# New guy, an attempt at the elbow engine.



## rustyknife (Jul 10, 2011)

Hey guys, I'm a lurker, just new here. I'm Eric, 25 and just another ol' boy from Missouri. Like the website alot! I'm making an attempt at building an elbow engine off plans I found on here. I'm making minor changes as I go, and converting it from metric to SAE. Feel free to offer tips and critiques as I go, I'm no expert by any means, I just bought a mill and a lathe and taught myself how to use them with books so I really have no formal training. There's a grizzly industrial not 5 minutes from the house so its hard to keep any money! HAHA. Progress will be slow as I find time to work on it, and when its not 100 degrees in my garage!

I already got a lot of the base and upright done but forgot to take pictures of the work in progress, I apologize for that.

Here's my mill







And here's my lathe






I had the lathe 2 months learned how it worked and I decided that it needed to be CNC for some reason ??? So I converted it...that's quite a new learning curve and I'm still figuring it all out.

That dewalt 12v max Impact driver is absolutely amazing by the way...

Pictures of build to follow


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## rustyknife (Jul 10, 2011)

For the base I squared off a piece of aluminum to 4"






I had just clamped it to the table and used an 11/16 endmill, I wrote flywheel support but changed my mind, its actually the base.






That was all fun, but I thought it might be easier with a new self centering milling vise.
















A little time elapse magic happens there


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## rustyknife (Jul 10, 2011)

That was when I ended up with this.....Sorry about the no pictures of the work on this part, again I didn't think I would photograph this buildup when I started.
















Ok, what I've changed here, outside holes are M5 .8, roll pins are 1/8 tension pins, and the center holes are spaced .590 apart because I really thought the blueprints said 15mm and not the actual 16 that it is. Whoops. As long as I use this measurement consistently I won't have a problem. All the sides and faces are flycut, except the bottom which I found 3 new 21/64 solid carbide endmills on craigslist for 20 dollars and wanted to try them out ;D


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## Tin Falcon (Jul 10, 2011)

first of all rusty welcome to the board. Looks like you are jumping right in in more ways than one. 
Intro,shop photos ,and build all in your first post. 
Nice looking mill good size. 
An elbow engine for your first build brave you are. 
You are right on the learning curve of CNC a different way of doing things indeed. 
5 minutes from grizzly you are fortunate. I have a dealer of used stuff about 45 minutes away and about an hour and a half to Mc master carr. most stuff a drive or mail order. 
Tin


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## Herbiev (Jul 10, 2011)

Hi Eric. Thats a neat setup you got there. Welcome to the forum. You will have a great time here and we look forward to viewing your projects and assisting where we can Thm:


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## rustyknife (Jul 10, 2011)

I woke up at 3:30 this morning and couldn't sleep, off to work in the garage before it gets hot. I thought I would true up a 3" piece of 1.5" round aluminum. This will either be the cylinder or valves, haven't decided yet, leaning towards cylinder. Center drilled the end of it.






Here's a screen shot of Mach 3 that I use to run the lathe.






Then I hit a stump....I wasn't sure how I was going to mount it all on the rotary table to drill my holes for my cylinder. I thought seriously about drilling a hole 21/64 hole and tapping 3/8th's and using a through bolt to clamp it to the table, but that of course would be hard to center and could not sit flat against my table. Then I had a real good idea.

First time I ever got to use my rotary table, fairly straight forward.






This may very well be a terrible way to line up a rotary table, but it worked well for me, use at your own risk. my table has m2 taper


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## rustyknife (Jul 10, 2011)

Well I remembered that I had a face plate that came with the lathe for turning between centers, that was sitting there collecting dust, it had three evenly spaced holes around the inner circle that were tapped for the studs to bolt onto the lathe.  I centered the plate up from the outer edge with a test indicator. Then found one of the holes and rotated it 60 degrees. Then I drilled 3 more 1/4 holes 120 degrees apart. Counter-bored to fit some hex screws I had laying around.











Finished product, but will the idea work?






I wasn't really ready to take the chuck off, but I was excited and decided to anyway. Mark it first.


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## rustyknife (Jul 10, 2011)

It fits ;D






I think it just might work


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## Troutsqueezer (Jul 10, 2011)

Looks like you're on your way. Taking the time to make or modify tooling as you go takes patience and foresight, good qualities to have in the long run. 

