Thread: Travelling steady for a B model Qualos

Hi again Stuart..
Thats a good looking Hercus you have there, I am a member of the Motor Vehicle Enthusaist Club here in Darwin, & we have one exactly the same in our museum as a display, (a bit of a waste, I would be still using it.) A mate of mine also has an "Ensign" that we recovered recently from an engineering works that closed down.
Mine was actually made by the Rockford Drilling Machine Co, a business started by one of the Barnes brothers and the patent date is October 12 1900, (I made a mistake in the earlier post).
All three of these machines were supplied in Australia by McPhersons, I suppose yours was as well.
I have added a photo of my table & vice so you will feel better about yours, I guess over 100 years people have abused them, I have a flywheel off an old engine that is the same size & I intend to make a replacement.
My table is 16 inches same as yours (400mm). they aparently identify them by the distance from table centre to pillar, that makes mine a 10 inch, My Quill travel is 8 inches & is great for drilling then tapping without having to move anything.
I also have power feed run by a seperate belt, it has auto stop set by a bracket that trips the engaging lever, & I can set the quill to start at any point of the travel, they were clever back then, I don't know how expensive they were but it certainly had plenty of features.
Cheers Barry.

Well there is only one word that comes to mind! Nice of them to turn the table to a new spot every time.
Yes I think it has a McPhersons plate on it, I'll check in the morning.
"I can set the quill to start at any point of the travel" not sure I understand this?
On mine the manual feed handles are moved side ways and this enguages the micrometer feed, you then pull a lever up to enguage power feed.
What MT is yours? Mine is MT3, I wonder if the back stay is a little over the top, it certainly is for any hole I've ever drilled with it lol

Stuart

Well Stuart I will see if I can make it clearer, the principal is similar to yours but activates differently, my feeding is done by the long lever on the right of the quill, seen at front of photo, there is a gear at the bottom once turned by a hand wheel (now missing) for micrometer feed. the latch on the long lever allows the lever to engage at any of the teeth of the gear, there is a small handle on the other side to rapidly raise & lower the quill. In operation you pull the latch position the quill then pull the small leverin the centre to start the power feed, or you can use the long hand lever. It is simpler than it sounds.
My quill is also M.T.3.
I don't have a back stay & there is no evidence of damage, the Ensign I mentioned has a back stay.
My belt is 2 inch wide as opposed to the 1 1/2 inch on Hercus & Ensign, some things got smaller some got heavier as years went on?
I have added some photo's again to make it easier.
The peg seen at the base of the cone pulley lifts and pulls the the stud to engage the planetry gear.
I hope that is clearer than it sounds to me. if you need more just holler.
Cheers.

Hi Barry,
Yeap got all that thanks. I can do pretty much the same thing feed wise but I dont think I have ever used the power feed for real.
It was a McPhersons plate.
My table has done pretty well considering its age.

We may have gone a little OT

Stuart