I've been looking at getting a traction engine.

Henry, yes the regulator is basically a sliding block that uncovers a hole to allow the steam through.

By using a gear on the lathe spindle you can rotate the work by hand one notch at a time and therefore divide the work by the number of teeth the gear has.

Assuming you will be building to the Australian Code, check the PYRTE boiler meets that code before you commit.

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Bil,l My main hobby is sailing & virtually all summer I am away sailing abroad somewhere so any model engineering I do shares the winter with my other hobby of model RC plane flying. Hence the project has taken some time.

My main work shop is a 22ft * 11 ft purpose built concrete garage & I have Warco WM 250 lathe plus a WM 16 mill with DRO. Both are pretty basic & I kind of regret not getting better quality as it takes so long to do anything due to low power, lack of rigidity, poor electrics etc. I also have a Sealey metal bandsaw plus the usual pillar drill grinder etc in another workshop.

My PYRTE is the first that I have tried & I have made several errors but I have made everything I can up to the boiler which I now need to construct to finish the project. I am doing this last as this is the most expensive & I wanted to make sure that I could do all the cheapest bits first - which I have.

It is still a lot of fun making it & watching it come together though. The designer reckons 140 hours to make & when I have done this I will probably make another. The second could get done in 140 hours because I will not spend time trying to work out what the instructions are trying to say. There are few drawings which is a real pain

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Edited By Sam Longley 1 on 01/08/2018 13:43:26

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Bill if you click "62 Forum Posts" under Henry's name you will find another thread asking about lathe sizes which may help.

He has no Lathe or Mill, May be able to use some of Dads limited workshop.

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Apologies i misread but I can no longer edit the post out

Interesting comment Sam. I'd have said both machines perform comparably to others of similar size and power. Could it be you're expecting too much of them? Both are at the smallish end of the machine tool spectrum. Both are intended for hobby use rather than industrial production. Both have limitations.

Do you need more powerful machines or a lighter touch? Beefy second-hand and hefty Chinese are both available if you need to work fast. Quite a few on the forum to advise on big machines if you fancy a change.

I have to hurry once in a while, but usually get better results by letting tools work at a rate they're comfortable with. Truth is I lack the skills needed to consistently remove metal at speed and still get good finish and accuracy. Being a proper grown-up machinist isn't as easy as it looks and I still sometimes wish for the lathe equivalent of stabilizers on a kid's bike. The hobby can be a cruel teacher...

Dave

Yes it is a bit of an odd one when people keep commenting on how much I produce on similar sized equipment.

Maybe it is down to technique, I sometimes find it quicker to take two lighter cuts at a fast speed then slog away trying to take the same amount off in one pass at half the speed or less. It gets the vari speed machine working in the motors power band and as you are only removing half the amount far less strain on the machine that may not be rigid enough for an over large cut.

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The WMV250 regularly stops when taking quite light cuts. The switch often has to be pressed up to 6 times to get it to start. The flexing when things such as parting off has to be seen to be believed- yes everything is tight & I try to keep overhang down. My old Drummond M had better rigidity.

When I had my joinery business I had an old Colchester Master for odd jobs & it was in a totally different class. Unfortunately I was unable to keep it when I sold up & moved away.

The mill flexes all over the place & I find it difficult to mill anything of substance. I have watched Jason's videos & with the cutters he uses & speeds he suggests I cannot match anything like the cuts he does. Vibration is excessive. & the whole thing flexes badly.

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