When using a dial indicator to track movement of the mill table, be sure it is perpendicular relative to the plane you are moving in or else you will get sine errors. In your pic it looks like the indicator may be slightly off but that may also be the angle the pic was shot from. Of course that is only the base you are working on there and exact measuring is not paramount. The elbow engine is going to require some pretty accurate measuring as I've heard others here say. 

-Trout


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## SBWHART (Jul 10, 2011)

Hi Rusty

I recognise those plane nice to know someones putting them to use.

On your last picture if you put your centre in the mill then winde it down into the cylinder mounted on the rotary table, it will pull it on centre, just clamp the rotary and zero your dials and bobs your uncle you,re set to go.

Elbow engines are tricky little beast to make good luck

This is a link to my build log:- hope it helps

http://madmodder.net/index.php?topic=820.0

Stew (potty)


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## Maryak (Jul 10, 2011)

Rusty,

Welcome to our forum. wEc1

Best Regards
Bob


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## b.lindsey (Jul 10, 2011)

Welcome Rusty...looks like you are making great progress so far. Thanks for the intro and the pics!

Bill


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## steamer (Jul 10, 2011)

Welcome Rusty ....Good thinking and process on those parts ...keep it coming!

Dave


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## arnoldb (Jul 11, 2011)

Welcome to the forum Eric 

Nice methodical approach Thm:

The Elbow engine is a lot of fun to build - and a good way to spray oil all over the show ;D

Regards, Arnold


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## rustyknife (Jul 12, 2011)

Thanks for the warm welcome. It's really awesome to have a forum filled with very intelligent people and to share ideas with. ;D I'm sure I will have plenty of questions in the future. 

Special thanks to Stew, without any plans, none of this would be possible :bow:

I had obtained the plans, looked at several threads of builds, built the whole thing in solidworks, looked at each measurement as I converted the numbers, and still did not really realize how small this thing actually is!!!  Once you start making the pieces you realize this is a very small beast haha. 

Let me know if the pictures are too big and if I need to resize. Feel free to tell me I need to clean the wd-40 off the lens and get better lighting as well lol ;D

I took a little nap after work and went out in the garage about 9 thinking it might have cooled off, but it was still 90+ degrees and I couldn't keep the sweat out of my eyes(any future mistakes will be blamed on this fact )I mounted my chuck in the face plate I adapted and trued it to the table, at the very top of the cylinder, (which I presume would have the most deflection?) I was able to measure only .001" runout, so I think this was a good setup.











Ran to grizzly after work and picked up a 1/4 chucking reamer. Drilled a couple holes in some scrap to figure out how the reamer worked. My 1/4 bit left way too big a hole, I ended up settling on a .221 diam #2 Drill. Worked good with my reamer. I also found that my setup was too high/tall for the reamer to be put in a chuck, I really didn't want to cut my new reamer off since I was reaming a 2" deep hole or better. The reamer had to be used in a 1/4 collet, which worked perfectly fine.






Tall as my machine would go






Plenty of room in the collet






My chihua-saurus-rex needed attention


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## rustyknife (Jul 12, 2011)

I went ahead and found the center hole, drilled and reamed it. I really think I could have saved myself a lot of time if I had done this on the lathe haha.
















Poked and reamed the other 3 holes....






Well I ran outta wd-40 so I guess I better call it a night. Tomorrow I have to part....eek. I must have some mental handicap but I just can't figure out how to get my parting tool in the holder and cut a perpendicular groove. The left side (most negative Z) is always perfectly flat and faced off and the right side is always convex, and it was this way before the cnc conversion(which has helped my parting tremendously, step-over is amazing  ). I think I need a better tool or something.


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## mgbrv8 (Jul 12, 2011)

My chihua-saurus-rex needed attention





[/quote]


I like your quality control inspector Sir

Dave


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## rustyknife (Jul 14, 2011)

Well, more progress.....

