Member postings for Richard Parsons

Kristian Do not worry about rust if you use an oiler in your steam supply. . A quick squirt of WD40 into the exhaust with the exhaust open will fix it. Do not case harden your piston or cylinder. Hardened steel is far more susceptible to rusting than unhardened steel.

Running steel in oiled cast iron bearings is a far more common thing than you think. I worked in a factory where we had some 200 Singer industrial machines. They ran 10 hours per day. Though some were over 30 years old we seldom had breakdowns due to worn bearings. My little Lorch lathe which is about 100 years old still has dead smooth but rock solid headstock bearings.

Good luck an enjoy the work

Dick

I have sometimes wondered why I bought my vertical mill. Many of the jobs I do on it could have been better done by the Horizontal Mill, a Machine Shaper or a Box Planer. I am not certain about the Horizontal mill but I am pretty certain that neither the Shaper nor the Planer have ever been fitted with CNC controls.

The powered shaper is quite a robust lump, but small ones like the Adept can be small and simple to use. My Dad had a hand shaper in the back of his old dormobile. I have spent quite a few cold wet days using it to clean up something agricultural in the middle of nowhere. The shaper was ‘liberated’ from Germany and was allocated to Dad by the Min of Ag. I looked like the Arrow illustrates in the Lathes.co.uk web site, but it had a mechanism which allowed the tool carrier yo radius round . It could be bolted onto a shaft to cut a keyway.

The Box Planer is normally considered to be a gigantic machine. The one I knew was some 12 meters long. I was working on the design of a ‘WIP’ system for the Heavy Machine shop. I was a pre war machine and schemes were everlastingly put forward to replace it, but none were up to the job. However I have an illustration one which has a stroke of about 12”. These machines are very simple and able to economically machine large components in a limited space. Very few have survived because they are regarded as ‘old hat’. But those that do are ‘snapped up’ because of their simplicity and versatility.

My ‘concept book’ is full of sketches for a planer to be made by Mineral Casting technique as publicised by John McNamara in his thread on building a tool grinder. I have all but 2 items I need to make the thing. But I cannot get 2 to 3 litres of low viscosity epoxy (there are problems with Minimum Order Quantities, Zoning, and about AFA (VAT) registration. I am not registered for AFA). The other item is 2 meters of narrow steel channel. I have not looked for that yet.

Junid

Jeff

I sympathise with you. Back in the U.K I started to make models of the weapons of the British army in 1/10 scale. Ok I made the Baker rifle of the early pattern bore 1/16” 3.2” long. The New land service musket had a bore of 0.075” by 4.2”deep. The Brunswick is unfinished because Hungarians chopped up my block of Lime wood for kindling even though it was locked in my shed. I chickened out at the. 577 Enfield (long land service model) where the bore is 0.058”dia and the length is 4.8 to 5”. How I did it on a Myford is my secret.

By the way the OP does not say what hole is to be in.

David 1 I thought it was ‘Tan’ but one has to be sure. I for one do not know very much.

Re polishing sticks from Lolly sticks. They are first class wood. The can be stuck together with a smear of PVA glue and left in the vice overnight. I used to collect them when giving the dog her evening walk. The real, point is that they were FREE! Ok so I will be accused of having Aberdonian, Dutch and Jewish blood in my veins, but think how many ‘brown bottles’ I could have bought with my savings. I brought ¾ Kg of them with me. Oh yes if you use PVA glue they can be re used”

Stick I am afraid the list you have given is not the full list. LBSC designed quite a few sub 2 ½” gauge locos. There was ‘BAT’, Sir Morris de Cowley, and ‘We Dot like Dorris’ to name but a few.

Raymon On the drawings of the ED racer times two you quote the fit sizes for the bearings as 0.003 to 0.005. Are these metric? The fits you quote seem to be in inches.

Rdgs

Dick

Ah Hans Rudolph. It all depends on how your cross slide dial is calibrated. On the Myford it indicates the amount you are advancing the tool. On my big Warco the dials indicate how much metal is being removed. It is a bit of a nuisance.

There is also another difference between lathes. The biggest difference is noticeable on the lathe apron where the controls are in different pattern. There is the ‘American Pattern’ which is the reverse of the ‘U.K. pattern’.

I actually have a problem with the Warco. I set on the cut I require and often have to make several passes to get the set cut. I can find NO ‘shake any where. Any one any ideas?

Regds

Dick

Hi Heronsgate

In a word- 'Fernox' (usual disclaimer). These folk make all sorts of plumber’s products. The tackle I used contains Phosphoric Acid. I used to buy it at a plumber’s merchant.

Drgs

Dick

My copy arrive today (The Magyar Posta have new (Winter –Fur lined) loin cloths and new issue of cleft sticks.

When making a pointed object use this trick I learned at the SMEE stand at a one Model Engineer Exhibition. Take a bit of flat hard wood make a shallow ‘Vee’ grove across the wood near one end. Put it into the tool post (if you have a Dickinson tool post that is excellent). Support the rod in the ‘Vee’ and file yes File the point. .

Edited By Richard Parsons on 23/11/2011 15:45:37

Edited By Richard Parsons on 23/11/2011 15:46:23

Stub seriously now you are at it. I suspect that there is a Moped fixer near you. Pay them a visit and see if they have a wrecked ‘Twist and Go’. They do this. You could probably modify it.

