Author Topic: My First Engine (s) - Another Elmer's Standby  (Read 16771 times)

Online Twizseven

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My First Engine (s) - Another Elmer's Standby
« on: May 29, 2014, 06:54:55 PM »
Hi Folks,

Having watched Arnolds thread on building Elmer's Standby engine.  I decide it was about time to try and build my first engine.  I had picked up the plans and stock material last year at Warwickshire Model Engineering Exhibition and just put on one side.  Had a choice of jobs to start:- rebuild  a Stent Tool and Cutter grinder or finish Geo Thomas Universal Pillar Tool.  Decide I ought to try an engine.  Decided to build two, if they come out OK, one for each daughter, or if only get one good one, the other goes in scrap heap.

First of  out with the Kennedy Hacksaw and cut some bits to size.



An hour later had lots of little bits. 



I did not have any 1/8 by 1/4 to make the conrods so carefully hacksawed by hand two thin slices off the brass strip which was to be used for the main body.  These came out at about 3/8" so moved them to mill to get them to correct dimension and parallel. In order to hold them in small vertex vice I made a single parallel about 5 thou short of 1/4" width  (Excel surface grinder came in handy for this) and then skimmed both side of each conrod blank.



Then marked them out and decided to drill holes for big and little end's.  Not having suitable reamers I started out with 0.7mm drill as a pilot and then worked up in several stages to required dimensions.  I decide that the Mill was too large to carry out this task and so used small Proxxon Mill/Drill.  Lots of speed and easy to peck drill to start off.




Although I have a ML7 with DRO's I felt happier doing such small bits on my new toy. (Cowells ME90).  So fitted 4 jaw chuck, centralised the brass section using a small centre and Verdict gauge.  Then proceeded to cut the taper.  No pictures of this.  It was a bit messy not having the correct tools at this point in time.  First time ever cut a taper, but it appeared to look OK.  Then partially parted off at each end of the rod.  Removed from lathe and then repeated on second rod.



Next step was to thin down the little end to 3/32".  Put rod on surface plate and scribed the minute amount need to be removed, then went back to the Proxxon Mill/Drill.  By using the previously made parallel I was able to support the rod so it was about 20 thou proud of the vice, fitted new 6mm end mill in collet chuck and remove required material.  Flipped rod over and repeated for other side.  Then repeated for 2nd rod.



Next stage was to radius small ends.  Used the same trick as ArnoldB and put shank of 1/16" drill through end, rested drill on top of vice and milled top off and gradually swung the rod to do the complete end.



Finally ended up with two rods as in picture.  Quite pleased ;D.  No disasters so far.



Next bit will be base and stand, but will be a few days.

Thoughts:  Like the Cowells, but it needs more toys (QCTP) and 6mm tooling
« Last Edit: July 11, 2014, 10:00:19 PM by Twizseven »

Offline arnoldb

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Re: My First Engine (s) - Another Elmer's Standby
« Reply #1 on: June 01, 2014, 09:26:43 AM »
Nice start Colin  :ThumbsUp:

Those are basically the hardest-to-make parts of the engine(s) done  ;)

Kind regards, Arnold
Building an engine takes Patience, Planning, Preparation and Machining.
Procrastination is nearly the same, but it precludes machining.
Thus, an engine will only be built once the procrastination stops and the machining begins!

Online Twizseven

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Re: My First Engine (s) - Another Elmer's Standby
« Reply #2 on: June 01, 2014, 09:50:05 AM »
Arnold,

Thank you.  I though they looked the hardest and so a good place to start

Before I do the base and stand I decided to make a vice end stop.  Doing this based on Bogstandards very good write up.  So far I have drilled the vice and about to start on the support stud.

