After an overly long hiatus, I'm back on this build now.
I picked up a bit of rosewood shelving from a wood recycler in Mendocino, and sawed it up to form the base. It's odd stuff; there are seams in it that won't take a plane in either direction, but it machines like a dream, and sands very nicely:
I did have to whip up a bit of plywood to bolt to the milling table to hold the thing though:
and that gave me enough clamping room to run a router bit along the edges:
Here it is, as yet unfinished:
I also made a hand wheel for the forward-reverse mechanism. This started as a brass disk with a central hole silver-soldered onto a bit of 3/8 rod. The edge was then rounded with some form tools, and the central portion thinned out. Then I set it up on the rotary table to cut 4 spokes:
I took the easy approach and kept the spokes an even thickness, instead of tapering them:
and after a bit of time with the files and little strips of emery paper, it looks like this:
This weekend was mostly taken up with making some brass cladding for the cylinder block. This isn't shown on the original plans, but I think it'll make a nice finish, and add some insulation. I did consider hammering this out from brass sheet, but decided to just mill it to shape.
Not having any 1/8" brass plate of the appropriate size, I cut some sheets in the bandsaw from a larger block:
The flat size was superglued to a hunk of cast iron which I'd previously squared up, and a step around the edges was milled, and the top face squared off:
Now it was a case of cutting four angled faces:
and drilling the holes around the edges:
Two covers done, though I'll round off the edges a bit to make it look more like pressed cladding:
We're really getting down to the last few parts now! Thanks for watching
Simon