SHED MATTERS 2

[Stanley]

The first job was to reduce the length of the shaft in the rotor, face the ends and pop the centre drill in for the bearing.



Then some measuring and decisions about sizes. In the search for lightness I wanted to make the frame out of aluminium. I went for a search an d found a couple of lumps that might do. I decided that I could just get it out of the round bar....



So I went to my old friend to chop a lump off. I got almost the full cut on the first pass, Turned it over and you'll never guess what happened next!



Tragedy! Instead of doing the obvious thing and finishing the cut with the hacksaw I was lazy and decided to do it in the saw. Then I skimped on grabbing it in the vice and it all went wrong.... Ah well....



Putting aside all regrets and recriminations, I chucked my alloy and cleaned it up. I soon realised that it was not going to be big enough.....



Back to the treasury and I found a bit of cold rolled bronze that would do. I needed the bigger 3 jaw chuck for this and so I had to give it a good clean, it was getting a bit stiff. Amazing how a good blow out with the compressor and oiling it improved things.



Soon faced up and made concentric, then a bit of measuring and I brought the outside down to finished size. I'm going to make it the same way I made the big one. All on the same setting in the chuck, so as accurate as I can get it.



Close of play, I have the outside diameter spot on.... A mixed morning but forget the slitting saw, these things happen.... especially when you have an incompetent old fart on the job!

[Stanley]

The outside Design Committee have been busy and this morning reminded me of something vital I had forgotten which might make a big difference, drilling a hole in the spindle to make sure that the string grips the shaft properly..... I shall try their suggestion out!

[Stanley]

I took notice of the design committee... I drilled a hole in the spindle and it made it much easier to get some revs on the rotor. Really strong gyroscopic effect but still not enough to keep it upright.Back to the smaller one.



Not easy to get the drill centred but I managed more by good luck than anything else!



1/4" drill then 1/2"...



Then an inch and a quarter drill....



This turned out to be close of play because daughter Susan called in and we had a good gossip..... Normal service tomorrow.....

[Stanley]

Sorry, no normal service. I have realised I have to write some articles for the BET so the shed takes a back seat.....

[Stanley]

I'm in article writing mode so don't hold your breath for a couple of days......

[Stanley]

After two days away I checked the measurements and the setup and bored the stock out to 2" diameter and then centred it so I could make sure it was OK while I parted the frame off.



That's OK! Swap chucks to finish it off.



Mark it up properly for centre and then drill tapping size for 2BA.



It's quite amazing how much tackle you need and I can well understand why beginners get worried about not having everything they need. Don't worry, you always find a way round and in time you'll have a full set of everything!



I made a couple of centres on the 2BA screws for the bearings, put a touch of Molyslip on and gave it a spin held in the vice to bed the bearings in. It soon bedded in . The good news is that the more I spun it and the bearings polished up, the better it performed and I got to the stage where it would stand but not long enough for me to grab the camera and get a pic. So not very good really...
I've been looking afresh at pics of commercial gyroscopes and to really make it work, the frame needs to be a lot lighter to the point where it is flimsy! Flimsy isn't in my repertoire and to be honest with you I've had it with Gyroscopes! I've put it on the shelf in the front room with the other and I'm going to have a bit of a think what to do next.
I finished the morning by cleaning all the brass chips up and putting them in John's box in the yard.... So we have a clean tidy shed without a gyroscope in sight! Good. Now for something more up my street....

[Stanley]

And now for something completely different.....



You won't see this very often..... I decided to something I have been meaning to do for yonks, make an ash rake for the front room stove. It involves a wooden handle. I found a good piece of wood, cut it roughly to size, bored it 3/8" for the shank and nutted it down securely. The wood turning bit is a cracker, I found it among some rubbish I got from a workshop clear out and it does a really good job.



This is why I don't like wood turning in the lathe. Alright if you have a dedicated area and a wood turning lathe but so messy!



But I have to admit it makes a good job...



Here's what I was after. Nothing fancy but a nice tool that will do the job. Then of course a good clean up! I liked that, a complete change!

[Stanley]

The piece of wood I used was cut out of some of the wood left over from Johnny's original workbench. He knew his wood! The planks on the top are an inch and a half thick and are very hard, dense mahogany type wood. This piece is quite unusual, a very tight grained blonde hardwood and I can't christen it.
The rake is perfect, works a treat!

