Hello and a part-built blowfly

[Lisa]

Thanks Jim, it's gradually coming together, and one learns to appreciate the good times.
Neither dad nor I have ever celebrated christmas, though a dram of whisky on hogmanay is not uncommon (and one of the few times I drink). Nonetheless, enjoy what you do.

[Lisa]

A little night time turning:

This is part of the T for the main steam pipe to the cylinders, it still needs the o-ring grooves machined, which is what the earlier hooked boring bar was made for. However, before I use that I need to finish the little adaptor piece I'm making for using ¼" tools in the new lathe. Though I could just part it off now, and move the job over to the Taig.
Speaking of which, the Taig has a lever to push on to feed a drill in, while the new lathe has a screw and handwheel; not entirely sure which I prefer. The lever gives a much better feel for the job compared to the wheel, while the screw and wheel prevent the drill snagging and pulling itself in. They probably both have jobs they're better at than the other.
At least the bigger lathe is easier to drill a hole with; a 10mm hole is a big job on the Taig.

[Roger]

I prefer the hand wheel, as you say, it prevents it getting pulled in. You can still feel what's going on unless it's the smallest size, and then you're safer feeding very slowly in a controlled way in my opinion, rather than trying to feel it and then moving it too far.

[Lisa]

Roger, yes, if I had to pick one or the other then a wheel would be the preferred option. The lever type does come in handy for tapping though, as one can simply stick the tap in the drill chuck; without either leaving the tailstock loose, or needing a special sliding holder.

I also discovered that chuck guard acts as an effective carriage stop, which is why the job is hanging out so much. If it doesn't go missing, I think it'll be getting trimmed down.

[simon48]

Hi Lisa,

I have the same lathe as you, and to use the official faceplate I had to remove the cover as it hits the edge of the faceplate and you cannot start the lathe.
I now run the lathe without the cover! Just leaving the arm set asif it was in the down position.

Simon.

[Jim]

Like Roger I use the fine feed wheel on the mill for drilling having removed the 3 long arms from the alternate 'plunge' type feed as it was of little use to me for the type work I was doing on the mill. If needs be I have a pedestal drill but that is almost permanently set up with a disc sander for quick burnishing of bibs and bobs.

Looks like being another stinker here today so will continue rebuilding the shady part of the verandah, anyway with the thermometer nudging 35C in the workshop nothing is going happen there at present other than Boadicea spontaneously raising steam.

Jim

[Lisa]

Simon, thanks, I was thinking of getting rid of it; the guard on the mill was gone before the mill was even out of it's crate!

Jim, I find the course-feed/drill arms on the mill handy for getting the head to somewhere near the right height before switching to the fine feed. A friend in Adelaide said it was 44°C there yesterday, so no doubt that's going to hit us over the next couple of days.

Speaking of the mill, the X/Z axis handwheels on the table have graduations marked at 0.02mm, while the vertical feed is marked at 0.025mm; mildly confusing, but at least 1 full turn on all of them is 1.5mm.

[Lisa]

Sure enough the heat hit; new years eve was 40°C, and it stayed hot till a whole lot of rain came last night, but today was quite nice.

So, after some pointless milling, I did a bit more work on the main steam pipe tee:

Mostly cutting in the o-ring pockets, but also had a first go at parting on the new lathe; which was quite simple once I'd re-ground the tool to get it down to centre height.
This still needs cross-drilling 2 holes for the steam pipe and lubricator inlet, which will be silver soldered in.

[Lisa]

Another pleasant day (a little less humidity would have been nice, but at least it wasn't hot), so I spent a few hours poking about in the workshop while dad watched the tennis.
First up, I finished the machining on the main steam pipe tee, so it's ready for silver soldering now. I'm not actually going to do that till I check the o-rings fit nicely in their pockets; this way I'll still be able to put it in the lathe if I need to deepen the pockets a bit. The o-rings for this are the two I forgot to order (I knew I missed some from somewhere), so that'll have to wait. Also I'll probably put that pipe in the lathe and face it nice and square before fixing it in.


