Member postings for Nigel McBurney 1

I restored and ran a 3 1/2 Hornsby oil engine for a long time,a big lump around 15 cwt, with twin flywheels ,the second flywheel was specified for electrical generation to smooth out the power strokes and improve governing. The Hornsby is not a diesel,the fuel is squirted at low pressure into the hotbulb on the induction stroke,the jet of fuel hits the far side of the bulb and cooks and vapourises,the subsequent compression and the heat in the hot bulb causes ignition.the governor arm controls the amount of fuel injected by increasing or decreasing the amount of travel of the needle valve in the injector,surplus oil flws back to the fuel tank. I saw Graham Corys engine running many years ago at the 1000 engine rally and was quite impressive,from memory i believe that the gas burner used to preheat the hot bulb had to be kept alight as the hot bulb could not retain it heat. Hornsby hot bulbs do vary internally some are plain others have ribs no doubt to suit various types of fuel (paraffin also known as lamp oil) Hornsbys also found that the small passage between the hot bulb and the cylinder was critical in its diameter, as this passage retained the rich mixture in the bulb until it mixed with fresh air on the compression stroke, and ignited before or around top dead centre there is no fixed timing,I think a lot of experimentation would be required to get the proportions of injector ,the hot bulb restriction know known as the Hornsby neck,compession which is very low in a full size engine, The Blackstone hot bulb engine used a timed disc in a tube mechanically timed to control when the fresh air on the compression stroke mixed with the rich mixture in the hot bulb, Blackstones did not use an injector they had a small oil resevoir adjacent to the hot bulb and sucked the fuel on the induction stroke into the hot bulb via a fixed jet, the disc valve stopped the subsequent rich fuel mixture getting into the cylinder,both Hornsby end Blackstone engines had timed air valves to allow fresh air to enter the cylinder on induction, now indicate how these engines can be difficult at times, after my Hornsby had run after about 3 days rallying carbon would build up on the injector jet and eventually deflect the jet of fuel so that it just dribbled into the hot bulb and did not hit the far side of the hot bulb and it would go sloer and stop,possibly due to running at slow dem speed and no work to do, now on my small Blackstones the timing valve can be critical or not needed, a friend demonstrated on his Blackstone that he could hold the the valve open and it would still run ok, I tried it and on one of mine it ran better with valve open and on another one I found that it was critical and if the adjuster on the valve was turned more than two flats of the nut it would stop within a few minutes. A lot of patience is requied with these early types of engines, and I think I would reluctant to go too small ,

I have a well equipped mk 1 Clarkson,they are good machines,the company where I was apprenticed used one to cover all the cutter sharpening for the small factory,as I was familiar with this machine it was an obvious choice and it has done its job ok.

you could try the second hand machinery dealers,used genuine Dickson toolholders are not cheap as they are always in demand,

Here out in the sticks,that is civilised Hampshire in some areas, bt internet is a max of 3 mbps ,mobil phone coverage only just works at times,and they expect us to go digital,plus power cuts are frequent as the power lines are unreliable in bad weather.Bt arrived 18 months ago and put in a new set of poles,then after while strung out a fibre cable, i asked the installers when would the line be connected and wastold that they needed a connection a the end of the road,they were only installing the line as our rural which is three miles long has had a number of new dwellings built and there was some regulation that as the number of new buildings had exceeded a gertain number they had to install a fibre cable,but perhaps the regulations do not insist on connecting that line to an exchange.

currently I have a 23 third edition and a 10th i did have an edition new in 1967 when I was given the 10th I passed on the 1967 edition to a friend,none cost anything and I frequenly use them particularly for gear calculations,the old one is useful as it is imperial and goes well with my hobby restoring stationary engines,though at my age i would not buy a new one. Lots of info in one book though they can be ruined by dirty fingers so the old one lives in the workshop and the new one is in my study.I also find my 50 year old Machinerys screw thread hand book really useful.

