A portable steam engine

[Tennessee Whiskey]

Rich, when you make a part that looks that good and it fits; it's not simple, just well made.

Eric

[SandCam]

 

Hi Rich,

Good to see you back in the land of Muck and Bullets.

Hope all the DIY went as planned and family are enjoying all your hard labour.

That tangential tool certainly performs very well... pretty easy to sharpen as well.

One question... if the tangent tool is used for taking stuff off... how about a co-tangent tool for putting back the bits you didn't mean to take off.?

I'll get me coat.

Keep happy.

Sandy.

[Firebird]

Hi

Thanks Eric

Sandy, yes great to get out and make something again.

As for the DIY well its about done for this session anyway. What took me so long, allow me to amplify a little. We have largish white tiles in our kitchen with white grout. My good lady decided she would like to keep the white tiles but have black grout She no doubt saw this on one of those programmes where they build a new house out of MDF baked bean tins and emulsion in less than half an hour Who am I to argue. So first job was to rake out all the white grout, many nights and weekends later I'm ready to put black grout back in. This stuff ain't very forgiving as I soon found out, It gets everywhere and I mean everywhere. Whereas white grout on white tiles doesn't show this stuff does including every minute scratch in the surface of the tiles. It was a case of put a little in and clean before it dries, what a job. Now its done I must admit it looks good but it was a never ending job, DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME

Co tangent, now that would be a tool worth making

And a rare treat today me and my mate Julian are off to Elvaston Castle steam fair. Excellent. We will have to manage with burgers n beer for our Sunday lunch 

Cheers

Rich

[NickG]

Good to see you back on this Rich. Really must get my rotary table set up as I have cylinder and covers coming up soon! Can't be messing on like I usually do!

[steamer]

Burgers and beer doesn't sound so bad when you wash it down with a steam fair!....Glad your back at it, and not pushing a grout float around...that's one of those jobs I don't ever want to do again...


Dave

[Jo]

Could you not have just dyed the old grout? 

Decorating, tilling, moving house, moving workshop  I'm with you Dave: never again 

You can keep the burgers, a nice ice cold cider  is what you want with a steam fair, especially if you are playing with a ploughing engine  . Looking forward to some photo's Rich 

Jo

[Firebird]

Hi

What a beautiful day, hottest of the year and perfect steam fair weather. The burger and beer went down well

Not many photos taken I'm afraid I didn't take my camera just my phone. but This little centre engine was more than worthy of a couple of snaps. It was saved and restored by the owner and mounted on wheels.





Thats Julian in the background

Cheers

Rich

[Firebird]

Hi

A few hours on the model today. I need to make the bit that supports the slide bars, the bit thats painted white in the above photos. I'm sure it must have a proper name but not one that I know. I like the look of the open type slide bars as against the the tube type.

I found a bit of scrap 5/16 thick steel plate to use. Its got a few weld marks here and there but enough good material for what I need. I heard somebody say inside every bit of old metal is a new piece waiting to come out, might have been Bogs?

Anyway in the mill to square up the edges.



Drill a couple of 1/4" holes 1/2" apart.



Join up the holes with a 1/4" cutter.



Its then a case of machining away till it starts to appear.







This is what it looks like so far next to a picture of the original.



At this point I got distracted again. I have DRO's on the X and Y axis, they are the best thing I ever fitted. The X1 mill does have a fine feed on the quill but I don't get on very well with it. I much prefer to keep the quill clamp bolt tightened and feed with the Z axis. I have for a long time cobbled a pair of 6" calipres on the job but its far from ideal.



The DRO that was on the X axis had a problem with the remote readout plug so I replaced it with a new one that has the remote readout wired in. I have fitted the old one to the Z axis. Much better having one permanently fitted. It won't work with one of the remote readouts but I can see it ok. You can see I'm using a digital angle guage to line it up with the column.



Cheers

Rich

[Bearcar1]

WoW! Some beautiful work Rich. Nice and clean. I'm still following along and enjoying every bit of it.


BC1
Jim

[NickG]

Good stuff Rich, nearly missed the update as tapatalk sometimes lets things slip through! Nice work with the DRO, I've got one sat on shelf from xmas waiting to be fitted!

[Firebird]

Hi Jim & Nick

Sorry for the slow reply I have just got back from the family holiday, very ehausting. 2 of my 3 daughters came along (they are 19 and 32) and a grand daughter she's 3. At what point I wonder do the kids stop tagging along  It was great fun though.

Cheers

Rich

[sco]

Drill a couple of 1/4" holes 1/2" apart.

I can't teach you guys much but I've noticed this several times on other peoples posts as well (even Jo)- I think this picture demonstrates the wrong way to clamp something down to the mill table.  The studs should be up as close to the vice as possible so that the stud load is going into clamping the vice down, not into clamping the packing pieces!

Apart from that nice work!

Simon.

[Jo]

.... but I've noticed this several times on other peoples posts as well (even Jo)- I think this picture demonstrates the wrong way to clamp something down to the mill table.  The studs should be up as close to the vice as possible so that the stud load is going into clamping the vice down, not into clamping the packing pieces!

I agree mounting bolts as close as possible to the work but I think I know which of my pictures you are referring to. Sometimes it is necessary to put the bolts further back to allow clearance for the tool or the tool holder. The number of times I have caught the top of the clamping bolts with my autolock when using small milling cutters

Jo

[sco]

Jo it was this picture I think;



Which to be fair is when you are drilling something so no side load so not so critical 

Simon.

[Jasonb]

And lets face it Jo would not be using thumb turn nuts if she was trying to hold things tight.

If you do have a clash with the nuts being too close then rather than move them away switch to a longer hold down so that when the nuts are moved further away they will still be proportionally closer to the work than packing.