Another Boll Aero 1.8

[Rodrigo Castellanos]

Hi guys!!

this is my first engine build, i been learning some lathe skills, and last weekend i got a used mill... so i don´t know to much about using it...
Anyway, my metal shop is small and have not a lot of tools, but think have enough for my first building.

i started cutting my Square Alu bar with band saw and facing it in my mill!!! (first cut made by me ever! ) not very clean, even with slow passes, but, ok for blue dye and make some marks....

Having not a Boring head, i got a 4 jaw chuck that i got last week and fix the body to it... after carefully find a right place to fix my magnetic dial (my lathe is small) i dial my body and find a nice center... so i start with my starting dril, 1/4, 1/2, and a boring tool i made...

Think is ok as the hole was made in one step, and was well aligned with the body....

Here the pics...

 

[Rodrigo Castellanos]

the boring tool i made seems to work fine! clean cuts! i´m happy!

next step: clean the lathe for next move!

 

[Tim Wescott]

Cool! I look forward to seeing the build.

 

[NickP]

Hi Rodrigo - nice start - I’m following as a fellow beginner

 

[awake]

Rodrigo,

You're off to a good start! That mill should serve you well, but I want to check just to be sure - in the pictures it looks like you are using a drill chuck to hold the endmill. You can sometimes get away with that, but it is not the best or safest practice. I'm guessing that machine has an R8 spindle; if so, a set of R8 collets is inexpensive and widely available, and will do a great job for holding endmills - and will give you much more "head room" to use on your mill. If your mill uses an MT spindle (MT2 or MT3), you can get collets for these as well - not quite as widely available, but not necessarily more expensive.

As for boring using the 4-jaw on the lathe - the downside is that you are limited to the size of piece that you can put in the 4-jaw chuck, and of course it can be a bit of work to get the piece positioned correctly. But once that is done, I think it is easier and can produce better results to bore on the lathe rather than on the mill.

 

[Rodrigo Castellanos]

Rodrigo,

You're off to a good start! That mill should serve you well, but I want to check just to be sure - in the pictures it looks like you are using a drill chuck to hold the endmill. You can sometimes get away with that, but it is not the best or safest practice. I'm guessing that machine has an R8 spindle; if so, a set of R8 collets is inexpensive and widely available, and will do a great job for holding endmills - and will give you much more "head room" to use on your mill. If your mill uses an MT spindle (MT2 or MT3), you can get collets for these as well - not quite as widely available, but not necessarily more expensive.

As for boring using the 4-jaw on the lathe - the downside is that you are limited to the size of piece that you can put in the 4-jaw chuck, and of course it can be a bit of work to get the piece positioned correctly. But once that is done, I think it is easier and can produce better results to bore on the lathe rather than on the mill.

Hi Andy!

Thanks for write!
i really don´t know any about the collets or r8 Spindle... the mill came with that chuck mounted and other regular drill chuck, with MT2 taper.... i will unmount the one is on it and maybe you can help me with that....

.... yes... my lathe is small, and was my first job using a 4 jaw chuck.... toke me about 15 minutes to align the piece and the job must got done at very slow speed as the unbalanced wheel effect was very hi at medium speeds... but think the bore was ok....
after seeing my bore.... i think i should start with the cylinder bore! now i don´t have to much material to hold the piece, so 4 wood pieces will be needed for clamp the piece...

Cheeeeers
Rodrigo
PS. Sorry for my low knowledge about tools, and as my first language is spanish, somethings i can not find the right name of tools... still trying to find good sources about Case hardening in spanish, but seems that not a right translate for that...

 

[Olli-Matti]

Hello Rodrigo!
Nice to see you here aswell. You seem to have exactly same interests as I do, thats cool. My father and brother are also quite good guitarists and also like to build instruments as a hobby but for some reason i have not gotten into that. But I will also try my wings as a machinist! Will follow your progress closely and wish you good luck with the build!
The start looks great
By the way what is that blue stuff and when can one find it? Haven’t bumped into that one before.
Best regards your flying friend
Ollie

 

[awake]

Rodrigo, nothing to be sorry about - the way to learn is to jump in, ask questions, and try things out. And your English is way better than my Spanish!

Case hardening can be done the old-fashioned way, by packing the piece in carbon rich material and heating for an extended time. There are commercial formulations that work faster and easier. The one I've used is called Kasenite; you heat the part to cherry red, dip it / coat it in Kasenite, reheat to cherry red, and then quench in water. I'm not sure how deep the case hardening goes, but it gives a good hard surface.

