I have rekindled my interest in the little Hercus No.O mill that I've owned for probably fifteen years and with that interest has come a desire to make some "improvements".

The Y axis feed handwheel features a piddly little tear drop handle, the same handwheel and handle are fitted to the 9" and 260 lathes tailstocks where they move a spindle whereas the O's moves a cast iron table. I'm my mind the handle is too small. Hercus fitted a larger handwheel and handle on the mill table's X axis so I thought I would see if there would be an improvement if a larger handle was fitted. There was ...

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Several years ago I received from Hercus several ball handles along with their little tear drops so I thought I could simply press in one of the larger tear drops in place of the tiddler.

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Then I realised the shape of the handle was different so I decided it was time to put the Turnado to use. I drew what I thought was a pretty close copy of the original handle on some aluminium and made a half template. Turns out my drawing skills are a touch lacking. The handle looks like it is for the 13, not the Hercus. Another error was not rough turning the 1214 blank to its approximate finished shape. Next time....

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The red painted handwheel was salvaged from a Hercus No.3 tool and cutter and it is the same size as that fitted to the mill's X axis.

BT
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