Stuart Major Beam Engine

[Chipmaster]

Hi Crueby, here are some pictures of my radius turning tool, it's a George Thomas /  J Radford design. I bought it from a used tool stand at a model engineering show years ago.
A kit is available from http://www.hemingwaykits.com/acatalog/Spherical_Turning_Tool.html

S Major 1301 by Andy, on Flickr

S Major 1303 by Andy, on Flickr

S Major 1304 by Andy, on Flickr

The use of 1/8" diameter high speed steel tool bits is quite convenient being inexpensive and easy to sharpen.

This YouTube video is a good demonstration of how the tool is used.

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psY1bL9Oaq4" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psY1bL9Oaq4</a>

Andy

[crueby]

Thanks Andy!!

[Jo]

Andy's looks rather better than mine which was made out of scrap-binium.

You can make you own using a boring head mounted on a rotating shaft 

Jo

[gary.a.ayres]

S Major 1301 by Andy, on Flickr

Looks way better than some of the current off-the-shelf offerings...

[Chipmaster]

A little more work on the Valve Hand Lever

Drilled the 4BA clearance hole and a 7mm hole in the hub of the lever. A 2mm keyway was then broached in the 7mm hole using my drill press. The drawing specifies 9/32" with a 5/64" keyway. I had no alternative than to go for a  7mm hole and 2mm keyway - the broach and bush were affordable.

S Major 1307 by Andy, on Flickr

The next stage was to thin the lever down to 7/64" thickness by milling approximately 0.105" off each side. It was difficult to hold the job securely with my range of parallels so the job was held below the level of the vice jaws and a 3/8" slot drill used.

S Major 1310 by Andy, on Flickr

S Major 1315 by Andy, on Flickr

The four ridges left on the edges were filed away.

S Major 1316 by Andy, on Flickr

The will be plenty of filing and polishing tomorrow.

Andy


 

[Chipmaster]

Cheers Gary, Jo and Crueby.

I attempted to build a Hemmingway radius turning tool but didn't get the dovetail right and gave up. Thinking of the cost of a dovetail milling cutter you have to be keen to go to the trouble of making the tool.

Andy

[crueby]

Andy's looks rather better than mine which was made out of scrap-binium.

You can make you own using a boring head mounted on a rotating shaft 

Jo

Oooh, clever idea!

[ettingtonliam]

I did make one from a Hemmingway kit. It doesn't get used a lot, but it does get used. My problem is that when you make it, part of the process is machining the parts so the axis of rotation is on the centreline of the lathe. That way you get true spheres. My problem is that making it was 4 lathes ago, and I can't see a good way of setting it to centre now. Yes, I can get it pretty close by eye, and to be honest, for what I do, thats good enough, but I'd be interested to know if there is a 'proper' way of doing it.

[Chipmaster]

Finished work of the valve lever arm today but I departed from the drawings because I made a couple of mistakes. The first mistake was to make it from 1/2" diameter bar, 9/16" or 5/8" would have been appropriate because I didn't have enough stock to form the circular hub at the bottom of the lever. The second mistake was to make the keyway too tall in the hub, this meant that I had to settle for an elongated hub to avoid having an open slot. I didn't feel like starting all over again. The key will be a little taller than normal but the head of the key should hide my error.

Anyway here are the results.

Milling the tapered sides of the lever




After a fair amount of filing and polishing......







The hub or boss of the lever doesn't look too far out of place in comparison with the lower end of the valve motion link just to the right.

Andy

   

[propforward]

 

Very nice! Lovely parts and they look just right on your engine. 

[Chipmaster]

Andy

[Roger B]

    

[Chipmaster]

Cheers Roger,
I hope you can rebuild your Diesel engine and have it running in the near future.

Andy

[Chipswitheverything]

Happy Christmas Andy!  Santa's elves in the packing department at Stuart Turner, as was, never sent along the decorative accessories to prepare my Major Beam for festivities, but it's too late to berate the workers at Henley on Thames for the missing bits...!   Dave

[simplyloco]

Delightful, and a Merry Christmas from me.
John