[Stanley]

We started the day with an old friend. I had an idea that it would be relatively easy to add a second motion shaft geared to the jack wheel so I had a measure up. It would be possible but would take quite a bit of arranging so I decided to leave well alone.



There was a small task that needed doing. When I was cutting the valve seats on the donkey engine I made a mistake with a 1/4" slot drill by running it too fast and taking the edge off it so I decided to sharpen it. Then I realised why I hadn't done it before, I hadn't got a quarter inch bush for holding it in the T&C grinder. Good chance to make one. I soon found a little end of good steel but before I started on it I decided to tidy up my favourite HSS cutter. I think I must be idle, I do just about all my plain turning with the same tool. Now I'm sure you recognise the fact that when you are using a tool a lot and touching it up it's very easy to lose the original geometry so I decided to start again with it and do a complete re-sharpen and hone. Fifteen minutes well spent and I soon knocked out the bush to within a thou of the original and a n ice finish.



The closest one is the 1/4" one.....



I had to resort to the magnifying lens but managed to Relieve it and (I think!) get a good edge on it.
So a morning of small things but not wasted.... Now I must put my thinking cap on!

[micktoon]

Hi Stanley , good to see you are back in the shed and getting more useful jobs done, I will have to make a set of adaptors for my Clarkson too as well as a few other bits and bobs for it. I wonder if the wod on your rake might be box wood , that is light and has a very tight grain and is hard too.
Cheers Mick

[Stanley]

I don't think so Mick. Bit too heavy and oily.... Mind you, it cut very easily and clean.....

[Stanley]

I still have no clear idea of what to do next but it's quite amazing how the shed can always throw up something to pass the time away! My eye fell on the compound vice on the drill press.... When I first got it I chucked it on the table, popped a couple of bolts in and I have never touched it since so I decided to take it off, have a proper clean up and bolt it back on properly in line with the chuck centre. It's wonderful how easy it is to put these things off.



Once off I gave the table a good clean up. There must have been ten years worth of chips and muck under it.



Though made in Taiwan and definitely el cheapo it's a very well made and solid construction. It's a fair weight too when you start to chuck it about....



After a good clean up and cutting the holding down bolts to the right length I reinstalled it and trued it up using John's ball bearing trick.



Dead square, clean as a whistle and the slides don't need any adjustment. They never have since I bought it. Solid as a rock, a good job well done. Then my eye wandered again....



Remember me bolting the VM down solid on the bench? I've noticed that there is a bit of movement in the foundation on top of the chest of drawers of late so I decided to put a bolt through the lot and make sure it's solid.



I spent half an our looking for the coach bolts I know I have somewhere but in the end settled for a piece of 3/8" Whit threaded rod. Just the job, dead tight and no movement at all now.
So, a morning of small things again but the shed is in better nick than when I went in this morning.....

[Stanley]

I suppose you could say that I have had a wasted morning.... I haven't had any divine revelation yet about what to do nest and so I went in the shed with nothing particular in mind. During my fruitless search for a bolt yesterday I had come across this and recognised it as a stake for fastening something heavy on a shaft, a big coupling perhaps or a bevel gear. I was interested to see whether it had a contract number on it that I could match up with Bancroft shed but there was nothing. However, when I cleaned it up I realised that despite it's battered appearance it had been a very well fitted stake. The top and bottom surfaces were perfect and unmarked. It had definitely been used and must have been well fitted because there were no tell tale marks to show it had moved at all. I've chucked it into the treasure chest, it's a useful lump but I reflected that fitting stakes like this was a mainstay of the life of a fitter or millwright and millions must have been made and fitted. Each one unique....



These caught my eye in the scrap box. It's obvious they are jaws for a Taylor's chuck, no other chuck had this sloping scroll gearing. They are numbered 1 to 4 and so belong to a four jaw chuck. Two things puzzle me, they are a plain jaw and because they are cut for a scroll gear they are self centring. From the way the scroll is cut I know they are plain outside jaws and the face is dead square so I think they are out of a chuck made especially for gripping square stock. What a pity that at sometime during their life they have become separated from the body because most people agree that the Taylor chuck was one of the finest ever made.



Here's the smaller three jaw Taylor that goes with Johnny's 1956 lathe.

I did some cleaning as I thought about what to do. (I have the cleanest tackle in the district!) and then got these two suspects out.



