SHED MATTERS 2

[Stanley]

I remember Newton once having to make some fuel metering equipment at Lucas, Burnley and the start material was a 2ft square piece if clear hard plastic. He said it was a terrible job but your material looks a bit more amenable... Now you can get back to Tommy!

Later at 10:45.



Straight into the bottom lid. Not a bad casting, the first cut under the skin cleaned up nicely. I've already got my 5/16" thickness, all I have to do is turn it down and find a register.



I realised this morning where I went wrong on the other lid. I completely forgot that habitually have the cross slide set at an angle of 5.75 degrees. This means it clears the tails stock most of the time and also that one thou advance on the top slide is actually a tenth of a thou because of the angle. So, when the saddle is locked down for face cutting and I use the top slide to advance the cut I also bugger up the zero setting on the saddle that I am using to measure the register,. First cut OK but second cut too far if you are watching the dial! How did I recognise this? I did the same thing again this morning but changed my ways! Plenty of meat for the accurate register and when I had finally cut back to it, here's the cylinder fitting it exactly. Incidentally, Johnny always told Newton that the test for the accuracy of a register on a chuck back was whether it was close enough to let you pick the chuck up before it was bolted. This register passes that test,



While I still have the lid mounted this is a good time to drill it with the clearance hole for the 13/32" piston rod, 27/64".



Here's the stack as we stand now...



Then of course the last job for the morning. Clean up!



This is the end of cast iron dust, from now on we're drilling holes for a while. You'll be amazed by how many there are just for one cylinder!

[Stanley]

There won't be a lot of activity in the shed today, busy morning. However I shall have to make some decisions about tapping the bosses for the glands on the piston rod and valve rod.... So, a bit of studying drawings and thinking!

It didn't happen but later in the afternoon I got a parcel from RDG at Heckmondwyke, the deburring tool and countersinks I ordered the day before yesterday



The nice thing about RDG is that they give full contact details including the name of the owner....

[Stanley]

I shall be in there today!

[Bodger]

A good job youre not doing this job, they would have to close the street ?
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/at ... -screw.jpg

[Stanley]

I like it Bodge. Just imagine what the poor bloke would feel like if he cocked up!



I allowed myself to be diverted this morning. Something has been annoying me for weeks, I couldn’t get the block with odd milling cutters off the shelf without taking all the other stuff off before we had a shutter. So, a couple of pieces of plywood and two brackets....



This is one of the books that lives up there. It dates back to the 1920s and was produced by Percival Marshall, the man who founded the Model Engineer. Completely out of date of course but it has all the old treads and drill series, all of which I have and many that I use.



Half an hour later and we have an improvement. I've found another handy home for the milling cutters and now we have a safe corner for the essential books!



Then down to business, drilling the castings out to tapping size for the 26tpi threads for the glands etc. The 11.5mm drill gets an airing here for the 1/2" tap.



The first hole in the valve chest is threaded right through but this one for the gland needs a blind bottom for the packing so out with the depth gauge... cheap and cheerful, a small Jubilee clip!



Then a bit of careful tapping.



The gland in the bottom lid of the cylinder is bigger and needs tapping for 5/8" 26tpi which needs a 14.75mm drill, I haven't got that metric size but a 37/64" is clo0se enough. This is another blind hole for the packing so we need a depth gauge, in this case some insulting tape.



Tapped out using the tailstock so everything has to be in line.
That was it for this morning. Lots more drilling and tapping to come!

