Author Topic: Pacific Vapor Engine from Morrison & Marvin Castings  (Read 213335 times)

Offline Dave Otto

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Re: Pacific Vapor Engine from Morrison & Marvin Castings
« Reply #30 on: January 25, 2013, 01:38:01 AM »
Thanks for the kind words guys, I appreciate it.

Steve the single large flywheel on the Pacific is 11.437"

Dave

Offline Dave Otto

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Re: Pacific Vapor Engine from Morrison & Marvin Castings
« Reply #31 on: January 26, 2013, 02:10:14 AM »
Hello everyone

I started Working on the body casting by spending about a half a day fettling the openings to the crankcase. Once I was satisfied with the hand work I was ready to start machining.

Sorry I didn’t take any pictures of my initial set up; but it involved fixturing the casting right side up on some parallels and a little shimming to get everything plumb; then taking a light skim on the cylinder flange to just barely clean it up.



Then the casting was turned over and clamped down on this newly machined surface. Here after roughing with an insert cutter a light skim is taken with the Newfield fly cutter.



I wanted a nice fit on the base and a good datum for future machining operations so a tool path was created and a light cut taken around the base. If all goes well the center point of this profile will be the center line of the cylinder.


At this point it was an easy task to drill the mounting holes.


Now the body is turned over and located against a couple of parallels that were previously indicated in. This picked up my center line for the cylinder. The body has been machined to the 7.5" over all height; and here is being checked with the height gage.



Now the register is cut to locate the cylinder; also a clearance cut is made deeper in the bore to clear the cylinder skirt. On my casting this clearance cut only took a skim at 3 and 9 o’clock and didn’t touch anywhere else.


The bolt circle for the cylinder is also done at this time.


Using the boring head to finish the OD of the cylinder flange; I roughed it out with an end mill but the boring head leaves a nicer finish.


Test fitting the cylinder; all is well.


Here is the set up to machine the crankshaft clearance between the main bearing saddles.


It is a long way down and the 3/8” extend length carbide end mill just makes it past the end of the saddle without hitting the body


Starting the cut; I went down in .04” steps then took a finish pass a full depth.


All finished; there is about .004” of endplay clearance for the crank.


Now the body is mounted on the angle plate (notice the parallel under the base flange) to machine the main bearing saddle to the proper width.


Now flipped over and the same treatment for the other side. .005? was left for a cleanup cut after the main caps are fitted.


I took the body casting over to my friends shop to use his shaper on the top surface of the saddles. I’m sorry I intended to take my camera and forgot it. There is a little more shaper work to be done so I will try to remember to take the camera next time.

Anyway here are the saddles after using the shaper to cut them down to the proper height.


Next up is to layout the relief grooves that locate the main caps; and I get to use some of my tools that haven’t seen the light of day for years.


With a freshly sharpened scriber on the height gage the crank center line and layout lines for the reliefs are located and scribed.


With both sides finished the body is ready to go back into the shaper; maybe tomorrow.

Thanks for checking in.

Dave
« Last Edit: July 05, 2017, 12:14:37 AM by Dave Otto »

Offline zeeprogrammer

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Re: Pacific Vapor Engine from Morrison & Marvin Castings
« Reply #32 on: January 26, 2013, 02:39:30 AM »
Once again a very nice and interesting post.
Got a few learnings from it too. Thanks.

The 'Newfield fly cutter'...is that a brand or a type?
I see the picture of it but would you explain its parts a little? What makes it different from others?
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Offline black85vette

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Re: Pacific Vapor Engine from Morrison & Marvin Castings
« Reply #33 on: January 26, 2013, 05:17:10 AM »
Big case of tool envy going on.   :Love:    Really drooling over having to stack up the clamps to hold down the piece.   I  can't work any more than a few inches under my mill.   Enjoy seeing how it is done on "real" equipment.

Offline rudydubya

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Re: Pacific Vapor Engine from Morrison & Marvin Castings
« Reply #34 on: January 26, 2013, 07:20:37 AM »
What Zee and Rick said.  And I learn a lot by just seeing how others set up and hold work on the mill table.  Still following with interest.

Regards,
Rudy


Offline metalmad

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Re: Pacific Vapor Engine from Morrison & Marvin Castings
« Reply #35 on: January 26, 2013, 08:06:50 AM »
That is really lovely Dave :Love:
Pete
A little bit every day, sometimes the same little bit

Online steamer

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Re: Pacific Vapor Engine from Morrison & Marvin Castings
« Reply #36 on: January 26, 2013, 08:30:28 AM »
Hey Dave.

