What a market

One last stroll around Chennai and I came across the world's largest parts market. Maybe 500 shops in rabbit warren alleyways. You name it they got it. Most specialists such as only starters, only windscreen washer parts, only truck crown-wheels etc. These are the neat ones, many had parts stacked from the front door to the rear roof at 45 deg with a crawl hole through the stuff to retrieve bits.

I have a big old lathe that can cut every imperial thread known to man, but one, because one cog has a missing tooth, it looks like the one in the middle of the top photo next to the blue tap handles. I have a pile of cogs nearly that big that goes with the lathe.

77Louie400,
If you are quick and ask nicely, Lang might find room for it in his suitcase. Oh sorry, he lives in Queensland so that would be his port.

Some years ago a friend of mine worked in Hong Kong for four years. He was a radio enthusiast, a "Ham" and he told me that there were markets there with stalls that specialised in radio parts. The stalls were only about four feet wide. One sold only diodes, others sold only switches.

If you do need a new gear you can order it online through a little man in China. I have and he ws good and the gear although small is perfect. All he needs are the OD x ID x Width and number of teeth. In my case he had it as a stock item

Morris I have a mate in Chennai at the moment he has gone home for a while as his mother broke her foot. If I really needed it, he would find it for me, give him a excuse to get out of the flat.
Cobbadog I have never cut a tread on that lathe but the old bloke I got it of comes and cuts one about every 10 years, if it came to the crunch I would be able to rebuild the missing tooth, it's something like a 1880's lathe and that cog doesn't seem to have done much work, there is a photo in this month's old machinery mag (page 14) of one the same in 1910, and it an't new then and I not a big fan of buying from china

Cutting threads is the easy part, setting it up to do so takes a while on my lathe but worth it as it is hard o buy BSF threads. Where I had a challenge is wanting a thread chasing dial when cutting Imperial threads on a Metric lathe. Mr Chinaman did not make a thread chasing dial for these lathes to start with so I made mine. That was so simple its not funny but where the huge challenge was in selecting the right tooth gear for the threads.
For anyone who is not sure what a thread chasing dial does it allows you to stop machining and wind the carriage back and the re-engage the half nuts so that it connects at the same spot and cut along the same previous cut. If you dod not have a dial then you can cut over the high part of the thread and stuff the job.