These two machined castings came to me in a box of odds and sods from an old workshop and are for the Model Engineer Beam Engine of 1959. They look to me like the finished castings you could buy and I think someone has spent quite a lot of money on the parts and never got on with it. Nothing else has survived. You can still buy these castings but they cost a fortune and I'm afraid I can't whip up any enthusiasm for making it (Or spending money on the castings!) So, I have a clean well ordered shed and an empty mind.... I'll have to come up with something!

[Stanley]

I had something different and very specific in m ind this morning. Right up Mick's street!



I like sticks.... When I was driving cattle wagons and dealing with cattle, a light stick was part of the equipment. We usually used what is called in Scotland 'a sappy'. That's a green stick usually Hazel or Ash and is not used to flog cows into submission (at least not by the good men) but as a tap here and there to encourage direction. Cows understand sticks and if you go into a field with strange cattle it's always a good thing to have a stick with you because even if you don't use it you are the boss. There's another class of sticks, shepherd's crooks, these are almost always Hazel but every now and again you'll come across a good blackthorn. I have one made at Aysgarth and it's possibly the best blackthorn shank I have ever seen.
When I was driving I always kept my eyes open for a good straight sappy, you were always getting them pinched by people who couldn't be bothered to cut their own. A favourite place was on the road up alongside the Liddel Water on the road to Kelso. Ash and hazel grow well and straight when they're close to water. But this stick is different, it's a holly stick I cut about six years ago and it's been drying out ever since. You can't leave them too long. This is perfectly seasoned now and free of any cracks. The idea this morning was to sand the knots off and finish up with it as clean and straight as possible.



It was 09:30 when I got out into the yard, Friday is always a busy morning. However about 45 minutes later I had it as straight as it could be and sanded off ready for a first coat of varnish. But that can come later at my leisure because while I was making a mess my mind went back to an internet search I did yesterday. I was looking for ideas on the Stuart Turner website and noticed that the price of a casting (unmachined) for a 7 1/2" flywheel was £88 plus VAT! I have one left from the engine castings Newton and I had made and It struck me that it might get me going if I machined it, you never know, there might be another engine in me..... So that's what Ill be doing tomorrow, making more dust but this time black!

[Stanley]

Here's the flywheel casting, 7.5" X 1.5" in the rim. I still can't believe that Stuart Turner is selling them for £88 plus VAT.... This was cast by Geoff Smith in Keighley over 25 years ago so it's well aged and I know it will be good metal. I'm going to ,make it into a flywheel and then who knows? If someone who hasn't a lathe big enough to turn this size and wants a flywheel they could always give me a shout. If nobody does I can see me fitting it with a shaft, cranks and eccentrics just as an exercise. If I go into bleeding obvious mode forgive me. I'm always aware that not everyone who looks at this is an experienced turner....



The first thing to do is grab hold of it as best you can. Usually this means the 4 jaw independent but I'm lucky in that not only do I have a lathe big enough but I have this 7.5" Belco chuck as a legacy from Johnny. Pity it hasn't the inside jaws as well. It's just right for this job. The fact that no casting is perfectly concentric doesn't matter as long as it isn't too far out. Once I have this side concentric and reverse it everything will fall into place.



No matter how good a grip you think you have, it never hurts to reinforce it by facing the boss, centring it and getting the live centre in place to enhance the security. Use your best carbide cutter, set the speed at about 50rpm and turn everything on the face.



Once you have the face finished you can address the rim. It's nowhere near true so quietly away with light cuts. Normally you would want to get under the skin with the first cut but because it's eccentric that would be far too heavy. You can always touch the tool up for the last finishing cut.



|At close of play I almost have the first half of the face concentric. Once I've got there tomorrow I shall reverse the casting and do the other side. A nice morning, I enjoyed that!

[Bodger]

Something i dont see much of nowadays mandrells, i remember as an apprentice turning loads of castings that had been bored to size then machined on a mandrell between centres drive by a dog

[Stanley]

I still use them Bodge, mainly for mounting circular cutters on the T&G grinder. I have two adjustable mandrels that go up to about 3" bore and occasionally they come in very useful. When I first got them they were useless because the sliding wedges were way out of gripping evenly. I cured that when I got the tool post grinder, made a lovely job of truing them up. Funny thing is I haven't needed them since then! Here they are, I'll put them up as a mystery object...... (the small one is by Rapid Tool and Machine Co Canada and the other by Le Count, USA.)

