SHED MATTERS 2

[Stanley]

P. The trikes matter has been nattering me. You are quite right, I did an experiment this morning and it's not flammable. I've got the spontaneous combustion bit from somewhere and the only thing I can think is that decorators used to use an exotic solvent for cleaning paint brushes and that was definitely flammable. Can't remember what it was. I know that cotton waste with linseed oil soaked into it can combust. Don't worry about the pipe. I never smoke it while I am doing anything. My use of the pipe is to have a break, like during an auto cut,
light up, have a couple of good drags to top up the addiction levels and then put it down. Pipes go out immediately so no danger. I once got poisoned by smoking a cigarette in an atmosphere loaded with ether and found later that this produces Phosgene as it is drawn through the burning tobacco!
Mick, you are right about the general quality of Chinese imports. They used to be crap but now are quite splendid for the price.Remember the CS drills that used to shatter the first time you used them?
It struck me that the boring head is a good example of the tools that you very seldom need but on that odd occasion when you are stuck they are the answer and pay for their house room when you use them.
Another thing that struck me is that we are coming into the better weather and the car boots will be starting up. Please can you keep your eyes open for me and if you see a 3" or 4" 4 jaw independent chuck in decent nick grab it for me. This is a commercial transaction, I pay for it and postage. Johnny's 1927 lathe hasn't got a 4 jaw and needs one to complete its refurbishment.
What are you doing in the shed? How is the soldier coming on?
One other thing....Amongst the pieces of jet I drilled for Sharon my cleaner is a very small fragment. Just for a laugh I'm going to see if I can pop a hole in that one as well.... I know, it's showing off but I fancy having a do at it. As for the Skunk Project, you are wasting your time trying to draw me out!
Another afterthought. Seeing as how the Harrison was clean, before I started using it yesterday I went round all the oil nipples and flushed the bearing services out. It will be dripping oil on John's chips for a few days! Something we often forget but essential in the long term.

[chinatyke]

P. The trikes matter has been nattering me. You are quite right, I did an experiment this morning and it's not flammable. I've got the spontaneous combustion bit from somewhere and the only thing I can think is that decorators used to use an exotic solvent for cleaning paint brushes and that was definitely flammable. Can't remember what it was. I know that cotton waste with linseed oil soaked into it can combust.

Acetone was sometimes used and also white spirit of course. Even oil residues can spontaneously combust on the typical cotton waste used in engineering. It's quite probable that the trike would quickly evaporate leaving the oil behind which could cause the problem. And you are right about linseed oil, it was used in varnishes and definitely is a source of danger.

[Stanley]

Here's the scale of the problem I set myself. I failed, it shattered as I drilled it. The problem was the chuck on my Dremel wouldn't take a really fine drill. I could perhaps have managed. No matter, it was only a broken fragment and worth a try.

The Skunk Project goes on slowly and with extreme care. I'm after the best finish on very obdurate material and carbide tipped tools are the answer. No problem with the initial sharpening on the green grit wheel but I am a believer in refining the cutting edge by honing the tip. Johnny always did it. The old lads who had learned about tool sharpening the hard way on treadle lathes all did it, it saved effort. Normally of course with HSS tools this is just a matter of a fine stone but carbide is a different kettle of fish....



I've forgotten where I won this, it's a Carborundum diamond wheel. Diamond dust is embedded in the face. Not for grinding as much as polishing very hard material.



These are handy and don't cost much. Three grades of diamond lap, they do a good job on carbide. I use both these and the face of the wheel for honing the edge and they work well. So I've got a nicely finished tool in the holder at the moment and I'm making a good job of getting a superfine finish... Quietly and carefully away, making good progress.....

[Stanley]

I had a busy morning and only got in the shed for an hour but did some more careful work on the Skunk Project. All going well and I'm taking great care to compensate for the fact I can't see it very well....
One bit of bleeding obvious advice occurred to me this morning. If you have left a job in the chuck overnight always remember... If it is cast metal, it will have moved during the night. especially if you got it and the chuck warm the day before. Don't trust any of your settings, check them again. Check that the chuck still has a tight grip on the work-piece. Most likely you'll find nothing wrong but on the odd occasion you can get a nasty surprise. We don't do nasty surprises!

