Have a Happy Christmas and a Great New Year

I would like to wish you all the best of the season, have a safe , enjoyable and relaxing time. Ray

I have my Fathers Disease, I like Tools

EDIT 2024-06-05: The links for the mini vertical drill press machines were updated and another slightly larger drill press was added along with photos of the drill presses.

As the title says, I like to find useful tools and use them, although this last part sometimes takes quite a while.

Here is my latest find, a small vertical drill.

I had been drilling holes through the brass signal posts for various detail parts, handrails, ladder supports, etc. by eye using a cordless Dremel motor tool and a 0.45mm drill bit. I knew I needed something better and I saw someone post on the Aus7 Modellers Group on Facebook about a small vertical drill he had bought but without a link to it. An initial ebay search found three that were of similar size with what looked like the same 12-volt small motor. Here is what I chose.

Note that the small steel vice is from my Unimat lathe to the left

Now, it isn't the prettiest version but I liked the large diameter main shaft for likely accuracy and the specification stated that the chuck would hold drill bits from 0.6 - 6.0mm. The other two vertical drills either didn't state the drill bit sizes or the minimum was larger than 0.6mm. Note the plastic vice with the red parts, this came with the vertical drill but really isn't a great deal of use, although the four red columns may be useful to hold an odd-shaped job.

Here is the link for the vertical drill, current as of the date of this post edit 2024-06-05

Here is another vertical drill with a 1.5 - 10mm chuck - Link updated 2024-06-05, nice and compact.

A third vertical drill, this one also stated the chuck capacity as 1.5 - 10mm. Link updated 2024-06-05.

Here is another Mini Drill Machine, added 2024-06-05. Chuck size 1.5mm - 13mm.

Given that I needed to hold very small drill bits, I wasn't prepared to take the risk on those with a 1.5 - 10mm capacity chuck.

My drill came with a power pack that has a multi-position switch for different voltages to give different speeds. I use it at the fastest speed as I want to use very fine drill bits.

The lever to move it up and down looks a bit basic but it gives very good control. To test the drill, I started with a 1mm drill bit, a piece of 0.5mm half-hard brass, and some cutting fluid. It is always a good choice to use cutting fluid with fine drill bits. This drilled quite well, and I followed up with a 0.45mm drill bit. Wait, now the chuck won't hold the 0.45mm bit so I used a very small chuck that I use in my cordless Dremel motor tool held in the existing chuck. I did have to check the runout of the drill bit and needed to move the chuck around a little in the larger chuck until it ran true. This is a good trick to learn. I also used a fine-marking pen to mark both the big chuck and the small one for future alignment. This 0.45mm hole also went well. At this stage, I thought, why not? I then put a 0.3mm drill bit into the small chuck and very slowly and carefully drilled through the 0.5mm half-hard brass.

Here is a link to the very small chuck, it isn't cheap but cheap will get you a small chuck that won't centre the drill bit or it won't hold it. This very small chuck is quoted as holding down to 0.35mm but I held the 0.3mm drill with it.

Once I had satisfied myself that this vertical drill was very good I then 3D designed and printed a jig to hold the tapered brass 'timber' posts such that I could drill a hole through the post at a right angle to the centre line of the post. I designed the jig to hold 16-foot, 18-foot, 23-foot, and 27-foot posts. This jig really makes things easier for me in preparing the signals for the kits.

So overall, I have been very pleased with this quite inexpensive purchase.

Please note that the links above were good at the time of posting.

The Best of Intentions and a Change

 Well, my last post was my Christmas one in which I said that I would try to post more often, but that didn't work.

I am now seven months further down the track and thought I had better explain myself.

By Christmas last year I had finished putting together 22 HO NSWGR signal kits for the North Shore Model Railway Association for their Blue Mountains club and exhibition layout. These signals were about equally divided between those for Katoomba and those for Valley Heights. A number of the signals were very specific and required modification to the posts with extra signal mountings, lamps, etc.

By the time I finished them, I was near to burnout having built about 70 signals and made up 54 kits. I decided to take January off as at the time I had an order for another 12 signals to build.

By early February as I was about to start the 12 signals when over a 2-week period I ended up with 45 signals to build. After my birthday in early May when I had turned 74 I decided that I wouldn't build any more signals but just supply signal kits. I realised that I hadn't been able to do much for myself in the hobby over the previous three and a half years and this is evident with the drop off of Bylong blog posts as well. I had started several modelling projects but they were stillborn when I had to get back to the signals.

Currently, I have 23 signals left to build which I hope to get done by the end of the year. I allow about 8-10 weeks for a build run of perhaps 8-10 signals with a couple of weeks break in between.

While I was building the recent signals I spent some time perfecting some 3D-printed jigs for drilling the various holes in the brass posts with 0.45 mm drills as well as various wire bending jigs for operating rods and improving the signal instructions with tips and ways to build them.

The signal kits have the brass castings cleaned up of sprues, holes all drilled, and small operating wires bent up except for the long 0.015" steel ones from the counterweight lever to the bellcrank or linear servo but this is covered in the instructions. White and black decals are supplied for the stripes on the signal arms as well. The bases are 3D printed for either the bellcrank type or the type for the small linear servos. I even have narrow versions for placing between tracks that are too close together. The signal range has posts with up to 3 signal arm positions although I did do a one-off signal with four arms down the post with linear servos. I can supply posts drilled to accept castings for the signal arm mounting bracket, the lamp, and the counterweight bracket for 1, 2, or 3 counterweight levers. To match the number of counterweight levers there are extra pulleys for the bottom of the post. I can supply the posts drilled for these extra fittings as required. Some of the 3D-printed drilling jigs were designed for this purpose.

Here are examples of some of the signal types I have built and can supply as kits.

Yes, the small arm works - Moss Vale signal

35 ft co-acting signal from Moss Vale

Another Moss Vale signal with a working small low arm

Also from Moss Vale

And another Moss Vale signal

Moss Vale again

Here are two signals on Tim Preddy's Cooma layout. The blurry bracket in the foreground is here below.

Available in this steel tubular type are a 23 foot signal, a 27 foot signal, left and right brackets

Here is an example of one production run, I think this one took longer. :-)

Another recent production run.

Here is a current work in progress to be added to the range, guess what and where.

And here are a few things to think about for the future.

These are just a selection of signal kits I can supply, please contact me with any questions at:

rpilgrim@bigpond.net.au

If you contact me initially by Messenger I will request that you continue by email as that is where I keep all correspondence so best to just use email.

That will do for now, I will hopefully get back to modelling subjects other than signals soon.