Werowance attempts Upshur Vertical Single

[werowance]

so ive been thinking about this alot and maybe have some possible solutions i wanted to throw out there and see what you all think. 1 was to do the fly cutter type method. sort of like some use to cut gears with in the hobby, where you make a flat bottom instead of angled bottom fly cutter and grind a hss blank to the profile of the gear tooth or in this case grind it to a parting tool shape to make the grove. i wonder if the chatter and beating would be to much to make a grove that long? the head is just aluminum though so soft cutting.

2 i though of cutting a couple of steel disks to the correct diameter and thickness with a hole in center for an arbor. then while mounted on an arbor put it in the rotary table and use an end mill to sort of cut some teeth all the way around? problems i see here is it would take alot of experimenting to find the right height to set the end mill at and how deep to make the cut. and how many degrees in between each cut. this seems like a whole lot of work for a cutter that probably will not last long and possibly the aluminum would gob up the teeth of the cutter?

does anyone happen to have coppies of strictly ic magazine. issues 63-66 ? im hoping he gives more information about how he did it in those articles. i looked at sic's website and looks like i have to mail in an order and then wait for hard coppies to come back. which im not opposed to doing or paying for but just would take some time and is a risk that it may not even have any info on that part of the engine build.

 

[CFLBob]

FWIW, let me emphasize that I'm not sure I understand the drawing, BUT, that .531 R feature is 1-1/16 diameter and could be cut with an end mill. I was surprised to find they exist:
https://www.mcmaster.com/end-mills/...utters/square-end-mills/mill-diameter~1-1-16/Kinda expensive. Hopefully someone else will have a better idea.

I've never seen an Upshur Vertical Single, so I went to look at them on YouTube and see if I understood what the drawing was saying, and through six videos, I didn't see one with features like this on top. Some of them didn't even have fins on top, let alone sculpted with cutters. I'm guessing that means it's not essential to operation.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Werowance--A lot of guys who make engine plans make the plans based on tooling they have in their shop. There is no set "rule" for cooling fins. Use whatever tooling you already have to make the fins. A .093" cutter or a 0.100" thick cutter will work fine there. Just do a bit of math first so they come out at an even spacing.---Brian

 

[werowance]

so the other day i decided to start making a "woodruff" cutter much like explained how to do here:

http://home.iprimus.com.au/stevor/milling_cutters.htm
i didnt have any silversteel / drill rod so i looked around my junk pile and decided to use an old drag link that i had replaced on the front of my truck a while back. seemed to be forged steel, spark test indicated it was hardenable so i cut a piece off and heated it with the torch and quenched it in used motor oil. file test shows that it is able to be hardened afterwards. its about 1.5" dia before i started cutting on it

so with that i started cutting it down to the right size. it doesnt cut very nice so i am going slow with it. seems that a hand ground hss tool does better than carbide with it. but hopefully in a week or so ill have a cutter to test with .

 

[awake]

You might try annealing a chunk to see if that improves the machinability (sp?). I have some "reclaimed" stock that I have to do that on. Even after annealing it is still hard, but machinable - before anealing it is not machinable, at least not with the tooling I typically use.

 

[Sprocket]

You might try annealing a chunk to see if that improves the machinability (sp?). I have some "reclaimed" stock that I have to do that on. Even after annealing it is still hard, but machinable - before anealing it is not machinable, at least not with the tooling I typically use.

Yeah, try heat but don’t quench, just cool in air

 

[L98fiero]

Yeah, try heat but don’t quench, just cool in air

Better yet, bury it in Floor-Dri(kitty litter), it insulates better and let it cool overnight.

 

[werowance]

i actually did aneal it before starting - or actually i got started and made a few cuts and then unchucked it annealed it and that's what I'm cutting on now which is better than when i started. its not awefull but its not fcs either.

usually when i anneal i start by heating it on a bed of sand which heats up with the steel, hold the heat on it for a good long while at the color i want to hold it at then take a spoon and rake the already hot sand over top of it and let it sit hours or over night. until the sand and everything is back to room temp.

the closer i get to the center the better its cutting. I'm close to the major outside diameter i need for the small cutter now and the finish is improving a lot. just wish i could get a little more shop time than what ive been getting lately.

