# Bolton No.2 Mill Engine



## jcreasey (Sep 10, 2019)

Time to start a new engine, so I thought I would try and show the progress here.
It is a Bolton No. 2 Mill Engine.  I found the castings amongst all the tools and other junk I got when I purchased my lathe from a man clearing out his Dad's garage.   I'm pretty sure these castings date from around 1968.  The price written on the sole plate is $1.20!  I think they were probably made by the original Burnaby Bolton.  Luckily I was able to get a new set of plans from EJ Winter so this should be a fun little project.


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## jcreasey (Sep 11, 2019)

First job was to clean up the base.  I ground it flat on my surface grinder.  I supported it upside down on some parallels in a grinding vise.  Then flipped it over to clean up the flat spots on the top.  I have just cleaned them up at this stage.  I can easily tweak the heights later when I know where things need to be relative to the cylinder.


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## jcreasey (Sep 24, 2019)

Next job was to make the bearings.
I started out by cleaning them up in the mill.




Then I drilled and tapped them so I could fit the 8ba bolts that hold the two halves together.






Once that was done I split them using a slitting saw.  The saw I have is a solid carbide one and it works amazingly well!






Here they are reassembled and bolted together.






After separating them I bolted them in place on the sole plate so that I could drill and ream them in position.
I mounted the sole plate in my mill using an angle plate.  I used the two studs to get things horizontal before tightening up the strap shown and another clamp which is out of frame.






Last job was to set them up on a small fixture in the 4-jaw so I could clean up the sides.  I was able to center it up on the through hole to make sure everything was concentric.






The ends of the bearings were tidied up on the belt sander before bolting everything back down on the sole plate.
The crankshaft rod was tested and all runs freely.




I did clean up those burrs a little while after taking this photo.


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## deeferdog (Sep 24, 2019)

Pretty sure this is all going to end well. Looking good, liked the way you set up both bearings and then reamed. Cheers, Peter


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## jcreasey (Sep 24, 2019)

deeferdog said:


> Pretty sure this is all going to end well. Looking good, liked the way you set up both bearings and then reamed. Cheers, Peter


Thanks Peter!  I hope so.


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## jcreasey (Sep 29, 2019)

This weekend's goal was to get the cylinder built.
I started by boring out the casting.  I left it .001" undersized so I would be able to lap it in later.





To make sure that everything else was consistent with the bore I decided to spend a bit of time and make a nice expanding mandrel.  My plan was to use it both as a fixture to hold the cylinder in the lathe and the mill.  I also plan to use it for lapping the bore.  I used the taper turning attachment that I made a few months ago for my Myford Super 7 to create the matching tapers on the mandrel.











This worked really well allowing me to clean up the ends in the lathe by turning between centres.



 s.


Next step was to mount the mandrel in a collet block so that I could easily machine the two faces flat and orthogonal.  I could also mill the valve ports.






After some careful measing and calculations I setup the cylinder in the sine vise to connect the ports to the cylinder.




I drilled three holes for each port and later opened them up to form a single slot using a diamond burr in the dremel.

I still have to complete the cylinder lapping and the exhaust port but that will have to wait till next weekend!  After a trial fit this engine is starting to look the part!


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## Tom 1948 (Sep 29, 2019)

Nice work. Good luck on the rest of it. Keep posting....Tom


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## jcreasey (Oct 7, 2019)

This weekend I spent a bit of time remaking my tapered mandrel.  I improved on the first version by adding a thread at both ends.  This allowed me to accurately adjust the position of the tapered sleeve while still holding it firmly in place.  It also made it easier to get the tapered sleeve off when I needed to. 

The first sleeve I made ended up splitting into two parts because of slitting saw operator error so I remade that also.  This time out of brass.  Brass turned out to be quite a bit softer than the bronze used for the cylinder so I think that worked out well.

Quite a fun challenge as the thread used on the thicker portion was nothing standard so I had to cut the thread for that on the lathe.  It worked quite well and I now have what appears to be a very parallel and smooth bore.


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## jcreasey (Oct 15, 2019)

Next job was the slide bar assembly.
I have no castings for this so I machined it from a piece of 1/2" bronze rod.
I don't know why it ended up with the interesting pattern but it's quite nice.
First I turned it down to correct width and then I used a ball nose end mill to thin down the center section.
I used my sine vise to machine it to a 10 degree angle flipping it to get everything nice and central.
A bit of drilling and other messing around and I have another part to the puzzle.


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## jcreasey (Oct 22, 2019)

The next step for the little mill engine was to clean up the flywheel.
Unfortunately this was not a great casting and I had quite a lot of trouble trying to figure out where the middle was.
I didn't really do a super job in the end but at least it runs true and hopefully with a bit of paint it won't look too bad.

