Bryans Worlborl

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wembleylion
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Re: Bryans Worlborl

Post by wembleylion »

Some years ago, back in the 1980s, I visited Jim Broderick’s ‘Star Warehouse’ where a Bryans Worlborl took my fancy but at £165 (I think) it was beyond my meagre budget. I still have a hankering to own a Worlborl as I like the two player action; it looks good fun to me.

The Worlborl is a very simple machine with no complex ball delivery or payout system so I thought I would build one from scratch in my small model engineer’s workshop.

Having had some very serious problems with chrome platers in the past I get nightmares just thinking about having stuff chrome plated so now I tend to use stainless steel for small parts that would normally be chrome. To my eyes stainless has a yellow tinge and more resembles nickel plate when polished; by comparison I think chrome has a blue tinge. I don’t think the casual observer would notice the difference twixt highly polished stainless and chrome.

Here is a photo of my progress so far.

I have used stainless for the 3 control knobs and the 5 pulley wheels are just mild steel painted. The coin tracks are 22 gauge Zintec steel sheet mangled up in the bender and soft soldered.

Bryans used a brass casting for the operator plate but I have started to fabricate this from stainless steel and it is shown here with the first roughing cuts made. Three stainless steel parts will eventually be required to replicate the casting.
The Bryans casting is a bit elaborate for easy fabrication; I counted over seventy what appear to be raised? balls/footballs of assorted sizes in the recessed areas on Mr Pennymachines video so I won’t be making a true copy but I will try to keep within the spirit of the Bryans machine.

John
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badpenny
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Re: Bryans Worlborl

Post by badpenny »

Well done John I think your patience and skill are to be recognised and applauded, your efforts are attractive and a credit to you.

In my opinion I think you should move the game up a notch and make me a 1:1 working E type Jaguar.

BP
PS Primrose Yellow please.
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wembleylion
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Re: Bryans Worlborl

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Firstly, a belated reply with apologies for not replying sooner to BP.

Many thanks BP for your appreciation of my efforts to build a Worlborl. :woops:

The E type Jag, ‘lovely ol motor’, (as they say up ‘ere in Norfik) I worked on a few E's in my motor mechanicing days in the 60s and 70s including helping tune one up for Martin Lilley, later of TVR fame.
I liked the red E’s best and thought the pastel yellow ones a bit girly but although not in the same league I preferred the red Healey 3000 because it had a more traditional sports car look.

Secondly, in spite of the festive celebrations (Bar-Humbug and all that) I have managed to do a bit more to the Worlborl.
Basically this has included polishing, bending and fitting the stainless steel strips and making the bats. The playing surface is just thick art paper with the graphics posted by Mr PM in Resources printed off, cut out and stuck to the art paper. I don’t know how Bryans dealt with this but I propose to cover the art papers with a sheet of 2mm polycarbonate which should provide a good layer of protection to the graphics and would be easy to change if it got too scuffed up.
The next job is to make and position the ball delivery wheel.

The photo has made the blue a bit bright, in reality it is a shade or two darker almost matching my previous close-up photo, above.

I wish you all a Happy New Year.

John
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jimmy55
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Re: Bryans Worlborl

Post by jimmy55 »

Looks great John, congratulations from oop North Norfolk. !THUMBS!
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Re: Bryans Worlborl

Post by slotalot »

Looking good John, keep up the good work !!THUMBSX2!!
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Re: Bryans Worlborl

Post by pennymachines »

Commendable work John. You must be very pleased with the way it's turning out. On the originals, the water slide transfer players are simply applied over a leatherette backing and are unprotected, but they seem to last well. Your method is more robust though. If you can find a nice bit of old oak for the cabinet it will look much nicer than ply or a cheap softwood.
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Re: Bryans Worlborl

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Thank you all for your kind comments.

Yes, Mr PM, I’m very pleased with the way the Worlborl is progressing. The copies of the original Bryans graphics, which you posted in Resources, give it an air of authenticity which I would have had difficulty in reproducing successfully.

Leatherette is still available but I don’t have the ability to print off the graphics as transfers. I believe that printing transfers for use on non porous or hard surfaces needs special (expensive) ink and transfer paper.

I have some oak to replicate the case but it doesn’t have the same grain pattern as the wood Bryans used on my ‘Forks’ case. The ‘Forks’ case is certainly made from hardwood but I’m not sure it is oak unless the logs were cut in a different way then to how they are cut nowadays so showing a different aspect of the grain.

I have seen pictures showing Worlborls with different cases, one with a side hinged door and one with a bottom hinged door. Do you know if Bryans did make two cases for the Worlborl or is one a re-case and if so please can you tell me which one is correct?