[Stanley]

Today's job was to get some holes in the lids. The valve chest is no problem, just simple measuring and marking but dividing a circle to get eight holes equally spaced can cause beginners nightmares. It was a lot easier with the old lathes, you just put a gear with the number of teeth that could be divided by your target on the back end of the mandrel and counted the teeth against a marker. Mark the positions on the lid and then drill them. Modern lathes don't let you do that so it's either fancy geometry or just go on the web, find a circle divided by the number of holes you want, scale it to the size you need, print it and stick it on your lid. Job done.
Both of my old Pickles lathes have tangential dividing gear in the headstocks and so I can divide any number I want. I also have a tangential dividing head for the milling machine. I was considering getting the overhead gear yoked up and drilling the holes on the lathe just to show you how it's done but then I decided to go cheap and nasty! Much quicker! The register on the big brass worm wheel in the headstock is marked 360 degrees. I Put the worm wheel into gear and using the register on the gear, rotated the lid 45degrees for each pop mark made with the B&D drill. Not dead accurate and I got one marking wrong on each lid due to not seeing straight. Main thing is to get them all on the PCD we scribed on the lids while they were centred in the lathe.



Once the lids were marked I set out the holes on the valve chest lid. One thing to mention here. Before you actually drill the holes make sure you have put punch marks on the lids so you know which way up they fit and in the case of the valve chest lid, the right way out. I(f you don't you can get into all sorts of trouble! Another thing worth mentioning is that when you transfer the drilling in the lids to the cylinder casting and valve chest you make sure that none of them interfere with the steam passages or exhaust port. All the holes are drilled tapping size for 2BA tapping , they can be opened out later for clearance.



Close of play. The valve chest lid and one cylinder cover drilled, the other lid will be the first job tomorrow.

[Stanley]

First job was to finish the bottom lid.



I want to drill the long holes down through the lid, the valve chest and into the body of the cylinder. The obvious way to do this is to clamp them all together and drill the holes but over the years I have got myself into some fine messes doing it like that. So, as I'm playing about I tried a different way. I cut two pieces of 4mm silver steel to act as dowels. I drilled the first two holes to partial depth and popped the dowels in which locate the lid without any pressure.



Once the hole is started you can swing the lid to one side and drill right through. The last job was to drill the original two dowel holes right through. The temptation now is to use the valve chest as the template for drilling the cylinder body but I resisted it and after setting the cylinder up dead square in the vice, I've set up for drilling the cylinder using the lid as a template. Theoretically this should mean that all the holes are square and match each other. Remember that the valve chest and the lid have to be drilled for clearance and if there are any tiny discrepancies this should sort them out.

[Stanley]

While I was drilling my 4mm holes yesterday my mind went back to a job I did at Rochdale Electric Welding. I had to drill over 200 2" holes in 1" thick boiler quality plate and countersink them for weld preparation to about 3". The plates were about 15ft X 10ft so I needed the crane to manipulate them. I had a 6ft radius radial drill made in Keighley, a really good tool. Bodge reminded me of this with his picture of the long lathe... Same job, different scale!
On a completely different matter, and this shows how rooted I am in old technology... One of the things I have noted watching modern machinists on Youtube is that they all use something called Sharpies. I'm still using pencils of course... So I went on Amazon yesterday and ordered six of them.... I have an idea that they might be an improvement!

[Stanley]

As you will see I have been having fun this morning.... I mentioned yesterday the scar tissue I have from studding valve chests, it looks simple but if you aren't dead accurate you can have a hell of a job with them. So I decided that I had to make sure that the face was absolutely square to the drill. Now it just so happens that almost 20 years ago when I walked into K Steels in Rossendale I noticed their current offer of the day was ground gauge steel. They used to put slow moving stock out at knock down prices and I forget what the prices were but they were ridiculously cheap so I filled my boots on the grounds that good gauge steel is never wasted. As I say so often, if you see something like this snaffle it immediately! So, I got this piece of 2" X 3/4" steel out of the old oak chest and clamped it to the valve face.



This gave me the chance to get some other toys out.... The large engineer's square and the vernier depth gauge. It didn't take long to square the casting up on both axis. Good job I did, my rack of the eye levelling was nowhere near accurate.



I set the depth gauge on the mill to give me 1/2" depth for the stud holes , put dowels in the first two I did so that when I swapped the clamp round I couldn't lose the register and happily drilled away secure in the knowledge that I was as accurate as I was capable of.