I started with the 4 jaw and an indicator and did my best to set it up true.




After I cleaned up one side and drilled and reamed out the bore I flipped it and used the outside jaws on the 3 jaw chuck to finish things off.


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## jcreasey (Oct 22, 2019)

The next part to build was the cylinder end cap.
Initially I started cleaning up the bronze casting for it but I quickly worked out that it really wasn't big enough to do the job.
Not to worry as I have a nice lump of bronze sitting on the shelf so I sliced off a chunck off of that.

First step was to turn to required diameter and then make a tenon on the end sized to be a nice tight fit in the cylinder bore.  You can't quite see it in this photo unfortunately but it's there on the end.
Once that was done I parted off enough to make my end cap.





Now I used the remaining stock to machine a mating mortice to hold my newly made tenon.
I didn't want to waste too much bronze so I used an end mill to make a nice shallow hole which I opened up to size with the boring bar.










At this point I used some superglue to attach my cylinder cap parted off earlier to the newly created mortice.
I was a bit wary of the glue getting too hot especially while I was roughing things down so I used a bit of tailstock support to absorb heat and hold things firm.  I also used a bit of freeze spray from time to time to keep everything nice and cool.






Now the fun part!
Earlier in the day I spent quite a bit of time making a form tool to create a nice dome shape on the end of my cap.
I took things very slowly here and gradually worked my way down to the some shape I was looking for.







Pretty chips!





Last step was to break out some wet and dry to even out any tool marks before final finishing with some paper towel and diamond paste.






Here we are with all the parts so far.  It's slowly but surely coming together.


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## jcreasey (Oct 27, 2019)

I don't know if anyone is following this but here is this weeks progress.
I spent a lot of time on the cylinder end caps.  I decided it would look nicer with 8 x 8ba studs instead of the 4 x 7ba bolts specified in the plan.   This involved shortening 16 8ba bolts which I did using a little threaded bushing and a lock nut.  I used the DRO to measure from the end of the bolt head so they all came out the same size.
Once I had those done I decided that the washers I had perchased really didn't look very good so I decided to make my own.  This was quite an easy job and I don't think I will ever buy them again from now on as the result was much better.  
Final photo shows the current progress.  The steam chest is next and I have started by squaring that up on the mill.





Drilling and tapping the cylinder.  





Shortening the tiny 8ba bolts to make studs.  I loctited the nuts on the end so they will actually still be bolts but they will look like studs.





I used the DRO bolt circle function to layout the 8 holes.  To transfer them to the end caps I drilled one hole and then bolted it down before spotting and drilling the remaining 7 holes.  I set the mill depth stop so that the drill stopped at exactly the right depth.





Making my own washers.   This wasn't too difficult at all.  I just used the DRO to measure the correct distance from the end.














Current progress shot.  It's getting there slowly.  One weekend at a time!


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## deeferdog (Oct 27, 2019)

JC, that is really lovely work, I wish that my standard was as high. Thank you for the time and effort you have gone to in recording this build, sadly, comments are often hard to come by. Cheers, Peter.


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## jcreasey (Oct 27, 2019)

deeferdog said:


> JC, that is really lovely work, I wish that my standard was as high. Thank you for the time and effort you have gone to in recording this build, sadly, comments are often hard to come by. Cheers, Peter.


Thanks Deefer!


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## larryg (Oct 28, 2019)

I'm following this. Your doing a great job. A bit more detail  on your lap would  be appreciated as I have to do some lapping on the valve bore of my PM#4 documented in the castings builds.
lg
no neat sig line


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## jcreasey (Oct 28, 2019)

larryg said:


> I'm following this. Your doing a great job. A bit more detail  on your lap would  be appreciated as I have to do some lapping on the valve bore of my PM#4 documented in the castings builds.
> lg
> no neat sig line



I think there are plenty of photos but if there is something specific you would like to see I can take some more.

The lap works like an adjustable reamer.  It has a tapered mandrel and a matching tapered collet.  This is held between two collars which sit on the threaded sections of the mandrel.  So by adjusting the position of the two collars you can widen the lap by moving it further along the tapered mandrel.

Because I couldn't slit the collet part without damaging the mandrel I made a sacrificial one to hold things just for the slitting process.
The first time I did it I tried aluminium but I got things wrong and ended up making my slits too long.  The second one I used brass and it worked out ok.

I used diamond paste as an abrasive.  I bought a whole bunch of this in different grades very cheaply from China.  It's very useful stuff and I use it all the time for polishing and lapping.

