Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2008 19:37:05 GMT
Whilst waiting for the castings and the cast sleeve to cover the blow holes in the cylinder, I thought I'd have a go at something easy to get a flavour of the Brit. I've mentioned it before, but this is my first go at a loco. I have lots of gauge plate lying around, so I dived into the expansion links. Holy Shomoley! The words and music says "Take a 10" face plate, clamp the 3/16 cast steel down, and machine the 4.875" radius slot out: finish the outside when you've done that". Well, I don't have a 10" faceplate, and I wasn't going to attack cast steel this thickness with a set of Swiss Files! Some folk may be interested in how I approached the problem using a little rotary table and a bit of 'Outboard Machining!'
First the outboard bit using another piece of 3/16 plate. There are no downward forces so all was OK and a jack wasn't needed. The toolmakers' clamps were perfectly adequate.
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The slot ends were squared off by hand, the two pieces were dowelled together using a piece of silver steel for slot alignment and the inside radius was machined.
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The outer shape was hacked out of the solid by drilling/sawing away excess material and resorting to a 10" file. The 6000 rpm Proxxon was brought into play to do some polishing.
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The end result: I have to say that the job took all of my long forgotten skill as a file merchant and then some. The job took most of Sunday: all I have to do now are the trunnions, but they will have to wait until the Autumn!
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First the outboard bit using another piece of 3/16 plate. There are no downward forces so all was OK and a jack wasn't needed. The toolmakers' clamps were perfectly adequate.
[/urlThe slot ends were squared off by hand, the two pieces were dowelled together using a piece of silver steel for slot alignment and the inside radius was machined.
[a href="
"][/a] The outer shape was hacked out of the solid by drilling/sawing away excess material and resorting to a 10" file. The 6000 rpm Proxxon was brought into play to do some polishing.
[a href="
"][/a]The end result: I have to say that the job took all of my long forgotten skill as a file merchant and then some. The job took most of Sunday: all I have to do now are the trunnions, but they will have to wait until the Autumn!
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