Member postings for Colin Heseltine

If you want to keep costs down take a look at the Yuristoys website. If you are handy with electronics then you can make the interface between the scales and the display. The display is an android tablet. I have used Machine-dro magnetic scales and read heads. Have fitted them to a range of machines including Cowells ME90 lathe and Cowells vertical mill.
colin

I have moved to the BT digital service. You get one phone to connect to the router. We used to have four cordless analogue handsets spread around including workshop and office and I thought it was going to be a pain losing this facility. Then found that there is a BT app available from IOS AppStore to enable all calls to be taken wherever in the world you are. You can make and receive calls from your mobile as if you were at home and they go out as if from your landline number.

Colin

'O' ring is 5/8" OD and 7/16" ID Macc Models no. 111.

Colin

I have a hand pump on a Stuart 504 boiler. The pump does not seal over well. It used to have graphite yarn as a seal but this had dried and gone brittle so replaced with an 'O' ring. Still not a very good seal. I am thinking of putting an 'O' ring on the piston itself.

The piston is 0.624" dia. and the bore is nominally .625". I have silicone 'O' ring which is .625" OD and .4375 ID.

Is this a good idea and if so what groove dimensions should I use (width and depth).

Many Thanks,

Colin

Jason,

Many thanks. Tap and Die now ordered.

Regards,

Colin

I have a Stuart 504 boiler and need to make a blanking plug for the safety valve. I appears to be a 5/16" x 26 tpi. Need to purchase suitable tap and die. Is it going to be a BSB (British Standard Brass or a BSC (British Standard Cycle). These are both available at 5/16"x26. I would guess BSB but would like confirmation before ordering.

Thanks,

Colin

Edited By Colin Heseltine on 23/08/2023 20:10:58

Went to the Small Power Engine Rally at the Anson Engine Museum. Great to see lots of small engines and to chat to Graham Corry and sons from Alyn Foundry. I will certainly visit the museum again, minus wife next time. She enjoyed it and found it interesting for couple of hours but I would like to spend a lot longer there.

Would certainly recommend a visit.

Colin

There happens to be one on Ebay at this moment. eBay item number:394682584378

I have no connection to this advert, I juts did a quick search.

Colin

I bought an old FJ Edwards 12" treadle guillotine a couple of years ago. It cuts all sizes of shim steel beautifully. I used engineers marking blue and then scribed line on it. It cut perfectly on the line, no distortion or bending of the material at all. I would look out for one of these.

Colin

I found a hospital oxygen bottle trolley on Ebay. I made a few mods and added an angled shelf for the TIG welder. It works well.

Colin

I'm glad this post came up. I have just taken possession of a Archer No.2 Tapping head and have just stripped all the tap clamping mechanism to clean it up. The knurled knob did wind off with the spring in place, but will certainly not reassemble with it in place. It is a delicate operation with scriber and small screwdriver. To my mind it is a gentle reminder not to turn the knurled knob too far, rather than being a preventative measure to stop removal.

I have had to make the arm and the complete depth stop parts. I just now need to find out how to use it. If anyone has access to the manual in a .pdf form I would appreciate having a look.

Thanks,

Colin

I have the Gabro 600mm folder. It is great piece of kit Can also do large radius bends if use piece of tube for the top clamp bar.

colin

I have the Spiralux tool which works well. I have a second tool made and supplied by a company called MEMFAST. The current tool designation Is RNHT48. I have their earlier version. I believe the later one uses caphead screws tro pull up the rivnuts and these are easily replaced if broken.

Colin

Why would you want your computer to remember your passwords. You are compromising your security.  In 50 years of computing I have never asked a computer to remember passwords.  At one site I had to remember 20 to 30 passwords all of which were unique and could not be repeated across the various computers, routers or switches.

Colin

Edited By Colin Heseltine on 16/04/2023 18:59:27

Moved onto the timing side flywheel and mounted this on large arbor and mounted it vertically between pair of ‘V’ blocks. Rotated flywheel to get the two slot positions along the X axis. Picked the centre up using coax centering device on flywheel boss.

Offset each side of the centre and drilled 0.125” hole as a guide for the slots. Then offset either side of centre on the ‘Y’ axis and drilled and tapped the 4-40 UNC mounting holes for the governor bracket. Flywheel then move to bench vice and the two slots cut with hacksaw and then filed to dimension.

Ideally I wanted a pair of grub screws in each flywheel to bear on the key, but there is just not enough room on the governor bracket side of the one flywheel, but on the second flywheel this was possible.

Flywheel was stood vertically in a vice and ensued that the keyway was uppermost and the flywheel spokes were aligned vertically. The smaller vice then put in jaws on main vice and magnetic angle gauge used to set the flywheel at 10 degree angle.

