but happy to be proven wrong , we used them on bright bar and set the rollers on the bar diameter so they supported the bar before the cut started
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on the first test piece i turned a short length down to diameter and set the rollers and tool to that . not really any pressure but so they just rotated smoothly.

I cant set the rollers to virgin material because theyre behind the tip . And my worry is that any eccentricity or unevenness in the finished part would not be corrected as the part would mimic the shape of the raw surface

Im not 100% what bright bar is but if its silver steel or a nicely drawn steel the od is usually a good standard to begin with , so that round even surface should be more or less replicated .
Im trying to turn barrels down to a dimension . whether ill get a finish remains to be seen but so far the diameter seems fairly consistent ,
Iv e learned so far to keep the tool moving or retract it and not to put too much pressure on the wheels .

Ive no clue what I'm doing Mr 59 . just fumbling along .
 
It's surprising just how heavy a cut you can take with tools like that and also how good the finish can be. They would originally been used with HSS tools so being able to grind them helps a lot. I used to make batches of drain cleaning nozzles using a tough stainless steel and used the capstan tooling for many of the cuts but still had to use front and rear toolposts for some of the operations but it was a very quick process. The worst part was drilling deep 1.2mm holes, the safe way was a new bit for every hole as they blunted immediately if you weren't careful.
 
terry1001 said:
It's surprising just how heavy a cut you can take with tools like that and also how good the finish can be. They would originally been used with HSS tools so being able to grind them helps a lot. I used to make batches of drain cleaning nozzles using a tough stainless steel and used the capstan tooling for many of the cuts but still had to use front and rear toolposts for some of the operations but it was a very quick process. The worst part was drilling deep 1.2mm holes, the safe way was a new bit for every hole as they blunted immediately if you weren't careful.
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Yeah it wasn’t bothered by a 1mm cut .
Actually seemed happier with some work to do .
Made a big difference squaring the rollers up .
Dunno where the error is but the mounting plate is square. Hey ho . Out with the blue
That’s brutal for me
 
Hmangphilly said:
Yeah it wasn’t bothered by a 1mm cut .
Actually seemed happier with some work to do .
Made a big difference squaring the rollers up .
Dunno where the error is but the mounting plate is square. Hey ho . Out with the blue
That’s brutal for me
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Any progress on your roller box journey over the weekend ?
 
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