More on taps,a local tractor collector bought a bargain lot of unc/unf taps at a sale, then found the were problems they were well over size, he had bought Helicoil taps.

I solved the drawbar removal problem on an Elliot turret mill when low ceiling height was a problem,I had a variety of 30 int tooling with different threads , so I made a new drawbar (en8)with a smaller diameter thread, and then plugged the threaded hole in the 30 int tooling and tapped them all to suit the new drawbar, some of the threaded inserts were more like helicoils but they worked with no problems and no need to remove drawbars,and were in use daily for around 25 years. This scheme was ok for 30 int but there could be potential problems if the spindle had been 40int.

Another company that used odd ball threads was the Douglas motor cycle company,on their early bikes they used pitches of 25 and 27 and diameters in sixty fourths. possible again to ensure customers had to buy spare nuts and bolts from Douglas.

I would go for a rotary converter , though they can be noisy though it was made by a "cottage industry " one man band though a rotary from a major manufacture may be quieter,I got over the noise irritation by mounting the motor in the converter set up in the shed next door to my workshop,so the set up on my elliott 00 omnimill is vertical head driven by Newton Tesla inverter and the suds pump,table feed ,and 2 hp horizontal spindle driven by the rotary converter. The reason I do not drive the the vertical head was that the mill (a gift) came with a very rough 3000 rpm single phase motor which quickly failed so I had to replace the motor ,so it was a choice of a new 3 phase motor which can expensive if a decent one is required or pay out some extra cash for an inverter drive,which considering i did not pay for the mill was still a good deal. So your Adcock and Shipley should run ok on a rotary converter.The rotary is also used to power a Meddings drill ,cutter grinder and large bandsaw without any problems. Now I also have a lathe with 5 hp 3 phase motor plus suds pump, as it was too large for my 4 hp rotary I aquired a Transwave static from a which was about to go into a skip, now this converter drives the lathe ok though I feel from previous experience of years past that I do not get the full power from the motor, the suds pump only workd when main motor runs. So a static inverterwould no doubt work ok provided the smaller motors for feed and lubrication only run when the main motor is running, if funds permit I would go for a rotary with a decent amount of extra capacity,you never know you may buy at a later stage a larger machine, I got things wrong and bought a larger Colchester triumph 2000 with 7 hp motor ,so bought another cheepo static converter which I converted to a rotary by adding a 3 phase slave motor. I did find a problem with the larger converter in that the surface finish was at times poor,initially I put this down to" Oh dear " perhaps in stronger language are the spindle bearings worn, waited until I had a job on the lathe where there was a slightly wavy finish and I mean slight but annoying so I bodged up a drive using a 3 hp single phase motor and the lathe turned perfectly ,so the fault was the converty electric supply ths is when I added the slave motor the finish improved and further improved when I changed the motor from one with an aluminium casing to one with a cast iron casing which made the finish better so I managed with this arrangement . So buy a converter from a decent up market manufacturer,( eg Transwave) preferably a rotary. Some friends who ran a steel fabrication busines some years ago bought an electronic converter but this was expensive though the cost was a justifiable expense.

I suspect that the odd size whit tap was used by some manufacturer who wanted to sell spares or service for their product and ensure their service was not easily copied by other suppliers or service providers. some larger dia fine whit form threads were used on optical fittings,ie microscope objectives. Being into vintage engine restoration I cut far more imperial threads than metric or unified and have full sets of imperial,number and letter drills plus metric and they all get used.there have been lots of posts on letter drill/number drill but no real logical explanation of the odd steps in drill diameters though lots of guesses, Imperial drills were logical ,though on fine work the the 1/64 steps are too large, so drills with finer steps were needed though why come up with two series that need to be looked up in table to find their dia .