The result wasn't the mirror finish I was hoping for.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe brass was too hard to lap bronze.  It is nice and parallel though and I think it will be ok.


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## xpylonracer (Oct 28, 2019)

Superb work and documentation.


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## jcreasey (Nov 5, 2019)

This weekend I had a crack at the steam chest.
I cleaned up the casting on the mill and then set it up on the 4-jaw.  I used a form tool to get a nice fillet on the corner of the gland and drilled and tapped it.







Then there was some drilling and some tapping.







The little casting for the steam chest cover wasn't really big enough, so I sliced off a bit of bronze that I had lying around and made something from scratch.




Finally I had a go at the cross head which seemed somehow to defy all measurement.  I kept taking .001 off of both sides for many many passes till eventually it seemed to fit fairly well.  No doubt this will require more fitting and tweaking as I think it's going to be the really tricky part to get right.




Anyway it's another step closer


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## xpylonracer (Nov 5, 2019)

Nice pictures and it's all looking good.


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## jcreasey (Nov 5, 2019)

xpylonracer said:


> Nice pictures and it's all looking good.


Thanks for your comment.  It's very encouraging to get a bit of encouragement now and again.


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## Jacob P. (Nov 5, 2019)

Great progress! Once I get more experience with machining, I’m going to tackle a PM Research No. 5 vertical steam engine build. I have the castings and have been brainstorming how to go about the machining. I’m very much a beginner, and these photos will be useful in guiding me how to go about it. Keep up the good work! Looking forward to seeing the finished product.


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## jcreasey (Nov 5, 2019)

Jacob P. said:


> Great progress! Once I get more experience with machining, I’m going to tackle a PM Research No. 5 vertical steam engine build. I have the castings and have been brainstorming how to go about the machining. I’m very much a beginner, and these photos will be useful in guiding me how to go about it. Keep up the good work! Looking forward to seeing the finished product.



If you are a bit nervous making an engine from castings it's a good idea to try making an engine from bar stock first.  Those are great because if you make a mistake you can easily replace any part.  There are a lot of wonderful designs by Elmer Verburg for which plans are freely available.

Good luck with it in any case!


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## bobden72 (Nov 6, 2019)

Looking good


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## petep (Nov 11, 2019)

What an amazing build. Thanks for sharing it with us. You make it look so easy - I'm half way through building the Bolton No 7 & have found it more difficult than I originally thought using castings. Your photo's are brilliant too. Maybe you could give us a few tips on how you get such good photos. Thanks again. Cheers Pete


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## jcreasey (Nov 11, 2019)

petep said:


> What an amazing build. Thanks for sharing it with us. You make it look so easy - I'm half way through building the Bolton No 7 & have found it more difficult than I originally thought using castings. Your photo's are brilliant too. Maybe you could give us a few tips on how you get such good photos. Thanks again. Cheers Pete



Thanks Pete!
I take all of my photos with my iphone.  It's a fairly recent one I think about a year old.  I think it's important to make sure the lens is clean.  I often retake a photo after cleaning some schmutz off of my lens.  Also I think it's a good idea to have plenty of light but to avoid a single point source of light that produces hard shadows.  Also I like to zoom in a bit so everything is nice and big.

Good luck with your engine.  It's definitely a challenge building from castings!  Mine is even trickier because the castings I have are version 1 and the prints are the revised version.  I'm finding the differences as I go which is an added challenge.  

Some more photos coming soon as I did a bunch more on the weekend.


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## jcreasey (Nov 11, 2019)

This instalment covers my initial work on making the crankshaft.  At the moment it is still a round disk but I am planning to make it a bit more interesting shape in due course.  Once again the castings were a bit meagre for this part so I sliced off half an inch of bronze bar I had sitting on the shelf.

First step was to face it and drill and tap the center.  This was supposed to be 1/4 40 but I went down to 3/16 - 40 so that I would have a nice firm boss for the flywheel to but up against.






I didn't take any photos but the next step was to put a thread on the end of the crankshaft.
I just single pointed that as I wanted to do everything possible to get things concentric.

Once that was done I screwed the two parts together and mounted them between centers.
I didn't bother with a dog as there was enough friction to drive things as I was taking nice light cuts with a very sharp tool.
This let me clean up the crankshaft part ensuring it was as concentic as possible to the main shaft.






Turning between centers makes it very easy to flip things over to finish the other side.
Not much room for a dog here so it was lucky I could get by with just friction.
Lots of stickout on this tool but it was very sharp and still cut ok.
I still use the faceplate just to make sure my spindle nose is protected.






Now that everything is concentric and parallel I detached the shaft again and setup in the mill using some parallels and a little V block so that I could drill and tap the hole for the crank.










