which brass to use

[Timothy Sebrell]

Hey fellow members,
The question of the day is when making new bushings for a clock, is there a certain kind of brass that should be used? Any help will be appreciated.

 

[velocityloop]

There was a post from 24 March 2015 - Jay Fortner- uses C360 H02 brass rod stock

https://mb.nawcc.org/threads/thick-plates-bushing-material.122917/

 

[R. Croswell]

In a serious restoration some consider the color to match the plate more important than the exact composition of the brass.

RC

 

[Timothy Sebrell]

Hey guys it's me again.
First of all thanks to velocityloop and R Croswell for their replies. I did read all the responses from the 2015 forums. I did find a lot of good
advice. From all that I will stick to making my own bushings. I found that the brass I used was in fact C360 H02. Sounds like this brass should
be fine. I fortunately have one of those mini lathes they sell on ebay. I had to do some altering on the tail stock to make it run true with the
spindle. It seems to do the job quite well. As for the oil sinks I use a ball endmill. I believe I am using a 1/8 and 3/16 ball to get the sink
i'm looking for. The only problem with that is there are lines in the sink. Not sure if that could channel out oil or not. What I did find is
if you run the spindle chuck in reverse at a higher speed, you can make those sinks nice and smooth by just a small amount of pressure
from the ball endmill. Thanks again from a great community of clockmakers.

 

[Uhralt]

Hey guys it's me again.
First of all thanks to velocityloop and R Croswell for their replies. I did read all the responses from the 2015 forums. I did find a lot of good
advice. From all that I will stick to making my own bushings. I found that the brass I used was in fact C360 H02. Sounds like this brass should
be fine. I fortunately have one of those mini lathes they sell on ebay. I had to do some altering on the tail stock to make it run true with the
spindle. It seems to do the job quite well. As for the oil sinks I use a ball endmill. I believe I am using a 1/8 and 3/16 ball to get the sink
i'm looking for. The only problem with that is there are lines in the sink. Not sure if that could channel out oil or not. What I did find is
if you run the spindle chuck in reverse at a higher speed, you can make those sinks nice and smooth by just a small amount of pressure
from the ball endmill. Thanks again from a great community of clockmakers.

The oil sinks are more for the authentic look than anything else. The question is still open if they are useful from a functional perspective or not.

Uhralt

 

[R. Croswell]

Hey guys it's me again.
First of all thanks to velocityloop and R Croswell for their replies. I did read all the responses from the 2015 forums. I did find a lot of good
advice. From all that I will stick to making my own bushings. I found that the brass I used was in fact C360 H02. Sounds like this brass should
be fine. I fortunately have one of those mini lathes they sell on ebay. I had to do some altering on the tail stock to make it run true with the
spindle. It seems to do the job quite well. As for the oil sinks I use a ball endmill. I believe I am using a 1/8 and 3/16 ball to get the sink
i'm looking for. The only problem with that is there are lines in the sink. Not sure if that could channel out oil or not. What I did find is
if you run the spindle chuck in reverse at a higher speed, you can make those sinks nice and smooth by just a small amount of pressure
from the ball endmill. Thanks again from a great community of clockmakers.

The "lines" are likely from chatter due to a lack of rigidity and loose tolerances in "those mini lathes they sell on ebay". After all these are not milling machines. You might get better results with one of the handheld oil sink cutters.

RC

 

[ChimeTime]

If hand-held or less-than-rigid mounting is used for cutters, it is easy to end up with chatter marks or oblong holes. (Your typical 2-flute drill will leave a triangular hole.) A single-flute tool will leave a much better feature finish.