Latest 'build' in progress -- Smitty 101
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Hiya Ton', yeah that does look cheesy in there doesn't it. I prolly' should have just stuck a small piece of rod in there for the photos, but I have been so used to looking at the beast with that CD in there I did not think much of it at the time. Rof} Now I'm embarrassed. I think I will just go to my room now and medicate heavily. :-*
BC1
BC1
ASOK, Ton', if you hadn't I'm sure one of the other lads would have had a poke at my foolishness. :big: This evening has found me sanding and applying a wash coat of color (provincial oak) to the base, then tomorrow possibly if it has dried sufficiently I will lay on the first seal coat of Varathane. Ah the aromas of distilled hydrocarbons, they'll set one upright in a jiff I swear. :bow: Maybe I can do some measuring and calculations on that reverse arrangement.
Well now lads, I've been stuck at idle stickpoke for several days due to the lack of a chunk of brass that I required to machine up the steam chest to this engine. And being extremely frugal (read that as CHEAP :
) I had been scrounging for something that would meet my needs and not cost an arm and a leg. Instead I think that I have come up with a solution to this predicament that will only cost me an arm. ;D After staring at the drawings for an incredible amount of time :noidea: and playing engineer in my mind, it came to me in a blaze of instantaneous enlightenment :fan: . Instead of using a piece of .500" brass for this, and believe me I was considering using two .250" slabs joined together, I could fab up a piece of .375" to house the valve spindle and then bolt a cover of .125" onto that to achieve the final results. By doing this I would also make it a great deal easier to set the valve timing and also eliminate one of the through holes for the steam inlet. YES, my boy! You are a genius! Rof} Why not. The rest of the design has more or less been 'bashed' th_rulze so why not go for broke. I'm off to continue my quest for ultimate and everlasting gratification. Now to take the lump down from the bottom shelf, remember not the top one, and dust it off. Let the games begin anew. Release the hounds!!! :big:
BC1
) I had been scrounging for something that would meet my needs and not cost an arm and a leg. Instead I think that I have come up with a solution to this predicament that will only cost me an arm. ;D After staring at the drawings for an incredible amount of time :noidea: and playing engineer in my mind, it came to me in a blaze of instantaneous enlightenment :fan: . Instead of using a piece of .500" brass for this, and believe me I was considering using two .250" slabs joined together, I could fab up a piece of .375" to house the valve spindle and then bolt a cover of .125" onto that to achieve the final results. By doing this I would also make it a great deal easier to set the valve timing and also eliminate one of the through holes for the steam inlet. YES, my boy! You are a genius! Rof} Why not. The rest of the design has more or less been 'bashed' th_rulze so why not go for broke. I'm off to continue my quest for ultimate and everlasting gratification. Now to take the lump down from the bottom shelf, remember not the top one, and dust it off. Let the games begin anew. Release the hounds!!! :big:BC1
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Hello lads, it's beena bit of a dry spell here as I was stuck on not having the bits and bobs I required and have been procrastinating the purchase of these items and fell upon a solution that I was just sure would cure what ails me. What is it that ails me anyway? No matter, after my last revelation, I set about the task of drawing up my modifications and was all ready to begin when it was than I discovered that I did not have a piece of 'THAT' size. th_wtf1 th_bs. I felt my world spinning before my eyes like a just thrown string top. :toilet: Now it was back to square one and a major letdown as well. A couple of days elapse and by this time I was pretty much given to the fact that I would be forced to fabricate up my part by hard soldering two slabs of .250" brass (yes I made certain I had them in the pile of spare parts ;D ) Today rolls around and I slovenly trudge my way down to the shop to begin this session and when I open the drawer to extract the pieces I had assigned, I noticed a sizable length of 1.000" square peeking out from behind its bubble wrapped cocoon. There it was, staring at me like, "you moron" oh: So much for my 160IQ. I had overlooked this bar in my initial search as it was bundled with some other pieces and I had missed seeing it. To make this story just a tad longer and to quench your burning desires of knowing what transpired, ??? I'll tell you. I cut a short length of the bar off and split it down the long axis and made two pieces. One was just over .500" in thickness and the other was, who cares really, I had what I needed. Placing the newly acquired prize in the mill, it was faced down to my desired thickness and that is where I will leave you hanging until I have successfully completed my mission. Jeesh, who would have thought this would become so complicated? Till next time, Cheers. ;D
