A little project

[amateur]

Back in November, dogger had asked if anyone could make an adaptor to fit a ½” UNF threaded moderator to his .22 HW57.

Thinking that it would be something like this

and having a Chester 3-in-one lathe, mill, drill and plenty of offcuts of aluminium or stainless that I have collected over the years, I volunteered to make one for him.

I asked dogger to send me some dimensioned photos and received these:-

I realised that another plan would be required!

So I started with this 38mm stainless steel round bar offcut that I had lying around in my offcuts box, just waiting for a project like this.

I popped it into the lathe and cut a 1/2” boss on it with a groove like this and through drilled it 7mm and half drilled 12mm.

I then put it into my rotary mill table, drilled four 3.2mm though holes at 90-degree spacing and milled out a 12mm slot (no pics, sorry, forgot)

 

Whilst I had the rotary table set up, using my face mill, I milled away the sides of an aluminium jig, made to the dimensions of dogger’s sight, having previously turned it to a 12mm barrel dimension and drilled with a 5.5mm bore

I reset the rotary table on to a right angle mounting plate, and again with my face mill, started milling the sides away. The use of the rotary table and milling it all in one piece kept it all square.

My home-made, removable 4mm polycarbonate swarf shield, just in case you thought that I had forgotten PPE with chippings and swarf flying everywhere.

Parting off

I also turned up a centreing piece with a 5.5mm diameter to fit in the barrel and 7mm to fit in the sight holder.

The final item, having milled out a 12mm x 4mm clearance for the barrel, 4 x 4mm locations for the 4mm studs and threaded the 3.2mm holes to 4mm.

I stamped it "T" for top and "B" for back so that dogger could assemble it correctly.

In the test jig with the centreing piece

and fitted to the gun.

A new Chester. Mine, which I inherited from my late chartered engineer father, is about 20 years old

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Marvellous, I admire your ingenuity.   

Well done.

Edited January 14, 2024 by TIGHTCHOKE
Capitalisation

[amateur]

I apologise to any time-served machinists or engineers who may wince at my efforts. My dear late father would be very scathing about anything I made.

I am only the amateur

[TIGHTCHOKE]

2 minutes ago, amateur said:

I apologise to any time-served machinists or engineers who may wince at my efforts. My dear late father would be very scathing about anything I made.

I am only the amateur

Well keep up the good work.

[amateur]

12 minutes ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Well keep up the good work.

Thanks for the encouragement 

[jeffgg]

Engineering and inovation also helping someone out you shoud be proud 

[ditchman]

excellent work..............when i removed the mod (gansmith made one) from my HW77.....i did my reasearch on the sight assembly and found "IT WAS GLUED ON"....factory spec'...

[amateur]

3 hours ago, jeffgg said:

Engineering and inovation also helping someone out you shoud be proud 

 

3 hours ago, ditchman said:

excellent work..............when i removed the mod (gansmith made one) from my HW77.....i did my reasearch on the sight assembly and found "IT WAS GLUED ON"....factory spec'...

Thanks for your kind words.

As I was turning this, I really wished that the offcut had been aluminium.

The chunk of stainless was high tensile material, cut from a 3' bar that I obtained when the defence company that I then worked for, shut down its machine shop and all the materials went for scrap.

It was an absolute *****r to machine, but at least, it shouldn't fail.

[John_R]

Nice one!

My lathe is also a Chester 3-in-1 combo, but it is the Model B Super. It is not as rigid as yours, especially in milling. The lathe side of it is OK for anything I needed so far.

I have a long-term project in mind to split the mill away from the main machine, and make a stronger setup all round. Failing that I would just sell it and buy two separate machines.

[amateur]

31 minutes ago, John_R said:

Nice one!

My lathe is also a Chester 3-in-1 combo, but it is the Model B Super. It is not as rigid as yours, especially in milling. The lathe side of it is OK for anything I needed so far.

I have a long-term project in mind to split the mill away from the main machine, and make a stronger setup all round. Failing that I would just sell it and buy two separate machines.

Mine is also the B model (I could only find a photo of the later Centurion).

I have found that to do any milling at all, it needs the post locking down very firmly, all the play out of the slides taken up and the quill locking hard too. Even then it tolerates only light cuts. Had I the space for a separate mill, that's what I would do, but for the odd occasions that I need to mill, and as long as I don’t rush it, it works fine for me.

My late father bought it, thinking that it was better than it is and didn't rate it at all and, certainly, as a lathe, it isn't as pleasant to use as the century-old Henry Milnes that it replaced, but it fits nicely into my bijou workshop.

[John_R]

1 hour ago, amateur said:

Mine is also the B model (I could only find a photo of the later Centurion).

I have found that to do any milling at all, it needs the post locking down very firmly, all the play out of the slides taken up and the quill locking hard too. Even then it tolerates only light cuts. Had I the space for a separate mill, that's what I would do, but for the odd occasions that I need to mill, and as long as I don’t rush it, it works fine for me.

My late father bought it, thinking that it was better than it is and didn't rate it at all and, certainly, as a lathe, it isn't as pleasant to use as the century-old Henry Milnes that it replaced, but it fits nicely into my bijou workshop.

When I bought mine I thought I would make more use of the high spindle over bed. In the end I think the largest things I ever worked were the odd brake disc or drum. To be honest I have had *some* decent results from the mill, I'll dig out a few pictures. What face mill are you using at the moment?

It does some decent work in the small footprint, and space is at a premium for me too.

[amateur]

49 minutes ago, John_R said:

.... What face mill are you using at the moment .....

An MT3-FMB22 M12. It has enough heft to take a reasonable cut and gives an excellent finish.