That's about it for the crankshaft disk.  Later on I will need to reduce it's thickness and diameter  but I am waiting till a few more parts are done so that I can figure out where everything goes.   A lot of stuff is coming together around the cross head and it is all quite interdependant.


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## jcreasey (Nov 13, 2019)

Next task was the con-rod.  This started out as a little gunmetal casting which I cleaned up in the mill.




Once I had things nice and flat I drilled the two required holes.  The plan called for 3" between centers but I decided to let the casting be my guide and put things in the middle of each end.






Then I needed to solve the problem of holding this thing in the lathe so I decided as always to do it the most complicated way possible.
I made up some brass fixtures to clamp each end so that I could hold one end in the chuck and support the other side with the center.  I made some pins to fit the holes each end and threaded the other end.   
If you haven't tried a solid tungsten slitting saw I would highly recommend them!





I just used a screw on the small end.  Once everything was aligned and tightened I squirted each end with super glue for good measure.





Final step was to use my taper turning attachment to machine a nice taper.  The part was flipped to do the other side.  I used a nice rounded form tool to give me some nice curved shoulders each end.





And there you have it.  The plan called for a 1/16 relief on the side between the two ends.  I did that on the back side but it didn't look as nice so I left the outer side unrelieved.   When I cleaned up the sides of the big end I just supported it on pins through each end.  This gave it a jaunty non parallel look.  I'm not sure if I like that too much but I guess it will be ok. 





Thanks for reading and for the great comments.   More soon!


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## delalio (Nov 13, 2019)

This is coming along beautifully! Well done!!


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## Larry G. (Nov 13, 2019)

jcreasey said:


> Next task was the con-rod.  This started out as a little gunmetal casting which I cleaned up in the mill.
> 
> Then I needed to solve the problem of holding this thing in the lathe so I decided as always to do it the most complicated way possible.
> I made up some brass fixtures to clamp each end so that I could hold one end in the chuck and support the other side with the center.  I made some pins to fit the holes each end and threaded the other end.
> ...



Thank you for taking the time to post excellent photos and detailed explanations.  
Where some model makers would have been satisfied to touch up the connecting rod with a bit of filing and belt sanding, your "most complicated way possible" approach produced a fine result.

Your toolmaker mindset is producing an excellent product.
I look forward to seeing more.

Larry


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## LorenOtto (Nov 14, 2019)

Thank you for posting your build.  You photos are very clear and the extra steps you take to turn a dreary set of castings into a thing of beauty and elegance are extraordinary.  I am enjoying watching from afar.
Loren


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## Emers (Nov 15, 2019)

Enjoying your build I am a new model builder myself ( 1 year) I like to watch every bodies builds keep up the great work.
Cheers
John


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## jcreasey (Jan 7, 2020)

Apologies for the delay in installments.  I got distracted by building this piece of nonsense.  Normal service will resume shortly!


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## jcreasey (Jan 7, 2020)

After much procrastination I finally got around to making the cross head.  This shows the final reaming to size.





Next job was to tidy up the crank.  Although the plans show it as a plain disk I couldn't resist the temptation to make it look a bit nicer.  For this job I used my tiny 3" rotary table along with a little clamp I made for it.  I made a couple of sacrificial pins that I could use to clamp it with.


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## jcreasey (Jan 7, 2020)

Now to build the cam.
I really made a meal of this part but it got there in the end.







First I turned the outside diameter to rough size before reversing it to turn the other half so that I could hold it in a fixture.






I made this simple fixture to turn the eccentric sections and bore and ream the hole for the shaft.







I parted off too early having forgotten to machine the groove for the eccentric, but I recovered from this mistake using my collet chuck.  I made this little parting tool to make the groove for the eccentric.








The plans call for 7ba here but I always use metric for grub screws.  Mainly because I have never found anywhere that sells 7ba grub screws.  It's easy to find 2.5m and the appropriate tiny sized allen keys to tighten them up with.  Much nicer than a slot end.


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## jcreasey (Jan 7, 2020)

Ok now to build the eccentric!
I cleaned it up a bit with the belt sander and drilled a couple of 1/8" holes in the two center points.   This gave me a nice way to hold it horizontal so that I could clean up the side faces.








Once the sides were nice and parallel I cleaned up the other two sides.






A bit of stunt milling here using my little grinding vise to make clearance for the long tail of the eccentric by hanging it out over the main vise.  I drilled the two bolt holes in the sides and then slitted the part along the center hole.






After bolting everything back together I could bore out the hole where the cam fits.  I was going to solder the two halves together for this but the bolts seemed fine so I just used those.  This caused no problems.