I have around 4000 square feet of timber buildings,stables,barn,stationary engine shed, and workshops,trailer shed,lived in this rural site for 45 years,elevation 600 ft above sea level,exposed to the weather from the west,survised 2 major storms 1987/9 and more recently a mini tornado, the stables and engine shed were commercially built the rest by myself.Problems vermin mice and the occasional rat,water ingress in rooves and some of the buildings,lot of maintenace ie applying creoste and more recent preservatives, If I had to start again I would go against all the rules and avoid permable membrane ,the stables were made and erected on site by a respectable company, horizontal shiplap sides stables lined with 18mm ply the haystore at the end of the block was lined with 12mm ply (no horses to kick i) up to 4ft high, the remainin four foot was left unlined with only the membrane, which has rotted and now looks a mess, totally useless. 3 vertical joints between sections very exposed to weather have leaked nd now covered with 6 x 7/8 vertical boards. roof is tongue and groove timber ,roof initially covered with 1 layer roofing felt not vert good and relaced with Onduline corrugated sheeting a type of plastic this lasted 40 years,and now replaced with the same material,deep flow gutter all round , now used for storage,no rust on garden machinery, building on two courses of bricks. most commercial buildings use 2 x 3 framework. The stables rof is supported by roof trusses the same as used in house buildings,this has been very succesful there are no sags or roof distortion which is common with timber buildings with pitched roofs.

workshop is built of a mixture of 4x2 and 3x2 , galvanised sheet single pitch roof and a mixture of galvanised sheet and tongue and grooved timber,this building was the first I put up on site while I built my bungalow so had to be as cheap as possible, the shed had later additions and is divide into three, the section where my machines and fine tools are kept is about 14 x12 . polythene membrane under concrete floor then two layer of chipboard to have a wam floor. walls are 100 year old 3/4 tongue and groove timber (vertical ) on 3x2 timber I used the thick building quality polythene between the timber and frame,there is no rain penetration,no condensation, no rot mildew or any problems that builders who use permeable membranes keep on about.insulation is cheap fibre glass lining is 12mm ply .windows are glass panes from steamed up double glazing , 16 mm steel bars as a grill on inside of windows for security , roof flat with small slope is 4x2 on top of a 6x2 central beam ,corrugated iron lain on shuttering ply glass fibre insulation ,plater board for ceiling,not the best idea but I had some sheets spare, the door opens out into the remainder of the shed so is not directly open to atmosphere, the building is easily heated with a fan heater, comfortable to work,tools can be left on bench without oiling or rust and there is no rust even if I do not heat the workshop for a couple of weeks in winter, all wiring is on surface so that ant rhodent damage can bee seen, cable through walls is in steel conduit. main problem the roof has leaked in places due to the slope being too small,mice getting in the the insulation space, what would I do if I built a new workshop . keep it to a reasonable size to reduce heatinf expense, use a pitch roof with factory made trusses, Onduline on top of 18mm ply on the roof,with ply for the ceiling, Celotex insulation, absolutely no permeable membranes. a bit more ceiling height to get lifting tackle over machine tools. And do not make shed from from cheap board and cover the walls with roofing felt ,i built a cheap shed like this many years ago and it was a disaster,felt does not like it when vertical, various leaks all over the lace and the sheeting rotted, all that got replace eventually with shiplap sides.

The old rule with galvanised corrugated sheet was to allow the galvanise to "weather" for a year before applying a paint finish, though nowadays there may be suitable primer paints,could they be powder coated?

The cars on show have increased as it is deady easy to show a car,no trailers or other statioary transport,no hassle ,free entry to a show,and the car owners arrive late and are the first to go home early, The stationary engine owners see it going on,some classic cars only stay for a couple of hours with lots of excuses why they must go home early. One year I was roped in to do the announcing and commentary on the show arena,when the classic cars were due to come in I had one entrant with a Rover,he made all the excuses why he could not possibly go into the arena as the ground (farmers ) field was too rough and might damage his car, I got him later on at the end of the show,when it was time to hand out the brass attendance plaques, I announced that for all vehicles to get their plaque they had to drive into the arena, that Rover owner drove in to get his plaque . Stationary engines have dropped off in numbers possibly due to owners old age or departing this world, the engine dispay at a show tending to get the roughest part o the field, driving licence with trailer test required for larger trailers.and insurance with a decent insurer has got more expensive though some clubs arrange cheaper insurnce for club members.I have shown engines for 49 years and wonder how much longer I can keep going,engines and trailers seem to get heavier every year. (and so do lathe chucks)

