Should have known better

[Shawki Shlemon]

Hi DJ
For the cab soft solder would have been enough with small strip on the inside at top and/or bottom where can't be seen .After painting even you can't see it . with soft solder not enough heat for distortion . May be you can still do it by cutting and adding a bigger piece .

[steam4ian]

G'day all.
Confession time. the other day I was making a cylinder for an oscillating engine. I had bored out the cylinder and milled a flat on one side, even the ports and pivot were drilled. Next task was silver solder on some 3mm flat as the port face. I grabbed two cheap spring clamps to hold the two bits together, heated and applied the silver solder. All OK so far?? Job complete and into the acid bath. Pulling the cylinder out of the bath I noticed that one end was distinctly oval, the spring clamp had compressed the cylinder. Another piece for the scrap bin.

I know soft solder would do but I want to solder on the cylinder head at one end.

Regards,
Ian

[alanstepney]

The one thing I would add here, is dont be discouraged by the mistakes.

If I had £1 for every part I have messed up, I would be a wealthy man.

However, on the basis of "waste not: want not" I add them all to the scrap box (the VERY LARGE) scrap box, and sometimes they come in useful later on.
I hope!

[ilvaporista]

One other thought to disguise the join. Move the joint position to above the door cut out in the cab. the depth of material here is only about 1/4"?. Then make another rear section, that would mean that the current rear part becomes material for your next project...

That way there is only a small join and I think that there is a brass reinforcing angle above the cab opening that gives support.

[Lurkio]

Dr John,

Good of you to share your 'faux pas' with us. Most of us hide 'em!
Personally I'd write it off and start again from scratch. It'll come in handy for something, you'll see. As Alan suggests, bung it in the scrapbox.

Lurkio.

[chris vine]

Hi Dr John,

I wonder what silver solder you are using?

I have found that my favorite type, silverflo 55 which is cadmium free has a distinctly higher melting point than the old EasyFlo No. 2.

This is not of much consequence until one tries soldering brass. With silverflo 55 it is all too close together and sags/melts are the order of the day. With EF2 it is all a bit easier.

Mind you, I never like silver soldering big bits of sheet brass, it is always going to be difficult!

Chris.

[Noddy]

I'm told that for adults, once you get the lead out of your system there is no lasting damage anyway.

I gather it doesn't do children much good though.

The colleagues who are working on water sources over in west Cork have another study going on, of a cluster of private wells in a different part of Ireland, with toxic levels of arsnic. It was discovered after one woman's hair fell out .

Keith

[Lurkio]

I jest not, but our family had an "antimony pill". The trick was, you swallowed it to relieve your lousy-diet constipation, then catch it in the pail-closet, washed it and put it back on the mantlepiece for the next sufferer. Serious!

!!!!!!

As for the brass, DrJ, you wouldn't be scrapping it, you'd eventually re-cycle it. So you wouldn't really be wasting it.
You Scots!

Regards, Lurkio

[Noddy]

;)If you hang the victim upside down does it work that way round too?

Keith

[Steve M. W]

Its not a scrap bin its a pre machined storage facility ;D in my case a very large one.

Steve

[Noddy]

Your "gathering" Keith, probably came from government sponsored sources

Does that mean it isn't harmful to kids?
(sorry, re phrase time: does that mean that once it's cleaned out of a child's system, it doesn't do long term harm?)Keith

Some of the places I lived as a child sourced their drinking water from old lead mines, and all the places had lead pipes (which doesn't worry me in the slightest, as lead is very immobile in oxidizing environments), however I used to "collect" scrap lead and weigh it in to suppliment my pocket money-- and did I wash my hands after handling the stuff...

Keith

[gilesengineer]

...... absolutely the right course of action - particularly as the full size join their cab sheets there as well!

He who never made a mistake never made anything......

[havoc]

We still have lead pipes coming into the house. With a nice layer of carbonates inside this won't hurt at all.

Anyway, back to joining sheets...I have needed to do this as well. Just saw off the molten piece and soft solder in a slightly larger. Or just beat it flat, it must be anealed well now.