[Stanley]

Skunk project finished this morning so normal service will be resumed....
I cleaned the Harrison up and added another good shovel full of clean non-ferocious chips to the John Mills Memorial scrap bucket.

[Stanley]

My mind keeps going back to miniature steam valves.... I'm going to have to do same serious sawing so today I shall be looking at another long term maintenance job, the sharpening of slitting saws....

[Stanley]

Nice morning in the shed. Once again it started with a perfectly straightforward job, to sharpen my slitting saws. My way of doing these is to put them on the arbour in the HM, mount a small Burgess grinder on the bed, fix a detent for the teeth and sharpen the teeth one by one using the motion of the table. That way you get the teeth as concentric as possible with the arbour.



But when I approached the job I remembered something I have been promising myself for a while, removing the original transformer and light fitting because it takes up too much room. You may remember I did the same thing on the Harrison lathe.



Here's the unit. It transforms a single phase of the three phase supply to the mill down to 25volts so these safer lamps can be used. If you know anyone who wants one point them at me, I've put it in the shed in the yard.



I was left with a live wire hanging out of the side of the mill. The ideal way to render this safe would be to get inside the mill and disconnect at source but this would be a major job as the mill is in such a restricted space so I put the wires in a terminal block and covered it well with insulting tape....



Much better, those lamps take up so much room! I'll get a small LED like the ones Mick gave me and mount it. My first thought had been to mount the grinder in the jaws of the big machine vice but I soon realised this was too high so I took the vice off and slid it across onto the bed of Johnny's lathe.



By the time I had cleaned the mill up and dealt with the itinerant FYM supplier at the door it was 10:30 and time to knock off. Not wasted time, a big improvement.. Now I have a clear field for getting on with what I started to do this morning. Sheds are like that, never a dull moment!

[David Whipp]

Itinerant muck supplier indeed!

[Stanley]

David, you were, yesterday morning, itinerant and supplying muck. I rest my case m'lud.....

[Stanley]

I've had a nice productive coup[le of hours in the shed.... Here is the result of my labours.



You are allowed to laugh at me! It all started so well.... I dug out all the slitting saws that needed sharpening, took the cutter off the arbour in the mill and put the first saw in. Then I got my little grinder and decided that I wanted to use the ordinary wheel instead of the green grit one. This meant that the guard had to come off and this in turn demands the removal of the grinding wheel. Easier said than done! the wheel has been on there since new and could I get it to shift? Not a chance. I decided that this was a case where the Sykes Pickavant impact driver would be just the thing. It's so long since I used it that the driver had frozen due to the lubricant going like glue. So, twenty minutes freeing it up by working penetrating oil into the cam. I got that done and was just going to attack the nut when it struck me the spindle was painted red.
You're right, I'd forgotten that it was left hand thread! The classic beginner's mistake! I have no explanation beyond stupidity!
Once I had that solved I fastened the grinder on to the table. I'm ready now to give the wheel a light diamond dressing and crack on.
Apart from one more thing. I have never bothered to make a proper job of a detent and I am going to do that first thing.....
( And all I did was decide to sharpen my slitting saws!)

[Stanley]

The Design Committee has been hard at work during the night. I think the detent solution will include a small but extremely powerful flat magnet.....

[Stanley]

Worth mentioning before I start the virtues of my little Burgess grinder. I've had it for years and it is perfectly balanced, has good bearings and an almost silent motor, runs cool and is ideal for this job. I dressed the face after each saw and it did its job perfectly.



I started the morning by trying to go down the design committee's route. Here's a small and very powerful magnet.



I needed a detent, preferably spring steel and so a little used treasure box was dragged out, full of shim steel. I found a 25thou feeler out of a scrap feeler gauge set and decided to use that. However, the more I puzzled about it the more I became convinced that we needed a more direct solution.



Here's what it was, a cramp and the redundant handle of a kitchen ladle that self-destructed. It worked perfectly and gave me a good strong click for each tooth



By knocking off time I had sharpened the cutters, returned all the tools to their place, cleaned up the dust off the mill and popped the big machine vice back on the bed. I;ll get it squared up and tightened down tomorrow.