Does the investment on solar panels,various source heat pumps really pay off , the initial cost is high,whats their life before replacement is necessary? already there are complaints that servicing is a problem,my neighbour has solar panels but the controls and battery take up a surprising amount of internal dwelling space and already he is thinking about battery fire risk and looking at possibly placing the battery outdoors . I run my heating on oil,plus woodburner ,the boiler is the latest type as I could not find a relacement of the old type ,the new boiler uses the same amount of fuel,though I have heard the new gas boilers are more efficient, plus the new boiler is not so reliable,already had new oil pump.Woodburning is not cheap unless there is a free or cheap supply of wood,and to process and store wood to its well dry at times I have stored up to 100 cu yards of wood possibly more, plus a good log splitter is required plus a lot of work, Being out in the sticks a woodburner has served us well in times of power cuts and the current cost of oil.the earth wouls get along quite well by itself without humans, a few events over hundreds of million years has caused major wipeout of life but the planet has survived,though now its obvious that the earth can ony sustain a certain number of humans, only a collision with a lump of rock from space or a plague will regain the natural balance, nature seems to balance itself until man interferes, the black death did reduce the poulation perhaps another event could reduce the population by 50% and save us, .

my Elliott 14 inch shaper just sat on the concrete floorand never moved,so does my Clarkson grinder, and that can be moved easily by hand by rocking corner to corner no real need to secure in position .the Pollard two spindle drill is a big top heavy machine,there was a three head Pollard where I first worked,and I spent a fair amount of time on it ,very good machine, Absolutely no question that machine must be leveled wedged with steel wedges,and bolted down with rawlbolts. And do not put it on timber and move it with a pallet truck,thats asking for trouble.Dont know about the FP! ,I have only had experience with an FP3 and that machine was mounted on anti vibration pads,though when it was firstinstalled it rested on its base feet, though I cannot remember if Deckel mills are like a lot of grinders with only 3 mounting feet.. Though some prat in charge thought it would be better if all the machines were on anti vibration pads,made no difference .

Most of my screw cutting is done with top slide parallel to the bed,and using HSS machine type thread chasers, on Myford and Colchester lathes, works ok on most materials..if I i feed in to the specified thread depth i find the thread is either tight on the nut or will not fit.I just put this down to minor deflection of the lathe slides and toolholder. its most noticeable on steel water pipe,which is one of the worst steels to machine of the commonly used materials,as its water pipe I usually machine the od a little smaller than specified dia, just to save abit of tool wear,with pipe of say 3/4 to 2 inch nominal dia I find that the thead is always over size and deeper cut have to be taken,I dont get worried or concerned ,and just get on with it.It would be more worrying if screwcutting cut undersize. I tend to use chasers as I did an awful lot of thread cutting as an instrument maker on Lorch and similar bar chasing lathes,When industry got in a bad way over 30 years ago there was a lot of redundant cutting tools from dealers so I bought a lot of chasers as job lots. I now have thread water pipe when restoring tank cooled stationary engines to get the cooling water pipes installed plus the exhaust pipes. When threading large dia pip which will not pass through my lathe mandrels, I securely clamp the pipe to the cross slide and fit a die in its holder into the lathe chuck and produce threads that was which is similar to a commercial pipe threader. another advantage of this method is that long lengths can be threade by removing the tailstock.

no thanks john give me a solid worm and worm wheel any day. Most dividing practice is based on the Brown and Sharpe dividing head as they were I believe the inventor/developer of dividing and gear cuting on the universal mill,the major manufacturers used the 40:1 worm wheel and most tables in Machinerys Handbook and other literature are B & S tables. possibly the most common variation is the Myford head which uses a ratio of 60:1. B& S mounted their dividing head on the left hand end of the table,possibly because lathes had their chucks to the LH side, Cincinatti mounted theirs on the RH end of the table,it seems an unusual position but at the time of these developments and patents ,its possibly a way of avoiding patent infringement.

