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Edit: I just realized I responded to an old post. Oh well -- I'm leaving this. Pretty drawing and all that. If you don't introduce too many errors in deburring, there's a way. Edge-find the exhaust ring, and move in a known offset from that. An even better way, if you have three or four...

Handy tech tip: don't put an itty bitty part, with an hour's work in it, on a piece of wood on your welding bench, then decide to toss that piece of wood off your welding bench for fire safety. At least, not without retrieving your itty bitty time-consumed thing. I never did mention -- this is...

Two things, from a fairly uneducated position: model airplane ringed engines start right off, maybe with extra oil in the fuel (it's always so easy to cheat and add castor when it's a two-stroke!). But -- that's when you're buying an engine from someone experienced at making rings, and who...

Hah! My dad had a friend who rebuilt engines. He had a story of an old Hudson that he bought and drove for a while. It had excessive vibration in the engine that he decided to fix. When he tore it down, he found a block of wood driven into one of the cylinder bores (and no piston...

I'm kinda torqued at myself for making a nice pretty trepanning tool that only works in reverse. So I decided that I'd try again. This time, rather than spending tedious hours with a Dremel Dangerous Disk and a 1/4" square tool blank, I'm going to spend tedious hours with some drill rod and my...

Or you can cheat. Motor Honey -- it's not just for selling clapped out used cars!

Gauge blocks are great for measuring groove widths -- like those piston ring grooves you cut that were apparently smaller than the cutter, over on the other thread. Basically, if you get them, you'll find uses for them.

If that thing you've built is open on the other end and will fit -- it's your spring compressor. I've been watching engine rebuild videos on YouTube, and that's the fancy way to do it. The less-fancy way is a dedicated adjustable ring compressor. When hose clamps are mentioned, it's in the...

Günter, I'm glad there's no contest for "good looking", because I've already lost. I'm going to have to fall back on "if it works, it looks good". At least -- if it works. I may use the magnet idea -- I'll have to think about it. It certainly saves a few cranks and seals.

If that first ring had been 0.068 it would make sense -- 0.125 - 0.057 = 0.068. Maybe it's 0.068 with .002" worth of roughness or tilt screwing up the measurement?

If you're in the US (or Canada, and want to spend money on postage) McMaster-Carr has cast iron rods down to 5/8" -- and pretty reasonable on price for the smaller dimensions.

@Steamchick : I got the impression from the Wikipedia article that Meehanite is a trade name that your foundry can apply if you're licensed. So you could make exactly the same thing, but you couldn't say so. It gets complicated, but probably even "just like Meehanite" would be an infringement...

When I was going to school, getting an electronics engineering degree, I was overjoyed when the rules changed and I could get my degree without taking thermodynamics. Now I have just enough scratched-together knowledge to size heat sinks correctly (which is essential for power electronics), and...

I hadn't thought about that Aluminum You're absolutely correct There's some 1/4" Nylon, Delrin or Bakelite rod in my future, but I think I'll forge ahead with this as it is for now. (I may just buy some hex spacers in Nylon, if I need to make an electronics order)

"Meehanite" is a trademark; if a foundry sells it, that means they're licensed to do so (and they're audited for quality by the Meehanite company). And apparently there's more than one kind of Meehanite -- gray, gray flake, and nodular. From my studies, making it right involves a little bit of...

End caps (heads?) assembled onto the displacer cylinder. Everything fits -- probably because after drilling 3/32" pilot holes in one end cap, I taped them together with double-sticky tape and drilled them through together. A 5/64" drill is a really snug fit on a 6-32 screw, so things are...

I think that's the sort of tool you get thinking you'll use it once every decade, and then slowly find yourself using it all the time.

How did you do the actual knurling?

I'll be interested in your experiences when you get around to making rings. There seems to be a lot of ways to succeed, but a lot more ways to screw it up! Study is warranted before actually launching into the effort to do the job.

Possibly to to bring it up to $0, even. Orders take time to fulfill. Someone has to read them, pack them, make an address label, etc. Unless you're doing it yourself -- and don't value your time -- someone has to be paid to do the work. $20 to send you an empty box, from a one-man business...