Another idea is have a look for an old Sturmy Archer 3 speed. The My Dad once fitted one to drive a 3 ½” Xyto lathe which he carried in the back of an old Dormobile. It was driven by I think a JAP stationary engine. The Min of Ag & Fish were so impressed that he was given a ‘priority allocation ticket’ to buy an arc welder (it only took 5 months to be delivered). They were all wanted for the Ground Nut Scheme.

Charile I have one ‘Crab clamp’ at the ME –Wembley- like you my wallet was very hollow so I only bought one. Within their limits (of size) they are very good. I wish I could get three, more.

There is a solution to all these problems. Have a look at the transmission on the DAF Daffodil motor car. This was derived from the Zenith ‘Gradeo’ motor bicycle. It is rude mechanicals but it works.

It might be an interesting idea to get the clutch and pulley from an old twist and go 50cc scooter. You might be able to fit your lathe with a (limited range) variable speed and a clutch.

I suppose the Electronic ‘gubbins’ can be put together by a ‘bot’ for a few micro dollars with the chips etc costing about 5-6 Dollars (wholesale). This would be about 1/10^th of the cost of a 4 cone pulley.

Stub Have a look at scrapping all the electronic ‘allamagoosa’ and think about a good old fashioned countershafts, belt tensioners and multiple ‘Vee’ pulleys. They have been around since before the ‘Ark’s’ keel was laid. I have seen and read too much about electronics failing and prefer the old fashioned ‘rude mechanicals’. I can always ‘fix’ them.

One of the problems is that the accountants (who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing) insist on the cheapest of the cheap components. These have a very high risk of failure but so long as they do not fail under the 5 minute in house test they are acceptable. The customer does not matter. He has bought the thing and is stuck with it. We have his money.-Ha Ha Ha! The retailer is stuck with the irate customer and any bills. Beside we can sell him a new bit of electronics costing 10 times the ex works costs.

Ok I have a 60 year old motor on the Myford (I bought it second hand, reconditioned 35 years ago.). Two years ago it went ‘pop’. I trotted it down town where the little man rewound it and put in new bearings (which I asked him not to do as I had a pair of brand new (top of the range) SKFs ). He charged me 4,000 HUFs (about £12 in ‘London money’. I was back ‘on-air’ two days later.

Kevin,

Rrgs

Dick

Edited By Richard Parsons on 20/11/2011 08:24:09

Oh my God ‘flounder’ indeed this site is the ‘place’ for a ‘dab’ of humour but I think we had better ‘skate’ around that

Wolfie

Here is a simple method of cross drilling a round bar. You set up a Vee block under the drill centring it with a Vee shaped mandrel. And lock it down to the drill table.

Next mark and centre punch the hole you wish to drill. Put the drill you are going to use in the drill. Now using the drill to make sure that the centre punch mark is under the drill. Drill the hole. A coconut every time (within a couple of thou)!

The set up

There are two simple types of rotary oil pump. The first is the ‘gear pump’, the second is the rotary eccentric pump. Both of these can be built quite easily if you have access to a lathe. There is a third type which is the swash plate pump. This has multi cylinders, which may be spring loaded and are pushed up/down by a plate which is fixes to the axle at an angle.

Finally there is the peristaltic pump. Here the rollers mounted on a disk squeeze the oil pipe moving little pockets of oil from the inlet to the output.

The drive could be either an air turbine or a steam engine running on air.

Finally you could buy a steam boiler feed pump kit, which could be run on air

I have just re read your requirements – I would try a motor car wind screen washer pump from a breakers yard.

When I was into submarines I often made gear pumps at vey little cost.

HI Vince

Why not use a gear pump driven by a small ‘Windy Billy’ (air turbine)

Rds

Dick.

The primary problem for an ILMEC locomotive was stated In part 10 of his constructional article for the ‘Fair Rosamund’[i] by the late Mr Neville Evans with his remark that:-

“The efficiency of the boiler counts for more than that of the cylinders because the combined efficiency is based on that of the boiler, times the cylinder efficiency, expressed as a percentage. In other words' if the boiler efficiency is 70% and the cylinder efficiency is 10%' then the total efficiency is 7%' lf the boiler efficiency is 55% and the cylinder efficiency is 11% then the total efficiency is 6%”.

Mr Evans then wrote “No less a person than André Chapelon 'to whom we doff our caps' stated that most of the heat from the fire that passed into the water was through direct radiation, in other words through the firebox. In his opinion (M. Chapelon’s), the main reason for the fire tubes was to carry the products of combustion 'along with the used up drafting air' forward to the blast pipe'. From here it was ejected, together with the spent steam, to create a vacuum which draws air through the furnace. He (M. Chapelon) showed that the heating surface contained in the fire tubes contributed little to the boiler's capacity for raising steam.” This is supported by the work of Mr K.N.Harris where he states the criteria for a successful boiler is to make the fire box as big as possible.

This comes from an un-submitted paper by YH called “Mulling about Boilers”. In it I discuss the very problem of redesigning the model boiler used on our locomotive. These boilers originated in the 1920s and were mostly the Work of LBSC

For an ILMEC locomotive I would look carefully at the boiler design (in particular the Fire box where according to Mr Chapelon 90-95% of the heat transfer occurs and the drafting mechanism which gets the steam out of the cylinders. As the great G.J. Churchward, said that “Any fool can get steam into the cylinder the trick is to get it out afterwards”. This is what the drafting system must do.