Friction Turning a Smoke Box Door

Hi I thought this would be of interest to you chaps. Friction Turning a Smoke Box door for a 5" Gauge Loco. Basically what I've done is covered the face plate with masking tape and trapped the door up against the face plate using a running centre the friction gives enough drive to enable you to machine across the face.

This video will shows you how

Edited By Stewart Hart on 29/07/2018 11:25:06

Edited By Stewart Hart on 29/07/2018 11:25:58

That's pretty nifty, and apposite as I'm turning the smokebox doors for my traction engines at the moment. It has the advantage of giving the relatively sharp edges as per full size. Idea has been filed!

The fly in the ointment though is that I need to fit two nameplate rings to the front of the door. In order to ensure they're a good fit I need an accurately defined profile that I can reproduce on the underside of the nameplates.. So for the moment I'll go with plan A, which is to use hydraulic copy unit in profiling mode to create an accurate curve.

Andrew

A good result Stew. Another technique filed away for the future.

Jim

There's been a recent alternative using masking tape on the faces of both the work and the faceplate, then using cyanoacrylate (superglue) to join them. Loads of examples on Youtube and the technique seems to be pretty dependable. Essentially it's making up an ad hoc double sided tape with excellent gap filling properties that can be parted afterwards without damaging the part.

Murray

I have used double sided fibre reinforced carpet tape in such situations. The problem is not getting it to stick, but getting the work off undamaged afterwards. Warming the work up helps.

Regards

Richard.

Hi Stewart,

It's a neat trick, I use double sided carpet tape. easy to shift after turning with the use of sticky lable remover.

Regards,

Bob

Thanks for your comments Chaps,

I've used the double sided tape and supper glue in the past especially where you can't use the running centre to clamp the parts, but in cases where you can the masking tape works just as well if not better:- what is does is improve the coefficient of friction between the parts giving you more grip against a steel on steel drive.

One of the trouble with using the double sided tape or adhesive is that the heat generated by machining can cause is to come unstuck, and then you've got the added job of cleaning the stuff off afterwards.

Cheers

Stew