Member postings for ken king, King Design

If, like me, you have occasion to silver solder small parts from time to time you will either have a proper hearth or, like me, scrabble around to find something to prop the parts on and which won't matter if it gets spoiled/burnt/melted etc.

When we tore out a wall-mounted gas fire recently, out came four spiky backplates and several plain larger pieces of the same refractory material. It's designed to glow red in the heat of the gas flames and hence is well suited to use as a hearth lining. In practice I simply open up my bench vice to near maximum and rest one of the larger pieces across the jaws, thus protecting them. Other pieces, including broken bits, can be arranged to provide a nice heat reflective backdrop. The spiky bits are particularly good for supporting parts on just the points, allowing heat to reach underneath surfaces as well.

People are always dumping gas fires, so root around your neighbour's skip, (having asked permission first, naturally).

Just a small job this, but satisfying nonetheless.

A friend is restoring a lovely old Jaguar but couldn't find replacement door switches at a sensible price, so asked me to make some for him. I had a worn example from which to copy main dimensions but could use different manufacturing techniques as required.

One of the four is assembled in this view. The body and plunger are turned brass, whilst the mounting plate is polished stainless steel. At the rear is a turned brass contact ring with copper connector lug. These last items are electrically isolated from the plunger on which they are mounted by two hard plastic discs, one inside the ring and the other adjacent to the nut and washer.

Originally these switches were only fitted in the front door apertures. Courtesy lights in the rear passenger compartment were controlled by the driver through a dashboard switch !! although this arrangement is being retained for authenticity, new switches are to be added to rear door openings for greater convenience.

Just shipped off a pair of axle pumps for a client, who supplied the body castings and drawings. The phosphor bronze body castings were good apart from some pitting on just one face which could not be machined out and can be seen in the penultimate photo. The handy rear spigot was used in the chuck whilst turning the barrels with centre support.

After this the castings were reversed for drilling and reaming the bores, followed by turning a recess for an 'O'ring which seals the body to a cross-member between frames.

Body exteriors were then milled to size and each drilled for eight mounting bolts. Body depth is ¾" and the drawing called for each pair of bolt heads to sit in a recess ½" deep. This was all very well when the bodies were made in two parts, the barrel being a separate piece silver soldered on later. Now the supplier has incorporated both items into one casting, so a long-reach end mill is required.

I confess that I chickened out of going very much deeper than this picture shows, with client's consent. The body ends were drilled and tapped ⅜' x 32 with plain passages to house stainless balls acting as non-return valves. Strangely, the top fitting had a plain internal end that seemed to me to be risking an inadvertent block if the ball was carried up to it by the flow. the resultant hydraulic lock would cause all sorts of damage, so I made the fittings with side relief to avoid the risk altogether.

The bottom fitting, the inflow port, is also a right-angled bend, so was a nice little turning exercise, tweaking the 4-jaw chuck to get diameters precisely centred within the 1' x ½" bar stock.

Here the valve ball seats on the fitting, and is prevented from entering the cylinder by a pin fixed across the body passage.

Other parts include the two rams in stainless steel, each grooved for a single 'O'ring, and connecting rods from two mild steel pieces silver soldered together. The drawing showed a rectangular hole in the con-rod base to accept the flat rod, but I drilled a round hole and tuned a matching spigot on the rod end; much simpler and quicker.

Note the pitting on one body face, mentioned earlier. A pity, but purely cosmetic.

The final picture shows the assembly of one pump, probably exaggerating the con-rod angle somewhat.

I'd like to know if anyone has actually experienced problems with the top valve, such as I foresaw. Perhaps I was being a little paranoid, but when it's someone else's money, pride and joy at risk I prefer to be over cautious.

Thanks for viewing,

Ken.

Just a thought, how about drilling the pilot size right through with a known good drill bit, then the pilot drill has nothing to do except guide, and doesn't take up any of the available 'push' or torque. As you drill this advance pilot hole you may be able to sense whether the C.I. is harder at some levels than others.

Another thought; if the pilot drill has blunted, and so slowed progress, then perhaps the resultant light or non-existent loading on the hole saw teeth has caused them to become blunt in turn.

Thought number three (crikey, that 's a record for one day) if all else fails, use the saw groove already produced as a guide, and drill through with the largest drill it will accommodate, at close centres all round the groove, then knock out the centre from the other side. On reflection, that's not the best thought of the three, but just a few small through holes would break up the cut and let some swarf grains escape.

I've more or less got the hang of putting together an album showing project stages. I can then pick album photos to include in a thread BUT when doing so I occasionally put a photo in the wrong place, or two in the wrong sequence, and I haven't found a way to undo the mistake. It's easily achieved within the album, but the post is different, and the otherwise helpful guide provided for forum users doesn't cover it. Can someone please enlighten me ?

Thanks,

Ken.

An additional photograph, overlooked before, showing the two pairs of all important mounting brackets. The short i" xI" angle iron ones are for the front, with one face made concave to fit the curve of the smokebox.

All attach to the tank with 2BA screws into the integral threaded bushes shown earlier.

Cont'd

A large filler port is a feature of this tank. After marking the position, a lot of closely spaced holes were drilled, comfortably within the size of the opening. The shallow upstand was cut out, formed into a ring, and silver soldered.

to ensure a good fit the up stand ring was rubbed over wet-and-dry paper held on the tank until the inaccuracies in my shape development and forming had disappeared.

then it was simply a case of aligning the fluxed component and silver-soldering in place.

Perhaps somewhat prematurely I decided then was the time to trim the endplates as well as there filler aperture, using a ballrace-guided cutter in my router.