[Stanley]

There will be bleeding obvious again, useful for some remember. First job this morning was to finish the first cut across the face. I checked my set up first, you never know what happens during the night.... One thing you'll often come across when you're turning castings, especially the periphery of a wheel like this is patches of white shiny metal. These are 'chills' where the hot metal has taken a chill when poured into the mould. This chill alters the crystalline structure of the iron and instead of friendly austenite crystals you get martensite which is far harder than high speed steel. This is why you need good carbide or ceramic tools for the job. (When cast iron ploughshares are cast they do them on an iron chill so they are white iron right through which makes them wear far longer. When Johnny Pickles was turning his first large flywheel at Burnley Ironworks they cast the cutters out of the same iron the wheel was made from, about 3" square, and on a chill. Johnny said they believed this gave the best finish.)



It didn't take long to finish what I could get to and so it was time to reverse the casting. Notice that one jaw has a spot of yellow paint on it and I've made a mark on the casting so that when I reverse it....



I can grab the casting in the same point on the periphery which will minimise the inevitable run out you will get. No three jaw is perfectly accurate and I know that this, being an old chuck, leaves a lot to be desired! Check everything in the set up, sharpen your cutters and get going again.



I cleaned the boss up and started a cut across the spokes. I'm being clever clogs here and centre drilling the boss as the cutter takes its first cut. The spokes were surprisingly level. A good casting!



Once the centre was in place I finished the first cut across the face and cut the outside edge of it. As I suspected it wasn't perfectly concentric but certainly better than it would have been if I hadn't matched the jaw. This is no problem and the cure, if the flywheel is going to be overhanging, is to grab it on the inside of the rim and do your finish cut in one pass straight across. In this case, as I'm intending mounting it on the centre of the shaft I shall leave that finish cut until it is keyed on and turn it on its own shaft.



Last job was to finish turning the spokes and the inside of the rim. I broke the edges with a light chamfer as well, makes it kinder on your hands....



Close of play. The flywheel finish turned apart from the final facing on the shaft. It's ready for boring now before it's taken off the chuck.
Again, I enjoyed that!

[Stanley]

I'm ready to bore the flywheel but there's one small matter that I want to attend to. Every time I do some CI turning on a clean lathe and finish up with nice fine iron borings I mean to do this but forget. This morning I remembered and here's a sample of clean fine CI turnings. Question is, why?
Thirty years ago when I was dismantling the Whitelees engine and re-erecting it at Ellenroad I had to split the valve chest from the cylinder so it was less of a lump and anyway I wanted to inspect the studs. Good job I did, they were badly corroded and I made new ones and fitted them. I found that the joint between the faces on the chest and the cylinder had been made with a packing substance I had never seen before. it was evidently soft when installed but was hard enough to be drilled and tapped after sitting in there from 1842 until 1985. We had to clean it off and start again but try as I might, I could find nobody who could identify what the compound was or suggest a substitute. In the end I had to make a mixture of broken ceramic fibre and Manganesite and we packed it with that and hoped for the best. It worked but the matter of the original material has always nagged me. I have a theory it was made of cast iron dust and boiled linseed oil and now I have remembered to save some dust I am going to try making some. But not today!



I went through the usual progression of a centre drill, a 1/4" drill, a 1/2" drill and then found a 23/32" drill. I've decided on a 3/4" bore and will ream it to size.



Slowest speed and quietly feed the sharp 3'4" reamer through. No rush!



Not long afterwards and I had my flywheel finished with a nice smooth 3/4" bore through it.



Then I had some decisions to make and a bit of measuring to do. What I'm aiming fr at the moment is a flywheel on it's shaft with four eccentrics, a journal at each side and two cranks. Ready for dropping into the pedestals of an imaginary cross compound engine.... So I had to design the engine in my head so I could get my measurements right. I decided on 2" stroke and valves to suit. In my head it has Corliss valves so that gave me the throw of the eccentrics and the cranks which in turn decide the diameters at various points on the shaft.
Once I had that done I wanted some materials. So a quick trip into the treasure chests and I have 4 bronze castings for the eccentrics and a lump of 1" steel I can get the shaft out of.



Close of play. 12" parted off (the shaft will be 10" long) and centred. Set up in the lathe with a change of chuck. Everything clean and my favourite HSS cutter honed up nice and sharp. I am ready for some shaft making tomorrow!