oh: So much for my 160IQ. I had overlooked this bar in my initial search as it was bundled with some other pieces and I had missed seeing it. To make this story just a tad longer and to quench your burning desires of knowing what transpired, ??? I'll tell you. I cut a short length of the bar off and split it down the long axis and made two pieces. One was just over .500" in thickness and the other was, who cares really, I had what I needed. Placing the newly acquired prize in the mill, it was faced down to my desired thickness and that is where I will leave you hanging until I have successfully completed my mission. Jeesh, who would have thought this would become so complicated? Till next time, Cheers. ;D Ahh, FINALLY! A feeling of accomplishment and the pictures to prove it as well. ;D Today's episode was enjoyable and my efforts were rewarded with the successful machining of the pesky piece that has been holding me up all this time due to lack of material (or my own stupidity, you can be the judge of that choice : ). Be gentle now. The first thing I did was to layout the hole that was to be the home of the valve spindle and after indicating the location in the lathe chuck I proceeded to use progressively larger drills up to just below the finished size and then used a reamer to finish it off. Now this may sound rather boring (oh brother, another pun ) but remember, the hole depth was close to 2.500". When the party was over and the dancing girls had all left, the hole was spot on, meaning that my tail stock was dead accurate. Life IS good woohoo1. With that out of the way my palms stopped sweating and I was able to proceed with laying out the holes for the steamways. I do not have a DRO and times like this is when I Really, and I mean REALLY! wish that I owned one. I did it the old fashioned way, with a magnifying glass and a sharp scriber point. Everything checked and double checked and it was off to the drill table fo some more excitement. :big: With that step out of the way it came time for some serious mill work. This comprised of two slots to join up the intake/exhaust holes with the holes in either end of the cylinder to a depth of .050". OK so far, now the other side. This is where it got interesting to a point. I was, in previous episode, going to use a thinner block and put a cover on it to make up the difference. This would have eliminated the need for yet another through hole running parallel to the hole I previously drilled, which was not my idea of fun the first time around th_bs. This secondary hole's sole purpose in life was to join up the two steam admission holes on the opposite side of the part. Taking a few avante garde notions from before, I decided to inlay a cover and mill the connection between the two inlets as shown. All in all, it turned out rather well and now I am off to offer the silver solder gods some almages :bow: as that is coming next, joining the cylinder and this piece together and off to the races once again.BC1
Thank you once again Bob. The instrument shown in that second photo is a 6" digital height gage made by Starrett. I enjoy it, as it makes scribing layout lines a breeze. I have a 12" vernier in the drawer that sees little use as my aging eyes do not function like they once did. (too much porn I suppose) :big: The digital unit reads direct from the deck (0.000") up to just over 6.000" and has two carbide blades attached so that scribing lines or checking deck heights is quite simple. I use it for sheet metal work as well as it is VERY accurate as opposed to the usual steel rule, square, and scribe methods commonly employed.
BC1
BC1
ChooChooMike
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Looking very nice there BC !! Keep up with all the pix and words :bow:
:bow:
Thank you kind gentlemen, ??? I find that pictures stimulate the imagination as well as providing a better means of sharing ideas than mere words alone. I forget to take photos a lot of times during the actual machining and do apologize for that. Last evening was spent fitting up a cover for the steam chest as well as laying out the holes to secure it. Today opens with a session of tapping the 2-26 holes and the start of the flanges that are being made custom for this engine. Other than the valve spindle, there is nothing left of the original prints to be followed here as the remainder will be strictly one-off type of parts gleaned from my rather furtive imagination. And yes, you are correct Phil, 'two wrongs do not make a right'.
postulo bis quod incidere quondum
BC1
And yes, you are correct Phil, 'two wrongs do not make a right'. postulo bis quod incidere quondum
BC1
Having had to do some yard work th_bs in between rain showers this past few days has slowed my progress down considerably but today however I was free to wreck havoc upon the shop and I took good advantage. Thm: I had finished fitting the cover to the steam chest and tapped all of the holes already. Now it was time to make up the pipe flanges that would get secured to that item and I chose to make them out of .312" brass and I had a small bit in the bin that would do nicely for the job. I cut it in half and stacked the pieces together and soft soldered them to make one bigger lump. The first picture here shows this and the other miscellaneous consumables that I turned up as filing buttons. The larger pieces are about .375" in dia. and the smaller ones are just under .312" but you could change these dimensions to suit whatever it is that you are building. The second shot (sorry for the blurriness) 8) shows all of the pieces together and the filing pretty much all done. I had to place another screw in the threaded holes to keep the parts registered as by now I had filed the solder joint away and the pieces had separated. At this stage one has to be careful as to not get to hasty and be certain that all has been filed down to the buttons, ignoring to do so will result in a flange that is egg shaped etc.:big: The third demonstrates how I held the soon to be finished parts in the lathe by turning up a small stub mandrel from aluminum rod and holding the flange securely with a bolt threaded into same. I used a round nosed cutter I had ground to use on a previous project that had about a .125" radius. After taking several slow and shallow cuts to get the look I was after I noted the dial reading and set up the carriage stop so that the second blank could be merely bolted onto the mandrel and the carriage moved into the piece until it hit the stop and viola!! two indentical pieces. woohoo1 The list of things to do is getting shorter and shorter but what remains is going to be a bit time consuming and a bit tedious from here on. :toilet: Stay tuned.
