Member postings for Danny Clarke

Hi Dave,

Yes I know one can buy what I am making "off-the-shelf" on Ali-Express for £100 more or less, but where's the fun in that? Geoff's "Trykit" is well known among the "English Trike" racing fraternity I think.

What I am making is a crude home-made version of Geoff's end result using mostly "off-the-shelf" sub-components, in true "Atomic-Zombie" fashion. **LINK**

Thanks,

Dan.

Thanks everyone!

Great input and much appreciated.

As I have the Silversteel already I will do my Mk1 half-shafts in this (once I have reduced them down to allow the bearings to be a stiff slip-fit along the entire length).

Stainless Steel would probably be cheaper at any rate, but I will use what I have spent my money on already first.

Dan.

Thanks all for the help and advice.

All noted and very much appreciated.

On the issue of the 12mm Silver steel as an axle half-shaft, yes I agree silver steel may not be the best choice.

The commercial "QR axles" I have from Sturmey Archer are 12mm Stainless Steel.

Perhaps SS would have been a better option.

Thanks Mick B1,

Fingertip pressure on the emery with an oil to prevent glazing of the cloth seems to have slow but OK results.
I will keep at it. Good info though the use of a flat file as a backing for the emery is a great idea.

Thanks,

Dan.

Cheers Howard!

No chance for a rear tool post on this lathe I am afraid.

I will give that tool profile a try.

Cheers,

Dan.

Thanks Ady1,

I was intending to use my 100 grit standard Emery cloth and then polish with green polishing compound on a leather wad.

At the moment in the absence of a micrometer I am using a bearing itself as a go/no-go gauge and wherever it "stops" along the shaft I am reducing that spot a little extra it is still a snug-fit but passes.

Thanks for the response.

Dan.

Thanks Rob,

Folks suggested to me that 12mm mild steel would be "too soft" and liable to bending at the intersection of the exit from the outer axle-tube and the 2 bearings there. Normally for singe-sided wheel mounting on recumbent trikes we all use 12mm bolts of 8.8 hardness and over, and no-one has (to my knowledge) come unstuck.

I'm giving Silver steel a go because a German chap with a similar application has used it successfully.

All the commercial trikes with split rear axles have 12mm inner axle elements and this was the best I could think of.

Regards,

Dan.

I am making some half-shaft axles for a tricycle which are of nominal 12mm diameter.

First set I made were from plain old 12mm milt steel and I did not expect the round bar to be a precision piece of rolled steel and fit perfectly through the 28x12x8mm deep groove ball bearings of the outer axle-tube. I was not disappointed in this belief and no, the bearings would not slip along the length of the axle shaft.

What I did to make them work quite well was to mount them in my lathe chuck and a tailstock centre and run the lathe up while looping a piece of oiled emery cloth around the bar and traversing the entire length back and forth with frequent stops to check on progress with a bearing.

Soon enough the "slip-fit" I was looking for was achieved.

I have a concern that "mild-steel" just won't cut the mustard for this application and so I am replacing the mild-steel with Silver steel equivalents.

Now, I had expected this much more expensive bar stock to be produced, rolled & polished to a much tighter tolerance to 12mm than it appears to be, seeing as it is commonly used in gearboxes as layshafts. But No!

The bar is marked "Precision 12mm BS1407" which I believe is meant to be within tolerance by 0.00025" So I guess I got a piece that is on the high side and not the low side Ha! Ha!

Now Silver steel is a darned sight tougher than mild steel and the same trick is taking FOREVER.

Is there a better way of bringing such stock down so marginally that it fits the precision manufactured race of a bearing? It seems to me that taking a tool to it is overkill and will ruin the steel because it probably isn't even 0.00015" oversize. Is effectively "polishing it down" to size with emery cloth the only real way to do this? If it is the only way so be it, I just wondered if there was a better/easier and more "approved" way.

TIA.

Dan.

Many thanks to all of you for the very warm welcome , it is much appreciated.

For clarification, You-Tube has been my friend and I have done many of the "standard" improvements from the stock machine.

I removed the 4-tool post that it came with and put a wedge type QRTP on in its place.

I ditched the 3-jaw thing wit the 5-Thou runout that came with the lathe and put a 100mm Sanou 4-Jaw on in its place.

I have dial gauges and I am now quite adept at dialling things in to 1-thou or under, which I think is good enough for most of the things I do.

The biggest problem I have is the lack of rigidity on this little machine for parting off operations. My only successful way to part-off is by putting a blade upside-down at centre-height and running the lathe backwards.

I have made parts and adapters from raw stock and successfully cut 24TPI threads.

Here is a 2WD unit for a trike made from 2 standard freewheels and 2 home-made adapters.

Drive either one of the sprockets and BOTH half-shafts turn equally. Turn a corner and the freewheel ratchets on the unit allow the faster outside wheel to outrun the other one. Simple and effective.

And here is a simple conversion of an 8-Speed Sturmey Archer hub to provide an intermediate gearbox function for driving the 2WD unit.

So I'm not totally inept (so far), but I do find the coarseness of the Chinese contraption and the amount of backlash on the slide screws (even when optimally adjusted) to be pretty awful.

I have thought about purchasing a more solid British made Lathe but while this one still turns out my little parts I am saving my pennies.

Thanks again for the warm welcome I will look to see if there is a club on my locality (Benfleet, Essex).

Dan.

Hello!

Thanks for letting me add myself to the site.

Not done any of this sort of thing before really. My hands on metal-bashing ended in the second year of my Grammar school 1968.

I bought a cheap Chinese 8 x 14 lathe 2 Xmas's ago and have sorted out many of its in-built foibles to make it almost usable (many more to go I think).

I also bought a second hand "micro-mill" and some "stuff" that came with it (mostly boring tools, hold-down tools and assorted bits).

I don't really want to make steam engines or air-driven Wig-Wags or the like, my interest is in making custom "bits" for my Cycle building hobby.

I have had some success in this regard making bits you cannot just "buy" and that's justification enough for me.

I am hoping to be able to pick the community's brains on things like "can you?" and "What's the best way to?" type questions.

I hope this will be OK.

Many thanks.

Dan.