[micktoon]

Looking Good Stanley, the flywheel has come out lovely. It will be interesting to see how your cast experiment turns out too, how long do you think it will take to set ?
Cheers Mick

[Stanley]

I wonder what Stuart's would charge for the machined version? All goes to prove my theory about collecting as much tools and material as you can while you're active in the field! Never walk past anything in a scrap yard without looking carefully! How many people have a 23/32" drill in the box?
I haven't even found the boiled oil yet, I think I have some, if not I'll boil my own.... I'll let you all know when I try it. Bear in mind that you are looking for 7/64" drills at the car boots.....

[Stanley]

I had an old fashioned start this morning when I blackleaded the front room stove....



Graphite based and it does a wonderful job of preserving hot cast iron. We used to use an industrial version on the boiler front at Bancroft and when that source of supply eventually dried up we found that waste sump oil from a diesel engine was almost as good. When you think about it, almost the same thing because the black colour is from unburnt carbon....



While I was in old fashioned mode I had a search for the double boiled linseed oil. Used for many purposes. Mixed with coloured sand it makes the mastic many used to use for pointing. Mixed with whiting it is good for puttying in windows in metal casements because it never sets hard and moves with the expansion and contraction of the casement. Also the basis for old fashioned paints. I mixed some with cast iron turnings to make a stiff paste....



Filled an old metal tobacco tin and set it on the still warm front room stove to see if it will set. I have an idea it might take a long time and suspect that like oil paint, they used some sort of dryer mixed in with it to encourage faster setting. If anyone knows what that is, let me know.
Incidentally, if any of you have ever looked at the story of the Tay Bridge disaster you'll find that one theory about the cause of the collapse was bad castings that had been doctored to hide the flaws. This mixture was known as 'Beaumont's Egg' and I suspect that what I'm trying to make is somewhere near the same stuff.



Then, after checking the setup was OK I got on with the serious business of the shaft. I checked the hole in the boss of the flywheel and found it was dead on .750" so I set a target of .755" for the diameter ( I can always skim a bit off....) and got on with it.



The final cut before knocking off time. I checked my diameter and I had .7525" which is near enough. Mind you, the bar is warm now and I shall measure it again tomorrow when it has settled down to room temperature. One little tip, never forget that as a workpiece like this warms up it expands. Keep checking your centre and relieve it when necessary. You can easily get them red hot! Yes, I was slow but the way my eyes are I have to check everything at least twice!
One bonus from digging in the treasures was that I found what I thought was about 2 litres of paraffin but when I opened it and had a smell I realised it was some Walker's Centigard that I have been looking for for yonks! Like superior WD40 and I shall use it in a spray when one of my kitchen cleaners runs out.....

[Tizer]

Modern boiled linseed oil products should already have a dryer as part of their composition, a metallic compound that catalyses the cross-linking of the fatty acid polymers and thus the hardening of the material. I've just posted on this in the Attention thread before I saw your post here.
http://www.oneguyfrombarlick.co.uk/view ... 259#p73259

[Stanley]

This is commercial double boiled oil and so you'd expect it to have the additives. I shall take the sample off the stove and see how it oxidises at room temperature.

[Stanley]

First job this morning was to check how much the shaft had shrunk during the night as it cooled down. I had lost about one and half thou so after a lot of measuring and checking (and a trial cut!) I took a final skim off and finished up as near as I can get to .75".



As you can see, every measuring method I have, even a standard and the spring callipers, was deployed. I didn't make the cut until I was absolutely sure!



I tried the wheel on the shaft and it's a lovely fit, I got it right!



Once I was sure of the fit I parted the shaft off, then I reversed it and faced and centred it.



I did the same for the other end and then cut the journals. Here we are, a good shaft 9" long....



I marked the correct position on the shaft, made sure it was properly degreased and did my big cheat.... I popped some shaftlock on and put it to one side to cure.... Before I did that I spun the shaft and it runs perfectly true apart form the face. I can take a light skim over that tomorrow.



Then a bit of concentrated measuring and decisions about the eccentrics. Once I had my sizes worked out I went into the treasure chest and found this piece of 2" bright bar.



I need the steady to make sure this is secure so I got it out and fitted it up. You can't see the problem here but I'm working at the limit of its capacity and one of the fingers needs a bit taking out of the slot so I can get the last bit of adjustment. First job tomorrow!