BC1
BC1
Greetings once again to all of you fellow addicts of metal. :bow: After this, I believe that I am going to start keeping an extra pair of skivvies in the shop for after those moments of 'intense' stress. :big: Over the past several days I have been able to make some progress and for the most part it was enjoyable, although there have been some memorable times that with which I will not share, as they are mine and mine alone. :-X These adventures were related to the act of silver soldering up the steam chest with the cylinder and also the turning of one of the most critical pieces of any engine, the valve spindle. Normally I merely place the parts to be joined together, flux, and go on about the task of soldering. These pieces had quite a bit of surface area and I wanted to ensure that they were bonded together adequately and so there was no internal leakage of the steamways. I also needed to be certain that the parts, after all was said and done, would be square to each other. th_rulze I used an old jewelers trick that I had seen done but had never tried and that was to cut small bits of solder and place them on the surface of each piece and then flux and apply heat until the solder flowed. After this was done I had a nice thin, even layer of solder on each mating surface. When the pieces had cooled sufficiently, I went about setting them square by using a V-block on the surface plate, this insured that the cylinder was upright and the outside edge of the block was used then to align the steam chest in the exact same plane. Once I had everything to my liking, I used a small C-clamp and held the parts together and applied heat once again to the lump until I was certain the solder had again become molten and had flowed sufficiently. Are you with me so far ???. I had purposely machined the steam chest .010" longer than called for so there was .005" overhang on each end that I turned off after the pieces had cooled down. In doing so I had gotten distracted when some AH called and hung up on me. This was enough to make me forget to double check the grip of the chuck and you guessed it, the cylinder got tossed out onto the table. th_confused0052 The damage was a gouge in one side of the piece and a scratch on the other. :rant: th_bs I'll deal with that later as I had an idea :idea: about bling-ing up a rather plain jane and uninteresting part of the engine anyway. This is the reason I stated for having an extra pair of shorts on hand. ;D The next day after calming down, I got to making up the studs for the flanges and the cover and decided to make a union for the steam inlet pipe. That went remarkably smooth and my confidence once again returned. Thm: Finally, today, I plodded to the shop knowing that I would have to conquer yet one more hurdle in this marathon to completion. The dreaded, spindle valve. :hDe: Now on the outside, looking in, one would think this to be a snap, but then after closer inspection you would find out that it isn't a bouquet of roses. The spacing has to be spot on and the small diameter of the beast is .060" Not a Helluva lot of support there for a LOT of overhang. scratch.gif I ground the tool pictured and it worked like a jiff after I finally thought about how to go about working the part. I turned the upper part of the spindle first and then pulled it out of the collet far enough to do the second. I also had turned the topslide 90* to the crossslide in order to be able to have some control over advancing the cutter in .001" increments as needed. After all of this, some extra fine wet/dry paper and some WD40, followed by some metal polish and the spindle fits extremely well. That's about all for now mates, and I'm off to see about doing some final fitting, or not. As I said before, it starts to get tedious the closer the finish line becomes. Now where did I lay that extra pair of shorts. :big:
BC1
Normally I merely place the parts to be joined together, flux, and go on about the task of soldering. These pieces had quite a bit of surface area and I wanted to ensure that they were bonded together adequately and so there was no internal leakage of the steamways. I also needed to be certain that the parts, after all was said and done, would be square to each other. th_rulze I used an old jewelers trick that I had seen done but had never tried and that was to cut small bits of solder and place them on the surface of each piece and then flux and apply heat until the solder flowed. After this was done I had a nice thin, even layer of solder on each mating surface. When the pieces had