 

[werowance]

nothing much very interesting finished, but thought i would give proof that i am still in the game so to speak.

got the blank for the small cutter ready to mill the teeth and started on the blank for the large cutter. decided i would go directly from heat to easy bake oven (aka yard sale toaster oven i use in the garage) set to max heat which seems to be around 400 - 425f by the thermometer instead of covering in sand and allowing to cool over night. left it in the oven several hours and unplugged it / left it when i went in for the night. picture from this morning after it had cooled anxious to see if that works any better for annealing it. this oven is used for nothing but shop projects thus all the crud in the bottom.

 

[CFLBob]

decided i would go directly from heat to easy bake oven (aka yard sale toaster oven i use in the garage) set to max heat which seems to be around 400 - 425f by the thermometer instead of covering in sand and allowing to cool over night. left it in the oven several hours and unplugged it / left it when i went in for the night

Sounds like my toaster oven. I originally took it out of the kitchen to cure powder coat paints, but I've heat treated some stuff.

Can't tell how big it is, so maybe the chunk o' steel doesn't need this, but I put springs or other small pieces in some steel wool to increase the thermal mass, then wrap both with alu foil. Turn off the heater and just leave it alone for a few hours.

 

[werowance]

well, last night I got to cut the roughly 1.5 piece I had heat treated the different way. cutting down to about 1.062 dia.
the first face cut and center drill to support with my live center was nice and easy. but when I went to cut it down to the right diameter it was hard as a rock, using a carbide cutter and cutting fluid. it was loud smokey and all that bad stuff. finally I put a lot of presure on the cutter and it bit in and once I took that little bit of "skin" off of it, then it was nice. so I switched over to my hss bit and was hogging a lot of metal at once. would bring off a full continuous piece of swarf without strain or smoke or bad noises and wasn't red hot when it came off. I know that a spinning spiral of swarf is dangerous so I would stop the power feed every little bit to allow it to break off so I didn't have spinning razor blades of death flopping around.

but point is - other than the skin being extremely hard, after that it is cutting really nice and leaving a pretty good finish. much better than the first one of the same steel I annealed. so I guess letting it cool in the easy bake oven at 400 degrees is a better way of doing it. or I got lucky.

 

[werowance]

its been raining cats and dogs the last few days so got to play in the garage a while.
mostly finished the large cutter, heat treated it last night. its hard as a rock. makes that "tink" sound like a drill bit would make when dropping it on say the base plate of the drill press. so I'm wondering if I should temper it? maybe draw to a light straw color? or what would you all do?
on the diameter, I forgot that I would have to cut past the center line for the teeth which reduces the diameter of the cutter just a tad so to compensate I made the shaft a little smaller so It would clear when cutting to depth on the head. I will have to do the same with the smaller cutter as well. so note to self, when making these you have to go larger than the cutting diameter you want to end up with.

last picture shows the rain starting to end. it was a double rainbow but by the time I got my phone out and unlocked it the 2nd rainbow was about gone. taken from my garage bay door

 

[werowance]

i decided i would test the cutters last night. i did not temper them nor could i find my diamond hone so i did not hone the teeth any. so the cutters are as they were after heat treating and cleaning off the burnt oil on them.

results i think were great. cutting noise / vibration was almost 0. felt and sounded like cutting with a slitting saw. the small cutter i did not make the teeth as deep so they were filling up with oil/aluminum sludge so i kept blowing it out with the air nozzel while cutting (safety googles on doing this). on cutting feed rate - i pushed them as fast as they seemed to want to go which was also about as fast as a slitting saw. i even made a cut at full depth in a single pass and they handled it just fine. also i was concerned that aluminum would start hard cakeing on the teeth like it does on carbide insert cutters when hogging aluminum without cutting fluid. you have to chip off the i guess its melted on aluminum off the tip of the cutter. but on these cutters it didnt stick on. i just blew them clean when finished and wiped them off.

