The Workshop Progress thread 2018

... & a purty face, a wiggle & a walk, a giggle & a talk that makes the world go round, a black eyed honey that takes my money, plays real loose like a long necked goose, hey baby that's what I like.... J.T Richardson ( Big bopper ), Richie Valance, Buddy Holly, all sadly died in plane crash Feb 14 1959... yes I am of that age...

​George

While doing some light finishing off to the edges of my loco frames at the weekend my Dremel drill stopped. On investigation the motor still ran but the chuck spindle didn't. Split the casing and found that the motor and spindle were joined by a bit of splined polythene tube which had disintegrated over the last twenty years, yes the drill plate said 1997, this was my second unit in 40+ years. Looked at the Dremel supplier site in Derby and lo and behold you can get a spare. So duly ordered Monday, arrived in post Tuesday and back up and running.

Started the weekend off on a good note with getting the Robinson X-Type to run for the first time. Still need to play with the hot tube burner as it needs a bit of extra heat at the moment but at least I know everything else is working OK. Bit of a poor video as I only grabbed the phone and that was in my left hand.

Very nice Jason, I like the sound... chuff, chuff

George.

Are you permitted to make a heat retaining cowl around the hot tube? Just a bit of sheet to guide the flame so that all of the tube is heated and less heat is radiated away from the tube?

Mark it does have a shroud but it was making it hard to get the extra flame into the right spot so I took it off, did not get hot enough with it in place. Height of where the heat is applied will advance or retard ignition.

maybe a ring shaped burner?

Yes that is a possibility, the strange thing is a few of us over on MEM have all been building at the same time and use the same burner but mine is the only one not getting hot, Graham has suggested reducing the OD of the tube so will try that first.

With my hot air motors I use the valve, jet, and bunsen section of Primus gas camp stoves, and fit a ring burner . The burners that I use have three rows of holes, and a 60 mm inside dia on has 15 holes (1.5 mm) per row, this is for a motor with a 35 mm hot cap. A gap of 10 mm to 15 mm around your hot tube, 12 holes per row is probably all you can fit in.. I make my burners by using two concentric bits of tube (drill all the burner holes on the inner tube, then braze end plates on. Early on in my time of building these motor I got some old truck drive shafts, a great source of steel tube, and that's what I use.

Your motor runs great, but I was (as you were)disappointed when it needed assistance from another torch. You will soon get it sorted.

Ian S C

Decided to do a bit of decorative machining on the entablature of my VS Cross, thanks to an idea from Jim Nic...



<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TFkARL-oAAM" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

George.

Had trouble embedding video in above mail so 2nd try...

Is it set to public?

That looks good George (but then, I would say that wouldn't I?)

How is it running now?

Jim

Thanks Jim; it was running not too bad on trials ( see video ) have a couple of air leaks top & bottom cylinder covers, can be sorted with paper joints. Have started stripping it down for titivating here & there, cylinder cladding to do, looking at combining exhausts into single manifold ( similar to yours ) plus other bits 'n' pieces, as one does so...

George

Just managed to get the Otto cylinder onto the mill table without too much hanging off each end to mill the 24 flutes. Bit of a difficult one to set he as the section to be fluted is tapered and the depth of the cut needs to decrease as it goes up the column to get classic Ionic column proportions. Its good enough but could have done with being about 0.2mm higher at the left hand end.

I used the Rotary Table from ARC as it is 72:1 which makes it easy to do 24 divisions as it is just 3 turns of the handle. Quite like using this one and it did not even give me an odd spacing on the last flute

Edited By JasonB on 29/05/2018 15:15:12

Nice one Jason, superb bit of machining, must put set up into memory banks for future ref... if I can find where they are .

George.

NBice work Jason, a bit more ambitious than my fluted pillars...

What, preparing early for this year's candlestick challenge?

Regards,

Richard

George

You may have to do a bit of head scratching to combine the exhaust ports on your Vertical Cross because looking back I see you have done them to plan and put them on the side of the valve chest. I had planned to combine them from the off and so put mine in the face of the chest so that a simple cover plate and some longer studs made it easy.

The additional cover plate has a shallow groove in the back covering the 2 ports and then a hole through from the groove to the front with a connector flange silver soldered in.

Jim

Noted already Jim thanks, churning the grey matter over as to which way to go also considering that it would be awkward to fit cladding banding on as well... ho hum, never mind, there's always an answer somewhere, just arriving at it takes a fair bit longer these days... ... thanks again for your help along the way.

George.