What Did you do Today 2022

[DalboyParticipant @dalboy]

Cut the two slots in each buffer beam for the main chassis frames to fit into using a 3/32nd" milling cutter very slow as did not want to have to wait if I broke it, there also was a little filing as the cutter left a half circle at the end so had to square that up so the frames fitted right into them. They fit very snug so a nice push fit into them. This is the first of many dry fits. I need to make some brackets so they can be riveted together but that will have to wait as other stuff need doing before they can be fixed in place.

[John Doe 2Participant @johndoe2]

Last week my car electric windows needed to be reset – which only happens if the battery has been disconnected, (it hasn't been). Then, Mrs Doe reported that she was repeatedly flashed as she drove home, (in my car), so I suspected the rear lights had gone out.

The lights were OK when I tested them, so this and the windows tell me that the car electrical system might have an intermittent connection somewhere, (the battery is new and measures healthily). As a start, I disconnected the battery, (to avoid setting fault codes), and then removed and replaced every fuse and relay in both fuse boxes, spraying the contacts with contact cleaner as I did so.

This might cure the problem, but if it hasn't, I will have eliminated part of the system.

Edited By John Doe 2 on 02/02/2022 17:53:08

[brickyParticipant @bricky]

Yesterday I cut the male dovetails on the shaper ram.The ram is 13" long and the cuts were just possible on the SX3 with little to spare.The female base for the ram needs a slot 11" * 1 1/2" in the centre to allow for the scotch crank to pass through and I have been chain drilling with a slot drill and hope to finish it tomorrow, it's tedious work.

Frank

[Iain DownsParticipant @iaindowns78295]

Today (well yesterday) I made a 3×6 (or 75×150) fixture plate.

I was delighted to have the benefit of a DRO otherwise this would have been both messy and even more boring that it was. Here's one situation where a CNC would have been very nice. Just watching it whilst I had a cuppa.

The M6 tapped holes were all power tapped and that worked pleasingly well.

Finally, this was my first successful fly cutting operation. I shall do more! (also showed I need to tram my mill )

Iain

[DalboyParticipant @dalboy]

Not just today anyway I have managed to do some clean up on the horn blocks just need to machine the insides and the backs before cutting in half

Took a day off just to have a go at the buffers but as can be seen only one part complete when I realised that the carbide insert tip broke will try again tomorrow when I turn the insert to see if I can clean this up if not looks like a remake. Not sure how I managed to chip the insert as I can't remember hitting anything with it or going silly. I do like to know how it happened as I will have learnt not to do it again.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Spent much of today doing a great deal of not much then in the early evening finally decided to do a fair bit of much, to whit:

Milling flat one side of each of the raw cast-iron bars for the steam-wagon's grate. Then marking-out and drilling them for the tie-rods, to be cut from M6 Stainless-steel studding. For what they do on a hidden component, the spacers also needed could as easily and effectively be nuts and washers as anything specially turned.

'

The raw bars started as segments cut from a ventilated brake-disc scrounged from the scrap-bin of a garage where my car was having its tyres replaced.

Yesterday evening, by dint of sawing what I could by horizontal band-saw until I broke my only blade, then hack-sawing, I gained four pieces that when turned on their "sides" give me bars with short slots cast through them. Then, filthy from all that cast-irony, I retired for a shower, but could still smell and taste the dust afterwards.

'

The grate uses 3 of these "compound" bars as-are, with the 4th split lengthways to make the two short, narrow outer bars (the finished grate will be circular.) I will need remove some of the internal webs, partly for more air-flow but also, if left, they could easily trap clinker and ash.

I have done this on on one, by end-milling, but the resulting slot could not be more ragged if I filed them. This is probably due to trying to cut quite rough, perhaps slightly chilled, surfaces and sloping webs with a fairly small cutter. Whilst not important functionally (it's only a fire-grate and the original slots were also only to let air through the disc!) it pleaseth not the eye. So even though I am no rivet-counter, I might give it a tidying cut.

[DalboyParticipant @dalboy]

I scrapped the first buffer as I was not happy with the finish. So the last couple of days I set about making 4 of them. I know this is a little jump from the main chassis but there is a reason and that being I would rather get these wrong before working on the axles.

