Just wait till the international Globalists demand their own large piece of Tally Ho as repayment, for doing nothing, except making everything more difficult...

Keith Rucker being the best machinist for this job 💪 But I might be a little biased having watched many video's on all the great work he does 😉 then started watching Tally Ho and somehow ended back up here again 🤔

Agreed, my concern is this, how weak will removing all that material make it??

⁠I am curious about how the new gypsy will be fastened to the capstan. Welding it without cracking the capstan would be a challenge. It looks like bolting it could even be a bigger challenge because of the geometry. Suspense!

You've got that right. I was waiting for an internal void to open up while machining. Seen it many times on castings, new and old. Also, I've inspected X-rays on large castings and seen voids that look like giant caves, LOL.

They should have cast it thicker knowing they'd be machining modifications to it. That bottom is only 1/4 inch.

​@@jml3327it was cast over 100 years ago. They are modifying it for new work

I've seen a short video of the machining of the new gypsy.

​@@phlodel do you have a link?

@@jimrobcoyle I've been searching for one, but so far, no result.

Clark's project is super difficult too. That's a very complex casting he has to make. Goes to show that he's a good craftsman, that he managed to do it in such a short cycle. If it weren't for the worm holes, it would've been a perfect casting. This project is amazing.

@@jimrobcoyle If you go back to Leo's recent posting about the capstan, there's a few links in his video description. Haven't checked the UK connection yet (no time) but i assume there might be something on his video channel.

Especially when it works out like you planned!

Use it up wear it out make it do do without😂

@@Clyde6frame My mom (born in 1911) said this all the time.

Sure, if you have time and money to burn...if it's a matter of getting the job done and getting paid so you can pay the rent then the proper tools are essential.

@@arthur962, I wonder how many people commenting here are DYI or Shop owners, I really enjoy watching Vintage Machinery, Keith is a good teacher but I also really like Keith Fenner and Stefan Gotteswinter because they’re running real job shops and watching them working on projects or jobs and trying to make money on it is a learning experience of it’s own. Just curious of how many make their money from it.

That's a very nice way to add something to a topic.

That's what I was thinking.

Better than naming it a catshole...

Thanks for that information. Makes sense.

Chain Gypsy is also the European term for them mainly. Here in the US they are better known as Wildcats. New Jersey has some MASSIVE ones on her deck

Or it was the actual gypsies pulling the chains...

I was wondering about the naming as well...Thanks

I was just wondering the same I'm actually worried about it NOT being radiused. It might be better to reduce the diameter some more just to give it a radius. Keith if you read this can you give your insight? Thanks and nice job getting this back to working condition.

Square corners or intersections without a radius equals a crack!! Yes, a radius should be present. The history of this concept has been known for a very long time, including with the Blacksmiths of old. It may not have a crack now, but years of expansion and contraction due to heat, cold, and use will eventually produce a crack in a square corner.

Bigger the better for all the rads, giant amount of strength removed, if dia wasn't critical I'm having a wild guess that mating parts could have been chamfered to suit.

He could have used a round parting tool to make the two diametres same and give a radius, all in one pass.

Seconded. Once salt water gets into crevices corrosion can rip though the metal. The hard inside corners worry me particularly. Cast iron is subject to stress corrosion in seawater. Those machined corners where the new gypsy will be installed are going to be a danger spot. Get seawater in there and the winch could see corrosion compromise the structure quickly. Damage to protective coatings inside the mechanism could lead to failure as well.

I was wondering about that painting probably isn’t enough either. It sounds like you know what you’re talking about

Exactly, now the metal that was used to effectively gusset the rest of the capstan is gone.

Even if the chains were made of iridium it's not a significant weight compared to the strength of iron and a huge steel rod. By the comments here you'd think the capstan was made from shortbread.

I had the same thought. Mostly if a heavy load is put on the upper section. Hopefully the new piece is a tight fit and they consider welding it in somehow. The integrity of the remaining 4" section is unknown.

Don’t forget CI is great in compression, there is a huge steel spindle in the middle to do the work, taking the bending moment. That all said, it’s a brave man to do this job!

So impressive. And, yes, like your other commenters, very gutsy. My hat is off to you, Sir. Nice work!

Needs a much bigger/longer tool, and beefier insert. That poor pointy insert is getting eaten alive.

16:16 notice the difference between the left and right turnings, i couldn't see the post dance but here's proof "Ya alls was right".

@@jarnoverhoeven3118 A tangential tool (vertical, mounted to the cross slide directly beneath the insert) with a circular button insert would be my pick. Relatively easy to make, maybe 50x stiffer. But some of the same advantage can be had by fitting a lightly preloaded machinist's jack under the shank of the boring bar down to the cross slide. It has to be well secured (eg lots of gaffer tape, or better) because there will still be some vibration from the interrupted cut. The preload has to be sufficient that there is always positive support. I agree that the pointy insert is a particularly unfortunate choice. But I can understand going with what you have, for a one-off, "for love" job.

@@Gottenhimfella fully agree, I also watch the "cutting edge engineering" channel, and those guys HOG material with those button inserts, in a recent video, he made his own insert holder for deeper cuts (given that those guys do truly massive turning).