 

[Rodrigo Castellanos]

Hello Rodrigo!
Nice to see you here aswell. You seem to have exactly same interests as I do, thats cool. My father and brother are also quite good guitarists and also like to build instruments as a hobby but for some reason i have not gotten into that. But I will also try my wings as a machinist! Will follow your progress closely and wish you good luck with the build!
The start looks great
By the way what is that blue stuff and when can one find it? Haven’t bumped into that one before.
Best regards your flying friend
Ollie

Hi Olli! yes! agree with you! same kind of interest!
i just share you via facebook a link for your first lathe steps... at this point with my Boll, i´m only using my lathe for most all steps, and for sure, all the engine can be build in a lathe if you get an mill slice... by the way!! NICE lathe you got!!!!!


For the blue dye, i got a mexican brand, but for sure you can find something similar, just look on you ebay as blue layout fluid, for sure you will find something similar.

any i can help please let me know...
your friend Rodrigo

PS please!!! watch for clickspring channel in youtube! nothing about engines, but the skills and explain of this guy is amazing!!!!!

 

[Rodrigo Castellanos]

Rodrigo, nothing to be sorry about - the way to learn is to jump in, ask questions, and try things out. And your English is way better than my Spanish!

Case hardening can be done the old-fashioned way, by packing the piece in carbon rich material and heating for an extended time. There are commercial formulations that work faster and easier. The one I've used is called Kasenite; you heat the part to cherry red, dip it / coat it in Kasenite, reheat to cherry red, and then quench in water. I'm not sure how deep the case hardening goes, but it gives a good hard surface.

Hi Andy!
Thanks!! i been watching videos on youtube, there is something called cherry red, and found a video about what are you talking about! leather must get burned in a metal case to get nice charcoal, some stuff added, maybe some borax, something to make coquies, and water, heat, and you get a nice hard steel....
Think this places are great for learning as found very nice people in groups that are glad to help, and that is nice!
Rodrigo

 

[Rodrigo Castellanos]

Hi Guys!
some more work done today!
sadly my metal worksop shares same space as my guitar workshop, so i don´t have to many time to spend in the lathe, but, today had not to much clients so i made some work...
i bored the cylinder hole, and found that this could be easier to make FIRST, as the body has already bored for the crankshaft, and the jaws almost have no material to hold...
Still developing my centering skills, and for sure, i will need to make a new "body" but, Guys! this is fun!!!!
After finish my body, i start my front end case.... but not time to finish it...

i added some wood scrap to protect the body, but will use something harder for the next one.

 

[Richard Hed]

Rodrigo, nothing to be sorry about - the way to learn is to jump in, ask questions, and try things out. And your English is way better than my Spanish!

Case hardening can be done the old-fashioned way, by packing the piece in carbon rich material and heating for an extended time. There are commercial formulations that work faster and easier. The one I've used is called Kasenite; you heat the part to cherry red, dip it / coat it in Kasenite, reheat to cherry red, and then quench in water. I'm not sure how deep the case hardening goes, but it gives a good hard surface.

I'm sure I'm going to be trying this in the future. Where would you buy Kasenite? Internet?

 

[Richard Hed]

Hi Olli! yes! agree with you! same kind of interest!
i just share you via facebook a link for your first lathe steps... at this point with my Boll, i´m only using my lathe for most all steps, and for sure, all the engine can be build in a lathe if you get an mill slice... by the way!! NICE lathe you got!!!!!


For the blue dye, i got a mexican brand, but for sure you can find something similar, just look on you ebay as blue layout fluid, for sure you will find something similar.

any i can help please let me know...
your friend Rodrigo

PS please!!! watch for clickspring channel in youtube! nothing about engines, but the skills and explain of this guy is amazing!!!!!

I've been watching Clickspring quite often. Look at his fantastic "introduction" in this one:

This is such a quality introduction I almost p*st my pants.

 

[Richard Hed]

Hi Guys!
some more work done today!
sadly my metal worksop shares same space as my guitar workshop, so i don´t have to many time to spend in the lathe, but, today had not to much clients so i made some work...
i bored the cylinder hole, and found that this could be easier to make FIRST, as the body has already bored for the crankshaft, and the jaws almost have no material to hold...
Still developing my centering skills, and for sure, i will need to make a new "body" but, Guys! this is fun!!!!
After finish my body, i start my front end case.... but not time to finish it...
View attachment 118136

i added some wood scrap to protect the body, but will use something harder for the next one.





