I will just explain something. When you design an engine like I am doing here, on the run, and not using cad, but using experience and little sketches as you go along, you have to be about four or five moves ahead in your mind. A hole put in the wrong place now, can cause havoc later on.
That is why sometimes I stall on putting up posts, I sit down in the shop for a few hours going thru the build in my head. I find, even with these time outs, I can knock out a working engine a lot quicker than trying to get it all down on paper first.
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Another post full of holes.
I can't believe how long it has taken me to get all the bolt down holes done. But I did have a bit of a slip up last night and managed somehow, to get an hole, half an hole out (well the centre drilling was), but I fixed that after mulling over how to do it overnight, and got it fixed with no more than a redrill with the centre in a different position (the correct position) and by the time the hole was drilled and tapped the mistake had been machined out. Saves having to make new parts.
So this post is all about getting 20 little screws into the right position.
I started off bluing up the areas that needed marking.
The first job was to get a corner to corner line on the main chamber, and find a position at one corner, on the line, that a hole could be drilled in all eight corners safely, without interfering too much with the other holes in the block. A position was found, and a measurement taken from the outer corner, to the hole position.
A chamber end was put onto the chamber and two opposing corners were scribed onto the back of the disc. These corner marks on the disc were duly joined by using a centre square, and by measuring from the scribed corner, down the centred line, the position of the required hole was pop marked in one position only. Only one disc needed to be done. Explanation later.
The hex caps were stood up on one of the faces and using a vernier height gauge, the centre line between two opposite points was found, this was done on each in turn. A good position for a mounting hole was found and duly marked and centre popped on each cap.
The pop marks can be seen in the pic.
Now onto the rotary table, set up in the vertical position.
There is no need to centre it under the drill chuck, but the chuck on the RT has to be perfectly centred on the RT table. Mine is spigotted to the centre hole and clamped down.
Now to drilling. The cap was mounted into the self centering chuck, the RT was set to '0', then the centre in the drill chuck was put directly over the pop mark on the cap by moving the x & y table controls. Once it was perfectly over the mark, the table locks were tightened.
Then it was a matter of drilling the hole, fwd 60deg on the RT and drill the next, and so on until all six were done. The new cap was put in the RT chuck, but the chuck was only just 'nipped' up. Now the cap was turned in the chuck jaws until the pop mark was directly under the centre drill. RT chuck fully tightened up, and the holes were drilled as before.
The marked up chamber cap was mounted, RT to zero, and centre drill located as before, hole drilled, move 90 deg, next hole, continue until all four holes are drilled.
Notice here that the locating spigot is facing upwards, as that was the side the markings were on.
Now comes the later explanation. Because thefour holes can be anywhere on the PCD (pitch circle diameter), I can just drill the four holes without going thru the set up procedure, I just used the same drilling position as the previous one. Notice that the outside face is being drilled first.
Because the outside face was drilled, I now put an end mill into the chuck, and duly made a recess for the cap screws on all four holes. Once they were finished I put the drill back into the chuck, put the first casing cap into the RT chuck, with the outside face upwards, and duly relocated the cap into the same drilling position by locating the drill in a hole and tightening up the RT chuck. The recesses for cap screws were then machined. That was how the twenty holes were drilled, now to get the screw holes drilled and tapped in the right positions
Casing was blued up, and put into a large v-block. Using the height gauge again, the exact corner to corner height was found, and duly marked on all eight corners.
The end caps were fitted, and eyballed down the holes so that the centre lines run exactly thru the eyeballed centre of the holes. Without disturbing the position, a fillet of superglue was put between the casing and end cap to hold them together.
Once the glue was dry, I put a transfer punch (these are bought as sets and come in very close sizing to get the right size for the hole, and consist of a hardened rod with a centre point on the end) down the holes and made a pop mark onto the end face of the casing. The opposite end was done in the same manner. Once all eight marks were in position, I went to the drill press, centred and drilled to depth all eight holes (it was at that point I made my mistake). They were then tapped for the fixing bolts.
The scribing marks you see on the ends were made by me as a double check that they were in the correct position.
Casing ends are bolted on , the bearing caps are located, with the bearings in positon, the top face was levelled while the casing was on a totally parallel spacer. Once double and treble checked for being level, the superglue was used again to lock the parts together. This was done on both ends. Once everything was dry, the holes in the caps were spotted thru with a drill. Everything was then disassembled, and the casing ends were drilled and tapped to take the bearing cap screws.
Here are all the bits ready to go together.
The whole lot that have been made so far. Only three nozzles and two rotor spacers to be made. So getting a definite run tomorrow, and see if all the hard work and planning was worth it.
It might seem that this post was a total waste of time and energy. But to the novice, it does show that with a few basic tools, and a little bit of thought and forwards planning, holes can be put in components fairly easily and accurately.
Wacked out John