I would rather practice on a less important part and have to remake that, still learning a lot but that is what it is about.

[Rob McSweeneyParticipant @robmcsweeney81205]

Further progress on the new workshop – finished the lining and gave it a first coat of emulsion. Hope to finish painting tomorrow, get the flooring down, and collect a first load from the storage container.

[Jon LawesParticipant @jonlawes51698]

Well done Derek, looks good. We never stop learning.

[DalboyParticipant @dalboy]

Posted by Jon Lawes on 10/02/2022 22:16:46:

Well done Derek, looks good. We never stop learning.

Thank you Jon.

Never too old to learn is my moto. My first thought if something goes wrong is what did I do or didn't do, select the wrong speed use the wrong cutter etc before saying this Bl**dy machine is rubbish.

[Clive FarrarParticipant @clivefarrar90441]

Not today but yesterday I pressed my Mini lathe to the task of starting to make a 225 mm x 45 mm David Brown twin plate clutch alignment tool.

Its a beast of a lump of metal to go in that machine . I had to center drill it off the machine , but when mounted and clocked true in the 4 jaw and the other end in the live center I had been out by 0.25 mm.

Refacing it to the correct length and re drilling it took some working out and nerve to do at that degree of overhang. my 3 point steady is not big enough.

Still I got it done and the new TIR was 0.005mm barely a flicker on the needle. That may be common to a lot of you guys to me it was a flippin miracle.

I Then managed to turn the Major diameter part down to quite a nice surface finish and at 44.97mm.

The workshop manual drawing says 44.98mm ( conversion from original imperial ) and gives no tollerance. I think 0.01 mm or 0.5 thou " is good enough for a tractor don't you?

Just need to re mount it now and do the two minor diameter to the correct length.

Oh for a bigger lathe with more grunt. Never mind this is all i have space for and it is getting the job done slowly.

Regards Clive

[DalboyParticipant @dalboy]

More work on the buffer assembly I managed to turn all the outside of the stocks and then reverse one of them and drilled a small through hole and opened up a section for the buffer to fit into. Still need to drill the other three.

The completed stock on the left with the buffer on the right

Slide together I still need to make the springs the front and rear spring are different strengths as well as some nuts to hold them in place

The buffer beam with the buffer assembly just pushed into place

[Bob Unitt 1Participant @bobunitt1]

Posted by Derek Lane on 13/02/2022 17:19:10:

More work on the buffer assembly I managed to turn all the outside of the stocks and then reverse one of them and drilled a small through hole and opened up a section for the buffer to fit into. Still need to drill the other three.

The completed stock on the left with the buffer on the right

Slide together I still need to make the springs the front and rear spring are different strengths as well as some nuts to hold them in place

The buffer beam with the buffer assembly just pushed into place

I can't see your photos as it requires me to log-in.

[roy entwistleParticipant @royentwistle24699]

Same as Bob Unitt 1

Roy

[DalboyParticipant @dalboy]

Sorry guys here are the photos

And todays update. All four of the buffer assemblies turned just need to wait for some spring wire and some 5BA nuts so I can fix the stocks to the buffer.

[RobinParticipant @robin]

My new broach press bursts into life.

Based around the Chinese engine hoist ram with its' 19.5" stroke the press stands a mighty 64" tall with the pump handle mounted conveniently at bench level so I can watch what is happening and pump at the same time.

Today I replaced the release screw with a turned down 12mm bolt and applied an 18mm spanner (see pic) revealing its' full potential.

According to the bathroom scales, I lose 6 stones leaning on the handle before it starts to leak. Multiply by the 90:1 advantage and it seems I am getting 3.375 Imperial tons on the ram. Sounds about right for something rated 8 tons on the Chinese scale.

Anyway, plenty enough for a broach rated 1 ton max but I may want to do some press fits now I have it and a couple of spare tons could come in handy.

Such fun! Thanks for listening

Robin

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

More work on the steam,-wagon.

