What did you do today? 2023

Today was brakes day, noticed a squeal which rapidly progressed into a grinding sound from my back brakes on the focus yesterday, so bought new pads and disks...

Turns out the OEM pads don't have an audible indicator for pads wearing close to being spent, so it went from "feels fine" to "metal on metal" with limited warning (I knew the pads needed doing soon because of pedal travel, but not like that). So got some Brembo ones which do, so I don't have to do the disks when these wear out.

Took the opportunity to teach my missus how to do vehicle breaks, as her MX5 developed a sticky caliper last night, cue much juddering... The IR camera showed the disk heating up to 176°C during the ten minute limp home.

So tomorrow I'll talk her through doing that, and deciding if she needs to replace the disk or not (marginal at that temperature), as she's quite keen on knowing how to maintain and work on her own vehicle (this began when she bought the MX5, and has progressed into wanting to maybe build a Track or Drift Car).

Will definitely have the big propane torpedo heater out with us too, ran that today whilst doing the focus and it working on a car in the gravel much more pleasant on a cold day.

Got the diesel heater working.

A certain amount of discovering that the very top connection in the system didn't seal and is now dripping diesel as you prime it then having to cut into a full pipe overhead to fit a new olive was involved... So the sweet sweet smell of success does smell oddly like a diesel soaked hoody.

Once running it's pretty solid, the ducting works well to distribute the heat and the exhaust protection (a duct full of rockwool sealed with fire cement) has proved effective enough, keeping the temperature down to 57 on the outside when the exhaust itself is running at 180-220C.

Will need to tidy up the installation a bit now I know it all works. Clip the cables and microbore tube, etc.

Watching youtube vids on building a battery charger for small Yuasa lead-acid 12v battery. It's at times like this I miss having Maplins just a few miles away. I would rather buy components from a shop.

Well, started a few days ago....

Started to work out how and where to install a belt-type vari-speed drive for my Denbigh H4 mill, and realised my best move is to fit the motor to the unit's original motor-plate. This needs new mounting-slots.

The plate is held to the rest of the machine by several cheese-head screws well stuck in their counterbores, so needed an impact-wrench driver to loosen them.

Cannot find anywhere the driver I have owned for years... Trip to Eurocarparts to order one.

Collected it yesterday morning; used the sunshine and trip out as the excuse to go for a walk on a stretch of coast path I had never previously explored (I've lived in this area only since 1959).

Started using it in the afternoon, and the screwdriver tip broke in about the third screw. It appeared sort of hardened but not tempered, and I was using only light hammer-blows. Luckily I completed the work with the second bit.

TODAY: Returned to the shop, receipt in hand, to order a new tip.

Too cold to inspire me but I made myself walk to my usual corner shop (exercise!), then go to the workshop in the early evening. Overalls, extra socks, fleece hat - and leather gloves to handle a lot of cold steel.

Moved the mill, only a little, but so it is now at right-angles to the wall, centred to one of the columns supporting the overhead-crane rails. The crane just - gingerly - took enough of the milling-machine's weight for me to move it that few inches. In fact, simply rotating it round one of its holding-down screws in the concrete floor.

I had originally put it at an angle to the wall, parallel but rather close to the adjacent Myford vertical mill. This simple rotation does two things (apart from moving surrounding clutter to another heap):

- Greatly improves access to both mills with little conflict with the Harrison lathe opposite the Denbigh. I tested that by standing on the normal spot for using the lathe. If anything it will tend to stand me slightly further from the revolving chuck. The cranked handle for the mill's knee was jabbing me in the back so I turned it back to front, pointing inwards! If that seriously affects using it, I could make it readily removable.

- Greatly simplifies making the mounting frame for the Denbigh's overhead drive, as it is all now closely square to the wall, and I can use the crane-rail column within it.

Then time for tea.

Spent a hour or so this morning in the workshop making a piston for a friends 50+ year old Diana air pistol. A bit of turning, drilling, counterbore & grooving on some PB1 bronze. Fitted an "O" ring as a seal.

Some not very good Photos here

regards

Returned to designing (using the term loosely) my steam-wagon's transmission.

I wanted to know the tooth-count on the differential sprocket, on a rear axle I'd made, umm, a lot of years ago but still needs some detail work doing.

The sprocket and various lengths of chain I'd amassed are all "new to me" stuff but it didn't occur to me to examine them closely at the time. It was only when the chain would not wrap round the sprocket properly, that I found it is a metric gear - evidence supported by careful measuring - but the driving sprocket and chain are Imperial!

So now the chassis is propped up an ungainly angle on axle-stands; the axle out and partly dismantled, the sprocket removed from the diff. casing, to work out which to replace. ( The differential is an ex- Austin front-wheel drive unit modified to operate the prototypical, traction-engine type, axle.)

Then to wind up TurboCad to see how to squeeze the two-speed transmission gears into the space available while keeping the outwards appearance close to the spirit of the 114 year old photographs that are my primary "drawings".

Since none of the originals were identical in detail, judging by the contemporary photos, Inspector Meticulous cannot complain too much; but I don't want to deviate too much from them.

Spent most of Sunday trying to set the Stevenson valve gear on my loco. After a few hours decided I really had no idea what I was doing. Watched rugby instead.

Paul -

If you've not already done so, ask on the Locomotives section, identify the loco and describe the problem and your attempts to solve it in more detail, you may find others who can help, possibly ones who have built the same engine.

For now the basic rule is that the engine is all symmetrical: eccentric throws and rod-lengths, port dimensions, valve travel about the port-face centre-line, port openings at both ends of the and both forwards and reverse.

