Member postings for Steve Crow

I made a centring micrometer similar to the one on this page.

**LINK**

Also useful for setting lathe tool centre heights.

I made some temporary arbors for the cam train gears and checked them with a depthing tool.

They meshed very nice and smoothly and the centre distance seemed bang-on as well.

But, they just didn't look right in brass, it made everything look a bit "clockwork", so I remade them all in steel.

Here are the steel test gears with temporary arbors and a brass one for comparison.

Steve

I made a start on the camshafts. First of all I turned the blanks and a couple of spares from 1/8" silver steel.

The brass gadget on the end is to support and provide a female centre for the shaft and also, when I move it in the collet chuck when milling, I can use the flat part for indexing and make sure all the lobes are of correct orientation.

Here they are sat on the cam carriers.

Here they are with the lobes milled.

Each lobe has 36 facets which I will have to file and polish out.

This is the cam profile I've tried to achieve. There is no science behind me using this shape - it's just easy to draw and "looks right".

It was difficult to get a photo of the profile but you can get a good idea from this one.

More soon,

Steve

Edited By Steve Crow on 01/03/2021 13:22:58

Edited By Steve Crow on 01/03/2021 13:33:13

They are around £150,000 by the way and weigh 6,300kg. And that's not including the tool loading gantry.

It would be nice to have a desktop version of this-

**LINK**

Cam carriers and cylinder heads.

Steve

Edited By Steve Crow on 08/02/2021 10:12:38

These are the cam carriers. I think that's the term. If someone has a better name for them, let me know.

They are about 80% finished. I just need to cut a groove for the cam bushes and drill and tap a few holes for end plates.

Made from 1/4 x 3/4 mild steel bar. Quite tricky milling operation with all the angles.

A total of 48 M1.2 holes to tap - I have done around half.

Steve

Hello, I haven't updated this thread for a while so here we go.

I have been cutting the gears for the cam gear train, and lots of spares.

There are 11 gears in the train in 4 different sizes.

They all came out ok apart from the 20 tooth wheels which I didn't give enough depth of cut. Only a couple of thou but it's made a difference at Mod 0.3. This is unfortunate as 7 of the 11 gears are 20 tooth! I'm just going to have another go.

To hold the wheels for facing, drilling etc. I made pot chucks for each size.

These just screw into a 8mm collet thingy.

They give a nice friction grip that doesn't do any damage. You don't need glue or shellac.

I made a spare of course.

I centre drilled one of each size as "test" gears. I'll fix an arbor to each and put them in my depthing tool and see how they mesh.

More soon.

Steve

Edited By Steve Crow on 07/02/2021 18:04:56

Edited By Steve Crow on 07/02/2021 18:05:53

Hello,

Can anyone help me identify the white convertible?

link

I plugged the motor in this morning and it worked fine!

It must have been the thermal protection though it was still dead 4 hours after it cut out.

Thanks for all your advice and sorry if I have wasted your time.

Steve

Sherline make a range of excellent chucks with 3/4 x 16 UNF thread. Can be bought direct from Millhill Supplies, the UK agent for Sherline.

Today, halfway through a camshaft, my lathe motor stopped working.

No noise, no smell, no smoke, no drama. I stopped to take a measurement and it wouldn't restart.

At first I though it might be the thermal protection kicking in but it's the same now it's cool. I've checked the fuse on the plug.

I have very little knowledge of all things electrical.

Before I attempt to dismantle things and look for something wrong, has anyone any experience of these things or advice they could share?

Many thanks

Steve

With a bit of help from the Pistonheads forum, I've found out what it is.

It's a 1969 Fiat 125S Samantha by Carrozzeria Vignale of Turin. 100 were made and only 27 RHD and most of them for a Cypriot Casino Owner!

No wonder nobody knew what it was!

Thanks for all the input..

Steve

Talking of Scimitars, a few doors down from the Dart - **LINK**

Edited By Steve Crow on 08/01/2021 12:50:04

Thank you Dave

Here is another one - **LINK**

Steve

Thank you all, I've googled the Lancia and I can't find any pictures showing the 3 weird vent things above the filler cap. The badge on the side is quite prominent and and the wheels are distinctive too.

Can anyone help me identify the car on the right hand side of this photo please?

**LINK**

Thank you

Steve

Dave, just after I finished cutting I realised I could have done that. Lesson learned.

Steve

It took about 4 hours to set up.

I thought the only chance I had of doing these correctly was to have everything square and spot-on.

First I had rebuild the mill in horizontal configuration, something I hadn't done before. Then everything needed to be clocked on each axis before tightening. Then the angle plate had to be clocked square and the 8mm collet adaptor dead centred on the rotary table with a DTI.

Hours of tapping with a little rubber hammer.

After all that, when I went to centre my cutter I found out that the arbor was 5mm too short! (the angle plate screws fouled the column). So I had to remove the painstakingly clocked headstock, put it back on my lathe, set it over for morse taper turning (more clocking) and make a new, longer arbor.

This set me back the best part of a day so I didn't have much time to do the cutting as I had to give the kitchen table back!

In the end, I did all the cutting in one long session. It took about 6 hours including roll-ups, tea and sandwiches. That still works out one cut every 39 seconds.

As suggested by Nigel above, I would have liked to split it up over a couple of days but it wasn't possible.

I was getting quite tired by the end of it, hence the error.

Steve