New and Improved Small Tools including Machine Tool Cabinets and a New Vice

This article first appeared in Practical Engineering 1940 Vol1 No24. The published information is accurate as of 1940. This article describes tools and techniques employed in Light Engineering at the time.

Machine Tool Cabinets

John Cashmore, Ltd., of Eagle Works, Great Bridge, are manufacturing workshop tool cabinets, 35in. high x 18in. wide x 18in. deep, constructed from steel plates. These cabinets can be supplied with an expanded metal door panel, solid door panel or with a cupboard at the bottom only. They can be finished in industrial grey or green and are supplied with lock and key.

The use of these lockers saves the time of machine operators walking to stores for tools and searching for missing tools, as all the equipment required for machines is kept safely under lock and key in the cabinet at the side of the machine. There is at present a big demand for these cabinets from aircraft factories, motor-car works and large engineering concerns. The company can also supply foreman's desks, clothes lockers, stores bins and other workshop and stores equipment made in sheet metal to customers' special requirements.

The J.&S. Universal Vice

A particularly useful accessory for tool and cutter grinders is the J. & S. Universal vice. It is a product of A. A. f Jones and Shipman, Ltd., of East Park Road, Leicester.The vice is specially designed to enable work to be held at any angle, and it can well be described as part of the essential equipment for all grinding machines.

There are three separate swivelling movements, each - of which is fully graduated and fitted with a positive locking device, giving ample rigidity. The top section carrying the sliding jaw is also arranged to locate at the zero position by means of a plunger operated by a sliding pin on the front of the vice. The sliding jaw, controlled by a detachable hand lever, slides on accurately ground surfaces, and is fitted with hardened steel keep strips, ensuring perfect alignment and rigidity.

The castings are made of close-grained nickel cast iron, and the fixed and sliding jaw faces of hardened steel, with accurately ground surfaces. The jaws are 4in. wide and lin. deep, and have a capacity of 2in. The standard vice is fitted with a flat base with end slots for bolting down, as illustrated, and. a base can be fitted to order to suit the J. & S. 310 tool and cutter grinder without extra charge. Other types of base can be fitted at extra cost.

A Pneumatic Screwdriver and Nut Runner

The Consolidated Pneumatic Tool Co., Ltd., of 232, Dawes Road, London, S.W.6, are specialists in pneumatically operated tools of every description, and one line which has been found to cut down production times wherever it has been introduced is the N. 310 Power Vane screwdriver and nut runner. As will be seen in the accompanying illustration, the tool is of neat design and the handle is arranged to give a powerful, yet comfortable grip, with trigger control of the air supply.

This tool can be fitted with a screwdriver bit, with or without a finder for driving screws from No. 6 to No. 20 gauge. A socket wrench can also be supplied for square or hexagon nuts up to 1in. There are two different models, both of which are the same size and weight, but in one case the speed, running light, is 1,500 r.p.m. and in the other, 925 r.p.m. The weight of the tool is 9 1/2 lb.