cooled sufficiently, I went about setting them square by using a V-block on the surface plate, this insured that the cylinder was upright and the outside edge of the block was used then to align the steam chest in the exact same plane. Once I had everything to my liking, I used a small C-clamp and held the parts together and applied heat once again to the lump until I was certain the solder had again become molten and had flowed sufficiently. Are you with me so far ???. I had purposely machined the steam chest .010" longer than called for so there was .005" overhang on each end that I turned off after the pieces had cooled down. In doing so I had gotten distracted when some AH called and hung up on me. This was enough to make me forget to double check the grip of the chuck and you guessed it, the cylinder got tossed out onto the table. th_confused0052 The damage was a gouge in one side of the piece and a scratch on the other. :rant: th_bs I'll deal with that later as I had an idea :idea: about bling-ing up a rather plain jane and uninteresting part of the engine anyway. This is the reason I stated for having an extra pair of shorts on hand. ;D The next day after calming down, I got to making up the studs for the flanges and the cover and decided to make a union for the steam inlet pipe. That went remarkably smooth and my confidence once again returned. Thm: Finally, today, I plodded to the shop knowing that I would have to conquer yet one more hurdle in this marathon to completion. The dreaded, spindle valve. :hDe: Now on the outside, looking in, one would think this to be a snap, but then after closer inspection you would find out that it isn't a bouquet of roses. The spacing has to be spot on and the small diameter of the beast is .060" Not a Helluva lot of support there for a LOT of overhang. scratch.gif I ground the tool pictured and it worked like a jiff after I finally thought about how to go about working the part. I turned the upper part of the spindle first and then pulled it out of the collet far enough to do the second. I also had turned the topslide 90* to the crossslide in order to be able to have some control over advancing the cutter in .001" increments as needed. After all of this, some extra fine wet/dry paper and some WD40, followed by some metal polish and the spindle fits extremely well. That's about all for now mates, and I'm off to see about doing some final fitting, or not. As I said before, it starts to get tedious the closer the finish line becomes. Now where did I lay that extra pair of shorts. :big:BC1
Today was one of those days when the simplest of tasks seems to take forever to accomplish. I finally found the tiny hex key that fits the 4-40 hex head grub screws and then proceeded to fit up the valve train assembly to the crankshaft. I had to first reduce the width of one of the collars as I had left it a tad on the long side. After getting the whole mess lined up under the valve stem it was time to quit for the day and that is as far as it went. I said in a previous post that things were going to get tedious from here on and that is exactly what has occurred. I'm still eyeballing and planning on how I want to go about making a handwheel and jackscrew to operate a drag link etc.
Tomorrow is yet another day in the life of a modeler. :big:
Best regards :bow:
BC1
I finally found the tiny hex key that fits the 4-40 hex head grub screws and then proceeded to fit up the valve train assembly to the crankshaft. I had to first reduce the width of one of the collars as I had left it a tad on the long side. After getting the whole mess lined up under the valve stem it was time to quit for the day and that is as far as it went. I said in a previous post that things were going to get tedious from here on and that is exactly what has occurred. I'm still eyeballing and planning on how I want to go about making a handwheel and jackscrew to operate a drag link etc.Tomorrow is yet another day in the life of a modeler. :big:
Best regards :bow:
BC1
Hi Bob, that is a goodly question. I wondered about that same thing but the drawings only called out a straight slot so that is what I went with. If it doesn't work out this way, I will have to remake the piece with the slot on an arc. There is still quite a bit of fiddling to be done before I am going to be happy with it. I have to machine the shouldered fasteners for the conrod/piston rod pivot (remember the small center drill? Rof}) and the pivot in the adjuster fitting. So very many things and so very little time. :wall: but it feels so good when I stop.