By 'eck it's 'ard, without drawings. I've a tendency to complify things, only to find next day / week / Leap Year I should have made it some other way, and there are only so many reject, odd-shaped pieces of steel you can keep lest they come in handy.

Anyway with an extra day this weekend as the tempest stopped play yesterday, as far as caving is concerned) I finally assembled the grate to the ashpan. It stand on 4 simple L-bracktes bent up from 3mm thick strip, bolted to the floor of the pan.

The top of the cylindrical is a turned steel L-section ring, and the grate has to be concentric to that. So I needed a jig, thunk I, since though I milled the perimeter of the grate circular, it is not a nice neat cylinder but the ends of the cast-iron bars – sawn and milled from an old car brake-disc.

After much head-scratching and looking at odd pieces of pre-loved materials I plumped for tapping two rings of M6 holes in an aluminium disc, thereby to take cap-screws whose heads would act as locating pins.

I gave up at 10 pm last night, in some despair and headed back up-garden, past the croaking frogs, for a belated tea.

I had only got both radii sums wrong so the jig fitted neither component. I also realised it would obstruct part of its own purpose, spotting through the 6mm bolt-holes in the grate feet.

Then it dawned on me I need use only a length of steel pallet-banding, a nut and bolt and a steel rule. So this morning:

Put the banding round the grate to present a suitable reference surface. Use a rod and pressure-pad in the bench-drill to clamp the grate, on its legs, gently to the pan, adjust to rule measurements, spot through with a marker pen.

Drill the thin sheet-steel pan with a step-drill (so it doesn't grab), bolt together.

Assemble this to the chassis, and wonders will never cease, the ash-pan and grate locate properly in the boiler, and tip as they should.

Celebrated with a mug of coffee.

Next phase: arranging the retaining method, and after lying on the floor and waving a bit of angle-iron at the vehicle's nether regions, the germ of a workable design came to me.

Cleaned up and went to the pub, armed with crossword, notebook and pencils; intent on roast lunch and a pint or two.

Oh, no food being served until March!

Ah well, a pint and a half of good ale helped me do the crossword then sketch my preliminary design for the ash-pan retaining / tipping.

' ' ' '

Drawings? Yes, I do have CAD – TurboCAD in fact – and I do use it for occasional part drawings and more rarely, assembly drawing of some particular region of the project. I did so for the grate, ash-pan and engine mounting-frame, since the pan's swinging-arms hinge on that frame.

My CAD drawings won't please the ISO- types expecting metric-acres of fancy title pro-formae and conformist formatting, but are fine for me in my workshop. Most of my designing is literally on the project itself anyway – measure the thing, work out where and how to make and fit the next bit.

All orthographic. I can't learn 3D "model" drawing to any useful level.

Still, I have now installed Solid-Edge Community Edition, and, trying not to let my shakey TurboCAD knowledge mislead me, I watched what Siemens claims is an introductory tutorial video for beginners.

Errr. Yes. The video's example is a rectangle with a rectangular lug at one end, set by 8 individual lines. I tried a rectangle (4 entities) containing a circle (1 entity) in, then to move the circle from its random position to the rectangle's centre. No obvious tool for that. Nor is it obvious if the rectangle is now a single entity, or still lines that happen to meet. The more I looked at the software and my exercise, the more remote it all became.

So, I've bitten off more than I can chew here, but at least it was free.

Once upon a time there were model-engineers thought to make so many beautiful machine-tool accessories, they must have had no time for the model-engineering the accessories were supposed to help. I can't help thinking CAD is the new equivalent – spending many hundreds of leisure hours learning (or not) what industrially is taught on full-time courses, to make beautiful pictures of objects we could make if only we have the leisure hours available!

[peak4Participant @peak4]

Nothing wildly exciting, but made a couple of press stud fasteners for affixing a soft top on a club member's Marlin.

Bill

[DiogenesIIParticipant @diogenesii]

Posted by Robin on 18/02/2022 15:46:34:

… ..My new broach press bursts into life… ..

… …Such fun! Thanks for listening … ..

Robin

Robin, any chance of a of 'General Impression & Shape' picture?