My wife had a Morris traveller new in 1968 and it covered 187000 miles in around 20 years,in the engine & drive train nothing was replaced with exception of the prop shaft,due to a needle bearing seizing and spinning the outer race and wearing the housing,the bearing was not worn only too much grease caused the bearing to lock up,I think it was me being heavy handed with a Wanner grease gun. all ofthe ancillaries on the engine were not replaced and engine not decoked or worked on,though I stripped and cleaned the dynamo and starter motor at around 100 k miles. oil and filter changes as per book ie 3k miles plus all greasing,On the other hand the body was a disaster,a leak in the roof filled the rear passenger foot wells with water and it went back to Cowley,for repair,after registered letter was sent to the head of the company ,and later on the timber was eaten by a strange fungus and I replaced possibly 50% of the woodwork plus some rust dealt with , Really hammered by my wife on daily journeys to work of 40 miles regular servicing with good quality Castrol oil and grease .vehicles have improved in the last fifty years and engine performance is really good until the green nutters decide to abandon i/c engines, has any one thought out how umpteen million cars are going to get their electric cars charged from our already on the limit electricity supply.Getting back to fasteners and types of screw/bolt head when I worked on hard drives the small stainless screws used (hex skt head) produced miroscopic particles of stainless steel which destroyed heads and discs,as the hex drivers suffered wear and rattled in the screw heads, so the screws were changed to torqx heads ,the drivers lasted a lot longer so perhaps other industries have found that the torqx drivers are better, in recent years i have the found that mectric head sizes have changed there were spanners in my sets that I never used,and now most sizes are used.

The joint is only for 1/4 pipe and possibly up to 100 psi ,taper and parallel fittings mate ok for some services,s if I went outside to make this joint connection now ,I would screw it together with either hemp and boss white or ptfe tape, for long term joints I still prefer hemp and boss white, if the joint may need to some apart i would use ptfe tape, I still stock both materials as I restore stationary engines and the cooling pipework has a lot of joints. Too many people nowadays get concerned about all the so called risks,just think on a compressor the suzie flexible coiled airline pipe is only plastic and that holds 100 psi air without anyone getting nervous, different story when dealing with steam,another instance the popular Ifor williams twin axle trailers with small wheels,working pressure for those tyres is 95 psi and four of those tyres are rated to support 3.5 tonnes . with steam more care has to be taken . I remember talking to a foundry engineering manager about fifty yearsago and at that time he still preferred hemp and white lead, it use was banned around this time, though he said that to get really good seals on the large threaded pipe work white lead was still best, it must have been good as later that day I was walking round the foundry and leaning up against a wall was a Stillson pipe wrench the biggest I ever saw close to 5 foot long with the handle bowed like a banana, I commented that they must have had a long bit of pipe to extend the handle,his reply was when you use white lead and hemp on 4 inch pipe work for the foundry services thats what needed to break the joints.

When I restore full size engines I always ensure that there a good earth path through the engine parts and castings,I remove any paint from mating surfaces and put spikey shakeproof washers on at least one of the securing bolts/studs to get good contact,, you have an earth attached to the cylinder head,so it could just be paint on the head casting where the earth terminal sits,so clean away any paint and place a shake proof washer between the head casting and the terminal on the earthlead. I would have thought that flicking the contacts with a piece plastic would have produced a spark. Though not applicable to your engine I have come across magneto (low and high tension) ignition engines where some restorers have cleaned off the paint from the magneto seating surface and bracet but had forgotten to clean paint off the mating face on the bracket and the engine crank bed. I would follow Jasons advice with the electrical connections as I have no experience with Hall effect devices.