Here we are a bunch of sharp slitting saws, a result I think.
If you remember, what started all this off was my decision to make proper steam valves for my engines and to do that I have to chop out some lumps of gunmetal for the valve bodies... We'll do a bit of designing and measuring tomorrow....

[micktoon]

Hi Stanley , I have not been on the computer for a few days but glad to see you have been keeping busy, looks like the simple solution worked best for the indexing in the end. I think everyone has at one time had the run a round from a left hand nut lol, at least you noticed before the big Stillsons came out !.
Seems like you have a full set of sharp cutters to chop things up now so I am looking forward to seeing what happens next

Cheers Mick.

[Stanley]

Pity I didn't do them before I shattered those two 6" slitting discs.....

[Stanley]

When I was doing Ellenroad I had a lot of duplicate tools which I kept there in a big safe that we won somewhere. I was the only one who had a key and so I had a secure tool store. One thing I often needed was a set of Whitworth taps and dies and one day when I was in 'K' Steels at Haslingden this Presto set of taps and dies was there on the counter at a ridiculously low price, I think it was £15. I immediately bought it of course and I asked the bloke why the low price. By the way, they are High Carbon Steel, not HSS and that was the reason, nobody would buy CS cutters. Daft when you think about it because the cutting is not high stress with taps and dies. I never regretted it but these days it spends its time in the Vatican reserve under the bench in the bathroom. Every now and again I pull it out, open the lid and spray the inside with WD40. It dawned on me early this morning that it was a while since I had done it so this is why you get a picture. Never pass something like this up, it will always come in handy one day....



The first job was to decide on some sizes, make up my mind what type of valve I would make and raid the treasure chest for some materials. (That's right Mick, Aladdin’s Cave....). I have three to make, one larger one for the big compound and two others, one for the Marine compound and one for the donkey engine. I could make them like a bonneted normal valve but decided I'd make things hard for myself and go for watch making. I'm going to make them like a standard Hopkinson stop valve complete with a spoked and wheel like the full size one I made for the Ellenroad engine. I will regret this later on.... After a bit of thought I decided that they could all be the same size blanks and to save material I could get away with smaller lumps of bronze so, back the the TC and change a couple of the lumps. The square lump has to be split in two.



I put my thinnest saw in the mill (1/16") and after checking that the register on the vice's rotary table was on 90 degrees I squared the vice up using the saw and tightened it down. Then I had to rotate the vice 90 degrees to suit the cut.



The saw cut nicely, two cuts and I was almost through it and finished it off with the hacksaw in the vice. By the way, I put a new 18tpi blade in the saw. I have more blades than you can poke a stick at and there isn't a lot of point economising on blades at my age!



Then into the VM for the usual first stage, getting my blanks square and with parallel surfaces.



By clocking off time I had one blank already done. One newly finished and one left to do tomorrow. The one this morning is within 3 thou of parallel and perfectly square. A good start! Not looking for a finish yet as all the legs will have to be turned in the lathe.

[Stanley]

Still on with producing the blanks for my valve bodies. Of course, this is where castings score heavily. If they are good ones they need the minimum of machining. In my case I'm using material I already have in the treasure chest and so I have to put up with making chips! First job was to touch my milling cutter up in the T&C grinder, it's surprising how fast some bronzes will dull even a sharp HS cutter.



A bit later.... I have two square and parallel blanks from the block I split yesterday. The one that was already close to the right size turned out to be out of parallel when I checked it so I popped that into the mill and squared it up.



Then a bit of measuring and marking out. I wanted a centre on the stem for location when we get into the lathe and I wanted to mark out the waste I can safely cut out to reduce machining time.



Once marked, into the HM for some accurate sawing. I'm getting good at arranging set-ups that relieve me of the need to measure. My eyes play tricks!



By clocking off time I had two blocks cut on one plane and the last one set up in the machine vice ready for tomorrow. No rush! Quietly away and no mistakes!

[Stanley]

The first job was to take the two initial cuts on the blank I left in the mill overnight. Then I put them all back through the saw to do the side cuts, all on the same setting. Notice what a good finish the saw has left. I do so wish I'd sharpened those two saws....



