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This gadget is shown in the 1912 Wolf, Jahn & Co. catalogue and advertised for the larger larger lathes to go into the three-jaw chuck and hold 8 mm collets for small work. It is equally useful as a hand-held collet holder. I got it with a box of other pieces for WW-lathes. The tightening nut is missing and I have made a new one.

Quick-change tool post tend to be expensive, but useful items. The main body of the Leinen-made one cost EUR 90 net equivalent in 1996 according to my catalogue. The inserts would have set you back another EUR 60 each. So I decided to make my own; inspired by the Leinen design. I actually made two dove-tailed slots, but this is really unnecessary, as I found that I am turning it anyway to provide clearance etc.

If the repeatability of height-setting is all what you need, then there are simpler designs; for instance a round stud clamped into the T-slot and simple slotted holders sliding on it and being tightened down with a compression screw.

Good boring heads tend to be equally expensive. Also, I wanted one that is not too heavy for use on the small mills and that has not too much off-centre mass when extended. It is made of aluminium and fits onto an 8 mm arbor with a M8 thread. It is bored for 8 mm shank boring bars etc.

The Wolf,Jahn & Co. Model A milling machine has an integrated rotary table for indexing and it is convenient to hold workpieces upright in a collet or even a chuck. for this pruposes I made a non-indexing collet-holder that can be mounted in the centre of the rotary table. It can take ordinary split collets, wheel chucks, ring-chucks, or even the three-jaw scroll-chuck. The cone on top mimics the spindlenose on the lathe for this purpose. The collets are drawn in by a nut, which can be tightened by a bar.


Drawing for shop-made upright collet holder (not to scale)	Photographs of the original (still needs painting)		Using various types of collets. Also shown is the tightening bar.		The finished collet holder mounted on the Wolf, Jahn & Co. miller. On the right a six-jaw chuck is held in it.

Tilting device for toolmakers vice

Unortunately, sinus vices are rather expensive and also not available in very small sizes, suitable for the Wolf, Jahn & Co. or Dixi milling machine. On the other hand, sometimes angles need to be milled at workpieces. In order to enhance the respective milling capabilities, a tilting holder for a 25 mm jaw-width toolmakers (or EDM) vice was designed. It was fabricated from a single piece of 25 mm square aluminium bar. All milling operations were performed on the WJ&Co. machine. The slot for the vice in particular was milled in situ, in order to ensure that it is perpendicular to the spindle axis of the mill. The holes for the tightening screws that hold the vice were drilled on the Dixi mill, which in turn ensures that they are horizontal.

The tilting device allows to move the vice from a horizontal through to a vertical position. The angles will be set with angle templates against the spindle nose.

Miniature fixed steady

The ordinary fixed steady is just too clumsy and does not close well enough for miniature work. To overcome this I designed a miniature steady that can be finely adusted in height and horizontal centre. In principle it can accomodate work down to zero diametre. It uses the base from the steady for the dividing apparatus on the mill.

Micro fixed steady

For some work even the miniature fixed steady gets into the way of the slide-rest. To overcome this situation a micro fixed steady was constructed that is based on the tailstock runner for pivot drilling attachment of the lathe. Instead of the centering disc, a stub with a little brass arm was made. The brass arm has a 90° V-notch and can be adjusted to the diameter of the work. The tailstock runner can be turned by 360° without loosing the center, so that the arm can be positioned conveniently to counteract the pressure from a slide-rest tool, which tends to deflect the work op and away, or for filing, which tends to deflect the work down and away.

Raising blocks for the WW-lathe

For some work the 50 mm centre-height of the WW-lathe is not enough, but in this kind of lathe is can be heightened using raising blocks. However, such raising blocks are extremely difficult to find. After years of search, I was lucky to find one that seems to have come from a Pultra lathe, together with another one that seems to have been shop-made. Though they came together, they didn't actually align properly and a considerable amount of milling, scraping and trying went into them, before a satifactory alignment was achieved. For aesthetic reasons the outsides were also milled down to make them look more or less equal. The excentric hold-downs that came with the blocks were in a bad shape and were all four replaced with shop-made ones that also ballhandles to match the style of the Lorch, Schmidt & Co. lathe.
As there was no raising block for the cross-slide, a raised tool post was fabricated from a square piece of steel to take the holders from the the quick-change tool post.
The first job tackled with the increased centre-height was to turn the propper 60° groove for round belts onto the large pulley of the reduction pulley set for the vertical mill.


Pultra raising blocks (picture from www.lathes.co.uk)	Raising blocks and raised toolpost		Working on a large pulley

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From a 1912 Wolf, Jahn & Co. catalogue	... and the original	Dissasembled to show the replacement nut


Quick-change tool holder from 1996 Leinen catalogue.	Drawing for shop-made qc tool post and inserts (not to scale)	click on image for legend


Drawing for shop-made boring head (not to scale)	Photographs of the original