Author Topic: Hodgson 9 cycl radial  (Read 106618 times)

Offline swilliams

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #30 on: March 03, 2013, 12:43:46 AM »
Hi Don

Thanks for the nice words. No I didn't round the fins off. I started out chamfering them with a lathe tool, but moved on to doing it with a millsaw file, which was much quicker. Still got a bit to go on these, hopefully no more stuff ups  :noidea:

Steve

Offline metalmad

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #31 on: March 03, 2013, 12:45:29 AM »
Hi Steve
Looking Good Buddy :ThumbsUp:
Pete
A little bit every day, sometimes the same little bit

Offline steamer

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #32 on: March 03, 2013, 01:02:51 AM »
Keep it coming bud!  I'm watching!

 :praise2: :cheers:

Dave
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Offline Mayhugh1

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #33 on: March 03, 2013, 02:45:51 AM »
Steve,
     Since you might tackle the heads next and asked, here are a couple photos showing what I've done. I just finished pressure testing the assembled head/cylinders today and am now drilling the cylinder flange mounting holes for assembly with the crankcase. You might also notice that I silver soldered stainless steel exhaust/intake assemblies to keep the engine entirely of white metal. I also added a little more meat to the mounting flange. The stainless is much easier to bend than the thin wall brass tubing that plans call out.  To tell you the truth, I'm starting to re-think the rocker arm supports. - Terry
« Last Edit: March 03, 2013, 02:51:19 AM by Mayhugh1 »

Offline swilliams

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #34 on: March 03, 2013, 08:10:09 AM »
Well I managed to get another two cylinders up to the stage of those in the last photo. So I'm now dealing with 9 again. Hopefully no more stuff ups on the cylinders  :zap:

Pete and Dave - thanks for stopping in, I'll keep it coming Dave, at the moment enthusiasm is up.

Terry - the heads look great, so does the silver soldering and pipe work. Thanks for posting them. Keep us informed with how you go as you approach completion. The black on your cylinders looks fantastic, did you get that done by a gunsmith or something else? I'm procrastinating a little about what to do about that. Gunsmiths aren't so common here.

Steve 


Offline Mayhugh1

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #35 on: March 03, 2013, 09:53:57 AM »
Steve,
     They were hot-blued by a local gunsmith. I live in Texas. There's one on every block. :) - Terry

Offline Ramon Wilson

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #36 on: March 04, 2013, 10:37:30 PM »
I'd love to help rekindle your enthusiasm. Maybe when I hit the wall you can take up the slack   :naughty:

What are you going to do about the induction pipe elbows that Lew Blackmore die cast? Are you going to follow his method or go some other way?

Anyway I'm off to cut some more fins and inhale some more cutting oil  :insane:

Steve

Hi Steve,
Sounds a possibility there but don't count on it will you  ;D

Re the induction pipes I made a die from MS......

So far only the lead test pour has been made and I'm still undecided whether to make wax masters from it (the die) and have them investment cast or to try to cast them myself. If the latter then some kind of pour sleeve which can be bolted on is going to be required. I was intending machining the lower ones from solid. As always too much to do - so much else filling the available time.

Good to hear you've got all nine cylinders back up.

Sorry for the delay
Regards - Ramon
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Offline metalmad

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #37 on: March 05, 2013, 12:01:30 AM »
Hi Ramon
I know its Steve's thread but as yet you have not started one on this wonderful build.
A pity as its such inspiring work.
I for one would love the opportunity to see what you've done!
You should be able to pour that pattern yourself if you preheat with a blow torch and perhaps give it a once over with a silicon based spray such as crc or rp7 etc first.
You may not have seen my steel piston mold in my current build.
Pete
A little bit every day, sometimes the same little bit

Offline swilliams

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #38 on: March 05, 2013, 10:41:05 PM »
Thanks for posting that up Ramon, it's really great and interesting to learn a little more about that from you and Pete. I'd also love to see a thread on your engine, but understand if you don't feel up to it.

With a little luck, I'll have some more to report on my build soon.

Cheers
Steve


Offline Ramon Wilson

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #39 on: March 06, 2013, 09:09:15 AM »
Hi Guys

You're welcome Steve but as Pete says I don't want to encroach on your thread with too many pics. Thanks for the encouragement Pete but there seems little point in posting about something that is currently rather dormant and unlikely to see any kind of resurrection in the near future. I guess it's handy to refer to at times such as this but not much point in taking it further.

I confess to lurking on your build Pete - you never fail to impress me with your approach and tenacity. I haven't seen it all - indeed have missed the piston mould - for as much as I'd like to, there's simply not enough time to check in on all the super threads on here but from what I have seen you are carrying out an outstanding example of true 'model engineering'.

Hope you won't mind me saying that on your thread Steve. Keep up the good work - both of you are just as inspiring too  :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp:

Regards - Ramon
"I ain't here for the long time but I am here for a good time"
(a very apt phrase - thanks to a well meaning MEM friend)

Offline swilliams

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #40 on: March 06, 2013, 01:03:51 PM »
Hi Ramon
Quote
Hope you won't mind me saying that on your thread Steve
  No problems, I'm enjoying the discussion and I've really enjoyed seeing some pictures of your rotary. Besides; I'm a big fan of Pete's thread too  ;)

Terry - I've pretty much decided I'm going to try and find a gunsmith to do the cylinder blueing. Definitely not like Texas here with regard to that one :'(  A small question for you about the aluminium washers that go between the cylinders and the heads. I guess you just turned them up on the lathe, parting them off to final thickness? Is that the case?

