Search results

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...

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

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...

Just a quick note to say great work on an interesting project. Following with interest!

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

Thanks Deefer!

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...

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...

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...

I recently decided to spruce up my old 10V with some paint and a reversing gear. I've never liked the way Stuart's bolt the reversing gear bracket to the front of the steam chest so I modified things slightly and attached it to the side instead. I much prefer how it looks and it is much easier...

When I made a depth stop for my mill I used a very similar design. One minor difference was that I did not use a threaded rod but instead used plain rod. I just made a little knob to fix it in place and I ground a flat side on the rod to prevent any issues with burring. I have found this to be...

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...

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...

On a normal blowlamp there is a dish which is filled with methylated spirits. This is used to warm the pre-heating coil which is in front of the jet. Once the lamp is running the heat of the jet keeps this pre-heating coil warm. On my little burner there is no provision for any kind of metho...

It was sold as a paraffin burner. It looks just like a blowtorch with the pre-heater coil in the path of the flame. I think it would probably be quite dangerous to use it with petrol.