What is that a Bridgeport Series 2....I take it a Trak...?

Dave
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Offline kellswaterri

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Re: Pacific Vapor Engine from Morrison & Marvin Castings
« Reply #37 on: January 26, 2013, 03:09:47 PM »
Hi Dave, thank you for showing great clamping setups...good use of the boring head on the out side of the part...like Zee I too am interested in that fly cutter.

Offline Dave Otto

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Re: Pacific Vapor Engine from Morrison & Marvin Castings
« Reply #38 on: January 27, 2013, 02:02:17 AM »
Hi Everyone

Wow thanks for the interest in my little project and all the kind words and questions; I started on this project this last spring and I'm still plugging away, and will be for quite sometime. I still have a bunch of stuff to post to bring the project to date.

The Newfield flycutter or milling cutter as far as i know was made to be used on a horizontal mill; but installed on a shell mill arbor it makes a great flycutter an/or face mill for the Bridgeport style machines. I purchased mine well over 20 years ago and can't remember where; I'm pretty sure they are not made any more. Here is a link to one that sold recently on eBay.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/400397041220?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

The cool thing about these is the tools can be rotated to the desired angle while also being slid in or out to set the depth and radius of the cut. So you can load up 4 tools and easily set them all at the same radius and depth. I use the top of my milling vise and the back of the rear jaw to set the tools. It is easy to drop the tool down on the flat of the vise and carefully rotate it around so the tool contacts the vertical surface of the vise jaw. Then it is locked down and repeated for the other 3 tools.

If I just want to put a fine finish on something I just use one tool; and put one across from it just for balance set so it doesn't cut.

Dave, My mill is an Acra mill (Bridgeport clone) that I purchased new in 1987. I converted it to 2 axis CNC about 15 years ago using software, motors, and drives from AhHa who is no longer in business. I built the motor mounts and also installed ball screws. It was used it this way for many years and I made lots of parts with it. Wanting something a little more modern a few years ago I started a project upgrade it to Mach 3 and servos with the plan to motorize the quill down the road.  Had I known how well modern steppers with decent drives and software could perform I probably wouldn't have gone the servo rout.

I got the new power box completed with the power supply for the servo amps and a VFD to control the spindle. I was working on the control box that holds the drives and interface board for the PC when I got the castings for the Pacific so the CNC upgrade has stalled or has been temporary pushed to the back burner. What I did do was to build a small interface box with a Homan Designs break out board that allowed me to drive the old AhHa box with a newer PC and Mach.

Mach is able to push my old round stepper motors faster then I ever thought possible; it doubled my rapids with out losing position; this is what made me question my decision about the servos.
So today I running the old AhHa box and round steppers (they say square motors are better) controlled by Mach. 

Hoping some day I will fine time to finish this project; design and build a quill drive or find a good deal on a 3 axis CNC.

Thanks again for all the comments, I appreciate it.

Dave

Offline Dave Otto

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Re: Pacific Vapor Engine from Morrison & Marvin Castings
« Reply #39 on: January 29, 2013, 01:07:12 AM »
Hi Everyone


I took the base casting back over to my buddy?s shop so I could use his shaper to machine the locating reliefs in the main bearing saddles.



Here it is set up on the shaper; when he did his it was decided that it would be best to do the saddles one at a time instead of trying to get a bar long enough and a set up that would allow both of them to be cut at the same time. The shaper could do it but it would have required some tooling to mount the base beyond the block on the shaper. As the bearings are going to be bored anyway it really didn’t matter.




Getting started; there is no DRO or edge finder on a shaper; so it is pretty much working to your layout lines. I did set up a 1? travel indicator on a mag base so that I could stop at the same point at each end of the cut.


Action shot!


An adjustable parallel and mic were used to measure the dimension of the cut. The target was .875?. I got one spot on and the other a couple of thou over. The caps are cut to fit so the finial dimension isn’t super critical.


All finished and ready for the next operation.

This is the first time for me on the shaper; it is a fun tool and I can see how one could be a great addition to the home shop.

Next is the machining and fitting of the main bearing caps.


Here are the caps as received cast as a pair.


I decided the best way for me to deal with them would be to saw them apart and work on them individually.


The caps were set up so the bolt bosses were aligned vertically by eye with a precision square; then a very light cut taken to give a reference surface. The cap then flipped over and the same done to create two parallel surfaces. Due the thickness of the caps these surfaces will be mostly removed in later operations.