I checked the alignment with the 4mm silver steel rod and as far as I can see I have all the holes spot on and perfectly aligned.
By the way, remember what I said about making sure your holes didn't interfere with the steam passages? You can't really see it but I managed to clip the threads for the gland on the bottom of the valve chest! No sweat, when I have the studs installed I shall run the tap through the gland boss and all will be well.



Next job was to get the vice cleaned up and clean all the tee slots out ready for the next stage. Here's the cylinder mounted on the table with the bottom lid in place ready for drilling. The setting on the depth stop didn't have to be altered, it gave me the 1/2" depth I was after. I drilled a couple of opposing holes and inserted the dowels. I am all set up now for tomorrow morning.
One small point, depending on your casting and how you've laid it out you might find that drilling to depth might break out of the casing just below the rim. Don't let it worry you, remember there is no connection between these stud holes and the steam spaces.
One last point to note. The lids holes are template way to the steam ports so that the drillings are on either side and not interfering with them.

[doubleboost]

Some very clever set ups there

[chinatyke]

On a completely different matter, and this shows how rooted I am in old technology... One of the things I have noted watching modern machinists on Youtube is that they all use something called Sharpies. I'm still using pencils of course... So I went on Amazon yesterday and ordered six of them.... I have an idea that they might be an improvement!

I have had welders doing some work at our home, fabricating and fitting stainless steel steps to the roof and bannisters and guard rails. I noticed they used a craft knife to mark up the stainless steel, you know, the type with the blade that snaps off when you want another sharp edge. They never used a pencil but used a marker pen where the cuts didn't need to be accurate.

[Stanley]

Thanks John, nice of you to say so but of course I'm playing out with this cylinder and it seemed a good opportunity to try to find ways of doing things better than I have in the past. I have had some terrible struggles with assembling valve chests and lids! I know a lot of beginners look in and it so I did things more slowly and tried different ways. You know as well as I do that the main thing is having things square, particularly the vice faces. I used your ball-bearing finder for that. After that, if you use your head you can make all the surfaces square to each other but the last job on the vaLVE FACE WAS DIFFERENT. nO EASY WAY OF SQUARING FROM THE VICE. i COULD HAVE CHECKED THE LEVEL IN DIFFERENT WAYS AND MUCH QUICKER BUT CHOSE THAT BECAUSE SOMEONE WITH FEW TOOLS COULD DO IT JUST AS ACCURATELY, ALL YOU NEED IS A STRAIGHT EDGE, A SQUARE AND A RULER. (bigger caps lock!) The basic [principle is using the length of the straight edge to magnify the discrepancy. I was talking to a young Nigerian engineer last night and told him about you. I said that if he listened long enough he would learn the language and that 'bastard' was a technical term translating roughly as "Oh Dear!".....
China, good idea, like an old scriber but with a renewable tip! You've reminded me of a good tip I learned working with welders who had to cut a pipes square. Wrap something like a piece of emery tape round the pipe, its easy to get the edges to line up and that is square, just run your preferred marker round the edge and Bob's your uncle.... It works on square section material as well.

[Stanley]

I finished drilling the bottom lid and then set the top lid up for the same treatment. Clamped straight to the table you're guaranteed perpendicular holes! Only two of the drillings partially broke through the outside wall under the rim. No sweat about that. I used a piece of key steel for the clamp. If you come across any grab it because it's always useful stuff and a bit tougher than mild steel.



Close of play, all the holes drilled. Next job is to open out all the holes that are not to be tapped, they need to be clearance size for 2BA. I'm going to go down the easy route and use threaded rod for my long studs into the valve chest so the same clearance will do for all. If you are going to do the job properly and make studs, remember that the clearance holes through the wall of the valve chest will have to be big enough for the stud material which will be greater. When all the clearances are in I can use the holes as starter guides for the tap... By the way, I still need two holes through the drain valve bosses but I haven’t decided on the cocks yet.