I was quite please with the way that worked, well, smug is the word if I'm honest, but pride was severely dented when it came to making and fitting the closing panels, which caused me endless grief, a great deal of time, and a substantial reworking session. Eventually though, the panels, which incorporate a single flanged edge, were attached using 2BA c'sunk screws through the inner and outer flanges, and screws and flanges were successfully soldered all round.

After that each screwhead was spot milled down, followed by filing and sanding, to present a smooth surface, ready for painting.

The finished result is pleasingly smooth and thanks to the heavy gauge the tank is certainly robust

At 20" long and 14" outside diameter this elaborate dinner gong weighs in at 10 Kgs !I'm very pleased it's finished, and I did learn a lot in the making. To those of you used to handling much larger locomotives 10 Kgs may not sound like much, but when one's wife/camerawoman takes as long over a simple shot as does mine, well, the weight increases exponentially with time and I think it shows on my face.

Thanks for reading this, hope you gained something from it too,

Ken.

Edited By JasonB on 12/03/2014 07:41:32

Some time ago I was commissioned to make this brass saddle tank, having gone through the usual steps of receiving drawings, deciding how I would make it, costing it all out, and preparing a quotation. So far so good. The inner and outer wraps were specified as 18g, whilst endplates were 16g. I planned to form the wraps by hand around ply formers and had it all nicely planned in my head. In the event the client bypassed my sources for some 'cheaper' 16g, to be used throughout, and so different methods were called for, not least the acquisition of second-hand industrial 3' rolls !

The first step was to buy necessary bar stock for a lift-off lid, and various fittings including threaded bushes and two removable strainersThe lid was turned first …...

followed by the rest of the fittings …….

comprising threaded connectors for pipework, and twelve for 2BA fixing screws.

The first of the sheet metal parts to be made were the endplates, and in addition I used some 14g (sent in error) to make slightly smaller internal doublers, providing good location ledges for the wrap edges and a strong stepped joint.

The semicircular plates were bandsawed, endplates oversized, but doublers filed to the line. Eight fixing screw bushes were silver soldered into one endplate, and clearance holes provided in the doubler, then the two were soft-soldered together, as were those for the other end..

Following that, the inner and outer wraps were marked out and cut (sorry, those two pics are in reverse order) including longitudinal flanges on the inner one. Then I started playing with my newly acquired rolls and soon found that, despite their robust 3" rollers, the bending forces in the brass were sufficient to cause noticeable roll deflection, producing a less tight roll radius in the centre than at the ends. This resulted in a barrel shape and not art all what I wanted. The problem was overcome by wrapping newsprint in varying thcknesses along the roller length in compensation, and after a lot of trial, even more error, and over- and under-compensation, I finally had linear, circular wraps. These were mated with endplates and jigged for soldering.

Believe me, although no clamps are visible above, there were plenty in evidence before the gas flame was applied. In the event the soldering at this point went well.

Edited By JasonB on 12/03/2014 07:40:55

I'm about to venture into case-hardening for the first time; the usual rod ends, pins, slider blocks etc. and I would greatly appreciate hearing how some of you afficcionados go about it. What products you use, where sourced, the process steps, times, temperatures and so on. If you can spare a few minutes to share your experiences I shall be grateful,

Thanks,

Ken.

Reply to Michael, they are needed to fit existing tapped holes in cylinder head and crankcase of a model aero engine, and there's not enough meat to rethread with an alternative.

Does anyone know of a supplier of M.E. thread steel setscrews, specifically ⅛" x 40? I need a couple of different lengths in fairly small quantities. Any suggestions gratefully received.

Hello Julian, I replied several days ago but the text has not appeared so I'll repeat:- Thanks for the kind words Julian, Im glad you liked it. Are you thinking of making one ? If so, let me know and I'll give details of some drawing shortcomings I had to overcome.

I wish you and all other M.E.'s a Happy New Year,

Regards,

Ken.

It's stoopid me again. Please disregard and if you can, overlook my query. Either the 'next' page chooser didn't display or I simply didn't see it first time around. Sorreeee.

There should surely be a lot more than ten members albums to look at. Has there been a clearout ?

I built this for a client and managed to deliver it in time for Christmas. I changed the method of making the protective shroud, and a couple of machining details, but otherwise it was made to the drawing. Mostly phosphor-bronze with brass used here and there. the shut-off valves and linkage, and the blowdown valve are stainless steel.

You can view the step by step build in the album posted today.

Thanks for all your helpful suggestions, and a colour code system once sorted is a great idea I will be implementing.

Merry Christmas, one and all,

Ken.

Hello folks, I've inherited an amount of steel rounds of various diameters, but scuffing and grime has altered the surface appearance. I know there is some silver steel among other types, and some have a green painted end, but is there a foolproof way of identifying different types ? I've used a magnet to weed out the stainless, but silver steel and mild steel are proving more difficult.

If you want a much more interesting and, for us model engineers, meaningful application of a variety of 3D technologies I suggest you google 'building the Miller race car' or very similar title. Sorry I can't provide a direct link at present, but promise that if you're interested in seeing what can be done, you will find the search worthwhile. Plenty of food for thought in this one. If you find it let's have your reactions. This is a fascinating technique, particularly now that very durable metallic prints can be made, plated etc.

Has anyone out there had a good experience when using an anodising service in northern England or southern Scotland ? I have a project requiring black anodising of machined aluminium parts for good wear resistance (general handling wear, that is) and cosmetic appeal. Shade variation is not a problem, in fact I expect it as differing alloys are used. Any recommendations gratefully received, thank you,

Ken.