finish is pretty good as well. the side walls of each cut are really smoothe but the bottom has lines in it along the path of the cut as well as some slight what looks like chatter marks. im sure after i hone it then then at least the lines along the cut path will dissapear and it might even get rid of the chatter marks. but honestly i can live with finish as is.

so all in all im really impressed that how easy it is to make these. if i had used drill rod instead of mystery steel then i believe it would have been even better and easier. i made these with 10 teeth.

 

[JohnBDownunder]

Isn't it great when you test a DIY tool and get good results first up!
Good Job,
John B

 

[werowance]

I had high hopes of making a head this long weekend however it didn't happen. as I was going to lay out all the cutters and drills I would need I discovered I do not have the correct size reamer for the valve holes nor the correct size counterbore for the head bolts. so today I ordered both and hopefully will have for next weekend.

but what I did do was take a diamond file and a diamond hone and worked the teeth a little on the homemade woodruff cutters. this significantly helped them. the grooves in the bottom of the cut went away and is now throwing chips instead of an aluminum / cutting oil slurry. I still have slight chatter marks in the bottom but that was also reduced.

 

[Ken I]

Drag links and similar suspension parts are usually high tensile but dead soft and malleable - if you crash (been there done that) you can typically pretzel them without snapping.
So stuff like EN8 or EN30B etc. - it hardens but doesn't hold an edge well - but for limited use - go for it.
Regards, Ken

 

[werowance]

i received the counterbore and once i have the reamer in hand i can start on the head. question on the counterbore. i have to purchase or make the pilot for the tip of the counter bore however my question is if i am using this in the mill, drill my hole then change from drill to counterbore i shouldnt need the pilot tip right? the pilot is more for drill press or something thats not firmly clamped / not already dead center of the hole its boring right? or is there a deflection issue i need to be worried about? not that it would be hard to make the pilot but i just dont see the need for it, but i have only used counter bores one other time and i did use the pilot on that one in the drill press.

 

[Ken I]

I normally don't bother with counterbores - I have a set of flat ground drill bits - but they don't start well against a flat surface - so I always pre-drill the counterbore with a normal drill point before using the flat bottomed drill.
A counterbore bit without a pilot will also have a tendency to jink around as you start the cut - leaving visible reminders beyond the finished hole.
Regards, Ken

 

[werowance]

ok, so if I start the counterbore hole with a regular drill of the same size that would eliminate the "jink" around or deflection as I was wording it - I like your term better though. I have also used hand ground flat bottom drills before with the same results you give but figured the counter bore was a little stronger and also 4 flute instead of 2 flute like a drill would be. if the pre drill trick will work then that's the route ill go with otherwise if you don't think a pre drill will suffice for the counterbore then ill just start making a pilot tip tonight.

 

[Ken I]

Werowance, I typically drill so that the 118° drill point just breaks the edge of the predrilled clearance hole (at depth) - in other words as deep as possible - but it doesn't really matter - I just want to give the flat bottomed drill as much support as possible and as little work to do as possible.
Drill the pilot hole - bring the normal point counterbore sized drill down until it breaks the edge - feed to the depth you want your counterbore - follow with the flat bottom drill until the 118° point land vanishes (while working to depth if you want to be precise).

The first time I did this was as an apprentice (on a pretty big hole) - my journeyman told me to drill all the clearance holes and then follow with the counterbore sized drill - then grind the drill flat bottom - then counterbore all the holes to depth and then resharpen the drill - I thought he was playing one of those "long weight" type pranks and checked with the foreman first - who unceremoniously told me to get on with it.

I've pretty much done it that way ever since - but I keep a set of flat bottom drills (in the regular sizes) rather than resharpening them all the time.

A multiflute counterbore with pilot is obviously better.

Regards - Ken