BC1
BC1
And yet another glorious day to all of you. :bow: As we begin a new week of interest, I thought I'd bring everyone up to date on the progress of the 'Smitty 101' build I am currently undertaking. As you all may recall a few posts back I had gotten distracted and wound up damaging the outside of the cylinder :fan: :rant: and had to figure a method by which to disguise the FU. Well, after considering cladding the beast with some slats of Ebony wood that I have on hand I settled upon this idea of "beading" the outer surface like is seen on many of the older engines from the late 1800's. I once again forgot to take photos of the events but here is a shot of the jig I made up to achieve my goal. It consists of a short scrap of AL that got a .500" spigot turned on one end and a leftover scrap of .250" AL plate (explains the grooves and hole remnants in the photo) with a .500" hole bored in it and pressed upon the spigot. This was left in the lathe and the plate was turned down to the outside diameter of a piece of copper pipe I had laying around that had an inside diameter of 1.500", the exact same as the outside diameter of my cylinder. ;D After cutting three rings from the pipe I turned a small step on the AL spindle/plate that was a friction fit to the rings. Placing each one on the spindle/plate and squaring up each end and final finishing to .265" thickness, a nice round figure don't you think?, ;D a 60* bevel was introduced and it was off to the mill to cut the openings. It was apparent to me that the rings would not be held sufficiently so I returned the lump to the lathe and I drilled and tapped a hole for a 10-32 hex head screw. Now I could use a piece of AL bar and secure the rings to the fixture without the fear of them being pushed off. :toilet: I centered up the mill cutter over the stub of the fixture and advanced the piece accordingly so that when the singing was all over and the fat lady had gone home (alone), I had successfully created an opening .980" wide. The part looked like the letter "C" and it fit snugly upon the outside of the cylinder when offered up. Some flux, a little heat and some soft .027" diameter solder and all was right with the world once again. To be safe, I did each ring separately allowing each to cool back to room temperature before proceeding to the next, thus eliminating the risk of the joint between the steam chest and cylinder from becoming compromised. A bit of a lick with some emory cloth and a quick and dirty buff and Voila! 8) no more scarred up cylinder surface. I had considered banding it with brass but decided on the use of copper to give a bit more of an interesting color to the overall appearance. The Ebony would have been sharp but I am afraid it would have left the impression of Abe Lincoln's hat sitting on some closet shelf. Rof} Also in these past few sessions I was able to replace the center drill I was using for a temporary piston rod pin, actually I used a center drill the same size that had become very dull. I merely ground the ends off and surfaced them with a stone to the correct length and used Loctite 620 and surface activator prep to hold it in the yoke. I've yet to get motivated enough to complete the making of the 2-56 studs to hold the valve cover on and the 4-40 studs for the top cylinder cover but that will wait for another day, or two...... :
Cheers to all until next time
BC1
Well, after considering cladding the beast with some slats of Ebony wood that I have on hand I settled upon this idea of "beading" the outer surface like is seen on many of the older engines from the late 1800's. I once again forgot to take photos of the events but here is a shot of the jig I made up to achieve my goal. It consists of a short scrap of AL that got a .500" spigot turned on one end and a leftover scrap of .250" AL plate (explains the grooves and hole remnants in the photo) with a .500" hole bored in it and pressed upon the spigot. This was left in the lathe and the plate was turned down to the outside diameter of a piece of copper pipe I had laying around that had an inside diameter of 1.500", the exact same as the outside diameter of my cylinder. ;D After cutting three rings from the pipe I turned a small step on the AL spindle/plate that was a friction fit to the rings. Placing each one on the spindle/plate and squaring up each end and final finishing to .265" thickness, a nice round figure don't you think?, ;D a 60* bevel was introduced and it was off to the mill to cut the openings. It was apparent to me that the rings would not be held sufficiently so I returned the lump to the lathe and I drilled and tapped a hole for a 10-32 hex head screw. Now I could use a piece of AL bar and secure the rings to the fixture without the fear of them being pushed off. :toilet: I centered up the mill cutter over the stub of the fixture and advanced the piece accordingly so that when the singing was all over and the fat lady had gone home (alone), I had successfully created an opening .980" wide. The part looked like the letter "C" and it fit snugly upon the outside of the cylinder when offered up. Some flux, a little heat and some soft .027" diameter solder and all was right with the world once again. To be safe, I did each ring separately allowing each to cool back to room temperature before proceeding to the next, thus eliminating the risk of the joint between the steam chest and cylinder from becoming compromised. A bit of a lick with some emory cloth and a quick and dirty buff and Voila! 8) no more scarred up cylinder surface. I had considered banding it with brass but decided on the use of copper to give a bit more of an interesting color to the overall appearance. The Ebony would have been sharp but I am afraid it would have left the impression of Abe Lincoln's hat sitting on some closet shelf. Rof} Also in these past few sessions I was able to replace the center drill I was using for a temporary piston rod pin, actually I used a center drill the same size that had become very dull. I merely ground the ends off and surfaced them with a stone to the correct length and used Loctite 620 and surface activator prep to hold it in the yoke. I've yet to get motivated enough to complete the making of the 2-56 studs to hold the valve cover on and the 4-40 studs for the top cylinder cover but that will wait for another day, or two...... :Cheers to all until next time
BC1