Used 0.5” drill blank and edge finder to find centre and set DRO to zero in both axis. There was no way to get a drill chuck in but I did have an ER11 long parallel arbor. This was used to hold 2.9mm drill. Double checked alignment by sighting drill in front of keyway and when happy moved to location of hole and drilled through casting.

Removed drill and replace the collet and inserted 6-32 UNC taper tap. Put spindle into neutral and turned spindle by hand to tap hole.

Then ran a bottom tap through hole using Jacobs No. 0 check to hold it.

Repeated this exercise for the three possible holes.

The keyways on the crank are 0.125” wide and 70 thou deep. Used a short 0.125” slot mill and ran it at around 2000rpm. Did three 20 thou deep cuts followed by 10 thou cut. Pleased with how this went.

Governor Bracket was next on the list and this was a bit of an awkward thing to hold. After a bit of clean up I managed to get it held centrally in small 4 jaw chuck and then drilled it out to 0.5”. Then mounted it on a slit arbour to machine the rear face and main diameter. Turned it about face to bore the inside face and the bore between the ears for the governor shift collar and then the 15 degree angle on the back of the ears was next. At some point I realised I had a minor issue. The interrupted cut was moving the bracket along the split arbor. I had to stop and make a new slit arbor much shorted, a better fit and with a M6 grub screw in the centre to keep it out of the way of the boring tool.

Decided to drill and ream the holes in the ears for the governor arms prior to milling the slot in the ears. Mounted on a 1-2-3 block and set it up square. I could not pick up on the bore diameter as I had a bolt through it so used the laser centre finder to pick up edges of the base and halved it. The holes drilled and reamed without any issues.

1-2-3 block then turned through 90 degrees to machine slots. The downside of using bolt and washers to hold brackets to 1-2-3 block was the inability to mill across in one go. Did each side at a time and was careful not to run the cutter into the steel washers. The other downside was that I could not drill the two 4-40 UNC clearance holes for the fixing screws. Removed from 1-2-3 block and sat it on parallel between pair of ‘V’ blocks and again used laser centre to pick up outside edges of the ears and get it square. Used 0.5” diameter drill blank to pick the center. Drilled both holes and then found 82 degree countersink to countersink the two holes. Because of the way the casting had been done the countersink covered two different heights of the base and so looks a bit unusual.

The brass casting needed a bit of cleaning up afterwards with riffler files.

Ian,

Great to hear yours is a runner. It will be some time before I get that far. Currently doing slots in timing side flywheel, then need to broach keyways and drill tap for locking screws. Next step will be governor arm and latch out bars, followed by exhaust push rod.

Colin

I could now compare the two flywheels and decide which to use on which side of the crank. The original one was to be on gear side and so this went onto a expanding mandrel to finish of the bosses to correct diameter and length. The other flywheel then mounted and bosses bought to size.

Both flywheels polished up well and the engine now looks a little more like it should.

Very helpful supplier put me on to the technical man at Fagor. 10 minutes of his time and he had it fixed. Somehow I had set the system into Reference Mode.

Couple of key presses to exit and all okay.

Whilst waiting to get mill DRO sorted jumped across to Colchester and turned the Governor Arm Shift Collar. I had correct size material in stock so just had to grind a 0.130” wide tool to cut the grooves. It actually worked quite well.

With the castings I had received one partially machines flywheel casting and one unmachined casting, both with many years of rusty brown colour on them. The machines one had the perimeter, sides, and bore completed. I needed to clean this up first to check on dimensions. It came up very nicely much to my surprise. The other casting looked quite rough around the perimeter and one boss was a little offset to say the least, but the spokes were very good with no movement of the two haves of the mould. Craned the 12” four jaw onto the lathe and proceeded to spend at least an hour trying to get the casting level and central.

Used carbide tipped tool to get underneath the skin and took the face down to dimension and then faced the boss. Boss then centred and drilled in steps to 0.4688”.

Could only get a very small boring tool in and very slowly bored out to 0.5”. Could now remove from the 4 jaw chuck and switch back to the 3 jaw. I had made a mandrel from a 0.875” piece of barstock and turned to 0.5” sand threaded the end ½” UNF and also centred the end. I hoped this would be solid enough for turning the perimeter. It ran true and I was able to take the perimeter down to approaching size but there was quite a dip on one edge. Before I went any further, I brought the side to dimension to reduce the area of the dip. Had I continued as I was I think the flywheel would not have tidied up until below size.

Into 5C collet chuck on Myford and the big end stick out faced flush to the webs.

Moved over to mill to remove the centre after first having hacksawed the majority out.

Final Result

Was going to start the keyways when the DRO display on mill appeared to self destruct. Need to talk to supplier on Monday.