Stuart ‘Victoria’ : a beginners tale..

[GarryCParticipant @garryc]

Day 27.

Fixing the Front Cylinder Cover.

Did this the same way as the Rear Cover. I failed to realise early enough the importance of getting the two bracket holes (the longer studs) parallel with the port face and have now made it more difficult I think to make the brackets to fit ensuring the port face is horizontal…. again it seems foolish now to have missed that, Rear Cover as well of course…

The two lower holes I think needed to be countersunk as they will be behind (and out of sight) the Cylinder Support Bracket.

Same with the Rear Cylinder Cover.

The Cylinder so far.

Regards

Allan.

[Steve WithnellParticipant @stevewithnell34426]

On my Victoria, I took a light skim off both sides of the steam chest to tidy up. My steam chest is made of two standard steam chest castings.

Ive a feeling I cleaned up the steam chest ends by skimming in the lathe.

Steve

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Allan

Super work so far; when parting off the eliptical bar, did it not give you a whacking intermittant cut on the parting tool until you got to full diameter, what RPM where you running at, I gather you were using a indexible insert parting tool (type?),&, what feed were you using (autofeed / manual)? curious to know for future ref.

George

Edited By mechman48 on 01/10/2013 19:40:43

[GarryCParticipant @garryc]

Hi George

Thanks for the kind words. Just before starting 'Victoria' I purchased a Glanze Parting Tool and it has been brilliant. Previous attempts at parting off had almost always involved stopping and winding out to increase the width of cut and sometimes the whole thing binding, although a lot due to bad technique on my part no doubt. Using the Glanze tool has been totally different, I simply slow down to about 300 – 350 RPM and feed slowly manually (I'm sure someone on here will advise if this is not a correct approach – it has worked great for me so far..), I have not yet had even a slight hint of binding. The eliptical bar was as smooth as Parting a round bar, all the way through – I can't recommend it enough. It cost about £50 but its well worth it I think. The one I purchased here – http://www.glanze.co.uk/acatalog/Starter_Sets_of_Clamp_Type_Parting_Tools.html I ordered a few more spare blades with it..

Are you just starting out in Model Engineering like me?

Cheers

Allan.

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Hi Allan

See my profile summary; drop me a pm if you want to chat more.

George

[GarryCParticipant @garryc]

Day 28.

The Cylinder Support Brackets (1).

Been struggling with these and am still only about half way through – I made things more difficult by my own earlier inaccuracies and not enough time spent understanding how things fit together….

The Angle Iron supplied for the 2 Brackets.

The Cylinder Support Bracket Drawing.

Milling the Cylinder Support Brackets to length.

Drilling the fixing holes.

Test fitting the Cylinder Support Brackets to the base.

Test fitting the Cylinder between the brackets. I had to take a light skim off each bracket to get to fit.

Had to measure the holes individually to get square etc – a result of earlier errors with the Cylinder Cover stud holes.

Setting up the Rotary Table to centre – my first play with this..

Milling the Cylinder Support Bracket.

The brackets so far. The ugly front pieces will disappear. They don't look pretty but they do fit and hold the Cylinder Square – just need to take a slight skim off the Front Cylinder Cover to decrease the diameter of the area around the gland boss, the rear fits around the Cylinder Cover nicely. It all would have so much more straight forward if I had understood the drawing better when doing the Cylinder and Covers..

Regards

Allan.

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Hi Allan

Are you sure you use your milling machine… it looks cleaner than a surgeons sterilised pre op kit… or straight out of the box , just kidding; never the less very nice work

Cheers

George

[GarryCParticipant @garryc]

Cheers George.

Day 29.

The Cylinder Support Brackets (2).

A bit more time spent milling and the brackets at least look a little better. I have found this to be the most difficult thing to get right so far – not helped by my earlier mistakes of course. The end result not very good but passable (for me anyway), at least I'm still on track and know where I went wrong which is the main thing on this 1st project..

Decided not to remove as much metal as the drawing suggests due to the previous errors probably weakening the brackets..

Test fitting the front bracket, had to skim a small taper in the bottom of both brackets to get the cylinder to sit all square (did both at the same time). Hopefully that will not notice too much..

'

The Brackets from another angle.

The rear bracket..

Regards

Allan.

[GarryCParticipant @garryc]

Day 30.

The Upper Guide Bars.

These very similar and done in the same way as the Lower Guide Bars but needing a bit more work..

Upper Guide Bars Drawing.

