What Did You Do Today 2019

I've been faffing about with hot pressing the strakes for my traction engine wheels this weekend; well yesterday actually, today I've been flying the tow plane at the local gliding club. For the moment suffice it to say it gets quite exciting when you drop a strake at 850°C from the furnace.

I also drilled a circle of holes in the wheel rim for the 36 strakes. I only drilled one row, the others will be done using the strakes as a jig. I didn't think using dividers would be accurate enough for marking out - think accumulated errors. So I used a rotary table and a right-angle drive on the mill:

The handle on the rotary table clashed with the rim support bars so I took it off and lined up each hole by eye. Of course 36 is an easy division of a circle so I only needed to line up on each 10 degree line - simples.

Andrew

Happiness is deciding to cut a thread... and discovering your lathe already has the right change gears fitted This is for a guidescope.

Also fitted a new heater cartridge to my 3D printer so back in action (turns out its a dodgy cable not a blown heater cartridge).

Other activity has been with brown stuff.

I wanted a case for a new bass, so I got a cheesy bass case I made back in the 80s out of my dad's loft. It was too shallow so last weekend I made a very nice new case (just awaiting hinges). As for the old one I've cut it down to suit my first ever electric guitar (which is very thin bodied), fitted new ends and strips to get the bow out of one hardboard side. Lined with foam, still to add a layer of recycled dog-blanket for full padding. I have the choice of covering it with leatherette, but it has lots of 80s stickers 'No Star Wars', 'Say No To Drugs', 'Heddwych'... not to mention vintage guitar string labels. I might just round the corners and apply thick varnish. It will probably only be used for storage, not transportation.

Incidentally, the one thing you really want for these cases are stay or stop hinges that open about 95 degrees. They are like hen's teeth in sensible sizes. I got two sets, one too small, the other (widely available) type needs a case at least 2" deep on one side. Finally found some stayless stop hinges as new old stock, not as robust as the stayed type, still waiting for them to arrive...

Neil

EDMES ran the portable track at the community association Easter fair where we meet. I managed to arrive too late to help with the track assembly so after a while went inside for some lunch and out of the perishing cold wind. After a prolonged chat trying to recruit a couple of unsuspecting small gauge modellers I returned outside to find they had called it a day and were packing up again. Still we made a few bob for club finds.

Finished a pair of water gauge sight glass nuts for the Polish tank engine:-

They're 1.67" AF hex - started from 55mm diameter LG2 round bar. The thread is what I'll call 1.7/16" x 12 TPI, for want of a better description. Hexes were done on a Bridgeport clone with a dividing head.

I had a sample nut to work from, but without the tubular tail. In the water gauge currently fitted to the engine, the vertical glass tube's enclosed in a rectangular perspex box with a red line painted on it to indicate the water level.

They don't like this and asked for the tail to go down to water level. When I deliver the bits I'll ask 'em why, 'cos it seems a bit pernickety to me.

I cut the thread mostly rotating the chuck by hand, because screwcutting under power close up to an internal shoulder, when you can't disengage the halfnuts and it's hard to see the tooltip, seems like courting disaster to me. My metric WM250V has a 63 tooth change gear, not 127, so the 12 TPI setting can only be approximate - but fortunately both nuts screw on to the sample water gauge spigot they lent me - after I'd cut the thread ...

Nut tails down to the proper water level?

That seems very odd! Wrong in fact A shroud UP to the minimum level to help give a larger safety margin, yes, but DOWN? Perhaps they are thinking of maximum level to help avoid priming, but still above the red line.

Unless I have a screw-cutting tool that gives the full thread profile, I cut nearly to size then finish the thread to size by tap or die. That also completes the profile and would correct very small pitch errors.

++++

Writing this over a post-lunch cuppa, in a break from trying to fit a DRO to the Myford mill. The long (X) feed's on and tested, but fitting the Y and Z sensors and strips will need a lot of awkward metalwork.