I used a nice sharp D-bit cutter to mill out the bore to fit my cam.  It probably would have been much smarter to have made the the cam to fit the bore as I couldn't really do any test fits for this part.  I did it by the numbers and everything worked out very well.   It was a bit tense though!






To clean up the sides I bolted everything down to a nice piece of plate.  I adjusted for the angle and cleaned up the top and bottom edges.  I left the sides as cast.  They are a bit thicker than plan but I think they look ok.






I spent a bit of time cleaning up the radiuses on the big end of the eccentric.   This destroyed my bolts but I have plenty of spares.  I used the allen key to provide friction while I rotated the part by hand against the cutter.    Normally this kind of reckless behaviour sees me in tears with a destroyed part, but this time I got lucky.






And here it is all fitted together.  The knurling wheel is just a temporary spacer!


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## jcreasey (Jan 7, 2020)

One of the last remaining jobs is to build the slide valve.  Not much going on here really, just some straight forward milling with tiny end mills.


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## jcreasey (Mar 11, 2020)

Things are still progressing on my little mill engine build.
I decided I wanted some drain cocks for the cylinder but instead of doing the sensible thing and buying them I decided I would make my own.
Well one of the trickier parts to make is a little washer at the bottom which has a square hole in it.  Of course to do that properly I needed a rotary broach.  Of course instead of doing the sensible thing and buying a rotary broach I decided to make that too!
Don't you just love these rabbit holes that model engineering provides!

Here is my finished rotary broach.  I used the Hemingway kit and it all worked out great.





That allowed me to make these tiny washers with square holes.  Also one side was dished out with a ball nose end mill so that it would sit snugly against the base of the valve.





Once again I used my taper turning attachment to make the tapered section of the valve.
I also used it to make a little D-bit cutter which was used to make the tapered hole.





The bodies were shaped using a form tool.  This photo shows things coming together.
I made the valves two at a time so I would have something to hang onto without wasting too much brass.
The tapered section has a square key milled in just above the thread which fits into the square hole.  This prevents the little nut from unscrewing when the valve is opened and closed.






I made a super skinny little parting tool to separate the two valves.





Here are the completed valves mounted on the cylinder.   There wasn't really a good spot to mount them on the casting so I used an 8mm end mill to make a nice flat bottomed hole.  I then made some little round pieces of bronze which I brazed onto the side of the cylinder.  These were tapped for the little valves and everything seems to come together nicely.


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## bobden72 (Mar 11, 2020)

Now that's what I call dedication and not taking the easy route.  The end result looks great good job.


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## Brian Hutchings (Mar 11, 2020)

Very nice build and thanks for the tip about making drain cocks.
Brian (almost at the centre of England).


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## propclock (Mar 11, 2020)

Beautiful ! I just recently finished 4 very similar valves for a Tiny power
Twin. 4 required $35 each without shipping. Well that is motivation.
Yes it equated to about <5$ an hour for labor. I used steel for the 
male portion. I didn't bother with the square portion, does it really matter. ?  I feel your joy and appreciate your work.  Thanks.


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## jcreasey (Mar 11, 2020)

propclock said:


> Beautiful ! I just recently finished 4 very similar valves for a Tiny power
> Twin. 4 required $35 each without shipping. Well that is motivation.
> Yes it equated to about <5$ an hour for labor. I used steel for the
> male portion. I didn't bother with the square portion, does it really matter. ?  I feel your joy and appreciate your work.  Thanks.


I think you could probably get by with some loctite on the retaining nut.  The keyed shaft is much nicer though and it works really well.  The more of these I make the quicker and better they get.  I've done about 5 now.  I get a kick out of wasting days of my life to save a few dollars.  I'm fond of making washers too!


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## jcreasey (Mar 11, 2020)

The time has come to paint the engine.  I thought about this quite a lot and decided to try Japanning.  Japanning is what used to be used on old tools such as hand planes.  It is a very hard very black paint made from something called Asphaltum which is a dark brown powder.

To make asphaltum paint you mix it with 1/3 turpentine and 1/3 boiled linseed oil.  Then after giving it some time to disolve and mix together it is painted on with a normal paintbrush.






Once everything is painted it is then baked in a convenient oven.  I have an old toaster oven which I found in a skip which I use for this kind of thing.  It's important to do it outside as it SMELLS pretty much like a road resurfacing machine.






It's important to bake it slowly.  I started at about 120C and gradually ramped it up a few hours at a time to about 240C or so.
Initial results were pretty awful but after another coat and more baking it turned out quite nice I think.  The finish is very much like a baked enamel.  Very hard and durable and very very black!






I thought some pin striping might look nice so I had a go at that using a fine white paint pen from the local stationary shop.
It's not too bad I think.


