Hello and a part-built blowfly

[builder01]

An angle vice works pretty well also.
DSCN0810 - reduced by Builder16, on Flickr
David

[Lisa]

That would be nice David, but out of my budget unfortunately.

[Jim]

I have one of those angle vices from Hare and Forbes Lisa and it works a treat. I used it as you are doing to drill the steam passages in both the Burrell's and Britannia's cylinders. It's simple (like me) and does a the job.

Jim

[builder01]

Jim,

That is not Lisa using an angle vice. As she said, it is not in her budget. The angle vice is being used by me, (David) and I was only posting a photo of it as I used mine, as a suggestion for her.

David

[Jim]

Ooops! sorry about that David, I thought Lisa was talking about the sine bar set up. Old age and stupidity strike again. 

Jim.

[builder01]

No problem!! Carry on!! (I doubt very much you are stupid, old maybe HA!).

David

[steamer5]

Oct 1, 2018 0:00:11 GMT Jim said:

Ooops! sorry about that David, I thought Lisa was talking about the sine bar set up. Old age and stupidity strike again. 

Jim.

Hi Jim,
Surely it’s soothing ale time?.......well it’s after 5 somewhere.....it’s got to help!

Hay Lisa, still here following along....looking very nice!

 Cheers Kerrin 

[Lisa]

8 down, 24 to go; much drilling and tapping in progress.



Also, clamping and bolting bits together to see how they look, again.


At some point I'll need to drop the wheels out so I can drill and tap the fixing holes for the cylinders and motion brackets. But that can wait till the cylinders are done.

[Lisa]

12 more holes to go, and then all the drilling and tapping of the cylinder cover fixing holes will be done. I'm even still on the first tap; just doing a few a day to avoid impatient snapping happening.


I've also been making some ¼x40 bolts, these will plug the cylinder drains until I've made the actual drain cocks, thus allowing the chassis to be tested on air a little sooner.

Also with a little extra machining they'll become part of the cylinder drain cocks I drew up a little while ago.

I should probably start hacksawing the pistons off of the big lump of cast iron I have for them sometime soon too - again just doing a bit a day.

[Jim]

Looking good Lisa and don't worry about only doing 'a bit a day' it's still progress toward the day the loco steams up for the first time.

Jim

[Lisa]

I was being serenaded by the whistles of these two this morning while in the workshop:

PB15 448 and AC16 221a double heading at Queensland Pioneer Steam Railway; several miles away, but I could still hear the whistles clearly.

So I finished drilling and tapping all the bolting holes on one cylinder, then decided to cut the studs to length and do a test assembly.

I need to order some M3 nuts from Knupfer, as the ones I have are a different size to the bolt heads on the cylinder covers, and I don't have enough of them anyway.
Also, I bought a bunch of ½" copper elbows for the exhaust, one of which is sitting in roughly the right position here.

In other news, a little maths, and some scratching and scribbling on the side of one cylinder, show the magic angle for the steam passages is 15°, which I have an angle gauge for, so that should simplify setup for drilling a little.

[Lisa]

That's all the bolting holes for the covers drilled and tapped, and the studs cut to length (and I wildly overestimated the amount of threaded rod I'd need!), and everything test assembled.



Now to pull it all apart to drill the passages, make plans from the rough sketch that's given for attaching the exhaust elbow, make gaskets, then make a start on pistons and valves. Oh, and drill and tap the frames to bolt the cylinders on. Also some kind of thought needs to be given to cleading, it's not mentioned in the book or plans, and some seem to go without, but I'll come up with something. I should also paint it all with engine enamel or something, so it doesn't turn into a pile of rust!

[peteh]

Beautiful work there Lisa

[David]

It's looking great!

At the Orange club we use Loctite 567 rather than gaskets. It seems to work well and isn't too expensive. Barry approved it's use on my Blowfly ;)

[racinjason]

I use loctite #1 gasket sealant on all steam joint without any gasket material.
Jason

[Lisa]

I find gaskets cleaner to work with than any of the liquid gasket sealants I've seen. It's been a while since I checked them out though, so if it's not horrendously expensive I might have a look.

Meanwhile the first passage is in:

I was going to do the exhaust passages first, but I'm still scratching my head at variances in what is written and photo's I've seen, so they can wait.

[stevep]

Nicely done Lisa. I see from a previous picture that your covers have a register that fits inside the bore of the cylinder. So don't forget to provide some clearance on the inside of the bore, or the register will close off the end of the passage. (Or machine a relief in the register at the appropriate place).

I am a great believer that if the surfaces are machined to a fine finish, you don't need gaskets or sealant. I ran my Stanier with a metal-to-metal joint on the covers, and it never leaked.

[Lisa]

Thanks Steve.
I intended to just machine a relief in the register, but now that I've actually drilled it and seen it, I'll go back in on the passage with the cylinder held square and cut some clearance out there, as it's a lot closer to the end than I'd thought it'd be (no doubt as a result of the shallow angle, as the ports are quite deep).

[Lisa]

Too hot during the day (36°C today), so a bit of late night machining (it's just gone 2am!) sees the second steam passage drill and milled.


The eagle eye might notice I've milled out the edge a bit so that the steam can actually get into/out of the cylinder.

[Lisa]

The steam passages are all done now (just look at the pic' above four times if you want to see them), so next is the exhaust passages. These require a little pondering as there's only a sort of general arrangement drawing for the improved exhaust and drafting. Here's what I have:

And here's the elbow sitting in pretty much the right spot:


I need to get the O-rings for this, and making the pocket for them will probably involve the boring head in the mill. But the real question is: What would you make that flange out of? I'm thinking something like 3mm brass or copper.