Mounted chuck back in the lathe and parted off each cylinder, faced each down to the correct size. On one cylinder, my pinky slipped onto the "shift" key which defaults the feed of the stepper motors to 100% and I proceeded to launch it out of the chuck, Whoops  It was not clamped tightly and suffered slight exterior damage. I was able to clean it up a bit and I believe its still usable....Note to self, be more careful in the future 
















Today I started to make the pistons....Thought I would get them all done tonight boy was I wrong....took about 2.5 hours to make just 1, the other 2 will be much faster, as I have the set up figured out now. I used some 3/8 drill rod I had purchased.






I turned a section of it down to .252. I got my mic out and locked my micrometer at .248 and polished it down with 400 grit sandpaper followed by a ultra fine (red) scotch brite.  Ran the mic over the entire surface checking to make sure it was perfecto-navidad. 






Test fit the cylinder....everything is looking great so far.






Whittled it off...and ended up with this......











The actual length is not yet cut...

That's it for tonight!


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## rustyknife (Jul 17, 2011)

3 shiny new pistons.


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## zeeprogrammer (Jul 17, 2011)

Belated welcome to the forum.

Looks like you're into it deep.

Missouri and 5 minutes from Grizzly? Sounds like Springfield. I consider Springfield my hometown.


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## rustyknife (Jul 25, 2011)

Progress has been slow, It's been hot, humid, I've been sick and they opened an irish pub not a mile from the house 

Pre-warning....I have been hosting all of my photos through facebook, I decided facebook is the devil and am deleting it tonight.

I promise I will get all photos back up shortly!!!

Please bear with me

Eric


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## Tin Falcon (Jul 26, 2011)

Looks like good progress rusty just push forward as you can.
Tin


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## rustyknife (Aug 17, 2011)

Heat wave died off and I'm still here....unfortunately my camera died when I left it in the garage to bake for 4 weeks at 375* 

I managed to acquire a new better camera, but there was some time lapse magic of slight progress before I was able to get my new one.

I have one valve port done now












Off topic rant. Can everyone still see my previous photos? I'm slightly upset....I deleted my facebook(and its really gone, I waited the mandatory 14 days, and can no longer log in as my account no longer exists) but all of my pictures are still hosted there just fine, meaning they saved all of my information and data and are keeping it forever. VERY creepy, VERY not happy. I deleted 90 percent of my data before deleting my account thank goodness....


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## ShedBoy (Aug 18, 2011)

Engine is looking great so far, well done. As for face book I deactivated my account when I got sent some virtual grass and a virtual garden gnome ??? While pondering what to do with this I looked out my window and noticed I needed to mow my non virtual old school grass. DE_ACTIVATE. I love a conspiracy theory and one I read lately is that face book is actually owned by the CIA and the whole ypoung bloke story is a front. Would not suprise me.
There again the net was originally for the military. Are we being watched. Sounds like a new thread to me. These elbow engines fascinate me, keep the pics coming.
Brock


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## rustyknife (Aug 19, 2011)

Well I was stressing out about what I was going to do for a flywheel. I didn't have any suitable material and was pretty sure it needed at least SOME mass to it. Went down to the metal getting place and found these gems. Ones mans rusted up piece of scrap pipe is another mans....um err....flywheel? ;D






Faced off each side so it would be easier to work with.






I'm not sure what sort of black magic you lathe guys use for boring stuff, but it just isn't up my alley. I'm much more at home using a mill. I bored the center out and everything will be cut based on this bore, so it really only needed to be somewhat close.











I went back to the lathe, chucked it from the inside and cleaned up the outside....its a pretty nice looking piece of iron ore now.






The pipe does have a seam in it....minor cosmetic flaw....I'm not too worried about it. Wrapped it in VCI paper for safe keeping.






Thats it for tonight folks


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## maverick (Aug 19, 2011)

Great progress Rusty. One of the things I like about this hobby (affliction?) is finding the solution
to the current problem. Lightbulb moments are sweet.

Mike


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## rustyknife (Aug 19, 2011)

Ok Ok, I admit it, I have ADD and cannot focus on one thing at a time....fly wheel is not done yet and all day I have been pondering how I am going to bend my pistons. I've actually been thinking about it for weeks. I came up with an idea for a jig and constructed it, I would love some input as to if you think this will work before I actually bend the pistons tomorrow. I'm almost 99% sure it should work. Here it is

I had a VERY hefty chunk of trailer hitch to work with, haven't seen one quite this big











I fly cut the top and then whittled across it with a 21/64 carbide endmill






Then I whittled the opposite direction and ended up with this


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## rustyknife (Aug 19, 2011)

Took a 1/4 endmill and cut a slot, also relieved the corner for bending clearance.