Milling the Taper on the Upper Guide Bars.

The Upper Guide Bars Completed 1.

The Upper Guide Bars Completed 2.

The Upper Guide Bars Completed 3.

Test Fitting the Upper Guide Bars to Base Studs 1.

Test Fitting the Upper Guide Bars to Base Studs 2.

Regards

Allan.

[simondavies3Participant @simondavies3]

Allan,

if you were to rework your support brackets, I would turn them up the other way such that the only bit that you machined was the vertical part of the angle. That way you would not machine the other half of the angle in the process, significantly weakening it as you noted.

My other comment is that I would suggest laying the angle down and clamping it to the mill table on top of a spacer of scrap aluminium or even wood when machining the ends using the sides of the end mill. This means the setup is far stiffer rather than the angle standing up waving in the breeze and you can machine in the angled sides at the same time rather than later.

Very impressed with your work and your speed of progress. My first machine was a Unimat3 which I used to build a ST double 10 but this probably took 6 months to complete, you seem to be running and learning at a remarkable pace.

[GaryMParticipant @garym]

Hi Allan,

I've been following your build log from the beginning. It has a lot of similarities to the S50 I'm building although the Victoria is larger and more complex. You are dealing with many of the same problems I am, so the comments and suggestions are proving useful. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Gary

[GarryCParticipant @garryc]

Simon

Thanks Simon, I did get into trouble with the Cylinder Support Brackets not only with the hole alignment but also with the size of the radius trying to make it fit the incorrectly turned Cylinder Covers. It has taught me to place much more importance on taking the time to understand the drawing as a whole and not just as separate pieces.

The end result fortunately is perhaps not as bad as the photos suggest – and all the little errors on this first project will serve as reminders to approach those things differently on future ones..

I hope to upgrade particularly my Lathe in the future and maybe look at a Myford or similar, but the SIEG SC4 is going to have to suffice for the next couple of projects I think.

Gary

Thanks for the feedback, its nice to know someone has been following from the beginning. We seem to have followed similar paths. The Simple Oscillating Engine you completed looks the same as the one I did, I have to say you made a much better job of yours though, very nice. I thought about trying the S50 but opted for Victoria because it was a bit larger – my eyesight is not quite what it was and thought I would find the larger size easier.

I get as just much from the learning process as the actual work and seem and try to learn something new everytime I'm in the workshop, its all very very basic stuff at the moment, especially to most folk on here I'm sure but non the less interesting for it to me e.g. yesterday doing the guide bars – most of the work up until now has been with the castings or in brass but the Guide Bars were in Mild Steel, the first attempt at drilling and my drill seemed to not want to know, the material seemed just too hard or so I thought and couldn't make it out for a while, I had similar problems with the Lower Guide Bars but had just about managed. A slight extra tightening of the clamps holding the workpiece and the drill went through it like butter, they were already tight just not tight enough apparently – I was amazed! Maybe it's as they say – simple things to simple…

John

Thats interesting thanks. I don't have a boiler at the moment, haven't thought that far ahead yet. I hope I get the chance to try somethings 'large' scale in the future after upgrading some of my equipment though.

Sorry I've been waffling on a bit..

Cheers

Allan.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Thats an interesting theory John as virtually all steam engines such as locos and traction engines all have the regulator on the inlet side as do stationary engines with governors have the inlet controlled by the governor. Have we all been doing it wrong?

Maybe it worked on the pump as the liquid is being sucked by the piston which is powered rather than the gas/liquid pushing against the piston to make it move?

J

Edited By JasonB on 14/10/2013 07:33:21

[GaryMParticipant @garym]

Maybe it's like trying to ride a bike slowly (as in mountain biking). If you apply the brakes when pedalling it is easier to ride very slowly. It sounds odd, but it works. Although, that is more like putting a brake on the flywheel.

Gary

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Throttling the exhaust on a loco will screw up the efficiency, which is why it isn't done. Two reasons – with regulator wide open you notch up the valves to control speed, getting more expansive working= better efficiency.

Other reason is thermodynamics. throttling a steam supply increases the temperature of the steam. regulator can introduce a small amount of superheat this way.

Theoretical efficiency is limited by difference in temperature difference across the system so regulator after makes less efficient by increasing temperature of exhaust.

Not an issue in something like a pneumatic drill.

Neil

[GarryCParticipant @garryc]

Day 31.

The Guide Bar Supports.