John
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Re: Bryans Worlborl

Post by pennymachines »

wembleylion wrote:Leatherette is still available but I don’t have the ability to print off the graphics as transfers. I believe that printing transfers for use on non porous or hard surfaces needs special (expensive) ink and transfer paper.
There are various products available now which make it easy to produce transfers with a colour printer, such as Lazertran (mentioned in this thread). The method you used seems perfectly adequate for your purpose though.
wembleylion wrote:I have some oak to replicate the case but it doesn’t have the same grain pattern as the wood Bryans used on my ‘Forks’ case. The ‘Forks’ case is certainly made from hardwood but I’m not sure it is oak unless the logs were cut in a different way then to how they are cut nowadays so showing a different aspect of the grain.
Any oak with a bit of character would be fine, I'm sure, as you're not trying to fake an original so much as make something which is attractive in its own right. It's such a shame when all the effort that goes into the works of a machine is spoiled because somebody thinks stained pine will pass for good old English oak.
wembleylion wrote:I have seen pictures showing Worlborls with different cases, one with a side hinged door and one with a bottom hinged door. Do you know if Bryans did make two cases for the Worlborl or is one a re-case and if so please can you tell me which one is correct?
Worlborls were made from 1953 for about 40 years and with several variations in case design, dimensions and finish, the most significant being between the plain and streamlined styles. Usually the door was hinged on the right but my early example (below) has no hinges, just a couple of metal pegs at the bottom (simpler to copy).
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Re: Bryans Worlborl

Post by badpenny »

Worlborls were made from 1953 for about 40 years

Strewth! .... until 1993?
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Re: Bryans Worlborl

Post by pennymachines »

Yes, the amazing thing is that Bryans wall machines were still being made (albeit slowly) by Jim Bryan, right up to November 2000, when a series of arson attacks destroyed the workshop.
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Re: Bryans Worlborl

Post by wembleylion »

Thank you for the information, Mr.PM; your photo of the complete machine is very helpful. !THUMBS! It shows the pin positions below the ball release hole really well and this is something I had been pondering about for some while.
It's such a shame when all the effort that goes into the works of a machine is spoiled because somebody thinks stained pine will pass for good old English oak.
I agree, unless cost is a consideration then why not have the best, after all the same amount of work goes into making the case regardless of whether it is knotty pine or oak.
I find oak much easer to work with less chance of splitting the wood during machining than with softwood and of course there is greater satisfaction derived from producing a quality product.

John
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Re: Bryans Worlborl

Post by wembleylion »

I have managed to get a bit more of the Worlborl done.
I said in an earlier post that I would have to make the operator plate in three sections; this is the first part completed.
Worlborl-Progress-4.jpg

John
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Re: Bryans Worlborl

Post by JC »

Excellent work, John !THUMBS!
I guess the profile was CNC machined or laser cut, but how did you achieve the relief work - was it spark/wire eroded or was it also machined?

Jerry
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Re: Bryans Worlborl

Post by wembleylion »

Thank you for your kind comments JC. :woops:

I only have a small model engineer’s workshop with no modern electronic gadgets.
The panel was rough cut from 3mm thick stainless steel plate using a bandsaw; then the finishing cuts and the recesses were machined out using endmills in a 60 year old manually operated vertical milling machine. The plate was then polished using progressively finer grades of wet & dry paper and finally buffing it on a polishing mop; the same process as the strips used on the playing surface. I had to cheat with the lettering though; the letters are stainless steel earrings, with the studs clipped off, stuck in the recesses with structural adhesive; a coat of enamel paint finished it off.

John
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Re: Bryans Worlborl

Post by slotsoffun »

What a fantastic and I bet, rewarding project. Love following this post and can't wait for the finished item. Thanks too for the detailed explanations of how you are making the thing, as for using the ear rings for letters.. genius!!!
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Re: Bryans Worlborl

Post by wembleylion »

Polishing the Stainless Steel strips; Out-take.
Linisher-vs-Garage-Door-1.jpg

Or perhaps this photo should be ‘Spot the Deliberate Mistake’
Linisher-vs-Garage-Door-2.jpg


Linisher-vs-Garage-Door-3.jpg

Answer: Don’t put the linisher in front of a window.

The surface of most metals as they come from the rolling mills have a myriad of tiny pits and troughs which need to be removed before the metal is buffed on the polishing mop. Normally this is done using progressively finer grades of abrasive belts on a belt sander (linisher in engineering speak).
I couldn’t get any ready polished stainless steel so had to do this job myself. The strips for the playing surface were 12mm wide by 3mm thick by 1 metre long and the surface was quite badly marked so I decided to start off with a run on the linisher. Unfortunately, I allowed the strip to run under the stop at the end of the belt and the stop gave sufficient down pressure on the strip for the belt to drive it through the Georgian wired glass panel at about 20mph and propel it nearly 10 meters across the garden. The resulting rectangular hole in the glass is only 2mm larger than the strip.

I suppose I should now say ‘Don’t try this at home’

John
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badpenny
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Re: Bryans Worlborl

Post by badpenny »

Fantastic John, that's my kind of engineering.
Good job your garden is long enough for us not to be reading about you in the papers.

BP
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Re: Bryans Worlborl

Post by slotalot »

wembleylion wrote: the letters are stainless steel earrings, with the studs clipped off, stuck in the recesses with structural adhesive;
John
BRILLIANT!!! I like your thinking !!THUMBSX2!!
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Re: Bryans Worlborl

Post by jimmy55 »

I think Chris Houghton was caught wearing a pair of those 'GOAL' earrings last weekend John. Good to see you sticking to Canary colours too!
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Re: Bryans Worlborl

Post by 13rebel »

On the ball city! Fantastic job,John.
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