Hello and a part-built blowfly

[Jim]

Love it! and it's very satisfying too when you crack it because you know if you can do it the hard way the ordinary way will be a doddle.

Jim.

[Lisa]

The threadcutting is on the backburner due to my being broke; the air-con ended itself a little while ago, complete with big bang, a flash, a puff of smoke, and tripping the main house circuit breaker. So I'm having to scrimp in hopes of getting a new one before summer; so much for saving for a bandsaw.
At least the weather's cooling down nicely, hence getting back in the workshop somewhat regularly again.

Meanwhile I've been making a rather large mandrel for mounting the cylinders on, this is so I can turn the ends down so that they're actually concentric to the bore.

The aim here is to turn the end of the mandrel down to 12mm, thread it M12, then the collar sitting on the compound slide will be use to clamp the cylinder onto the mandrel.
I cut that slice off to make the collar, by hand, it took a while.

[rrmrd66]

Hi Lisa

Great minds think alike.

I have just made something very similar so that I can mill a reference face prior to boring the cylinder.

Pics to follow in Hunslet thread (eventually)!

Cheers

Malcolm

PS Like your length stop on the lathe bed. I must make one similar.

[Jim]

Hi Lisa, Sorry to hear you air con died when all the smoke escaped. It always seems to happens that just as you get your nose above water it starts to rain again, been there done that. 
Good to see you making progress again on the Blowfly as the weather cools, it seems to have stayed hotter longer this year.

Jim

[Lisa]

Apr 6, 2018 16:21:37 GMT rrmrd66 said:

Hi Lisa

Great minds think alike.

I have just made something very similar so that I can mill a reference face prior to boring the cylinder.

Pics to follow in Hunslet thread (eventually)!

Cheers

Malcolm

PS Like your length stop on the lathe bed. I must make one similar.

Thanks, it was the first thing I made on/for this lathe, I use it all the time; was a bit lost without one, which is why I made it!

Apr 6, 2018 18:17:17 GMT Jim said:

Hi Lisa, Sorry to hear you air con died when all the smoke escaped. It always seems to happens that just as you get your nose above water it starts to rain again, been there done that. 
Good to see you making progress again on the Blowfly as the weather cools, it seems to have stayed hotter longer this year.

Jim

I think 'urgh' best sums up the weather Jim.

[Lisa]

My back's been generally opposed to me doing much lately, but it eased up a bit today, so I finally finished off the mandrel.
The aim is to use the drive dog with something heavy on one of the cross bolts to balance the cylinder; in its current unbalanced state, even at a really low speed the bench is trying to walk itself out the door. Pretty sure I've got a lump of lead somewhere that'll do the trick.

[Lisa]

I had to hunt around to find that lump of lead, then cut it to length, but it balanced things nicely in the end.
So here's the full setup, with one end of one cylinder now done.


To give an idea of how eccentric the castings were to the bore, here's the mount for the cylinder drain cock; there's a good 2-2.5mm taken off.

[Lisa]

Both ends done, that looks more like it:

[Jim]

Looking good Lisa. By the way how's you back? Hopefully better now.

[Lisa]

May 11, 2018 7:23:51 GMT Jim said:

Looking good Lisa. By the way how's you back? Hopefully better now.

Thanks Jim, it's nice to get back to doing a bit.
Back's 'good enough'; as long as I don't sleep in strangely twisted up ways as I'm prone to do, it should be as good as ever in no time.

[Lisa]

That should now be all the lathework finished for the cylinder blocks; the rest is all milling (ports, passages, etc).
Not being in the mood for milling today, I thought I'd knock up the gland nuts, but then discovered I apparently don't have the stock for them; it's either gone walkabout (dad 'helping' put things away being likely), or I never had any to start with.
So I figured I'd start cleaning up the steam chest castings:

[jon38r80]

Jun 4, 2018 7:53:13 GMT Lisa said:

 (dad 'helping' put things away being likely),

Know the problem, sadly my Mother who used to do that is long gone. It will probably turn up in the fridge or somewhere equally unlikely.

[Lisa]

Jun 4, 2018 10:39:43 GMT jon38r80 said:

Jun 4, 2018 7:53:13 GMT Lisa said:

 (dad 'helping' put things away being likely),

Know the problem, sadly my Mother who used to do that is long gone. It will probably turn up in the fridge or somewhere equally unlikely.

I've already checked the shower and linen closet, which is where I usually find the mayonnaise.

[Lisa]

In keeping with my usual multiple jobs on the go at any one time, I dragged out the rotary table to see about a setup for finishing off the rear cylinder covers.

Setting up the mill in 3 easy steps:
1. replace bulb in mill work light.
2. knock mill work light with spanner while setting up rotary table.
3. replace bulb in mill work light.

Fortunately things went better after that. This is the first time I've used this rotary table, and looking it over I discovered the centre hole is threaded; so one M8 bolt later, and setup is considerably less complicated than I'd thought.
Just a little nibble at the slide bar mount before stopping to make dinner:

[Lisa]

Gradually getting there, just the other side(s) of this one to do, then on to the second one.

[Lisa]

A bit more on the steam chests, that's one machined to width; I'll do the other one the same, then get them to height.
Doing the faces in such an order that the rear, with the gland, will be the last face done.

[Lisa]

A combination of lovely weather and dad going to bed early meant a couple of uninterrupted hours in the workshop this evening. So I finished the other steam chest to width.

[Deleted]

That looks a lovely piece of machining Lisa...great work ma'am..

Pete

[Lisa]

Thanks Pete, getting there slowly.
I'm well looking forward to being done with machining cast iron though!

[Deleted]

haha...yes a dirty job..