[micktoon]

Hi Stanley , good to see you still making good progress . Those sharpies are quite good some have a real fine tip at one end then a wider one at the other, I also use a wide tip permanent blue or dark colour marker to colour an area in then scribe it , just quicker and not as messy as marking blue. The tip with wrapping around a pipe to get the end square is a good one , I used to use it to cut four inch plastic waste pipe, wide masking tape lines up ok too and will stay put as you cut.
I have been making some wood Christmas trees so will take a photo tomorrow.
Keep up the good work.
Cheers Mick.

[Stanley]

About time we saw some pics from you Mick. How is Tommy?

[Stanley]

First job was a good clean up and get the machine vice back on the table, aligned correctly using the John Doubleboost method! Works like a charm and so quick!



Take the collet chuck off and replace with the keyless. 4.7mm is the clearance hole so I found 3 drills and after initially lining up with the 4mm dowels, as soon as I had clearance holes I used the drills as dowels to locate the rest. A good tight fit and I think we have them all drilled accurately.



Just to make sure I tried the holes with 2BA threaded rod to make certain....



Then I attacked the lids. The register with the cylinder bore was sufficient to hold them flat because it's only a 3/16" depth and drilling for clearance so I could go at them slowly. Did the bottom lid the same way.



Close of play, all the clearance holes drilled and checked and the drills put away... Next job is to tap 24 holes 2BA. That'll be a nice job for tomorrow. I wonder how many taps I can break......

[Stanley]

The Sharpies have arrived.... Quite brilliant!

[Stanley]

The shed takes a hit today, I have a couple of articles to write.... Normal service will be resumed tomorrow I hope.

[Stanley]

Today we have tapping..... Forgive me if I tell you things you already know, others might not be so fortunate. The first thing is to check that you are tapping the right size. Funny things can happen and a few minutes checking your tap against the threaded rod you are going to use could be the best thing you do today. I checked everything twice and set the cylinder up in the vice. Two more things, we are tapping cast iron which has its own built in lubricant so don't use any oil or threading compound. Use the best tap wrench you have, holding the tap any other way is a sure way to a breakage and small taps like these have no strength. If it feels too tight best to re-drill the holes with either a better drill or a slightly larger size. All tapping charts are not truthful!



A quick shufti at the small drawer out of the cabinet over the bench that contains my BA taps and dies. Over the years I have kept track of what I have and filled the holes in the list for all the thread types as and when I could afford them. God knows what this drawer-full would cost now, I hate to think. There are 30 drawers in the chest. Don't despair, keep nibbling at the list, you'll get there in the end! The Draper set of holders was something I came across going cheap and grabbed it. It doesn't get used every day but when it's needed it's there....



I'm not using the valve chest itself as a guide for two reasons, my clearance holes are so tight that the tap has to cut them slightly as it enters. The lid is accurate enough and anyway the tap wouldn't be long enough to cut the finished depth. I've used the dowels again to locate the lid.



Then it's just patience and being careful. The lid is deep enough to be a good guide and after a bit of boring repetition you'll have them done. Make sure you get all the cast iron dust out of the threaded holes....



Just making sure!



A different set up for the lids. Dowels used again to locate the lid and then eight more holes tapped.



Set up here for the bottom lid and a bit of a surprise, the pop mark I put on to locate it is in the wrong place. No problem because the holes are OK. All ready for tapping these tomo0rrow....

[Stanley]

The first job was to finish tapping the holes in this cylinder. Soon done....





A nice sight, the holding down bolts all tried in their holes, fitting perfectly!



Just a thought, never be frightened of buying plenty of the common nuts and bolts you use when you have a bob or two in your pocket! The BA sizes are ideal when you are doing jobs like this. They are like a scaled down BSF.



Next job to address is the face of the valve openings. This is where you find out how good your milling was. About half and hour of different grades of paper and you finish up with a mirror finish like this.



Not quite perfect but a nice finish.