Anyway back to business where I'm working towards putting the threads on the end of the cylinders that the heads screw onto. This requires a number of lathe tools to be ground up and a gauge to be made to get the threads all the same size. So to the photos -

Here's the 9 embryonic cylinders ready for threading



Then knurling the OD of the thread gauge



and internal screw cutting, with the boring bar cutter I ground up out of an old 6mm endmill shank. I'll use this later to cut the internal threads in the heads. I'm using the dial indicator clamped to the lathe bed so I know when to drop the half nuts out for the blind hole threading



Here's the gauge and the tool I've just ground up to cut the external thread



So now cutting the thread. I'm using the dial indicator again and dropping the half nuts out within a 6 thou wide margin, so things are pretty tight. Having a variable speed drive on the lathe has been so good right through making these cylinders. I made good use of the previously ruined cylinders to get everything working the way I wanted first



So I've got two threaded, seven to go. Here's the two, one with the gauge screwed onto it



So I'm lined up for quite a bit of screw cutting and hopefully no  :zap:

Cheers
Steve

Offline Rayanth

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #41 on: March 06, 2013, 07:31:26 PM »
in 2010 I had the opportunity to stop by Lee Hodgson's home and workshop and get a firsthand look at his engines. He's an amazing guy and was great to talk to. I haven't decided which plans I want to order just yet, but due to other projects I want to do far down the road, I am leaning on the 14.

Watching your build with great interest!

-- Rayanth
---Please understand that I am a complete novice, and may take a very wrong path to doing things. Take my opinions and procedures with a grain of salt.
--- All photos taken with a Canon Rebel t1i and resized using "OptimumJPEG".
---Please alert me to any photos or links that do not load.

Offline Mayhugh1

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #42 on: March 06, 2013, 11:27:21 PM »
Steve,
          Nice job on the cylinders so far.
          On the aluminum washers used to seal the heads to the cylinders, I had a short piece of 6061 tubing that was reasonably close to the needed ID and OD, and so I finish-turned it to the final dimensions and then parted them off. I then annealed them in my heat treat oven to make them dead soft. I machined my heads from 7075 and so I thought having a soft material between them and the steel cylinders was a good idea. I was intimidated by threading the two together because there was a lot of work invested in the two pieces about to be permanently joined, but as a test I found that they can be unthreaded and re-threaded if necessary with no damage. The no-return point is when you drill the mounting holes and so you want to be happy with the pressure testing before that last step.  Lee said that you would feel the parts relieve slightly after initially tightening them together, and so he suggested coming back after they are allowed to stabilize for a few minutes to retighten. I didn't see any sign of relieving. There was a rather abrupt stop when they were initially tightened, and usinig the recommended tool and all my strength they could be tightend no more. I even temperature cycled a head to to 300F to see if anything changed but even then I couldn't tighten it anymore from my original position. I measured a crush margin of .010" on my washers and so I don't think my heads were  bottoming on the the cylinders. Lee strongly recommended not using any anaerobic sealer on the threads which was what I was originally planning to do. This was because the sealer is likely to set up during the initial tightening and if the combination relieved a completre seal wouldn't be achieved.
            You might want to reconsider lapping the ID's of your cylinders before you declare them finished. I've only built two other IC engines, but it seems the general wisdom is that ring seating may be difficult on a bored-only model engine cylinder no matter how smooth it might seem to your finger. You've probably done this already but you should also measure and record the ID's on two orthogonal axes at various depths into the cylinder to make sure they are truly round to better than a couple tenths. I had some problems with this that turned out to be a combination of bad material, a crappy 5C collet, and a less than optimum machining sequence. The blueing adds nothing to the ID and should be a nice marker to show ring seating patterns. - Terry
« Last Edit: March 06, 2013, 11:31:41 PM by Mayhugh1 »

Offline swilliams

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #43 on: March 07, 2013, 06:56:51 AM »
Hi Rayanth - good to have you aboard. Must have been fun visiting Lee and the 14 sounds like a nice choice. I've been meaning to make a move on starting to build one of these for some time. Now that I've taken the plunge I'm glad that I did.

Terry - Thanks so much for all that detailed info. It's very helpful indeed. I might give the cylinders a bit of a lap then. To be honest I'm not too worried on that front, I've built i.c. engines before and know what I need to get that part right. But screwing the heads on is new territory for me, so your advice on that is invaluable. The pressure testing sounds challenging, so many places you have to seal off. The spark plug hole, valves etc. Anyway I'll worry about all that later.

Cheers
Steve

Offline swilliams

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #44 on: March 10, 2013, 11:40:30 AM »
Well I managed to finish all the turning operations on the cylinders without loosing any more  :whoohoo:. Here they are, all successfully threaded



then the final turning operation, finishing off the other side



and the current status



I still need to polish them, lap them and drill the holes that secure them to the crankcase. These holes aren't drilled until the heads have been permanently attached. I'm going to start making the jigs and fixtures for the heads next.

 :cheers:
Steve

 

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