So at this point I decided to play with something a bit more substantial:

A skim across the drain cock faces, and the underside of the cylinder blocks. This will give me a starting reference edge, and something flat to clamp against while machining the port face, which is the actual reference edge for basically everything:

[Lisa]

A late storm last night, and off-and-on rain all day meant it was relatively cool, so I figured I'd have a bit more of a poke at the cylinder castings.
I first got the second cylinder to the same state as the one above, by milling across the drain cock faces, and the underside of the cylinder proper. Then moved on to working on the port face.

There's a bit of a dip in the middle(ish) of the port face, so while 0.3mm has come off the edges the middle is untouched; there is plenty of metal there though so it's not an issue.
At this point despite the cooler weather the humidity was too much, so I escaped back upstairs.

[Lisa]

Relatively pleasant today, so I did some more to the cylinders.

Port face now milled down to where it should be, and the edges squared up a bit, but not milled down to size yet.

A bit of permanent marker as marking fluid and I scribed a line down the centre to give me something to work from.
I'll get the port and mounting faces to size on this cylinder, before repeating on the other. Then I can decide how to machine the bore, as there's several options available to me now.

[smallbrother]

Following this with interest Lisa.

I hope to tackle Juliet's cylinders soon and your method looks highly suitable.

Pete.

[Lisa]

I'm mostly making it up as I go Pete; last time I machined cylinders I had a rather large lathe available so did most of the work in the 4-jaw chuck. Which is what the Blowfly 'words and music' say to do, but even with the new lathe the chuck I have isn't big enough, but this is working well so far anyway.

Options for machining the bore are either on the mill with a boring head, or on the lathe, either in the 4-jaw (which will work with the cylinder that way around), or making up a mount and between-centres boring bar. Or some combination of the three, I'll see what feels best when I get there.

[smallbrother]

I am overwhelmed with the number of options - it just confuses the whole issue as far as I am concerned!

Some close-up photos (in colour!) of the whole process will help enormously to clear the way forward.

Juliet's cylinders are small so my Myford ML7 and mini-mill should be capable of following your method. The only weak link in the chain is me.

Pete.

[Lisa]

I just had a look through the pdf copy of the Juliet 'words and music' I have, the cylinders are quite similar to the Blowfly's (Barry Potter, the designer, said he based Blowfly on another beginner's loco, I'm quite sure it was Juliet), though smaller of course. Seems LBSC's method was to bore and ream with the cylinder bolted to an angle plate on the lathe faceplate... so there's yet another option.
Or it would be if I had a faceplate, or an angle plate.
c'est la vie.

[GWR 101]

Apologies for using your thread Lisa, Pete can I confirm which version of Juliet are you working on, if I recall you mentioned machining eccentrics earlier so I assume its version 1. Regards Paul

[smallbrother]

Feb 20, 2017 11:01:13 GMT GWR 101 said:

Apologies for using your thread Lisa, Pete can I confirm which version of Juliet are you working on, if I recall you mentioned machining eccentrics earlier so I assume its version 1. Regards Paul

You are spot on Paul.

[GWR 101]

Apologies again to Lisa, I haven't any drawings for that version but pictures would seem to verify that they are similar to Blowfly. Good luck to both of you. Regards Paul.

p.s Pete I have freed-up the grate.

[Lisa]

Feb 20, 2017 13:54:36 GMT GWR 101 said:

Apologies again to Lisa, I haven't any drawings for that version but pictures would seem to verify that they are similar to Blowfly. Good luck to both of you. Regards Paul.

p.s Pete I have freed-up the grate.

You might find this interesting then Paul (hint: page 20 has the cylinders).
And no need to apologise, off topic is the spice of life, or words to that effect.

[GWR 101]

Lisa many thanks for that, most useful wish I had seen that some 40 plus years ago when I embarked on my build. I am at the painting stage now just waiting for some warmer weather to finish it off. I was fortunate that I had access to a 1" reamer so finishing the bore was fairly straightforward.

Not sure if you and Pete are interested but I made a few changes to mine, I ditched the "T" exhaust in favour of a "Y" and also modified the entry into in to the cylinders, to help assembly. The other modification I made was to put a large chamfer on the front of the valve slide as it was obscuring the steam entry point.

Also following advice on here I reduced the bore of the axle pump slightly. The other modification was to move the steam oil feed into the right hand tank in it's own compartment, I know this reduces the water carrying capacity but I have a ride on drivers truck with dual feeds to the injector and which also enables the tanks to be topped up on the run. Regards Paul.