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## ShopShoe (Mar 12, 2020)

I like the look of that. Close to a lot of the old cast iron toys from the first part of the 20th. century.  I hope to try that someday.

--ShopShoe


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## jcreasey (Mar 17, 2020)

I thought this engine needed some oil cups to keep the bearings and slides nice and oily.
I started out by making a little form tool from HSS and proceeded to form little cups.
I held them in a collet to drill the hole in the top.  This was a bit tricky and as always I had to make sure I had a nicely brassed off drill bit to ensure no grabbing.






I put a 2.5mm thread on the end and drilled a 1mm hole





Maybe they are a bit out of scale, I'm not sure.  On the whole I think they look ok.






I'm not a fan of lids as they tend to get lost instantly.  They seem to work ok.


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## mattb.351 (Mar 18, 2020)

I hadn't seen this thread before, but I went back and read the lot. Nice work on a great engine! It's looking fantastic.
It's amazing how many good workholding (and other) tips you can pick up on this forum.


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## delalio (Mar 19, 2020)

This looks absolutely awesome. I am very jealous of your machining skills.

With the world on a slow-down at the moment, I may crack out my Stuart S50 kit that I have in the bottom of my lathe cabinet. Although, it won't look as good as yours. 

Great work. Do you have a nice video of it running available anywhere?

Best Regards,

Del


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## jcreasey (Mar 19, 2020)

delalio said:


> This looks absolutely awesome. I am very jealous of your machining skills.
> 
> With the world on a slow-down at the moment, I may crack out my Stuart S50 kit that I have in the bottom of my lathe cabinet. Although, it won't look as good as yours.
> 
> ...


Hi Del,
Thankyou for your nice comments!
I don't have a video of it yet.  I want to add a couple of more bits of bling and then I will make a nice video.
I'm currently just about finished making a displacement lubricator and then I want to make a nice steam valve for it.

Definitely have a go at your S50.  Too many engines sit forever in drawers waiting to be built.
You can always get spares if you make a mistake so why not give it a go!


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## stanstocker (Mar 20, 2020)

Thank you for all your effort in taking and posting photos and text!  I've really enjoyed seeing your work.  Nice explanation of setups, and an even bigger thanks for not hiding the bits that are tricky (crosshead).  So often you KNOW something was tricky, knowing that that's the case lets you relax and plan on doing something else if not fresh and energetic


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## davidl (Mar 20, 2020)

mattb.351 said:


> I hadn't seen this thread before, but I went back and read the lot. Nice work on a great engine! It's looking fantastic.
> It's amazing how many good workholding (and other) tips you can pick up on this forum.


I agree.  I found this thread today and read the lot.  Picked up quite few work holding tips.  Great job.


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## Picko (Mar 21, 2020)

I've somehow missed this build also. Great work, I look forward to seeing it running.


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## jcreasey (Mar 22, 2020)

Encouraged by all your recent comments here is the latest instalment in my Mill Engine build ...

I've never built a displacement lubricator before so I thought I would try to make one for this engine.  I had a look around for ideas and found some basic plans on the internet to work from.

Fortunately I had recently purchased a set of micro drills and this was a good chance to try them out.  They worked very well and I managed to put six tiny 0.5 mm holes in the end of my little drain valve with no problems.






I knurled a piece of brass and soldered it to the shaft after cleaning it up into a tiny disc.
This photo also shows the bottom of the lubricator which I machined with a nice curved form tool.







I always enjoy making knobs and the top adjustment knob was probably the smallest one I have made so far.
I dished it out with a ball nose end mill and used a form tool to radius the edge.  I then scalloped the sides using the side of an end mill and a hex collet block.  This photo shows me cleaning up the threaded section trimming it neatly to fit the little 7ba nut that retains it.






Here are all the parts ready to assemble.  I don't think I quite got the o-ring right but it should work ok regardless.







And here is the finished lubricator mounted on the engine.  It might be a while before I can determine if it works but I think it should be ok.


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## peter2uat (Mar 24, 2020)

Very nice and detailed building report. 
I just have a problem understanding the function of this drain valve at the bottom of the oiler - I always have a simple screw there with no holes in it. Please details.


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## jcreasey (Mar 24, 2020)

peter2uat said:


> Very nice and detailed building report.
> I just have a problem understanding the function of this drain valve at the bottom of the oiler - I always have a simple screw there with no holes in it. Please details.



The idea of the holes is so that you can loosen the screw and the liquid will flow out through the bottom of the plug.  You don't have to completely remove it to let the liquid out.