Why is the tab there? well....that's where I want my set screws for clamping one side on the piston. In THEORY, if I place the set screws above center of the piston, it will not only clamp it to the other side, but also apply downward pressure and hold it to the bottom of the groove. I had a couple 10/32 set screws laying around.

First I candle blacked the area for a marking compound, then placed the piston on it and slide it back and forth to mark its center point.


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## rustyknife (Aug 19, 2011)

I then drilled an tapped for my 10-32 set screws slightly above the centerline and this is what I have for a jig.











It looks to me like I should just be able to heat it up red hot and bend it over, as long as I'm touching the side and the bottom it should be perfectly square.

If I have overlooked something, please tell me before I start bending tomorrow lol!


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## m_kilde (Aug 20, 2011)

RustyKnife

Thanks for sharing a great build with us.

Dont forget to put some shim between the crubscrew and piston before you bend the pistons.

I'm excitede to know is the piston will stay in 90° or tend to fall back a little


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## Foozer (Aug 20, 2011)

I just bent same items for my attempt of an Elbow Engine. They wanted to spring back a bit but not enough that a little hand tweak wouldn't fix. The clamp side of your jig will act as a heat sink. Long as the bend area is free from tool marks and ample heat applied, should take the bend easy without cracking.

Robert


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## Noitoen (Aug 20, 2011)

???I've always wondered if the curved part of the elbow engine's piston couldn't be made from flexible shaft or speedometer cable ???


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## rustyknife (Aug 20, 2011)

Ok bending will be on sunday....ADD kicked in again ;D

I decided to poke the holes in the base for the valve port....there was a lot of math involved and I think a few brain cells died.

Squared it up to the flywheel post.






Found the edges and found center. Whoever invented edge finders is amazing.






Started poking my holes






My air holes lined up perfect with the long ports drilled through the base, which is awesome since that indicates I got the base spot on to the flywheel post.






There was some drilling and countersinking, now I have a neat valve port on the base


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## rustyknife (Aug 21, 2011)

Well, I turned up a cylinder pin....and bent the tip of it in the process. I'd like to blame it on harmful harmonic oscillations in the earth, or HHO's as I call them, but that's really just a blatant lie for operator error.

I'm not sure why but I went ahead and finished it out. Call me crazy, I should have started again, but I've done stranger things. I guess I just wanted to see if it would work. The base is threaded 4,75 and the hole in the middle is 5,80 with a cap screw down the middle. Looks like it will work good. Too bad the guy making it goofed up.











Tomorrow will be another day, and full of progress

Regards,

Eric


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## Tin Falcon (Aug 21, 2011)

Looks like the engine is progressing nicely.
Tin


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## rustyknife (Aug 21, 2011)

Well I just realized the a very critical area to be noted during the build. Its so simple and most probably already see it, but its worth noting. I realize now why the original plans call for the cylinder pins to be studded to the valve port. I did not do it this way, and it isnt mandatory, but if you just thread the end of your cylinder pins, you must relief cut the back side or it will NOT sit flat against the port. Not now, not ever.






If you do not relief cut it like the REAR cylinder pin, the curled edge of the thread will not allow it to sit flat. No big deal though.

Heres a side view. It must be cut like the right side.






All sits much better, I'm getting excited now.






P.S. Do not forget to mark the direction of the flywheel post so it can be assembled in the same orientation.

Regards,

Eric


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## rustyknife (Aug 21, 2011)

Kept trudging on.

Bent the pistons today. I will admit, the first one broke, other two bent great. The first one was then clamped in the jig tightly and gas welded. Checked them all for square. Pistons 2 and 3 had to be touched up a fuzz, 3 and 4 thousanths respectively, which actually wasn't that big a deal at all with a dead blow sitting in the vise while I was checking them.

Piston one which was welded.....Bang on perfect. Not even half a thousanth out. This might be the way I build any more in the future.






Poked some holes for the flywheel post






Trimmed the pistons down to size.






