Member postings for Alan Wilkins 1

Many thanks for the info

HI,

I'm about to embark on a long term project building a 4" scale Little Samson traction engine. I have a few of the castings and will be buying more shortly. The rear wheels are too big for my lathe so I am having those machined out of house, as I will with anything that is too large for my equipment.

I have a Warco VMC mill and looking to buy a boring head for it. It has an R8 taper.

I was looking at the Chinese boring head available through Chronos, Amadeal, RDG amongst other suppliers.

What size boring head should I buy? There seems to be two common sizes, 50mm & 75mm. Would it be better for me to buy both sizes or neither and buy something different?

Thanks Howard.

Lots more for me to think about. I have plenty of power points in my shed "18 I think from memory" and 8 x 5 foot flourescent lights, as I hate having to un plug something to plug something else in. I also hate not having enough light then struggle to see what I am doing. I have been there in the past & lessons learned.

Good advice about filters because the last thing I want to do is upset my neighbours as they are pretty good and put up with a lot from me playing with my toys.

I'm tempted on the one in Southampton, but it will cost me a lot of money to get it home. I haven't got the time to pop down to collect it either, as from the middle of this week I will have very few days off until the end of September. (I started a part time ice cream round last year which gave a pretty good return on my investment, so that starts up again from the 10th April)

Power isn't the problem as My shed is wired directly into the house fuse box on its own ring main. The shed is next to the house I have 18 plug sockets wired in & 8 X 5 foot flourescent lights. I hate not having power to hand or not being able to see what I am doing.

I wasn't sure how well the machines would work on an inverter. 3 phase machines do seem to be more robust, perhaps because they were aimed at the commercial market rather than the diy market.

Constructing a plinth wont present any problems once I know the size of machine I am getting. May have to leave the concrete a week or two to harden right through.

Bob, Thanks for the advice, I was thinking a lathe should probably be my first major piece of kit as there are probably more jobs I can do or have a go at than what I could with just a milling machine. Getting a machine into my shed I can see may present a few problems, but hopefully I can arrange locally for a guy with a JCB forklift to help out, Still going to require plenty of people power as well. I do have a 1 ton mobile engine hoist, so that could maybe be utilised once the machine is in the shed. My current shed does have a wooden floor, but the floor bords are 38mm thick and they are supported with beams every 12". The beams are sat on a concrete base so hopefully the floor is strong & stable enough. It it's not then I will have to cut out the floorboards where the machines are going to sit and make a concrete plinth, but as you say more considerations to take into account.

Peter, I use B & M quite often, (last time 3 weeks ago) but in the last couple of years they have closed their steel yard in Inverness and now just have a sales office in Inverness, so now charge a £20 delivery charge to have it delivered to a handling yard in Inverness. Not so bad if the order is a reasonable size, but a rip off iff your only after 1 length, but as you say we are limited in this part of the world. Aluminium I always use Aluminium warehouse as they are reasonable price wise, but charge us double their normal delivery charge, but at least the stuff is delivered to my door. I think the last order I placed cost me about £40 delivery, but my order was for around £400.

I have no idea where to look in this area for other metals like Brass etc as to dat e I haven't needed any, but I'm sure it wont be long before I will need to find a source.

A lot of the lathes I have been looking at on ebay are 3 phase. Could these be run off an inverter or converted to single phase, or is it better to stick with a single phase machine?

Postage / delivery is a big issue in this part of the world. Even though we are mainland as soon as you mention the Highlands the price either goes through the roof or sorry we dont delivery to the Highlands. I built a 16 foot hovercraft from scratch a few years ago & the postage accounted for over 15% of the total build cost. The engine I collected myself, to save on P&P

Bob what part of the IOW do you live? I was on the IOW for a week in Feb & stayed in Ryde. My parents & sister live in Wroxall. My son is actually on holiday on the IOW at the moment.

Scale wise I can see larger scale could present problems in machining some parts, but I was thinking possibly I could either do these at a college night class or farm them out to someone with large enough kit to do them. I hadn't considered the weight issue & associated transport issues. I can see that it is probably a good idea to start on a smaller scale to keep costs of mistakes lower. I was told though that larger scale models are easier to keep in steam, because the fire box & the boiler are bigger, hence why I was thinking 4" or 6" scale.

I had considered building a steam car such as the steam traction world Lykomobil or the Stanley steam car, which would be more in my line with my background, but There is something magical about traction engines which draws me towards them.

I have just joined the TT forum so I will have a look around there.

HI,

I am totally new to model engineering, but I used to build RC aircraft from scratch a long time ago so not new to modelling. My background was in the motor trade where I used to be panel beater / sprayer, so used to working with metal & welding etc.

I am really interested and have been for a few years in building a working steam traction engine. I live in the North West Highlands near the Isle of Skye, so rather remote, which makes it difficult to meet up with a similar interest. I also don't know of any college locally that does machining / engineering evening classes.

From what I can gather I have several options as to which way to go. I can build one of the steam traction world kits, but they are expensive but all the hard work is done. I could buy a set of castings, which seem quite expensive,but much cheaper than the STW option. My worry here would be messing up the castings as I am new to machining. Or I suppose I could scratch build from set of plans, which seems a very daunting task.

When I was into model aircraft I alway preferred the building rather than the flying so, I feel the best way for me would be to build my own traction engine, either from the plans and / or set of castings. I would also like to build as big as I can make, so thinking 4" or 6" scale, so I can ride / give rides on the engine. Looking for advice on suitable large scale models for a beginner.

Before I can start on an engine, I would need to setup a workshop. I currently have a 16' X 12' shed with domestic single phase electricity. Tool wise I have plenty of spanners, screwdrivers & other hand tools etc. I have a largish floor standing Sealey pillar drill. A 14" SIP band saw. An inverter arc welder.

What I imagine I am going to need is a suitable lathe, milling machine and associated tooling. There are probably other tools / equipment I will need and looking for advice as to what to buy.

Currently I have a budget of about £3000 to spend on setting up a workshop, this figure can be added to over the coming months so I dont have to buy all the kit at once, so again looking for advice on what to buy, rather than buy something which looks good, but rarely or never gets used.

I also don't know what to look for in a lathe or mill so again looking for advice or at least pointing me in the right direction