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## peter2uat (Mar 27, 2020)

I understand, the cone on the screw has a seat in the body above! And the six small bores are only connected to the central outlet below. 
GENIAL! 
I always had dirty fingers....


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## delalio (Mar 27, 2020)

jcreasey said:


> Encouraged by all your recent comments here is the latest instalment in my Mill Engine build ...
> 
> I've never built a displacement lubricator before so I thought I would try to make one for this engine.  I had a look around for ideas and found some basic plans on the internet to work from.
> 
> ...




I've been making a displacement lubricator literally the last 2 days. (Couple of hours each day) 
Been filming it in 4k too, to whack up on YouTube. 

Yours is a lovely display of craftmanship.

Can you provide a few more photos of the drain valve? Am I right in thinking it is a single taper valve, with a hole 90% through the centre, then the 4 or 6 drain holes just below where the taper will seal?? Did you bother with any sealant below the threaded part?? 

I rushed 2 of these! Both Failed. The smaller the part, the more critical the measuring, obviously, and I made a mess of the same bit, twice.
Ended up drilling too deep on one, and the hole just went straight through the whole body.
No. 2, I didnt drill deep enough, then when I was trying to drill it again, it went too far AGAIN!!
Time to make one properly i think.

Re the taper valve seat and threaded part, did you make it in one long piece, silver soldered through the main body of the unit, then re-drill the oil reservoir once soldered, or solder the 2 parts  into the main body separately? (Sorry if that didnt make much sense!)

Kindest Regards,

Del


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## jcreasey (Mar 28, 2020)

delalio said:


> I've been making a displacement lubricator literally the last 2 days. (Couple of hours each day)
> Been filming it in 4k too, to whack up on YouTube.
> 
> Yours is a lovely display of craftmanship.
> ...




Hi Del,
If you are having trouble drilling brass or bronze accurately you might want to try 'brassing off' your drill bits.   This is a term that refers to flattening the front cutting face of the bit so that it does not dig in suddenly.   It's a bit tricky to explain but Clickspring has a great video on the subject.  Here is a link:  

I am fortunate to own a rack and pinion style tailstock on my lathe.  I made a small locking collar for that which acts as a depth stop.  I mainly use it with gauge blocks to set very accurate and repeatable depths.    This is a photo of what it looks like.



I made my taper valve in one piece complete with all the threads and holes.  I then silver soldered it into the main body.  Here is a photo of it before I soldered everything.  I don't have a boiler yet so I have no idea if it will actually work.  One day I will get that done.  The copper for it is sitting on my bench.


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## jcreasey (Apr 5, 2020)

Once I finished my displacement lubricator I decided that the engine also needed some kind of valve.  I set about making a globe valve from scratch by using a form tool to cut the body.





Once this was done I drilled it out and silver soldered in the center part which the handle connects to.  Once it was silver soldered I drilled it out and then bored out a recess inside which is wider than the threaded section.  That allows holes from the sides to be drilled to the top and bottom halves of the valve.





I used the rotary table to put holes in the ends so I could bolt the flange to my engine using 10ba bolts.






The top section was made in two parts which were then silver soldered together.






Amazingly this worked and I was able to screw the top into the body of the valve.  I'm not sure yet if this will be steam tight but I should be able to put some stuffing inside if it leaks.






The last step was to make a little handle for it.  I wanted something which wouldn't get too hot so I came up with this little ship's wheel design.  I made it by milling out the gap between the hub and the outer rim and then drilling through the holes for the 8 spokes while it was still one piece of rod.  Once all the spokes were fitted and soft soldered I parted the whole lot off and cleaned up the rear side.  It's super cute!






And here is the whole thing bolted to the engine.  I am really happy with how it turned out.


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## bobden72 (Apr 5, 2020)

Very nice keep up the good work.


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## Pierkemo (Apr 5, 2020)

Nice, nice, nice, much work to get the radius?


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## jcreasey (Apr 5, 2020)

Pierkemo said:


> Nice, nice, nice, much work to get the radius?



Thanks!,
I used a radius dresser to make a round shaped grinding wheel for my surface grinder.  I used that to make a very accurate concave lathe tool from HSS by holding it at 7 degrees compound angle in my sine vise.   So it wasn't too bad really.  Sometimes if they are large radius I just do them by hand with a belt grinder.  Another good way is to use a dremmel.  It's worth doing because you always have them and they are always handy.


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## jcreasey (Apr 6, 2020)

Although it worked ok I was annoyed by the fact that the slide head was not quite in the middle of it's guides (longways).  It was caused because the con-rod was just a bit too short.   I think this might have been due to this being a Version 1 set of castings and I am using a Version 2 set of plans.