Then a change of chuck and a new set up in the lathe. I had started cutting the first one before I realised I hadn't drilled a centre. I was just using the punch mark!





While I was popping a centre into the blank I remembered something I came across yesterday. So I moved sideways to put it right before I forgot. A handy little piece of bronze I use as a parallel and had found it out of truth so I popped it into the VM and brought it within less than half a thou of parallel. I suppose the message is check your parallels occasionally!



Then back to my meat and potatoes.... This was close of play, I almost have the top leg of the first blank circular. While I was doing this my mind was going ahead and thinking about what the next stage should be in terms of being able to easily hold the workpiece. Always a useful exercise. My natural inclination when making multiple parts is to complete the same stage on all of them while the setup is fresh in my head but it struck me that I will never have this set up better than I have it now and indeed, once I have turned the bottom branches round, it will never be any better set up than it is now. So tomorrow I'll make some decisions about internal dimensions and do everything I have to do to it while it is at this stage. None of this will interfere with the other blanks. The intention will be to leave the bonnet ready for drilling and tapping and the fitting of the lid and headgear.

[Stanley]

The design committee has been at work in the back of my head all night.....

Later at 11:30. I started the morning in the drawing office and worked out the sizes and locations of the steam passages, valve seat and decided on a Phosphor bronze ball for the valve itself. The reason for this is that the outlet route for the steam is going to be through a port very close to the valve seat and a PB ball will offer the least obstruction. These measurements also gave me the size of the bonnet.



So the first job was to part the excess off the bonnet.



Then I finished turning the exterior, drilled a 5/16" hole down to the level of the bottom inlet passage (one and a quarter inches) then bored down to the valve seat with a half inch drill (.75") and left it ready for drilling and tapping for the studs that will hold the lid and gland on.



Then a new setup. I had marked both the bottom legs for centre with a punch and remembered this time to centre drill it!



Close of play. The barrel is bored 11.5mm, tapping size for the 1/2" X 26tpi connection. With hindsight I could have threaded that now but on balance I'll wait until I have drilled the steam passages, one below the valve seat and one above. I've worked out how I can do this and on the whole would rather thread it after this has been done.
Slow work and interrupted by TV shopping but I have to check and recheck everything as I go to make sure I have not been let down by my eyes....

[Stanley]

For a while now I have been aware that the jaws of my brass finisher's chuck weren't quite parallel. The chuck has hard a hard life before I got it and in effect it was bell mouthed. I checked that the jaws weren't hardened and when I found they can be marked with a file, I decided they were very good cast iron so I stripped the chuck down and put the jaws in the VM and experimented with position until I was just touching the high spot at the back but running out of cut as I traversed towards the end. I gave both jaws a very light cut all over once I had got the level right and gave them a nice frosted finish. One jaw was further out of truth than the other.



When I put them back in and tested them I found I had done a good job, they might be ever so slightly slack at the front end but are far better than they were. An improvement so on with the valve bodies....



I soon had the first one finished and the grip on it was far better.



The next for shaving soon set up and off we go again.



Close of play at 10:30. The second body is almost finished. I am a lot quicker now, all my measuring is done and I have a better grip so I'm taking heavier cuts... This is the time to guard against over confidence!

[Stanley]

Last leg going on the second valve body. Far easier to set up now the chuck jaws are parallel.



The last blank set up for the first cut. As I said yesterday, much easier now I have all the steps set out and all my measuring done. I soon rattled this one off and surprise surprise, it's the best of the three. Still being very careful though, this is the stage where you can get over confident and make a wrong move....



Close of play, three valve bodies with the valve seat cut, the main steam passage bored down through it and both legs drilled tapping size for 1/2" 26tpi connection. The next job is to drill the steam passages, on the inlet side to the base of the valve seat and the outlet to the engine drilled on a slant from the inside of the bonnet above the valve down to the outlet leg, that will be the tricky one. Remember that when the valve is closed the live steam is under the valve, not in the bonnet where you are relying on the gland. When I have attended to those and threaded the legs I can start on the fiddly job of the bonnet lid and headgear....



One last job, clean the lathe up and put the non ferocious chips into the John Mills bucket in the yard. Getting to be quite a weight!