[abby]

I am sorry this is not about silver soldering but please keep your cadmium Drjohn , living in an area of the country that has been ravaged by industry and then filled up with its waste , toxic or otherwise , I prefer that my grand children are not deliberately exposed to heavy metals in any form.
I am actually rather pleased that since 1972 my government(s) has been taking action to remove un-necessary chemicals from our lives and to mitigate at least some of the damage already done to the enviroment and wildlife by centuries of misuse and the indiscriminate use of "harmless materials", including the nonsensical asbestos , the titteringly toxic tetra-ethyl lead and the slightly silly silica. Tell the Japanese that mercury easily washes out of the body , ever heard of "mad as a hatter "?

[Myford Matt]

You're right Abby!

[JohnP]

I bent up a tank for my driving truck water supply. It was stainless steel sheet and made up of 2 squared off "U" shapes (does that make sense?). Anyway it looked lovely until I tried to silver solder it together - it wriggled and writhed like a thing being tortured. I didn't even finish the first side before it was a write off.

When I was a lad, I came up with a brilliant idea for dovetail joints in wood. I'd make them dovetailed in both directions, so that no matter how badly they were made, they wouldn't come apart. I'd actually cut a set (badly, of course, to test the theory), before I discovered that not only would they not come apart, but they wouldn't go together either!

JohnP

[steam4ian]

G'day DJ

"This is wandering off topic as usual" You should have know better! ;D

Regards,
Ian

[baggo]

The biggest mistake I made recently was to assume that a brand new Keats type angle plate that I bought from a well known ME supplier on Ebay was actually accurate!

I had spent a week building up a fabricated cylinder 'casting' for the inside cylinder for Helen Longish which had turned out rather well. I then used the Keats to hold the cylinder for final finishing of the cylinder bore and piston valve bore. When I had finished and removed the cylinder from the lathe, the piston valve bore was way off centre at the face plate end. It was too far out to be usable so it's now an ornament!
Not too much money wasted but a hell of a lot of precious time down the drain.

When I checked the angle plate one side of the V was at right angles to the bolting flange but the other side was miles out! I've since re-machined it to make it true but should really have sent it back with a snotty letter!

[rodwilson]

baggo said:

The biggest mistake I made recently was to assume that a brand new Keats type angle plate that I bought from a well known ME supplier on Ebay was actually accurate!

I had spent a week building up a fabricated cylinder 'casting' for the inside cylinder for Helen Longish which had turned out rather well. I then used the Keats to hold the cylinder for final finishing of the cylinder bore and piston valve bore. When I had finished and removed the cylinder from the lathe, the piston valve bore was way off centre at the face plate end. It was too far out to be usable so it's now an ornament!
Not too much money wasted but a hell of a lot of precious time down the drain.

When I checked the angle plate one side of the V was at right angles to the bolting flange but the other side was miles out! I've since re-machined it to make it true but should really have sent it back with a snotty letter!

I would be interested in learning how you machined that plate. I have an old casting for a Keats (Reeves I believe) that is baffling to my limited engineering knowledge. For example, how do I get into those square back corners?

[baggo]

Hi Rod,

I did actually do a search through my ME collection and couldn't find an article on machining a Keats type angle plate.

In my case, the two sides of the vee were at right angles to each other but one side was tilted to the face that bolts to the face plate. In other words the axis of the V wasn't perpendicular to the bolting face. As I didn't want to touch the V if possible, I re-machined the bolting face. I did this by holding a piece of 1-1/2" ally bar in the lathe chuck, facing the end and centreing it. I then supported the end of the bar in the tailstock centre and took a skim off the outside of the bar so that it ran true. I then clamped the angle plate to the bar using the V with the bolting face facing the tailstock. I then took a skim off the bolting face to true it up (needed about a 1/32" off one side!). This method ensured that the axis of the V was true to the bolting face.

If you were machining one from scratch the sides of the V could be milled or even fly-cut which would get into the corners but great care would have to be taken to ensure that the two faces of the V were true to each other. I don't see that the actual angle between them is critical, just that they are square to each other and at right angles to the bolting face. You could machine the V first and then the bolting face using my method above?

John