wednesday night

Well. my tailstock arived yesterday.. and even fits... ewwww beuaddyy! thats the tailstock I bought on ebay for my little 8mm lorch watchmakers lathe. At last I am getting some equipment for it. first job will be some runners for my big depthing tool, and then to make up a few of the punches missing from my boley staking tool. I also want to make a few different centres for the tailstock, a polishing attachment, and a screw head tool. When will I find the time???

Anyway this next saturday is outta the question, its Heidi's(my neice) 3rd birthday, so will go up there on saturday. the next one then is the circus festival, then I might get a bit done. maybe next wednesday I could start.

sat 12th feb

Got a bit done today, went out to the vintage tractor shed and pulled a wheel off a International WD-40 tractor, dad is making a spacer to tit W-9 wheels to the big tractor. 28" tyres a very scarce now. They have the same spline size, just a bit more offset. so a 2" thick spacer is required to pack out the rims. Most tractors were sold here with steel wheels during the war years, then a company in horsham made aftermarket conversions using david brown wheels aparently. So now she will have genuine "Inter" cast wheels anyway. Came home, and spent a few hours tieing up some mesh behind a little FUJI apple tree in the garden, so will be able to espalia the branches along the edge of the garden bed. Should stop the branches breaking, happens a lot to little trees here.

just checked ebay, and won on Donald De carle's "With the watchmaker at the bench" so thats a find:-) also got a tailstock for my 8mm lorch collet lathe, but that hasn't arrived yet. maybe monday or tues.

more later when it does arrive.

sat 12th feb

Got a bit done today, went out to the vintage tractor shed and pulled a wheel off a International WD-40 tractor, dad is making a spacer to tit W-9 wheels to the big tractor. 28" tyres a very scarce now. They have the same spline size, just a bit more offset. so a 2" thick spacer is required to pack out the rims. Most tractors were sold here with steel wheels during the war years, then a company in horsham made aftermarket conversions using david brown wheels aparently. So now she will have genuine "Inter" cast wheels anyway. Came home, and spent a few hours tieing up some mesh behind a little FUJI apple tree in the garden, so will be able to espalia the branches along the edge of the garden bed. Should stop the branches breaking, happens a lot to little trees here.

just checked ebay, and won on Donald De carle's "With the watchmaker at the bench" so thats a find:-) also got a tailstock for my 8mm lorch collet lathe, but that hasn't arrived yet. maybe monday or tues.

more later when it does arrive.

monday 7th feb

well. work and sleep again.. but got an email saying my money has got to the USA for my watchmakers lathe tailstock.. should be here soon.

saturday 5th feburary

life seems to go past so quicky lately. Christmas and Janurary have just flown, maybe there is a lot that has happened, but there seems no time to sit back and take stock. I am now enrolled in a distance learning course with the british horological institute, BHI studying clock and watch repair. hopefully that will lead to a career change sometime down the track. who knows..

Kay has been down from Toowoomba, QLD, for a couple of weeks in mid Janurary, so they just flew by. we did go to the platypus interpretation centre,A linkalso went to Salamanca market, had a night at a friends in hobart, and spent some time up in the North East.

Got a nice book for xmas, called "wheel and pinion cutting in horology" written by Malcolm j. Wild. very good book on making gear cutters, working out gear geometry, both cycloidic and involute, also covers many old tools and jigs.
Also bought a copy of george daniels' book, "watchmaking" and the olny word for that, if you havent seen it, is wow!

no John Deere progress, just work and sleep lately.
more soon