The Home Machinist!

It probably is a dauber for a high pressure lubricant that used to reside in the well and was used to lubricate the dead center. If the lathe is old enough the lubricant was most likely white lead. I'll bet if you dug around in the well you'd find some dried 'stuff'.
--earlgo

Yes, mine is the 2nd edition. If I had Part I it would include: The Lathe, Bench Work and Work at the Forge Part II includes: Drilling Machine, Shaper and Planer, Milling and Grinding Machines, Hydraulic Power Transmission, Spur Gears, and Bevel Gears. Wish I could find Part I, but truthfully I have...

liveaboard: Whilst you are waiting for a 13mm replacement drill, you could make one as per the suggestion and try it out on some extra material. You might be surprised at how it works. Flat drills were common until, one of the gun factory MEs thought up the chip ejecting twisty flute drill. If you a...

Is the shank of the drill 13mm also? if it is, you might be able to grind it into a 'flat drill', reharden it and make do. OR start from scratch with a piece of drill rod and make your own flat drill. You'd of course have to adjust speeds and feeds for the different geometry. Just pretend you are a ...

No-one has mentioned follower rests, yet. I don't have one so I can't say yay or nay.
--earlgo

These partial centers are what I have been using for years. I think the ground half center is from 1980 or so. A bit of high pressure center lube and you are good to go. The drill center was a broken drill so it was free.
--earlgo

W: If one could conjure up a clamp to affix a tool bit or gage block to the bottom of the scribe, then your idea would work. I failed to imagine that before I posted. Sorry I got off track. Just for fun, here is a pic of my Po'mans Height gage. It works for my amateur efforts. :roll: Po'man height g...

vhg.jpg Your height gage must be different from this. The bottom of the scriber holder is most likely not able to be zero if it were able to reach the surface plate. Adding a tool bit or gage block would still not fit your description. Turning the scriber over would not work either. Am I not able t...

I'm having a bit of difficulty visualizing your process. If you are measuring from the surface plate to the bottom of a feature, then I can see how your procedure can work. If you are measuring to the top of a feature then I have difficulties. Any height gage I am familiar with does not have a 'top'...

Glenn Brooks wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 01, 2018 3:48 pm

At least I knew how to gin up a duplicate part, without to much trouble. Without the set screw.
Glenn

I think the solution to that would have been to drill and tap another hole 90° to the first and pretend you had 2 set screws.
--earlgo

By "get her done" do you mean put threads in the hole or break the tap?
--earlgo

Well, if it makes you feel any better, I haven't broken this tap yet. Maybe next time it gets used.
--earlgo