There does not look to be anything special about the castings that could not be cut from a block and 2 discs of cast iron bar

Hi Alain,

I built mine around 1988 and think that the only problem would be making the worm and wheel. I got round this by buying them ready made 8^)

My workshop has been in limbo for about 12 years but now I am picking up the pieces again. I cannot immediately find the drawings for the table.

A question to you or others on the thread – what is the collar and lever rod on the drive shaft ? I am guessing it is a lock for the table. It is immovable on my version. Stored out of doors in cling film for a year or so probably a bit rusty although overall the unit is black and greasy.

Regards, elegy

Yes it is for controlling the mesh of the worm. I have the drawings and can post them if anyone is interested.

Alain

I know this thread is a few years old, but I have just taken mine apart to address a couple of issues that have niggled me for a long while. Taking it apart was not the 5 minute job I had expected because one of the locking pins was stuck.

I had to drill and tap a hole to remove it. The pins have angled ends so that when the table is locked against rotation it is also pulled downwards. The pins act on this groove in the table pivot journal.

The complete (dis) assembly looks like this:

So if you’re making one it would seem to be a good idea to drill and tap the locking pins to ease removal if they are burred or stuck.

And for the original post of this thread (as already confirmed) the handle rotates an eccentric which disengages the worm from the worm-wheel. However there is a locking screw that must be loosened before the eccentric can be turned.

I made this table about 30 years ago and it has been great. One of its benefits is that it’s low profile allows it to be used on machines that don’t have much daylight under the quill. Shame they no longer supply the kit.

Martin.

Many years ago I acquired just the table casting from college supplies, I machined a plain spigot on the back held that in the chuck and skimmed the face,It makes a rather stiff and rigid t slotted faceplate, for those jobs that are difficult to hold, works ok but performs well on the colchester master, The castings looks a bit worn as there are also numerous tapped holes in it, a practice I would not consider on a good faceplate but a few tapped holes in the casting  is of no consequence. I found it was very good for skimming automotive disc brakes as to get to the brake surface  really parallel to the hub mounting surface a very light skim be taken across the the whole face of the casting, with a lot of pleased  customers including special builders and restorers. Nowadays pattern discs are too cheap to warrant skimming.