Found some 2BA cap screws yesterday. Poey Huat Hardware has them in steel all along though I was told by one of their staff last week that they only have them in brass. It took the elderly man quite a good 15 minutes to locate the box. Its content covered with rust. He commented that there hasn't been any enquiry on the BA screws for quite a long time. Not very popular in this part of the world. Unfortunately, the plans in those books I bought use them. I'll use the closest metric cap screws when I get started making the tools shown on those plans.
The cap screws are a little longer than required. That's the only box found so I won't push it. Don't think he is keen to sell me 6 screws having to turn the place upside down - I won't...
Here is the pic:
The lathes lead screw can be seen in the background. That's the story for the next post :-)
3 comments:
Wong, one more neat thing you can do to the center, get a small level vial and glue it onto the back portion to make sure it is installed level each time you use it.
GeneK
GeneK,
I was searching yesterday for this little level vial I bought (Stanley Tools) some time ago but fail to find it amongst the mess on my bench and in the drawers. I don't know how accurate it is but I'm learning to live with a little inaccuracy.
Glad that I'm starting to think a little more like a machinist though I'm still very far from being one...
Should I be grinding the point to smoother it?
Regards,
Wong
Wong, I'm sure it will be accurate enough for this application. It's been too long since I took analytic geometry to figure out how much error a little tilt would cause. But the beauty of a lot of what we build with our tools is that we are making all the parts. If we mess up a dimension on one part we can compensate on the next part it fits into.
Just like on a simple wobbler steam engine, if you make the piston out of a piece of drill rod, make a tool makers reamer from another piece and it will finish the cylinder bore to exactly the same size.
GeneK
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