[Gadge]

P. The trikes matter has been nattering me. You are quite right, I did an experiment this morning and it's not flammable. I've got the spontaneous combustion bit from somewhere and the only thing I can think is that decorators used to use an exotic solvent for cleaning paint brushes and that was definitely flammable. Can't remember what it was. I know that cotton waste with linseed oil soaked into it can combust. Don't worry about the pipe. I never smoke it while I am doing anything. My use of the pipe is to have a break, like during an auto cut,
light up, have a couple of good drags to top up the addiction levels and then put it down. Pipes go out immediately so no danger. I once got poisoned by smoking a cigarette in an atmosphere loaded with ether and found later that this produces Phosgene as it is drawn through the burning tobacco!

Long time OGFB lurker chiming in here. Wearing my 'industrial chemist' hat for this one - Stanley, it couldn't have been an ether atmosphere; that would have exploded!

But yep, trikes [or chloroform] fumes drawn through burning baccy will indeed give rise to Phosgene, COCl₂.

And the 'spontaneous combustion' issue with linseed oil is also possible with any 'drying oil' used in paints and coatings. Boiled linseed is worse than raw, in this respect. The chemical reactions involved in the drying process can generate enough heat to set rags alight, and have caused many a shop fire...

[Stanley]

Gadge, you're welcome to join in.... The mist in the air when Wallace and I got sick from smoking was unburned Easy Start on a very cold morning. I thought it was based on ether.... We were trying to start a concrete mixer for the builders and you could see it hung in the air like a mist. Perhaps the concentration was only high enough to poison us.....

[plaques]

Another slight diversion. Wire wool is a potential fire hazard. I've seen a band new clean pack of wire wool go up like tinder from the sparks from an angle grinder. Always keep it in your locker.

[Gadge]

Gadge, you're welcome to join in.... The mist in the air when Wallace and I got sick from smoking was unburned Easy Start on a very cold morning. I thought it was based on ether.... We were trying to start a concrete mixer for the builders and you could see it hung in the air like a mist. Perhaps the concentration was only high enough to poison us.....

Ta for that, Stanley.

Dunno, but I may have a possible explanation. Ethers burn to carbon dioxide and water, but those starter cans always contained other volatile organic compounds. Ether alone doesn't have a sufficiently low boiling point, to perform the propellant function.

In that day, the propellants would certainly have been 'Freons', the non-flammable halogenated hydrocarbons, used universally in aerosols back then.

They would also act as a 'diluent' for the ether, to make it hard to achieve a really violently explosive air/fuel mix in an engine. As straight diethyl ether/air mixes are, within their 'Explosive Limits' concentrations ...

I'd certainly expect Freons to produce a witch's brew of nasties, when passed through any sort of flame!

[Stanley]

It knocked me and Wallace out for the day!



Into the drawing office to make sure I had the steam passages straight in my head. I'm going for 1/4" bores and because all the drilling is on the slant and dealing with sloping surfaces it will be a sharp 1/4" slot drill.



Everything is high risk when you can't trust your eyes not to lie to you so I tried to get as much out of setting up as I could in terms of centring and depth but in the end it came down to rack of the eye and press on. I was lucky.....



This was the first one and it was OK. You can see that it doesn't interfere with the centre hole which is the actual seat where the PB ball will sit. Big sigh of relief and crack on!



Once I had the outlets cracked, and they were the more difficult, I bored out the inlets to connect with the steam passage under the valve seat. Quietly away because the cut was starting on the sloping bottom of the hole left by the tapping drill. I suppose I could have cut them flat but that would have been more machining and more chance to go wrong. Again, it turned out OK.





Next job was tapping the six legs 1/2" X 26tpi. I set up the bores by using the tapping drill and tightening the chuck on to the bodies. It worked fine. Quietly away, no rush.



Half an hour until clocking off time and I have three bodies all bored and threaded. That';s it for them for a while, I have to start thinking about the lids and the headgear.







A quick trip into the treasure chest and I found this cast brass bar, older than me because it came from an old and long disused workshop. Faced and centred it and cleaned it down to a piece of bright bar big enough for the lids. Not a bad place to start tomorrow....
Nice morning and some tricky stuff but all has gone well, no scrappers. I can get on with some watch-making now!