Author Topic: Arnold's take on the MEM Corliss  (Read 167328 times)

Offline NickG

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Re: Arnold's take on the MEM Corliss
« Reply #405 on: November 11, 2013, 09:03:48 PM »
Wow pretty impressive on the complicated petrol tank shape! Flywheel looks great too Jason.

Offline mklotz

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Re: Arnold's take on the MEM Corliss
« Reply #406 on: November 11, 2013, 11:48:42 PM »
With a bit of practice you'll be pinstriping like these guys

I could practice until the sun burns out and still not be able to do that.  I never cease to marvel at sculptors and artists who can, with a few deft strokes, characterize a feature or evoke a shape.
Regards, Marv
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Offline Tennessee Whiskey

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Re: Arnold's take on the MEM Corliss
« Reply #407 on: November 12, 2013, 12:45:06 AM »
Amen Marv. I think we practice the art of and true professionals perform the art of.

Eric

Offline arnoldb

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Re: Arnold's take on the MEM Corliss
« Reply #408 on: December 23, 2013, 07:02:06 PM »
A belated Thanks All for your input  :NotWorthy:

It's been a long time since I got anything done on the Corliss  :-[ - things have been a bit hectic, and like I mentioned earlier, engine builds do tend to slow down when one is in the finishing straight...

The pin-striping is a nog-go for now; that's something I'll have a practice on at some point, but not yet.  After the hiatus to make the ER11 tool, I'm back on track on the engine though, and after a hectic past month, I jumped at the opportunity when my boss asked me if I'd like leave for the non-holiday days this week.  So I finally spent some time on the engine today.

A while ago I'd finished off the first couple of studs:


A quick trial fit:


With two machined-down M3 stainless nuts:

Obviously, the washers are way too big, and the nuts could do with a little finishing on the tops.

Today I addressed the paint mess on the cylinder block.  When trial fitting things, besides for the broken paint showing up the primer, there were small sections of bare metal showing in other areas.  So I decided that I'd rather mask off smaller areas and paint over it thinly - and then let the packings when I make them take up the difference.  So the block was smoothed down over some 600 grit emery, and smaller maskings applied:

I didn't re-apply primer; I just sprayed a single thin covering coat over that lot.  Maybe not good practice, but I'm a bit out of my depth here and just going by what I feel might work.

While the paint was drying, I machined down about 50 M3 nuts from 5.5mm to 4.5mm across flats - sticking them on a piece of copper wire to keep them together:


Then it was off to the lathe with them, to turn a chamfer on the top sides:


The nuts are not all the same thickness (cheapo supplier or something to that extent) so some appear to have more of a chamfer than others when viewed up close, but should not be too obvious once installed:


I also stripped the paint off the flywheel rim and sides with acetone.  I'll have to respray the inside of the rim with blue, and after a bit more finishing on the rim and sides I'll spray that with clear lacquer to prevent rust.  The shiny rim does break things up a bit and should look good once finished.  I might even be bold and try some gold paint on the hub to break things a bit there...  Anyway, I left off with this lot for today:

The pair of marigold gloves at least means I don't have blue fingers or nails after today's paint session  ;D

The cylinder looks quite a bit nicer, and from appearance, the flywheel should be OK too.  I have a bunch of studs left to make, a lot of M2 stainless nuts, and a nice regulator valve (for now).  There's also quite a bit of woodwork left to do on the base, and for some of that, I need to make a "tool", but I'll spare MEMbers from that build log, as the "tool" will be mostly in wood  >:D .

As an aside, I caught Shrek trying to check up on what everyone's doing the other evening:


Had a phone call a couple of minutes ago with an invite to a fairly remote location for the Christmas and Boxing Day, so I'll be a bit quiet on the forum for a while.

So, here's to a Happy Christmas Everyone (or a bah-humbug for those so inclined)  :cheers:

Kind regards, Arnold
Building an engine takes Patience, Planning, Preparation and Machining.
Procrastination is nearly the same, but it precludes machining.
Thus, an engine will only be built once the procrastination stops and the machining begins!

Offline vcutajar

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Re: Arnold's take on the MEM Corliss
« Reply #409 on: December 23, 2013, 07:32:21 PM »
That flywheel with bare metal rim really looks good.

Enjoy the festivities Arnold.

Vince

Offline ths

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Re: Arnold's take on the MEM Corliss
« Reply #410 on: December 23, 2013, 08:18:14 PM »
And a Merry Christmas to you too Arnold.

Hugh.

Offline b.lindsey

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Re: Arnold's take on the MEM Corliss
« Reply #411 on: December 23, 2013, 10:25:28 PM »
Merry Christmas Arnold !  Love the picture of Shrek !!!   Of course the Corliss ain't too bad either :)

Bill

Offline swilliams

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Re: Arnold's take on the MEM Corliss
« Reply #412 on: December 24, 2013, 02:05:08 AM »
Great stuff Arnold. Love the picture of your personal assistant on the tablet. Enjoy your Xmas

Steve

Offline Don1966

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Re: Arnold's take on the MEM Corliss
« Reply #413 on: December 24, 2013, 04:17:04 AM »
Love that blue Arnold and I can see Shrek is really into it. Merry Christmas to you bud.

Don

Offline arnoldb

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Re: Arnold's take on the MEM Corliss
« Reply #414 on: April 06, 2014, 06:12:42 PM »
Wow... a quarter of a year since I posted an update to this project  :o

 :-[ A belated thank you for the festive wishes Gents - I thought I'd replied...