Before I put the vice back on I thought I might as well tram up the mill.  X axis was not too hard to do once I remembered the head on miler had three bolts not two :hammerbash:.  It was out quite a lot (8 thou in 5 inches).  I have a Edge Technology Pro-tram device.  Trouble is the machine was out on Y axis by about the same amount.  This was quite a bit harder to do. The whole pillar is bolted to base by 4 x 24mm bolts.  Slackening them off was not to bad, but it was a two man job to pull whole head and pillar forward to put feeler gauges in centre of front and rear bolts as a pivot to be able to rock the pillar back and forth.  One I could do this I had a selection of sizes of Plasti-shim and cut a 3/4" x 12" section starting at 25 thou to insert under front of pillar.  Tighten up, check, still out, try 20thou shim,  still out, try 15thou, still out.  Eventually with a 10thou shim it was as close as I was going to get.  ;D 1/2 thou out in 5".  At least I wont have to do that job ever again.  Well at least not on the Y axis.

Regards,

Colin

Offline b.lindsey

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Re: My First Engine (s) - Another Elmer's Standby
« Reply #3 on: June 01, 2014, 11:57:20 AM »
Good start there Colin, nice to see you jumping right in on an engine. The tooling will come along, it just takes time to make, buy, or collect the seemingly never-ending things you need (or think you need) :)

Bill

Online Twizseven

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Re: My First Engine (s) - Another Elmer's Standby
« Reply #4 on: December 21, 2014, 02:57:33 PM »
Finally managed to get some time again.  I have managed to do a 'Jo' and finally have a house lathe and a house mill.  I have managed to persuade the other half to let me put them in my upstairs office.   In fact I snook them in and let her get used to them for a day or two.  Built a small unit, with power, shelving and perspex sides to house them which sits on one of my office desks.  Have put a 1/2" layer of heavy foam rubber sheet between the base and the desktop to act as noise/vibration insulation.  Painted it to match the desk and all I have to do now is stop swarf and oil getting on the carpet.  I have all the accessories for the units in a filing cabinet.  The only problem is going back and forwards to workshop for things like drills.  I cannot keep it all in the office.



Decided to try and make the stand.  I am doing this in brass, got it all marked out and then started to drill.  Started with the bearing hole which should be 5/16" dia.  Started with a tiny centre drill to start the hole and then switched to a 1/4" and finally a 5/16".  I had tried to back of the cutting edge of the drill so it did not snatch whilst drilling the brass.  Obviously did not get this quite right because it drilled abysmally and was very noisy.  Reverted to a std drill without any issues, but the bore is not perfect even though finished it off with a 5/16 reamer.  The bearing bush will definitely need to be made to match the bore.

Then drilled a 1/4" hole to provide a radius to mill up to for the leg of the stand.

Next picture shows centre drilling the second hole for cylinder mounting screws



Having successfully completed the four cylinder mounting holes and the port hole I moved on the the 1 & 7/16" deep hole 1/16" diameter.  This was a fun task, slowly peck drilling, winding drill out every 1/16 or so to clear the swarf and lubricate the hole.  I was absolutely amazed when it came out dead centre in the correct location.  I think using a good quality drill helped (Dormer HSS TIN tippped).  This can be seen in next two photos.





I then drilled and tapped the two holes in the base #2.56.



Before I mill away the waste material to form the leg of the stand I will drill the second stand that I am doing.  I am making a pair of these engines and hopefully one will work.

I do like the Cowells mill but I think it will end up with a set of DRO's fitted.  Possibly the small magnetic scales as fitted to crosslide's on the ML7 and Colchester Student.  I have been looking at the Android based DRO (Yuri's toys) which looks quite good as I have an Android tablet I could use.  Is there anyone out there with a Cowells mill with DRO's fitted?

Might get some bits done over xmas. but have to get around 100 wireless access point mounting brackets made, lots of Unistrut to cut and ally sheet to cut, drill/punch/fold.

Have a good Christmas.

Colin

Offline b.lindsey

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Re: My First Engine (s) - Another Elmer's Standby
« Reply #5 on: December 21, 2014, 04:02:46 PM »
That's quite a nice "house" set-up Colin. Are the mill and lathe new? If not they definitely don't look too old. Nice work on the stand too!!