Anyway, not a difficult thing to fix. I plugged the hole and silver soldered it in place.





Then cleaned up in the mill





And finally re-drilling and a bit of a cleanup.  - The perfect crime!




Don't you just love silver solder?  :-D


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## jcreasey (Apr 16, 2020)

Another quick update for my little engine.  Things are back together now after fixing various issues with the conrod and tidying up some bolts etc.  It's looking nice and running well.  One of the last jobs was to put some lagging on the cylinder.  I am really happy with the results but I still might put some bolts in to hold the lagging.  I have some 12ba bolts ordered so I guess I will see how that goes when they arrive!
.












--->  Video of it Running  <---


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## minh-thanh (Apr 16, 2020)

Great engine ! Congratulations.


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## jcreasey (Apr 26, 2020)

I thought a guard rail would look good so I built one.
I turned the posts from 1/4" stainless using a half-round form tool.  Because they were so spindly I worked from the end towards the base turning it down to size about 1/4" at a time.  This worked out well and I managed to make 6 posts.   I had to make a little pipe bender to get the curves.






I think I'm pretty much finished with this engine now.  It might be time to start a new project.


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## minh-thanh (Apr 26, 2020)

GREAT


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## Pierkemo (Apr 30, 2020)

Wawwhhh a surface grinder, thumps Up!
Can you grind the radius and the free angle at once?


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## Pierkemo (Apr 30, 2020)

Your Bolton looks very nice!


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## jcreasey (Apr 30, 2020)

Pierkemo said:


> Wawwhhh a surface grinder, thumps Up!
> Can you grind the radius and the free angle at once?



I think I did them separately.  It's a while ago now.


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## delalio (May 1, 2020)

Now that is a gorgeous engine build. Well done sir!


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## jcreasey (May 1, 2020)

delalio said:


> Now that is a gorgeous engine build. Well done sir!


Thank you very much!


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## Rudirk (May 1, 2020)

Thank you for this great documentation .
There I could find a lot of ideas for my own project .


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## tevans9129 (Apr 11, 2021)

jcreasey said:


> The time has come to paint the engine.  I thought about this quite a lot and decided to try Japanning.  Japanning is what used to be used on old tools such as hand planes.  It is a very hard very black paint made from something called Asphaltum which is a dark brown powder.
> 
> To make asphaltum paint you mix it with 1/3 turpentine and 1/3 boiled linseed oil.  Then after giving it some time to disolve and mix together it is painted on with a normal paintbrush.
> View attachment 114341
> ...


Beautiful, I envy your talent.


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## wazrus (Apr 12, 2021)

A very nice job! You are, I assume, in Australia, as some years ago I too made a Bolton, but a No.1. Mine is much more utilitarian, using a cylinder made from an oregon pattern, which was simply a solid lump of cast iron, with lots of resulting iron chips! I made mine with hard work in mind and it has been adapted to a 5" gauge railway 'carriage', with steam from a copper vertical boiler. All bearings are ball, including the eccentrics, as are the pump eccentrics. Final drive to the rails is by chain. I haven't looked at it for years and I'm afraid that the tin ants might have had a bit of a go at it. None of it is tiny, so it lives under a sheet metal box, outside on the track. If I  get around to cleaning off the rust and spiders and perhaps touch up a bit of paint....perhaps.....it might present for a photo or two. I'm not holding my breath.


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## Steamchick (Apr 12, 2021)

That is just beautiful! Well done Sir!
Never one to just leave it at that.... The oiler is designed for Steam - which condenses and forces minute amounts of oil into the steam flow to be carried into the engine for lubrication. But this does not work with air. However, when running (at shows, etc.) for any length of time on air, I always invert the oilers on my engines. After an hour or 2 they will have emptied the oil into the engine and done their job as lubricators, ready to be re-filled. I suspect the pressure oscillations in the air intake achieve some microscopic pumping that causes the oil to creep out of the oiler, to be replaced with air? Of course, running for a minute or 2 will be fine with just an initial drop of oil in the intake before fitting the air-line. 
I use regular car engine oil (7.5W/30 is my "regular" = 7.5W at 15 deg. C.?) for running on air, but proper 50W "Steam oil"  for running on steam. I understand the car engine oil has appropriate anti-corrosion additives, lubricants, viscosity improvers, etc. so it is better than simple "7W Lathe oil" (7W at 80 deg.C.?). But for steam, the Steam oil contains detergents so the condensate mixture from oil vapour and steam forms an emulsion that carries on lubricating. But this must be washed-out after each running, otherwise the trapped water will de-emulsify and cause bi-metallic corrosion on the brassy alloys, and rust on any iron.
Enjoy running at your local show! 
K2


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