Hi all,

I'm reasonably new to this site, but used the excellent thread about the Firefly 46 by Jason B to recently build my own. Couldn't have done it without the thread so thanks very much.

I had been wanting to get into model engineering for a while, always fancied a lathe and seeing the thread pushed me over the edge so I splashed out and got a Warco WM240B and a WM14 mill (a christmas present to myself ).

I was pretty happy with my first attempt considering I hadn't used a lathe since high school 3 decades ago, so my next build is going to be the WT2527 by WTEngines and I'd thought I would post progress on here with the hope that people would keep my right. The engine is a 4 stroke 15cc glow.

Can't promise anything too speedy as I also build RC planes so it's a bit of a juggling act. Anyway I've just ordered the material from M-Machines (great service) and should receive that in the next few days.

So here goes, hope is of some interest.

Cheers Craig

I had a small bit of material around while waiting for the stock to arrive and couldn't wait to start so got started on the crankshaft. A few pics below. Made a holding block with retaining pins set on the required taper angle and also to use to mill the external radii.

Happy with the results. Looking forward to getting to the dozens of other parts.

Cheers

and there's my second mistake, calling David, George, sorry, (my excuse on that I deal with a lot of Middle Eastern clients and there names are quite often reversed.

ok, here's my first question. (I'm starting on the easy bits). The plans call for a drive washer and a drive washer cone (i.e. a split tapered bush that will compress onto the crankshaft when the prop nut is tightened.

The drive washer is aluminium but there is no mention of what material the split cone should be, although it is shown on the same plan page as other aluminium parts.

My thoughts given that is going to be under compression and will receive rotational force that it needs to be steel and not aluminium. In my head I feel that two aluminium sufaces in contact like that would bind and potentially fuse.

Any opinions?

Cheers Craig

well, i thought it was quite a productive evening, got the drive washer cone done (in brass) and happy with tolerances.

The wife had a differennt opinion

worked on the prop driver. had a bit of a problem trying to get the internal taper on such a small hole. 11.3mm dia at the largest on 6 degrees, but got there in the end.

I will cut the grooves to grip the prop in the front face of the driver once I get a involute cutter, which I will need for the timing gears anyway.

also made a bit of progress on the main crankcase today. Was a lot of work to get the 70x70mm stock down to size (45×46, plus the mounts), but got there in the end, ankle deep in swarf. Now starting to work on the mounts.