I decided I have enough junk pieces laying around to assemble it and see what it looks like. Guess what, with the junk flywheel valve port and junk axle pin for the flywheel cylinder.....it still all rotates freely!!!!!!!!! ;D Very excited.

It's starting to look like something now for sure.







I'm amazed and bewildered at its movement.....I may spin it so much I might wear it out before it even runs lol


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## SBWHART (Aug 22, 2011)

Looking real good Eric

You could try running it without the flywheel, I've seen vids of elbows running with no fly wheel.

Don't forget it likes sticky oil.

Are you planning on remaking the valve ports?.

Stew


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## rustyknife (Aug 22, 2011)

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

I've seen it work....it goes both directions quite well. How awesome.

It has many air leaks still, especially between the base port and the base, I haven't fitted any o-rings as of yet

I'm taking the night off. Haha

Yes I am remaking the flywheel valve port. The port I actually have mounted there is a flat one that I had buggered up that was for the base, I need to remake one with the rear protrusion to sit into the flywheel upright. I assume this is needed to take the weight of the flywheel.

It's awesome to see something you've worked so hard on actually, well....work lol I've never made an engine from scratch before.


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## rustyknife (Aug 22, 2011)

Everyone likes videos 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=netn3NuHdbo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=netn3NuHdbo[/ame]


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## hopeless (Aug 22, 2011)

very nice runner. Once the air leaks are sorted are you going to run on steam or air? 
Well done :bow:
Pete


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## SBWHART (Aug 23, 2011)

Excellent Eric I bet you've got a big grin. ;D

Elbow engines are not an easy engine to build you should be very pleased that for a first engine you've built one a great achievement.

It looks to run very smoothly too.

 :bow: :bow: :bow:

 :big: :big: :big:

Stew


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## Foozer (Aug 23, 2011)

She's a spinner, good job

Robert


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## metalmad (Aug 23, 2011)

Well done 
She runs great :bow:
Pete


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## arnoldb (Aug 23, 2011)

Well done Eric :bow: :bow:

They are finicky engines to get running, and yours runs really well!

Kind regards, Arnold


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## rustyknife (Aug 23, 2011)

Thank you for all the kind words. More progress with follow. I'm still not sure as to a flywheel design.....I may just start whittling on it and see what I can come up with.



			
				hopeless  said:
			
		

> very nice runner. Once the air leaks are sorted are you going to run on steam or air?
> Well done :bow:
> Pete



Well as embarrassed as I am to say, I don't know nearly enough about steam power. So I'm limited to compressed air until I can gain further knowledge, which appears there is probably a vast amount on this site that would be willing to help.


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## rustyknife (Sep 4, 2011)

Well today I got a little more progress done. I fitted the flywheel cylinder to the flywheel today...it was quite boring...haha pun intended.







Then flycut to the thickness I desired.






Again ADD kicked in, and I decided to turn up a mandrel for polishing my cylinders.






Assembled the flywheel with sleeve retainer, and left it to sit.






While I let that set up, I decided that I should get more work done the base. Fit for o-rings.






Then, I chamfered the bases edges and I got out the ol' elbow grease (ok I didn't see that pun coming till I typed it) and did some polishing.....the result?

Base is done, and came out awesome.






 ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D


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## rustyknife (Sep 10, 2011)

A few days ago I went ahead and shaped my flywheel post. beveled all the edges and such






The engine is now complete.






I must say.....its pretty incredible how perfect everything must be. I probably spent two hours last night getting it to run again.






I had gotten the cylinder play to the valve ports down to .001" which was not nearly good enough. Polishing the faces where the cylinders and valve ports meet was a HUGE mistake. Massive, air leak....so massive it would not run. I had to to take and sand each one flat on a piece of glass. Then take a file and sand paper to the axle pins to make them just drag against each other......Then the timing was off and it took a little rotation of the flywheel valve port to get it going....But now she is a runner and I'm calling this project completed.

My polishing arsenal consisted of sandpaper starting at 220, then 320 then 600. Followed by Tripoli compound on a laminated sisal wheel, then fine compound on a spiral sewn, then red rouge on a loose muslin. Followed by a hand buff with mothers aluminum wheel polish.

Finished: http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=15698.0

Regards,
Eric


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