Not shown; a skim cut was taken off the bottom on the caps using the newly machined surfaces to hold on to and a parallel to sit it on; referencing the top of the cap.
This operation made the top and bottom parallel; checking here with a square.


Now having 3 machined surfaces the holes were located, drilled and spot faced.


Using the drilled holes each end of the caps were brought to length; the outboard ends left .005 long so that a skim cut could be taken after they are mounted.


Again using the holes as a datum and locating the cap on parallels using the spot faced bolt holes; the final thickness and the locating boss is machined.

The main cap mounting holes on this engine present a problem due to the bottle frame it is impossible to drill and tap them from straight above. This operation required a little special tooling. So here is how I chose to tackle this problem.



A pair of drill fixtures that fit in the main cap reliefs were machined from CRS. If these were going to be used more than once they should be hardened; but for a one shot deal I decided to leave them soft.


Here is a close up of the drill and driver; the drill was made using a new 135 deg. split point screw machine drill which had most of the shank cut off. The drive portion was made from a 5/16 socket head cap screw (SHCS) with the threads removed and the drill bit silver soldered into a hole drilled through the length of the screw. The bit was held with a pair of aluminum soft jaws in my bench vise for soldering. The driver was made from a Bondhus ball driver cut down and pressed into a piece of 3/8” stock.

I had originally planned on just chucking up the hex driver in the drill chuck but the run out was awful; so I went to plan B which was to shorten up the ball driver and press it into the 3/8” stock.


Here is the drilling operation; the fixture is clamped into position with a parallel machinist clamp. Using my battery powered drill this operation was done by hand. With the new split point drill it was very easy to drill the 4 mounting holes.


Here is a close up shot of drill and the driver. The ball hex and the bit were lubricated with some machine oil to make things run a little smoother.


Here are the holes drilled and ready to be taped.


Here is the hi-tech tapping set up; using a tap guide the holes were tapped first with a spiral point tap and then finished up with a new bottoming tap.


Holes have been drilled and tapped and the bearing caps secured with temporary socket head cap screws.


Here is a closer view.

Next operation is to set up and drill the clearance holes to pour the Babbitt bearings. The Babbitt will be drilled and bored similar to the previous operation.

Thanks for checking in.

Dave
« Last Edit: July 06, 2017, 12:36:53 AM by Dave Otto »

Offline black85vette

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Re: Pacific Vapor Engine from Morrison & Marvin Castings
« Reply #40 on: January 29, 2013, 04:42:39 AM »
That shaper sure did a good job.   How would you do this without a shaper?

Nice solution for drilling in an awkward spot.

Offline zeeprogrammer

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Re: Pacific Vapor Engine from Morrison & Marvin Castings
« Reply #41 on: January 29, 2013, 11:02:11 AM »
That shaper sure did a good job.   How would you do this without a shaper?

I was wondering the same.
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Offline swilliams

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Re: Pacific Vapor Engine from Morrison & Marvin Castings
« Reply #42 on: January 29, 2013, 12:46:17 PM »
Quote
That shaper sure did a good job.   How would you do this without a shaper?

You could possibly do it using a slotting head on a milling machine

see the second attachment on this page
http://www.lathes.co.uk/bridgeport/page4.html

They also had them for horizontal machines. You can see an example here

http://www.lathes.co.uk/senior/index.html


Steve
« Last Edit: January 29, 2013, 12:50:44 PM by swilliams »

Offline black85vette

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Re: Pacific Vapor Engine from Morrison & Marvin Castings
« Reply #43 on: January 29, 2013, 12:59:58 PM »
Quote
That shaper sure did a good job.   How would you do this without a shaper?

You could possibly do it using a slotting head on a milling machine

see the second attachment on this page
http://www.lathes.co.uk/bridgeport/page4.html

They also had them for horizontal machines. You can see an example here

http://www.lathes.co.uk/senior/index.html

That pretty much leaves me out.   Good to know.   That is one of the benefits of seeing an engine like this built on the forum.  You get to see what equipment is required rather that getting half way into it and finding out.  :facepalm:   Thanks for the links!   I learned something new.

Offline b.lindsey

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Re: Pacific Vapor Engine from Morrison & Marvin Castings
« Reply #44 on: January 29, 2013, 01:10:19 PM »
I am remembering some of these pictures from the other site but glad you are reposting here. Beautiful work on what will be a real  showpiece of a model!!  I look forward to each new update.

Bill

 

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