Member postings for Old School

Martin

My father was a clockmaker and I have one of his clocks that has the type of escapement you are interested in it is along case clock so somewhat smaller than a turret clock you are welcome to have a look at it and take some dimensions if its any help. I live near Leicester.

Oliver

Peter

Tufnol sheet should do the job readily available

Oliver

IanT

I have been meaning to make a centre finder, no need your picture above shows I already have one. Never seen that method before thanks

Hi

I have an X3 and am very please with it one thing it is not is portable, my two sons mid twenty's and strong only just manage to lift it onto the bench its an awkward lift.

That said a very good machine great support from Ketan at Arc when I had a little problem with it.

Oliver

Danny

Drill the plastic rod from both ends, the end closet to the chamber needs to small enough so the rod does not touch it. The other can be bigger if you get a little mis alignment when turning it round in the chuck my commercial one has a hole big enough to get a 30 calibre brush through it the other end is about 1/2" bore.

Olly

Peter

Good luck in your quest I wanted to upgrade from my Raglan Little John to something of a similar size I looked at the options from the far east but not for me and second hand UK machines. The bigger machines I could not get into the workshop. I eventually paid more than I planned and bought a Myford 254 a friend has had one since new and it is used for both commercial and hobby use and he has had no problems at all with it. To date I am very pleased with the machine it was a good decision as it does everything I ask of it and the accuracy is in a different league to the Little John.

Oliver

Steve

I would not recommend trying to silver solder the coils of a flash boiler together, flash boilers require a lot of heat to work well and the slightest hiccup with the water feed to your boiler you will end up with an series of individual coils or it could happen when you are preheating the coil ready for starting the engine. What you need is a continuous length of copper pipe it is available in coils and I usually get mine from the local caravan supplier they us it for gas pipes.

My straight runner has a copper flash boiler in it fired with a petrol blow lamp it very quickly gets up to temperature and on occasions got to dull red before the water has cooled it. My flash steam hydro has a stainless steel tube boiler and has a brazed joint in it but this is lagged and wrapped in stainless sheet and is routed to the cold end of the boiler. This boiler does get hot for starting it is at least dull red.

Send me a pm if you want a chat about flash boilers

Regards

Oliver

Thanks for the replies, the pistons are for my 2.5cc tether car engines, it has an ABC set up Aluminium piston Brass liner Chrome plated and ground to a highly polished finish. The pistons have a short life and the liners are resuable after a little work a decoke basically. These engines work hard and have an rpm of about 39500. By best run with this car has been 260kph.

The pistons are made from high silicon content about 35% aluminium and they fit in the liners tapered bore and are an interference fit at the top of the stroke. The OD of the piston is 15mm.

The plan was to hold the piston on the madrel will a centre with a cup to protect the piston crown and glue it in place so I could move the centre to check the fit to the liner.

I had thought about loctite but no sure how hot I would have to get it to unstick it.

This is my first go at making opistons for such high performance pistons I have been told how to do it by one of the top Swedish racers and egine builders but the glue part is lost in translation he suggests that its the type used in holding glass for grinding but have been unsuccesful at finding any

Thanks

Oliver

I want to hold a piston on. a mandrel so I can machine the OD to size I want to hold it in place with some type of glue hot melt and hold it with a centre on the crown as well any ideas on the type of glue

Thanks Oliver

Rebekah

Little Machine Shop in the USA has them they ship to the UK have used them in the past with no problems.

Oliver

Dave

Not sure what an elephants foot tool post is like. On my myford I have a Dickinson type tool post and lots of holders make changing tools a lot quicker and I hold tools from 3/16th square upwards. Mine came from Chronos and am very pleased with it just took delivery of another 5 tool holders.

My father was a clockmaker FHBI but it didn't rub off on any of his children all we have to remember him by for his skill as a clockmaker is a clock each that my mother made him keep for each of us his speciality was oerory (spelling) clocks showing the movement of the sun and planets

Oliver

I have used Steve spread sheet and it is easy to use and the gears I made worked very well.

Oliver

I have used Steve spread sheet and it is easy to use and the gears I made worked very well.

Oliver

I use flange nuts for holding the chuck on my Myford 254S and they work well. They are the same type of nuts as used in milling machine clamping sets and are available from Arc Euro.

Has anyone got a copy I can borrow, I want to read the article on external lapping. It is not available as a back issue and I don't want a subscription.

Thanks

Oliver

Martin

Thanks I am sure the picture was on the front cover the honing device is for doing shafts so you get get a good paralell finish on the outside diameter

Oliver

Can anyone tell me which issue of MEW had the details to make a simple honing device that was hand operated may have been on the front cover.

Thanks

Oliver

Neil

Unfortunately they no longer make a competitive engine the best speed with a modern Oliver is about a 100mph my modern engine and car has done 161mph. Things have moved along since John Oliver designed his famous engine. The big change is the tuned pipe exhaust system which has given a massive increase in power.

Oliver

The donor's engine is front induction and rear exhaust the engine when turned round will be front exhaust rear induction. Apart from the crankshaft I will also have to make a front housing and a zimmerman disc induction for the rear of the engine.

A lot of work but hopefully worth it. I will try and put a picture on.

Olly

I am going to convert a comercial 2.5cc engine so that it is suitable for tether car racing. The main part of the conversion is to rotate the exhaust 180 degrees so it exhausts in the direction of the crank shaft.

To do this I need to make a new crankshaft, as I cannot grind it after hardening I am considering nitriding and a final lapping of the crankshaft to bring it to final size after nitriding.

The crankshat will be machined from EN24T which I belive can be nitrided. The crankshaft is a simple shape so I expect little or no distortsion. The manufacturers of the engine claim a figure of up to 45,000 rpm my current engine does just under 39,000rpm this would be a usefull increase in rpm.

Look forward to your comments

Oliver