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Bolton No 2

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ths:
Recently I started doing a few things on the lathe, after a break of more than six months. Due to an injury, my time there is limited, and my movement is restricted, however it's good for the soul, even though small things can take a long time.

A lot of my machining time has been spent making workshop equipment, although there are a few steam engines completed. One that has spent far too much time maturing in the drawer is the Bolton No 2 horizontal mill engine. It's a fairly basic entry in the Bolton range, 5/8" bore x 1"stroke, less than half the size of the water pump equipped No7 (1 1/2" x 2 1/4"). It was one of those projects that gets started, but then finds itself shunted to the nether reaches as more immediate attractions pop up. I was able to justify the extended sidetrack, telling myself that the dividing head, pillar tool and other things would be really useful. Fortunately, I was right!

In returning to this engine, I find that I am much more confident in my machining skills (I only have a lathe), having got a decent amount of projects under my belt, and am much more willing to deviate from the supplied castings, and fabricate pieces.

Here is the G/A from the plans,

And here are the pieces as they existed upon recommencement.

You can see that the cylinder and valve were substantially completed, and that the eccentric had been partially fabricated. I think that the eccentric had gone that way because I had made one for the Westbury Trojan vertical (the Bolton No 5 is identical), after reading about the improvements made by John Bertinat in a mid seventies Model Engineer that I picked up. The 'improvement' I have begun on this engine may receive further thought!

I decided that the first job to get back into this, would be the bearing blocks. I found that I had faced one side of each casting, a check of the plans showed that I hadn't done anything silly, there was plenty of metal there, and more would need to be removed to bring it down to finished thickness. I began however, by milling the feet and width in the vertical slide, before drilling for studs, then cutting the blocks in half, tapping and bolting together for creating the bore.

After milling, I took the blocks over to the plan and marked out the shape that was to emerge from them. I compared them to the drawing, which is finished size, and came over all narky. The castings were huge compared to the finished article, and I couldn't think of how to responsibly bring them to size. I was actually quite annoyed by the amount of waste involved, and decided that I would fabricate something more appropriate visually, and materially.

Two lengths of 5/16 square steel were tinned and soldered together, cut to length, drilled, milled, bored and filed with the assistance of filing buttons. They were then brought to thickness using a turning fixture I made (quickly and easily). Brass bearing bushes were then turned to fit, they themselves also being brought to final length on a similar fixture. These fixtures are merely simple expanding mandrels, tapped with an appropriate taper tap only, then cut axially with a hacksaw. A screw threaded into the mandrel forces it to expand as it pushes into the tapered hole. The turned item was solid on the mandrel whilst being turned.  A photo of the finished items, complete with filing buttons. I will work the machining marks out with a bit of wet and dry at some stage.







As I mentioned earlier, work is slow, and I will post more when the next bit is done.

Cheers, Hugh.

ths:
Sorry, I seem to have stuffed up the photos. I'll see what I can do. Is it the HTML code I copy and paste?

Hugh.

Jo:
Is this what you wanted:


--- Quote from: ths on May 09, 2013, 10:29:13 AM ---Here is the G/A from the plans,



And here are the pieces as they existed upon recommencement.



You can see that the cylinder and valve were substantially completed, and that the eccentric had been partially fabricated. I think that the eccentric had gone that way because I had made one for the Westbury Trojan vertical (the Bolton No 5 is identical), after reading about the improvements made by John Bertinat in a mid seventies Model Engineer that I picked up. The 'improvement' I have begun on this engine may receive further thought!

I decided that the first job to get back into this, would be the bearing blocks. I found that I had faced one side of each casting, a check of the plans showed that I hadn't done anything silly, there was plenty of metal there, and more would need to be removed to bring it down to finished thickness. I began however, by milling the feet and width in the vertical slide, before drilling for studs, then cutting the blocks in half, tapping and bolting together for creating the bore.



After milling, I took the blocks over to the plan and marked out the shape that was to emerge from them. I compared them to the drawing, which is finished size, and came over all narky. The castings were huge compared to the finished article, and I couldn't think of how to responsibly bring them to size. I was actually quite annoyed by the amount of waste involved, and decided that I would fabricate something more appropriate visually, and materially.



Two lengths of 5/16 square steel were tinned and soldered together, cut to length, drilled, milled, bored and filed with the assistance of filing buttons. They were then brought to thickness using a turning fixture I made (quickly and easily). Brass bearing bushes were then turned to fit, they themselves also being brought to final length on a similar fixture. These fixtures are merely simple expanding mandrels, tapped with an appropriate taper tap only, then cut axially with a hacksaw. A screw threaded into the mandrel forces it to expand as it pushes into the tapered hole. The turned item was solid on the mandrel whilst being turned.  A photo of the finished items, complete with filing buttons. I will work the machining marks out with a bit of wet and dry at some stage.















As I mentioned earlier, work is slow, and I will post more when the next bit is done.

Cheers, Hugh.

--- End quote ---
Wrap the HTTP address inside [ img ] [ /img ]  - without the spaces  ;)

Jo

Jo:
Looking good hugh  :ThumbsUp:, I need to do this for the Crosskill over the weeked.

Jo

tel:
No, it's the IMG code you want

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