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Rodrigo,
I'M not a nice guy. But yes, I was about to mention those wood scraps --BAD idea, but then you explained. Nice progress.

 

[awake]

Rodrigo, you are getting excellent results! Well done. Your experience in careful craftsmanship with making guitars is giving you a head-start on the metal working.

Soft copper or aluminum shims are often used to protect a part from the jaws - these are soft enough to protect, but not as likely to give too much (or splinter apart) the way wood might.

 

[awake]

I'm sure I'm going to be trying this in the future. Where would you buy Kasenite? Internet?

Yes, you should be able to find it from various vendors. Here are a couple of the first links that came up:

https://www.travers.com/steel-surfa...NSLnkgWeyImxYKVW35Ax4cE9HTlZQuzhoCPfsQAvD_BwE
https://www.travers.com/1lbcan-1-surface-hardning-compnd-kasenit/p/81-003-001/
Apparently I was incorrect in putting the "e" on the end - when I did the search I realized it is Kasenit.

 

[Shaun free]

Rodrigo,

You're off to a good start! That mill should serve you well, but I want to check just to be sure - in the pictures it looks like you are using a drill chuck to hold the endmill. You can sometimes get away with that, but it is not the best or safest practice. I'm guessing that machine has an R8 spindle; if so, a set of R8 collets is inexpensive and widely available, and will do a great job for holding endmills - and will give you much more "head room" to use on your mill. If your mill uses an MT spindle (MT2 or MT3), you can get collets for these as well - not quite as widely available, but not necessarily more expensive.

As for boring using the 4-jaw on the lathe - the downside is that you are limited to the size of piece that you can put in the 4-jaw chuck, and of course it can be a bit of work to get the piece positioned correctly. But once that is done, I think it is easier and can produce better results to bore on the lathe rather than on the mill.

It will also increase your accuracy. One thing to remember tool life and accuracy is greatly increased with rigidity

 

[Tim Wescott]

Soft copper or aluminum shims are often used to protect a part from the jaws - these are soft enough to protect, but not as likely to give too much (or splinter apart) the way wood might.

And better an accurate part with tool marks than the other way around!

The cheapest source for soft aluminum shim stock is aluminum drink cans. And, it gives you an excuse to buy beer ("Honey, I'm running down to the store for a case of shim stock!")

I've only got one partial engine build under my belt (a new set of moving parts for a Cox TD 09). Basically, I just kept going even after I screwed up. I ended up with an engine that barely ran, and that probably only put in 5000 revolutions between being broken in and worn out -- but it ran!

And I learned a lot. Including the fact that you cannot work too hard to get all the lapping compound off of your moving parts before you try running the engine in.

 

[Tim Wescott]

I think if I were faced with your problem of how to hold the crank case after boring the center hole, then I would first check to see if the part would sit firmly enough into the chuck as you've pictured, but without the shims. If the chuck jaws span the hole, you're probably all right -- but I think that wasn't the case for you. Just tightening the chuck may fail because you'd need to squeeze pretty tight across not much aluminum.

If it were me, after I cursed myself for not boring the cylinder hole first, I would find two nice flat pieces of stock that would span the holes, and use those in place of the shims. I'd probably just tighten the chuck against the solid sides of the case, and accept the fact that I may have some tool marks that I'd need to adjust out later.

I've been watching Abom79's YouTube channel a lot lately -- there's a lot of general shop practice, but in the last year or so he's been paying a lot of attention to showing how he does work-holding and setup, which I've found very useful.

 

[Rodrigo Castellanos]

I think if I were faced with your problem of how to hold the crank case after boring the center hole, then I would first check to see if the part would sit firmly enough into the chuck as you've pictured, but without the shims. If the chuck jaws span the hole, you're probably all right -- but I think that wasn't the case for you. Just tightening the chuck may fail because you'd need to squeeze pretty tight across not much aluminum.

If it were me, after I cursed myself for not boring the cylinder hole first, I would find two nice flat pieces of stock that would span the holes, and use those in place of the shims. I'd probably just tighten the chuck against the solid sides of the case, and accept the fact that I may have some tool marks that I'd need to adjust out later.

I've been watching Abom79's YouTube channel a lot lately -- there's a lot of general shop practice, but in the last year or so he's been paying a lot of attention to showing how he does work-holding and setup, which I've found very useful.

Hi Tim!
you are right! i went to the metal shop today and got some alu bars for holding my piece, as i think still being better to make the crankshaft bore before the cylinder... Anyway, i will try to make a new "body" and see if can be more centered the the previous one!.