The Workshop Progress thread 2018

I'm reckoning that the amount of projects that Jason has expertly completed he must have a display industrial unit to give them all justice. You can't help but admire the quality and quantity of his work.

As few of the hit & miss engines have gone to other homes, infact it was nice to see one again at the recent Bristol show. Others are on shelves, in cabinets of filling up the wide window cills around the house and the 2" traction engine lives in the conservatory.

I cut another notch into the workshop door frame today

First test run of my 24mm bore Robinson Hot Air Engine all from scratch except the Stuart 10series flywheel. Still needs some tweaks but it's a runner.

Sorry video is a bit jumpy but I was holding a blowtorch under it with my right hand and trying to hold the camera with my left. Blue tube and most of the noise is an airline to cool the engine rather than filling with water at this stage.

Edited By JasonB on 27/08/2018 17:15:10

Nice smooth action there Jason.

George.

Did a little bit more work on my boxer twin oscillator, cylinders & pistons, support brackets, the right hand cylinder proves the cliché... measure twice, cut once, had to make a top hat to bring it to length & Loctited in, probably make another one when I've made all the other pieces...





Support brackets...

The drawing shows the bottom hole as 12mm dia, I've made it 10mm as it looks more in proportion. I've actually Loctited two pieces together to make sure all sides & holes are symmetrical, it just needs the hypotenuse cutting & milling to size.

George.

Hi George,

I am also building an oscillator engine, ultimately to go in a small steam launch. I have started to draw it up in 3d to make sure it all fits. I don't trust drawings from the MAP series of books.

Hello Boiler Bri, looking good. Have never got round to getting into 3D or AutoCAD ( Fusion 360 these days ? ) myself, am into 70's now & still of the old school where Tech drawing was the norm. I did try AutoCAD some years ago when it fist appeared but was getting confused with constructing layers 1,2, etc, maybe my grey matter was not receptive enough at the time

George.

I started the engine because i keep looking at the stuff that Jason produces in such short time. I have been on with some of my big stuff for years and never see the end, so thought i would have a bash at a smaller project. If only to have it running on my desk running on air, i could at least say i have finished something!

Bri

Both looking good Gents. That's what I like about some of these smaller engines, they make a change from the usual and you end up with something that runs in a short space of time rather than just a couple more bits to add to a long build project.

Did a bit of clean up prior to final polish on support brackets & crank eccentrics...



Eccentrics, according to dwg... hmmm...



George.

I'm pleased to post in Workshop progress today because, after 9 months of no progress, I've had a bit.

It's been a work year so far with far too much time away from the shed (oh, and the family). But at last I've done something! Not much, but something.

We've been 'de-cluttering' and I decided to make a stand for one of my guitars.

here it is

And more attractively with guitar

What is (slightly) clever is the use of my 3D printer to make the connectors.

What's not terribly clear from the photo is that the the connectors for the A-Frame are angled in at 20 degrees each and back at 15. For those who poo-poo 3d Printers, I challenge you to make these brackets out of metal!

Iain

Post Scriptum. Please do not confuse possession of musical instruments with musical skill. I have some of the first and very little of the latter. Perhaps when I retire I will have the time to adjust the balance!

Milled the top and bottom faces of the milling machine raising block flat and parallel today. I did it on a rotary table to avoid any embarrassing steps caused by having to move the 14" diameter raising block to machine it in several passes on the 10" milling machine table. Probably an idiot thing to do, but it was quite relaxing turning the (extended) handle for several hours. Of course, because I was using the RT, even with the brake on, there was too much play to use a shell mill, so it was nibbled away with a 12mm endmill!

First I flattened a bit of precious ally plate, you can (sort of) make out the extended RT handle here:-

Then I clamped the raising block onto the ally plate:-

Finally, I whittled it flat:-

On the first side, there was a part of the circle that rang a little bit, due to the not-flat surface not being tight against the ally plate at that point. When I flipped it over and did the other side, it sat without any rocking and milled nice and evenly.

Next operation is to clamp it to the table, then face and bore the round bits at the end of the 'ears' so I can fit brackets to them. All in all a happy day's work.

Put the rivets in the plate in front of the smokebox and spotted, drilled, and tapped holes in the smokebox sides (below the footplates) so the smokebox is now attached properly.

It's about 2mm too far back because the exhaust manifold turned out that way. I'll live with it!

My current project of Stew Hart’s Overcrank engine is proving to be a little more of a challenge than I thought. However, if everything was easy life would be awfully boring so on we go.

Having opened out the cylinder bores, I got confused over the steam passages and made a bit of an upcock which required a couple more blanking plugs. I also decided on the spur of the moment to alter the design for the exhaust outlet to allow me to fit a pipe in place of the open port in the block. Here is the block with the blanks Loctited in place ready to be smoothed off.

The enlarged exhaust port is also clear but what is not apparent is that it lies in the way of one of the valve chest fixing studs so my “improvement” has caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

To give me time to recover and work out a solution I made the cylinder end caps.

Now for the steam chest and valves.

Jim

Nice work Jim, looking good.

Are those just very short studs in the cylinder end or are they extended into the cylinder wall thickness?

Keep the pics coming and can you put 6" rule in the pics so I get an idea of the scale.

ATB Geoff

Wow! Much workshop business!

Good to see so much great work in progress.

Neil

Thanks Geoff

The 7BA studs are 10.5mm long and the holes, which are 5mm deep, would probably just break through the outside cylinder wall if they went much deeper.

Jim

I want to try out my new scope this evening, but so I can set the focus witha a camera and leave it I had to make a short 5mm diameter length of nylon rod for the focus clamp.

Before starting I thought "should I seal up the anodising bath?" I thought, "no, I'll just be careful, I will probably use it later."

All I could find was an M6 nylon screw, which after some faff was just right, I offered it up to the parts of the focuser and went all butterfingers.

The focuser pressure block with the rod in it span towards the bench, hit it, bounced off at an angle and landed in my anodising bath...

Thought for a spilt second, grabbed it with bare hand and straight into the adjacent container full of washing soda solution for a quick fizz.

Straight off to the utility room sink and, yes you've guessed it.

As soon as the stream of the tap hit the block, the rod fell out and went straight down the plughole.

It took me considerably longer to find another nylon M6 screw than to turn up a new rod.

The lid is on the anodising bath now.

Neil

Filled the garden refuse bin to the top thought better clean up the garden.
I did dig up some spuds that's grown from the odd ones left in the ground from last year.
Managed to get into workshop this morning and did my first attempt at Tig coating stellite on a full size test piece cam follower.
Seems a lot easier than using oxy- acet have rough machined the test follower then a jig to make so can radius the foot.
Will play with the Alexander grinder and hope to do the follower foot radius with it otherwise could do it on the lathe or mill but don’t like grinding on them
The problem I have Tig welding have to do it without my specs even magnifier helmet lenses are not any good.
Very close up without specs things look large with no distortion bloody age related eye problem.

For speed nuts it's Elvington FIM and ACU record attempts this weekend.

Spent a couple of hours filing and die grinding the 10" Allman flywheel to a point where it is ready to be machined, looks a lot more promising now than when I got it.