Also it would be trivially easy to make a toolholder for a button insert which instead of being cantilevered so far from the toolpost horizontally, was connected by a vertical column to the crosslide directly beneath the button. This is called a "tangential toolholder" and there is virtually no bending moment, it's loaded only under compression, meaning the stiffness is between one and two orders of magnitude better than for the horizontal cantilever.

That area was intentionally ground down when it was made to clear the ratcheting dogs. Allowing you to flip them for raising or lowering the anchor chains in a controlled fashion.

Yes sir. Yes you do. Have fun. Best of luck.

All the world’s capstan experts gathered in one spot. 🙄

Well, I'm not a capstan expert and I don't need to be one to know that a sharp inside corner is a huge stress point will it matter? Perhaps not but why not make something as good as it can be? There may be a reason they were not radiused I hope Keith lets us know. Also when several people are commenting concerned about something maybe take a second to consider it before calling us "know it all's". When grinding a crankshaft if a small fillit radius is not maintained it will FAIL. I know this isn't a crankshaft but that's just an example of the impact a .060" radius can have on a part. This won't see very heavy loads for a 4+inch shaft but. One has to consider how cast iron fails I'd hate to see a crack propagate out of the corner. That said Keith works on a large variety of things including trains so I have to think that this will be ok just makes me nervous and what if he just forgot I know I have. Also, Keith is not a "100-year-old capstan expert" as far as I know. So if any input helps to remove a failure point that's a good thing. @@grntitan1

They are all military strategists and epidemiologists too.😂

Actually, there is nothing about this being a capstan or it being 100 years old that makes this job unique. It's simply a question of material properties in a mechanical system. It's well known that a 90 degree corner is a source of failure in shafts operating under constant rotational loads. It's so good to know there are still experts in the art of sarcasm out there practicing their ironic art.

@@jeff10049 Love how someone immediately volunteers to demonstrate what Paul is talking about. Well done.

Well... yes, but also, not really. If we look at what he actually machined here, and what he *didn't* machine here, you'll see the narrowest / *weakest* section of the center column, the original smallest-diameter groove in the old chain gypsy/wildcat section of the casting, was actually never touched. So despite having "reduced" a lot of nearby metal here, that strength value in fact remains unaltered. And the *new* chain-gypsy/wildcat part (to be added as a two-piece collar around the center column in question), will not actually load the center column directly (I mean, not torque-wise, anyway), despite seating directly against it. It will be mechanically pinned/fastened to the horizontal face of the lower section of the casting below it. So this original base/flange/foot part of the casting will become the new primary load-path for the torque of hoisting/lowering the anchor chain. And as such, when these two added-in half-collar pieces are also indexed/fastened to the bottom face of the capstan rope-drum section above them, they will effectively make the upper and lower portions of the original casting, become a *stronger* unit overall, than the original narrow diameter was on the un-reinforced center neck of the casing alone. So while hoisting the anchor chain will not be a strength issue at all, I think that reinforcement, should also mitigate most of the potential issue with increased torque forces with soft mooring lines, sheets and/or running rigging on the upper capstan-head as well. Additionally, I suspect there may even be specific safety mechanism(s) in the new motor-drive arrangement itself, such as a slip-clutch of some sort. I'd be surprised if there wasn't some sort of provision/planning along these lines (no pun intended). I am waiting to see more about details of that part.

​@@boatrat-- Yes, hopefully. Personally I'm waiting for the gypsy install to see how it's mechanically attached before making any assumptions. It's always a gamble to alter the original engineering in my opinion, especially on something that's worked fine all those years.

*Kurtis

I would suspect that the gibs are worn along with the dovetail surface. large lathes are expensive and were often used for dedicated machining where one location got used over and over. I built my own way grinding tool for repairing Mori Seiki SL 3's long slide. Every one I saw in my brothers machine shop (He has 10 running and three for parts all with Fanic controls) near the same vintage has a badly worn long slide that had to have the top way ground flat and square. the project takes about a week per machine and allowed me to back down the paramiters to flat again. I no longer do that work and finished the last machine almost 10 years ago. impractacle for a small shop to undertake unless you have a real repairman and the specialized machines to acomplish the repair. Often the diagnosis of the metrology is more challenging than the repair. That Monarch you have is a real nice machine! My last bigger lathe was a re-branded Harris 17 inch gap bed machine with a 3" bore through the spindle and an 80" bed. I bought it with some bad gears in the headstock and modified standard gears to fit the design of the headstock. That project took almost a year most of that time was saving up for the gears and redesign of the existing cluster gears to accept replacement parts. It ran in my repair shop for almost 25 years with no problems. a friend bought the machine from me and I can still get access to it when I want. I'm 74 amd still like to play in the shop.

@@martysmilt What you write about the SL3's are really interesting: Do you know how many hours the machines had on them before they needed the bed reground ? I suppose those didn't have plastic wear stips from the factory ? I was told by some guy at DMG that the ways would outlast the rest of the machine, but they would say that wouldn't they ?