Thread: Things you have made for your Hercus

Ok. Here's my effort at being a tight ???? and not wanting to fork out $250 for a second hand Hercus steady rest or southbend clone. Excluding paint and bearings I'd say I'm out of pocket $15 - $20. Don't ask about labour though. Hell of a lot of work involved.

Frame is 20x20mm bar. Finger retainers are are 25x25mm bar. The base is a piece of 100x40x40 questionable parentage steel (got harder the more you worked it). A lot of welding, grinding, filing and milling later and this is what I ended up with. I havent used it yet. Still waiting for the paint to harden up a bit more but it seems really solid.
Still have to do the ball bearings on the fingers yet. They should arrive next week.

That came up looking really good Peter. Like a bought one, only larger capacity

Nice dial readout aljunk. My lathe doesn't have the back of the saddle machined for the taper attachment. No threads or anything. Maybe it's because it's so old. I'm thinking of making an extra big micrometer dial for the cross slide screw.

Steve

I've been doing a stack of stuff on the lathe for the first time in a very long time. I've made a whole heap of ball handles for a quorn tool and cutter grinder, see first two photos. In the second photo you can see the Radford ball turning tool I made many year back, it's caught a bit of rust since I last looked at it but still works.

Then I got really sick of the stupid tumbler reverse on my very old hercus which requires a spanner to operate. For anyone not familiar with this woeful piece of penny pinching I show a picture of the original in photo 3. I started making a detent type a long time ago, from some casting I bought off someone (I have no idea where you could buy such things these days, sorry), but haven't done anything on it for the last 20 years. I finally cracked and decided I'm finishing it off. The state it was in until some days ago can be seen in photo 4. The set up I used for drilling the 3 detent holes can be seen in photo 5. I just drilled the holes using a hand held electric drill with the hole in the piece that holds the spring loaded knob guiding the drill.
I had to make a spot facing tool for the back of the casting where the nuts which hold the two tumbler gears seat. I made the spot facer out of 7/8" silver steal using a hacksaw and file after turning the basic shape. This can be seen in photo 6, two edges filed, two to go (sorry, it's blurry). Photo 7 shows the spot facer after doing the first of the two holes. I'm going to hopefully finish it off tommorow. Will post the finished item when it's done.

Steve

To finish it off I had to cut a keyway to hold a piece of felt for lubrication, photo 1, then turn up the shaft and knob. The finished contraption is shown in photo 2 & 3.

Steve

Looks good Steve. So how did this thing work before. Did you have to loosen a bolt, move it and retighten the bolt?
Are you doing a Quorn? Great toy. I'd love one of those.

Aljunk: I like the idea of the dial indicator but I don't have anywhere to attach it on mine. Looking at it today and I think I may be able to mount it off the Follower Rest mounting holes.

Yep you had to loosen the bolt Peter, there are two adjustment grub screws to control the depth of gear engagement. The gear guard is always in the way of the bolt.

I'm sort of building a quorn. My dad started building one 20 years ago, then the garage burnt down and he stopped. If he wants to build the rest of it he can, otherwise I will. Anyway he didn't want to make all the ball handles so I made them up. I might make the spindle up for it soon.

Steve

Looks great Steve, you're going like that a lot better!
Here's how I mounted mine Peter. Looks like I was in a hurry cuz I always knock off the sharp edges, will do that today tho! lol As I recall I was making a backing plate for a new 4 jaw and was threading the internal threads and was fighting the backlash so I made this up. My next project was the new cross slide nut and shaft!

al

Yep, I'm liking it better already Al.

Originally Posted by wannabe

Ok. Here's my effort at being a tight ???? and not wanting to fork out $250 for a second hand Hercus steady rest or southbend clone. Excluding paint and bearings I'd say I'm out of pocket $15 - $20. Don't ask about labour though. Hell of a lot of work involved.

Frame is 20x20mm bar. Finger retainers are are 25x25mm bar. The base is a piece of 100x40x40 questionable parentage steel (got harder the more you worked it). A lot of welding, grinding, filing and milling later and this is what I ended up with. I havent used it yet. Still waiting for the paint to harden up a bit more but it seems really solid.
Still have to do the ball bearings on the fingers yet. They should arrive next week.

Looks great! Thinking of making something like this for the Zyto. Any chance of drawings?

Originally Posted by jmk89

Looks great! Thinking of making something like this for the Zyto. Any chance of drawings?

No problems. Just give me a bit of time to get them in a presentable format. Things I design tend to evolve along the way so the drawings are a bit messy at the moment. I'll have another look at the hinge side of things too. In hindsight I think I could have devised something that would have looked a little better there but got impatient and starting making rather than designing.

I got the bearings mounted onto the fingers yesterday and gave it a test run. Had to free up a couple of the fingers a little to get them to slide a little easier but after that it worked like a bought one. Solid as a rock and I'm very happy with the way it's turned out.

Originally Posted by jmk89

Looks great! Thinking of making something like this for the Zyto. Any chance of drawings?

Here's the drawings for the steady rest Jeremy. I think they are correct but check all measurements before proceeding. Let me know if you find anything wrong and I'll amend the drawing.
I've had a fun time trying to get these into PDF format. Things are still a bit all over the page but I think they are at least readable. The last page in the doco is a 1:1 scaled template I used to position the pieces for tack welding. There is also two lines parallel to the axis that I used for squaring up off the mill table when doing the finger guides.

Many thanks for that

The cheapest magnets Ive got are from old radio speakers (try revolve), put one inside a plastic bag pick up all the swarf etc plus the small things you lost in the debris, turn the plastic bag inside out remove magnet, no mess no splinters.

Originally Posted by wannabe

Here's the drawings for the steady rest Jeremy. I think they are correct but check all measurements before proceeding. Let me know if you find anything wrong and I'll amend the drawing.
I've had a fun time trying to get these into PDF format. Things are still a bit all over the page but I think they are at least readable. The last page in the doco is a 1:1 scaled template I used to position the pieces for tack welding. There is also two lines parallel to the axis that I used for squaring up off the mill table when doing the finger guides.

Wow those drawings are great! There is so much I have to do with the Zyto before I get to use them, but the fixed steady is on the list and your drawings are excellent!