I like the progress. It's going to be better than a new lathe by the time you've finished. Then you'll have all the fun looking for the accessories you are missing, if any. I tripped over a collet set and the Harrison tool post with pre-centred tool holders. Then there's the small matter of the two-jaw chuck! Keep your eyes open! Love the pic of the kids joining in, catch 'em young!
Good day yesterday. I started by finishing the first pin and fitting it. I decided not to piss about, threaded the end 2BA and a simple nut for retention. No vibration and hardly any movement, it'll never come loose. At this point I took the lid off the valve chamber and adjusted the valve rod so that mid point on the eccentric was mid point on the valve. This is a crucial moment because you find out if you've got the throw on the eccentric right! All is well, it's tight but OK so lid back on temporarily and box on. Just in case you're new to slide valves, adjusting for the mid point is all you can do at the moment. The actual timing of the valve, that is the position you lock the eccentric on the shaft, can't be done until you have the main con rods on and can get an accurate relationship between the position of the piston and the event on the valve. The main thing at the moment is that when you turn the crankshaft the valve goes up and down without fouling internally.
Crack on with making the fulcrum pins. Dead easy knocking out the blanks now the lathe is set up with the small steady adjusted for centre and depth of cut.
Once the blanks are made the next job is to thread them and then reverse them in the chuck and turn the heads tidy. Bleeding obvious tip here. One of the most difficult things to do is get the die central on the pin so you don't have a drunken thread. If you use the flat end of the tailstock barrel like this it will keep the die square and you'll get perfect threads.
Job done. I made an extra pin just in case... Turn the engine round and take the LP eccentric off ready for making the eccentric rod but I decided that once I got into rod finishing I wanted to do all three before going any further. So I allowed myself a diversion into what could be described as displacement activity. Not a bad thing to do at times because it allows the back of your head to think about the next job while you do something entirely different.
I made a packing block for the little steady that makes it a matter of only a moment to install it at the correct centre height. A small thing but we all know how much time we waste adjusting packing strips to get the right height. I milled a piece of 1" square bar to the correct sizes, marked the top with the letter punches and put it away in its box with the tool. Next time I need it all I have to do is bang it into the plain tool post and away we go. A small thing but a step forward. Not a bad morning's work. I finished up by putting another coat of blue on the eccentric rod feet and I'm ready now for some serious rod fitting! When I have this one done I shall mount it on the 1956 lathe again and run the valves in. It will be nice to see the eccentric rods going up and down! Real progress.