I used these to experiment a little with trying to get a decent finish. Up until now I was getting an ok finish by slowing to about 150 – 200rpm (the feed rate auto adjusts to the speed and is not adjustable). The Lathe starts at about 100rpm but I had thought that would be too slow to cut, but not so, dropping to 100rpm upgraded the finish from a clean and bright but rough to the touch finish to something approaching smooth and shiny – thought I would be unable to get that with such a small Lathe so a nice surprise..

The Lower Guide Bar Support Drawing.

The Upper Guide Bar Support Drawing

Drilling the Lower Guide Bar Supports.

The Lathe Tool I normally use on the right but I used the one on the left to do the Upper Guide Bar Supports.

Drilling the Upper Guide Bar Supports.

Parting Off one of the Lower Guide Bar Supports.

Test fitting the Guide Bar Supports.

Regards

Allan.

[simondavies3Participant @simondavies3]

Allan,

some (hopefully helpful) criticism:

My immediate thought when I saw your photos was " wow, that's a long way out of the chuck, must be a long support". The later shots of parting off confirmed that you really were working a loooooong way from the chuck.

I am sure that others here will be able to comment further but personally I would have the material sticking out of the chuck by about 1/8", 3mm max from the point where you expect to part it off. This will give you significantly more support, allow deeper cuts to be made and improve the surface finish. Additionally, it should improve your parting off experience – I have visions of that part digging in during parting, bending, digging in further and eventually snapping or breaking something…

So I would have 3/8" plus the width of the parting off tool, plus any tooling clearance to the chuck, plus a 'comfort zone' clearance to he chuck jaws = 5/8" maximum from the chuck jaws to the end of the material to be machined. 

Hope that helps,

Simon

Edited By Simon0362 on 17/10/2013 12:56:13

[GarryCParticipant @garryc]

Hi Simon

Thanks, criticism is very welcome. You are correct of course. I had tried to clean up the bar with a very slight slow cut right down its length – then thought not to mark the nice finish in the chuck jaws and left the whole bar hanging out of the chuck, with no support…. I can see it was a wrong approach now.

Something I will watch out not to do in the future, thanks again.

Cheers.

Allan

[GarryCParticipant @garryc]

Day 32.

The Lever Bridge.

This was the first time I had tried side milling. The bar was firstly faced off to length in the Lathe and a base milled flat to measure from. The central hole was marked and set to run true in the Lathe, the small diameter hole was drilled all the way through the bar and then opened out half way to the large diameter at the same setting. I then marked and drilled the fixing holes. The slots were milled and then the rounded tops. The first 'section' of side milling the tops I got wrong by trying to work out the measurements exactly using the mill scales but the second I simply set so the cutter just clipped the corners and then decreased the radius each cut and the result was much better and looked ok, at least to my eye – learning again.. The overall end result again far from perfect but again ok to me for this first project as I hope to have found a method to work with in the future for the simple 'rounding off' of corners..

The Lever Bridge Drawing, sorry bit out of focus.

The Supplied Bridge Bar Faced Off to Length.

Setting the Central Hole to Run True.

Starting to Mill the Bridge.

The 'Square' Milling done.

The Setup for Side Milling the Rounded Tops.

Test fitting the Bridge.

Regards.

Allan.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Looks fine from here.

[Geoff~Participant @geoff46085]

Allan,

Very interesting thread. What lathe and mill do you use?

Geoff~

Edited By Geoff Prince on 20/10/2013 21:24:58

[roy entwistleParticipant @royentwistle24699]

Allan I think you will find that it should be up at the other end of the slide bars

Just a thought and can I ask do you never use hand tools like files ?

Roy

[GarryCParticipant @garryc]

Thanks Jason.

Thanks Roy – oops!

The Bridge in the right place.

In case anyone may be interested in the overall drawing.

Thanks Geoff.

The SIEG SC4 Lathe from Axminster Tools.

The Champion 16V Mill from Chester Tools.

I have nothing but praise for both equipment (and Companies) – anyone thinking of buying either don't be put off by my results they are capable of much better thats for sure.

Hope to progress to some 'old british' types in the future…..

Regards

Allan.

[GarryCParticipant @garryc]

Sorry Roy – in answer to your question – I'm a hopeless case when it comes to files and filing and never happy with the end result, so I tend to avoid whenever I can..

Cheers.

Allan.

[Geoff~Participant @geoff46085]

Allan,

Many thanks for the pictures. Have sent you a PM.

Geoff~

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