It's about time I got back to the Corliss, and at least finish it off to the "Simple" stage.  Going's a bit slow in the shop of late, but I'm not unhappy about that - several good things have been happening.

Besides the fasteners, the outstanding items for the engine are:
- Base - this still needs finishing off.
- Regulator valve: I'm saving this for in-between to break the boring bit of making fasteners  ;)
- Piston ring: I'll be making this from Teflon that I already have in stock.  Should be a fairly quick turning operation.
- Gaskets - Need to spend some time in front of the computer for that, and maybe make up a punch for the holes.
- Paintwork: Pretty much done, except for some touch-up needed on the flywheel.  I'm also thinking of giving the bare metal on the flywheel a coat of clear lacquer to prevent rust.

After making the box tool to trim the stainless rod down a bit and realizing how blunt my M3 die had become, I bought a new die yesterday.
Today I spent a couple of hours in the shop making studs - this now went _much_ easier and quicker with the sharp new die and the slightly thinned rod.

At some point I took a break from the studs, and decided to trim down some washers as well.  The 3mm washers I have has an OD of 7mm which is much too large; they needed to be trimmed down to 5.3mm OD to match the nuts I made earlier and also fit in all the locations needed.  The washers has an ID of 3.2mm.  This meant simply sticking them on a bit of 3mm threaded rod to turn down would leave many of them off-center.  So I made a quicky arbor from 3.2mm brazing rod by threading about 5mm at the end and a couple of spacers to slip on either side of the washers - this left things more concentric for machining:


The rod was then chucked in the collet chuck on the lathe, and the spacers and washers tightened against the collet nose with a nut.  This is not very rigid, but a couple of fine turning passes with a very sharp toolbit easily turned things down:


I just slipped the washers onto a bit of binding wire to keep them together:


I amassed a good hoard for the day - there's only about 5 M3 studs to finish of now.  I'm not going to bother making studs for the 32 M2 ones - those I'll make from all-thread later:


Kind regards, Arnold
Building an engine takes Patience, Planning, Preparation and Machining.
Procrastination is nearly the same, but it precludes machining.
Thus, an engine will only be built once the procrastination stops and the machining begins!

Online Kim

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Re: Arnold's take on the MEM Corliss
« Reply #415 on: April 06, 2014, 09:51:15 PM »
Good to see you making some progress on your Corliss there Arnold.  You've got a nice group of studs and washers ready for assembly!

Kim

Offline vcutajar

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Re: Arnold's take on the MEM Corliss
« Reply #416 on: April 06, 2014, 10:25:57 PM »
Good to see you back at it Arnold.  As for 3mm washers I thought I would use commercial 3mm spring washers which are just the right size.  I doubt I can find 2mm threaded rod locally so I might use long 2mm bolts and cut the head off.

Vince

Offline arnoldb

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Re: Arnold's take on the MEM Corliss
« Reply #417 on: April 08, 2014, 10:23:27 PM »
Thanks Kim & Vince  :)

Vince, I can't get the spring washers locally... - but that should work fine, although they might appear a bit thick.  I know the M2 threaded rod is quite freely available in the UK in 300mm lengths, and not too expensive in GBP either.  Don't know about the shipping costs to Malta though, so that might be a consideration.  I'll just make up my own; shipping and the current exchange rate is a killer for me, so some effort is worthwhile  :)

Kind regards, Arnold
Building an engine takes Patience, Planning, Preparation and Machining.
Procrastination is nearly the same, but it precludes machining.
Thus, an engine will only be built once the procrastination stops and the machining begins!

Offline arnoldb

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Re: Arnold's take on the MEM Corliss
« Reply #418 on: April 20, 2014, 06:47:33 PM »
Things are going slow, but the end of the fastener making is in sight...

I made up some M2 sections of threaded stainless rod.  The rod I got from flux-coated stainless steel stick welding rods; it's simple to crack the flux off and clean up the rod with some Scotch-Brite.  Then I threaded them with the tailstock die holder running the Myford under power on medium back-gear speed:


As usual, I cheated a bit, and decided to make the M2 "studs" more as little "bolts".  I set up the small lathe with the back stop to get a consistent length, and ground up a bit of 4mm square HSS toolbit to make a shaping/parting tool.  That enabled me to make the bolts with pre-shaped heads, as well as leave a suitable "tip" to provide a good thread start for the next section of bolt at the parting line.  I threaded a bunch of nuts on the threaded rod, and supported the trailing end in a bit of brass pipe in the tailstock chuck.  To make sure each nut would stay put at it's location on the bolt-in-making,  I simply fouled the threads next to the chuck slightly with a blunt side-cutter each time, and then turned a nut over the fouled threads and up to the collet nose.  The next photo was taken just before plunging in the cross-slide to part the rod and shape the bolt top:


That made things quite easy to makeup the 32 needed and a couple extra bolts:


I've also slowly started putting things together:






Hopefully I can get some more paintwork done tomorrow, as well as a bit of work on the base...

Kind regards, Arnold
Building an engine takes Patience, Planning, Preparation and Machining.
Procrastination is nearly the same, but it precludes machining.
Thus, an engine will only be built once the procrastination stops and the machining begins!

Offline vcutajar

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Re: Arnold's take on the MEM Corliss
« Reply #419 on: April 20, 2014, 10:58:33 PM »
Looking good Arnold.  Hopefully I can continue  mine in the not too distant future.

Vince

 

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