Bill

Online Twizseven

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Re: My First Engine (s) - Another Elmer's Standby
« Reply #6 on: December 21, 2014, 04:35:14 PM »
Bill,

The lathe is around mid 1980's but I only bought it earlier this year on Ebay.  The milling machine I had for a few months, It was bought new by a guy in Ireland in  2012, who due to illness sold it via his brother in the UK (via an add on the MEW website).  Both are in excellent condition and I have pretty well all the accessories for both of them.  Just need to learn to use them.

Colin

Offline Roger B

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Re: My First Engine (s) - Another Elmer's Standby
« Reply #7 on: December 21, 2014, 06:47:38 PM »
That's a nice 'house' set up and some good work  :ThumbsUp:  :ThumbsUp: I will be following along  :popcorn:  :DrinkPint:
Best regards

Roger

Offline vascon2196

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Re: My First Engine (s) - Another Elmer's Standby
« Reply #8 on: December 25, 2014, 03:28:03 PM »
Great job with this build...those Elmer's engines are awesome!
Chris from Southeastern Massachusetts

"a good craftsman never blames his tools"

Offline arnoldb

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Re: My First Engine (s) - Another Elmer's Standby
« Reply #9 on: December 25, 2014, 06:02:15 PM »
Good going Colin  :ThumbsUp:

Nice house setup as well - and there's some of those books that are extremely familiar...

Kind regards, Arnold
Building an engine takes Patience, Planning, Preparation and Machining.
Procrastination is nearly the same, but it precludes machining.
Thus, an engine will only be built once the procrastination stops and the machining begins!

Online Twizseven

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Re: My First Engine (s) - Another Elmer's Standby
« Reply #10 on: December 26, 2014, 11:04:02 AM »
Arnold,

Don't tend to use the books to much now.  Been in IT since 1969.  IBM Mainframe operator, then Cobol programming, then training school, then IT support.  Then out on my own on contract as Senior IT support technician, then network manager.  Gradually moved into wireless and now I just do wireless site surveys of big warehouse and factories, then install and commission all the wireless hardware.  Used primarily for barcode scanning. Hit 65 in 2015 but will most likely carry on for another year.

Hope you had a good Christmas.

Regards,

Colin

Online Twizseven

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Re: My First Engine (s) - Another Elmer's Standby
« Reply #11 on: December 29, 2014, 10:23:41 PM »
A little bit further over last couple of days as and when could fit time in - very slow and steady.

Now have pair of bases and pair of stands and one 90% complete flywheel  to go with existing pair of conrods. :)



Only problem doing flywheel is that my 3 jaw chuck on the Cowells does not have any external jaws  :( so it made it quite awkward facing the second side.  Looks as though I'm going to have to find another 3 jaw chuck. M14x1.5 fitting.

Offline Jo

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Re: My First Engine (s) - Another Elmer's Standby
« Reply #12 on: December 30, 2014, 07:46:04 AM »
Only problem doing flywheel is that my 3 jaw chuck on the Cowells does not have any external jaws 

The jaws on both the Bison and earlier three jaw Cowells chucks are reversible  ;)

Jo
Enjoyment is more important than achievement.

Online Twizseven

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Re: My First Engine (s) - Another Elmer's Standby
« Reply #13 on: December 30, 2014, 09:36:47 AM »
Jo,

I have attached photo of the chuck.  I have not tried to reverse the jaws but guessed that due to the radius on the outside steps of the jaws they would not work in reverse.

I will happily be proved wrong.



Does the part number on the chuck look like a Cowells part no.

Rgds,

Colin

Offline b.lindsey

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Re: My First Engine (s) - Another Elmer's Standby
« Reply #14 on: December 30, 2014, 12:53:33 PM »
Colin, my sherline chuck has that radius on the jaws also but is still reversible. That doesn't guarantee that yours can be reversed but doesn't preclude it either. Sherline shows a 3 jaw for Cowells but that list the thread as 14 x 1 rather than 14 x 1.5. Not sure why the difference  :thinking:

Bill

 

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