[RobinParticipant @robin]

Posted by DiogenesII on 21/02/2022 06:46:38:

Robin, any chance of a of 'General Impression & Shape' picture?

I don't think it is anything that anyone would want to copy, but here it is…

There is a 90mm steel tube into which the broach descends. Stick within that 90mm when placing the object to be crunched and it cannot go wrong. The whiteboard eraser is a volunteer.

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Posted by Nigel Graham 2 on 20/02/2022 22:30:17:

By 'eck it's 'ard, without drawings. I've a tendency to complicate things, only to find next day / week / Leap Year I should have made it some other way, and there are only so many reject, odd-shaped pieces of steel you can keep lest they come in handy.

Once upon a time there were model-engineers thought to make so many beautiful machine-tool accessories, they must have had no time for the model-engineering the accessories were supposed to help. I can't help thinking CAD is the new equivalent – spending many hundreds of leisure hours learning (or not) what industrially is taught on full-time courses, to make beautiful pictures of objects we could make if only we have the leisure hours available!

I think we all have that tendency! Following on from the other thread about carriage stops, I made a start on redesigning my original one into an adjustable one. I got this far before sanity set in:

That's three complex pieces, full of fussy features which will need a number of setups just to make the adjuster dial fit into the body. So I took the basic dimensions and this simplified version emerged:

The body is now one piece, and the only 'complicated' feature is the notch to fit it onto the lathe bed; everything else is simple milling, note how the counter bore for the clamp bolt has gone so the hole can be drilled through from the bottom at the same time as the anti-rotation pins. The clamp bolt and pins are each shown as one piece, but the bolt will be made with the thread loctited in place and the brass pins will be simple rods retained with grub screws. Both of which are much easier to do, stronger and easier to replace if they wear.

The hour I spent on the first one isn't wasted, because it means I now have a design that's actually worth making:

In CAD, you would have created the jig by subtracting the part from whatever material you decided to use, and projected the fixing holes into the new piece. Then the program would have told you what the dimensions actually are, instead of you trying to work out what you think they could be. A huge time saver, let alone reducing the amount of wasted material. As we've said before, the learning curve is steep, but it pays back in many valuable ways.

[DullnoteParticipant @dullnote]

Hi update on the weekend work, started this about ten years ago, moved house etc in between , however dug this out a couple of week ago now retirement has given me more time. It is the start of a cannon serialised in the model engineer a long time ago.

my next big challenge will be the spokes and rim of the wheels, yesterday completed the hub as you can see in the photo

workmanship not the best, but I am enjoying the challenge and learning new skills as I go along.

 

the jig at the side is to help manufacture the spokes

Mod edit: rotated photo.

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 21/02/2022 12:39:48

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Dullnote on 21/02/2022 12:01:10:

… dug this out a couple of week ago now retirement has given me more time. It is the start of a cannon serialised in the model engineer a long time ago.

…

workmanship not the best…

…

Workmanship looks good to me Dullnote.

Not a simple cannon either! Is it a British 13, 15 or 18 pdr Mk. I QF? Ehrhardt, circa 1900?

Dave

[DullnoteParticipant @dullnote]

Hi the cannon is a 15 pdr, it was in model engineer back in Nov 1999.

It is challenging for me, but skill levels on the way up, need to take more time to finish some hand finished parts but I am a bit impatient. Wheels are very slender, and small angles ie 2 degrees on the hub, then on top of spokes before the outer rim goes on

Next challenge will be how to cut the profile to the spokes, need to make a cutter. Then gear cutting to allow the barrel to be raised or lowered, think this project has everything.

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

Some water-gauge end pieces for the S160s – 4-off of each.

Screw thread is 1.1/8" – 12. I didn't wanna add a speed-range change to the changewheel setup needed for 12 TPI, so I ran at 180 and depended on a sharp switch-off before the tool hit the flange face. It was LG2, so I used a straight plunge cut, to simplify the arithmetic which, since I had no gauge or nut, was all I had to get the depth right at .0534". About 2 – 4 thou per pass without disengaging the halfnut, 'cos it's a Metric Warco.

Mercifully I got away without collisions and first-off fitted nicely.

[Author]

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