Also, I don't yet know the effect of having a moving magnetic strip and fixed sensor on the long axis, and moving sensor with fixed strips on the other two. It might give opposing negative-going directions making the normal single-corner datum awkward. I'll have to study the handbook carefully to see if the console allows single-axis poling.

I have a question about the actual 'O' ring you used. The majority of seals easily available are black in colour. I have seed silicone rings which look red/brown and some green 'O' rings, what type are the ones in the picture and who stocks them?

Ian P

Yes, the shrouds seem odd. I even suggested slot-drilling a couple of windows over most of the length of the tail so as to observe the level of the water if it was covered, but they said emphatically "no, we certainly don't want that!" Hopefully it'll all come clear...?

As for finishing off the screwcut thread with a tap; of course, that'd be wonderful if one was available in that oddball size...!

A 63 tooth gear for metric/imperial conversion gives an error of only 0.0125% if used in the correct direction (63*2.54=160.02). So it's not all that approximate.

You will probably find that there is a menu option which allows you to change the up/down reading direction. On mine you hold down a button whilst you switch it on, can't remember which, but I have the manual I could look it up if it helps

Thanks - I thought it'd probably be OK, and it seems to be.

Yes, the maximum level is what they're interested in - I asked today as I delivered the bits. Apparently this engine has its current water gauge mounted too high, and the convention among cab crews is that any level visible in the sight tube is within limits.

So the objective of the tail is to push down the max limit, and the cost of this is more careful maintenance of levels due to the reduced range.

So at a glance it's hard to tell if the boiler is over full or under full?

Ouch...

Neil

Well, that'd always be true if you didn't see the meniscus and couldn't tell if the tube had water in it or not. The idea is to make sure you can see it, below the tail of the top nut and above the bottom nut. Just the space between the two is reduced from maybe 10 inches to about 8 (memory guesses), so you have to check it a bit more often. The gauge is only mounted a couple of inches high - that's my understanding.

And I'm not going to get into dispute with those guys who've been puffing that engine up and down the line for years...

Having sold two of my stationary engines last weekend I now have a space in my garage so yesterday I built a work bench with a storage shelf underneath, the bench is made from a 50mm kitchen worktop and 4" x 2" treated timber.

Martin P

Take a good long look at that space, my forecast is it lasts about six hours before you never see it again...

Neil,

I just did and there is more space because I've transfered the contents of the old work tool bag into two tool cabinets, the shelf for under the bench will be made tomorrow and the only time the space will disappear is when I plonk half of my 20 stone frame on a stool and my legs slide under it

Martin P

Methinks a few of us are going through a minor epidemic of mancavious cleanupitis; I've just spent most of this afternoon cleaning up & lubing my WM250V-F, even to the point of removing the headstock gear guard & hoovering out all the detritus that seemed to have appeared over the past 6 months, followed up with tissue & white spirits wipe over then lubing, I can see Warco green now. . I think I might have a fever as I am going to start on the mill next... .

George.

Adams oiler was leaking on my ML7, (it's about fifty years old but appeared to be in excellent condition, apologies to other ML7 owners who will know what comes next!) would empty itself over two or three days. I had a good look at it, oil seemed to be leaking past the needle. I removed it from the machine, couldn't see any problem with it, I thought there might be some debris holding the needle off the seat. So it took it apart, I carefully examined the plastic bowl for cracks - nothing! I checked and cleaned the other parts and decided to reassemble. When I picked up the plastic bowl, it fell apart into four pieces, there were cracks radiating out from the hole in the top. It seems that removing the top nut allowed the bowl to change shape and crack. I still don't know why it was leaking but I don't suppose it matters now.

I'm now looking for some 30mm glass tube. Have you seen the price of small drip feed oilers?, 50ml ones are about £3.50 frim China, why are they asking £22.50 for 25ml ones?

Daveb

Me too, been 'bottoming out' my workshop (two days so far) It must be the Spring cleaning bug. Built quiet a sizable scrap heap outside but I know full well that I'll spend tomorrow retrieving most of it as 'too good to throw' probably until next years Spring clean and ditto repeato.

Guy