Then you surprise everyone by grinding the surface on a good level cast iron surface. This is the old slide valve cover that Newton used as a surface plate until I gave him the small surface plate which has come home again now. He had scraped it and while it is not perfect its a good surface for lapping.



It doesn't take long to get rid of the mirror finish and finish up with a frosted finish like this which is a far more efficient seal. No need to do the whole face, just grind away until the area the slide valve runs on is done. The valve itself will be lapped to this when we get round to it and you'll have a good seal.



What to do next? Let's make a piston and rod. So out with the measuring tackle and do a bit of designing. Stuart recommend fitting the piston on a taper and that's fine if you want to do it that way but it's far easier to do it this way, a step on the rod to locate it and a nut screwed on top to hold the piston on. Remember to make the counterbore big enough to accept the socket for tightening the nut. Ideally the piston should be cast iron with cast iron rings but I'll make it out of bronze and with graphited asbestos packings instead of rings. These used to be very popular with the old loco builders because they gave such a good seal and didn’t wear the bores of the bronze castings they used. As Johnny used to say, it isn't running 300 looms! Not a bad day..... (One last thing... In case you're wondering, the bore measures at 2.25" and I'll make the piston 10 thou smaller.)

[micktoon]

Nice work Stanley, you are etting on well , the finish looks spot on. Are you planning on making a complete engine now ? seems like you will have most of it anyway ? I have not been in the workshop as been doing last minute Christmas type stuff which I will finish tomorrow then back to jobs.

Keep up the good work , Cheers Mick.

[Stanley]

No, at least not with this cylinder unless I incorporate it in a one off. It could be made into a horizontal if it had a bed with a target end. You never know...... Some brass work today just for a change.....

[Stanley]

First job was a good clean up. I save non ferocious scrap separately. It will eventually end up in Doublejohn's furnace.



First job was to raid the treasure chest and find some material. The flat brass bar is some I found in a cupboard in the house when I moved in, ideal for making the slide valve. The scabby looking ones are risers from Dick Bonser's foundry. Normally they get cut up and re-melted but I asked him to save me some. The bar is for the gland nuts and the valve rod guide, the slug is for the piston.
For some reason the pic of the bar in the lathe is a bummer. Everyone has their own way of getting clean stock out of material like this. By the way it's one of the LM series bronze alloys that Dick favoured for bearings. Very soft and finishes well. I suspect their is a lot of lead in it, I know it was the standard BR bearing bronze. My way is to guess at a centre, chuck it up so that I can cut that with the centre drill and then take one cut off as far down as you can get, get under the skin and clean all the irregularities out. Then zero the cross slide, ignore the rough face on the end, reverse it in the chuck and turn the outside down to the same diameter as the first cut. Face it, reverse it and do the other face. That way you get a true cylinder and as little waste as possible.



Then do the same with the slug but no need for a centre this time as it's so short.



This is what I finished up with. A quick look at my sizes and re-chuck the slug ready for making the piston.



This is a good example of how my bad eyesight has made me rethink the way I do things. It had to be chucked proud enough of the jaws to do all the operations on the piston at one setting so I couldn't rely on the face against the chuck to get it dead square. In the old days I'd just eyeball it in but now I do it properly using the indicator to dial it in to a tenth of a thou. Of course this is what I should have been doing all the time....
Right, that's it. We are ready to make a piston tomorrow.... Nice morning, I enjoyed it.

[micktoon]

Hi Stanley , that treasure chest of yours never fails to amaze me lol, it just seems to keep giving . Well shown as usual I am looking forward to the piston getting done tomorrow......Are you planning on a Christmas shut down , or just working through this year ?

Cheers Mick.

[Stanley]

I shall be down at my daughter's in Earby for Xmas dinner but apart from that business as usual unless I get a better offer. It would take something truly remarkable to get me out of my routine! Sad isn't it but I'm very happy with my life as it is. That video you sent me (LINK) got me to thinking it would be very easy to make the cylinder into a vertical like that....
All set up for a bit more brass turning today....