There may be something inherent in the specific locomotive's design that makes valve-event symmetry difficult to achieve, necessitating a degree of compromise. However, if all the parts are as they should be, it should not be too difficult to time the valves correctly - though it may be a bit long-winded if you have to keep removing the eccentric-straps to adjust the sheave settings.

Spent yesterday tackling a leak on my workshop roof, it was leaking from a box gutter that was where two existing sheds were side by side and converted into one building forming my workshop. The box gutter had been formed using Sterling board and then a couple of layers of torch on felt. My son in law, who is a lead worker, suggested that the felt in the box gutter would be better replaced with lead, the gutter is two metres long about 100 mm deep and 260 mm wide. When we exposed the Sterling board we found a fair amount of rot so we had to cut back and replace more than intended, no problem though it is now rebuilt with 19 mm exterior ply. The gutter is now lined with lead and well and truly solid, hopefully leaks all sorted now. The only drawback to working outside on a roof in January is the cold, it was bitter cold and only 2 degrees C, we didn’t get finished until the sun went down so getting even colder then. Dave W

as well as the good advice from Nigel, get a copy of Don Ashton's book on Stephenson's.

I prefer to do my silver soldering out of doors rather than in the workshop. I had hoped to do a little silver soldering job today but it's so cold outside I don't think the propane will want to come out of the bottle.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

Started assembling my steam-wagon's ash-pan (Version 3...)

It is D-shaped in plan - a circle with two tangential sides - to accompany the vertical cylindrical firebox.

Top and floor of 1mm steel sheet "flanged" wiv an 'ammer over a former cut from an old car brake-disc, side wall rolled from 40 X 1 mm steel strip from B&Q. The top has a circular hole flanged inwards, for rigidity. This accommodates the downwards projection of the inner firebox.

The sheet material was an old heating boiler panel, supplied by a friend in the building & plumbing trade.

I'd discounted welding even by MIG, in favour of rivets that would be more prototypical anyway, although nearly invisible when installed. It is temporarily held together by little M3 hex.-socket, round-head screws and nuts, but those will probably become permanent as they resemble rivets, especially when painted over.

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I do own a "jenny" but cannot get the hang of using it to flange discs. I end up simply mangling the metal.

Replaced a dripping ball valve in the expansion tank (F&E tank). We have recently had an extension built and I initially thought it was tthe increased capacity of the central heating system causing the periodic drips. But no, there was a slow drip from the valve, and bending of the ball valve lever arm failed to fix it.

I bought a replacement, intending to replace just the front part of the valve, but I caused a slight leak in the copper pipe feeding the valve in trying to undo the parts. So I replaced the lot.

So now I have an aching back from sitting on joists working in a cold loft. Getting too old for this!

Bill

Finally got round to fitting new drive belts on the Harrison mill I picked up for a pittance, substituting the awkward "release tension on the motor" step for brute force and ignorance, which sped the job up considerably.

With the new (and crucially not perished) belts it no longer creates an ear splitting din.

Followed up by getting the coolant pump working, and freshening up the gearbox oil... The power feed motor is still kaput, but I quite want to fit a reversing switch for that anyway, so no biggie for now.

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I also worked out a solid plan for how to adapt the vertical heat I bought to fit the mill, it's a lot more involved than I wanted it to be requiring me to re-machine a rather large and awkwardly shaped casting, and make a fairly substantial weldment, with a parallellism between an inside and outside face...

But, doing it that way will allow me to both maximise the working envelope and achieve much greater rigidity.

My final debate is whether to cut the parts of the weldment myself with the cutting torch, or to send out to the profiler who could water jet them accurately ready for welding, I am leaning towards DIY as I have a suitable piece of 20mm S355 just sat there, but it will be much more effort to get the desired result.

Jelly, you need to buy yourself a plasma cutter. New toys are always better outsourcing jobs!

Laid the Vinyl floor in the new workshop. The floor is a sandwich of 22mm OSB, 60mm Kingspan Greenguard rigid foam ,18mm OSB t&g floor panels with the vinyl as a finishing touch. The rest of the building is 100mm SIPs.

I recently did... but my plasma will "only" cut upto about 12mm cleanly. I could achieve a "severance cut" in 20mm plate but it would be a much worse quality cut than doing a good job with the gas torch.

I probably don't need to use 20mm thick steel for the job, but I'm working on the assumption that using steel rather than C.I. is going to increase the potential for vibration so I want to maximize mass and rigidity to compensate.

Did some small woodwork(It seems to like climb milling where possible(10mm4FL carbide endmill) on my mill to make swarf containers for vice using disk magnets & parts of face shields cut, face shields are cheap and cut well with a scissor to size wanted.

Lee the workshop build sounds interesting. Photos? more details? (in another thread to avoid topic concentration in this one.)

Today, I said au revoir to my lathe and the bulk of my workshop which is now in storage while I sell my house. My Bridgeport was sold just before Christmas, I’d looked at the cost of storing it but the size and shape of the Bridgeport meant I would need a storage container, the cost of the container and transporting the mill to it then onwards to where I’m moving to was prohibitive. The cheapest quote one prospective purchaser obtained was £500 to transport the mill 25 miles!

To keep me occupied until I’m reunited with my equipment, I’ve bought a little Taig on eBay and I’ll probably retrieve my old Sigma Jones Jig Borer and renovate/update it. I have a bench drill, but its seen better days. Any serious milling and drilling will have to go to my model engineering club.

Apologies for the rotated photo, I hope that a Moderator will edit it to portrait orientation in my post and album. I fail to understand why this forum defaults photos to landscape mode and has no visible means of correcting the orientation. I searched Neil’s Sticky, but the discussion petered out with the assumption that photos should naturally be in Landscape mode.

Edited By GordonH on 01/02/2023 23:44:57

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 02/02/2023 09:42:10