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Unfortunately No we are not planning an order although I may somewhere down the road. I didn't realize there would be much interest in Brass Ball Oilers, foiled again.
That said, I can envision where collectively a group of members from a more general area might place an order offshore. Interested members could explore this as an option. Just a thought.
Okay, my experiment with the ball catches was a wash. I went out to Lee. Alley today and picked up two of their smallest versions.
To me they both look machined although one was supposed to be pressed. The biggest game breaker though is that contrary to earlier ones I’ve used, these have a solid bottom so not much use as an oil passage there. And, even if one did drill a hole in the centre, I think the larger ball is a pretty snug fit within the brass sleeve so that would likely defeat the purpose there as well.
So my curiosity is satisfied, I concede defeat, and have some rather nicely made solid brass ball catches for future endeavours. Only one thing remains — how did they get the spring in there....
My ball oilers finally arrived today. I removed the old one with sheet metal screw and a heel bar. You can see the old one has no ball, it popped out the top. The new 8mm oiler is a perfect fit. I now have 19 more 8mm ones and 20 6mm and 10mm ones. I can share if anyone needs a couple.
That looked relatively painless. Actually, even if a ball did manage to get pushed out the bottom, if it was an oiler over the bed way I suspect the ball would just rest on the surface a short distance away. One could probably fish it out? I meant to look at the underside passage holes that feed my carriage galleries & shafts if they are a reduced drill diameter or the same as the oiler can OD. Those might be a bit more fun if the ball dropped down ~4" away.
Another source would be King Canada as a spaning new poster I'm prohibited from posting links for a bit.
The King Canada combo lathe/mill is identical to the Craftex combo unit from Busy Bee and if you look on their site under "lathes" you will find the KC-1620CLM is the unit duplicate of the Craftex B-2229 which uses those "ball oilers"
Once you're looking at the machine the right side of the page shows a Service Document link and all the parts and their numbers come up and there you'll find those "Ball Oilers" listed with a variety of parts numbers concinciding with the particular item of the lathe/mill eg, tail stock: the number for the oilers on the top of the tailstock would be Item number 147 part # 61.16201470.
Compound rest unit: the oilers would be number 810 with the part # 61.16208110 et., etc.. They are all the same 6mm brass bodied oilers.
I tried Busy Bee for a couple of parts but found them to be very hit & miss with both knowledge and delivery so ended up going to King Canada and luckily my local Home Hardware is a supplier or agent for their tools; et-voila next day delivery of everything I've ordered from them so far.