Chris' Build of a Lombard Hauler Engine

[crueby]

thats looking great, and i always sleep on how to figure out how to make bits ,,that why it always take ages to make the parts for my engines !!

Thanks Willy! Thats part of why I take naps out on the porch during the day, to speed up the process!
Yeah, um, okay, thats why. Thats my story, and I'm sticking to it! We actually got some 70's and near 80 degrees here this weekend, got the porch rockers tested out (yes, still working fine!).

[crueby]

One more shop session in today, and got the mounting holes drilled in the cylinder flanges,

and then used the edge finder to line up the steam chest base for drilling the holes for the steam chest studs. I don't always use the finder, rely on the nearsighted eyes instead, but for critical items like this where multiple parts need to all line up, I do take the extra minute to use it.

then spot drilled the series of holes (after calculating out the numbers of turns on the handwheels for my 'CNC' (Count Number Cranks) procedure)

and drilled the tap sized holes for the 2-56 studs that will hold the steam chest and cover in place

Here are the parts after a session of tapping the holes:

Next time I'll start on the steam/exhaust ports in the face of the chest bases. After that I think it will be time to part off the excess on the ends, have to think on the sequences a bit first. May require another nap...

[Brian Rupnow]

Chris---sometimes naps are the answer. I find it almost impossible to nap through the day, but when I go to bed I solve a lot of mechanical problems in that period of time between when I close my eyes and the old brain shuts down for the night. You're doing great work, I love it.---Brian

[crueby]

Chris---sometimes naps are the answer. I find it almost impossible to nap through the day, but when I go to bed I solve a lot of mechanical problems in that period of time between when I close my eyes and the old brain shuts down for the night. You're doing great work, I love it.---Brian

Sitting in the sun, comfy rocker, reading a good book, somehow the nap finds me. Sure beats sitting in a conference room, bad chair, boring subjects, trying to look awake!

[Admiral_dk]

Sure beats sitting in a conference room, bad chair, boring subjects, trying to look awake!

Been there and done that - including falling asleep 

You keep amassing me and the rest of the crew around here  - so what can I say, other than keep up the good work and we will all follow you   

Best wishes

Per

[crueby]

Sure beats sitting in a conference room, bad chair, boring subjects, trying to look awake!

Been there and done that - including falling asleep 

You keep amassing me and the rest of the crew around here  - so what can I say, other than keep up the good work and we will all follow you 

Best wishes

Per

Thanks!

 

[crueby]

Got quite a bit done on the cylinders this morning. Started by drilling for the exhaust ports, one .099 hole at either end of the port:

and then a series of .052 holes down the length of each steam inlet port:

And yes, this is just a series of holes for what should be a set of long slots, getting to that part in a few steps. First, while it was set up in the mill, figured it was a good time to drill the exhaust passage. This angles from the center slot out towards the end on the inside of the frame, where the exhaust pipe will connect in and take the exhaust up to the smokebox. With the drill in the chuck, used that to line up the angle of the cylinder so that it went between the mounting holes and to the center of the exhaust port slot.

With the vise locked down, switched to a center drill, move the mill table forward to center the hole on the side of the base, and started the hole, going deep enough so that the drill itself would be on a level surface.

and then drilled down till it met the exhaust port:

then, with the cylinder on its side, used a 3/16" end mill to plunge cut a wider hole over the end of the angled one to soft solder in the pipe fitting later on.

The same steps were done on the other cylinder, but on the opposite side, so both exhaust ports will be on the inside of the frames.
Okay, now it was time to connect the holes in each row of the steam ports. For this, I went to my high speed air-powered rotary tool, this one happens to be a Turbo-Carver brand that I got years ago for use in detail carving. It takes diamond tipped and carbide tipped tools like your dentist uses, very handy for small work. It has a small tankless compressor activated with a foot pedal, and turns at around 400,000 rpm. Aside from the sound giving flashbacks to the dentist chair, it works quite well, and the small diamond coated bits and the toothed carbide ones cut metal fairly well, though much slower compared to an end mill. For these slots, it just took a couple minutes to connect the holes down to about .200" deep, and square up the ends. Here is one cylinder done, other ready to go:

That little needle-like thing in the forground is the cutter. Here is a closeup. The shanks on the bits are 1/16" diameter, and tapered for a friction fit in the chuck.

With both sets of slots done, the last thing to do on the ports was to polish them down on a coarse then fine diamond coated lapping plate, that I originally got for sharpening carving chisels and plane blades. You can get them at woodworking suppliers, just put a little oil on them to carry off the metal bits, hold the part down flat, and slide them back and forth till smooth. This took off the raised burs from drilling/tapping the holes around the edge, and smoothed off the burs on the slots that you can see in the closeup pictures.
With that done, I sawed off the extra metal at the bases of the cylinders:

and centered them up in the 4-jaw on the lathe, using a piece of bar stock to protect the valve surface from being marked by the jaws:

and turned off the end smooth and to size:

Last things to do on the cylinders are to drill/tap the holes for the end caps, and to drill the steam passages from the ends down to the inlet ports. For this, I turned down one of the ends I just cut off the cylinders to make an arbor, a close sliding fit in the bore with a shoulder, and drilled/tapped the end for a bolt. Without removing the part to ensure it stayed centered properly, moved the chuck over to the rotary table on the mill. Here is the arbor:

and with the first cylinder ready to go:

The top cap on the arbor is narrow enough to drill the mounting holes, just enough of a lip on it to hold the part securely.

Good progress for one morning, time to head outside now that it is warming up!

[scc]

Brilliant work and well documented        Terry

[crueby]

Thanks Terry!

After some outside time this afternoon, went back into the shop and got the holes drilled for the cylinder caps. Very carefully moved the mill table out the right radius from the center point, checked, rechecked, decided it was positioned right, and went ahead with the drilling. All well! Was nervous about ruining one after all that work so far. The holes are 45 degrees apart, starting at 22.5 degrees from the steam chest plate center so that they miss the steam passage hole, to be drilled later after the caps are done.

Here are the cylinders after drilling both ends of each, and one set is tapped, still need to tap the rest of the holes. Which reminded me, going to have to make up another big batch of 2-56 nuts and studs for all these plus the steam chest bolts.

Next up though, going to make the cylinder end caps, and drill the matching holes. I am leaving the rotary table in place and the mill table locked down at the current settings to ensure that those holes line up properly with the cylinders.

[Don1966]

I have to admit you are relentless, damn Dog do you ever rest? But then again your making good progress. Awesome work Chris.........I..........like........


Don

[crueby]

I have to admit you are relentless, damn Dog do you ever rest? But then again your making good progress. Awesome work Chris.........I..........like........


Don

Thanks Don,

Oh yeah, plenty of rest time, was only in the shop a couple of hours today. More time outside than in, shop time will shift to evenings as the weather improves (up north we have this thing called Winter you may have heard about down there!)


 

[zeeprogrammer]

Wow!

Yeah...I know it's not 'plenty'...but wow. 

[90LX_Notch]

Looks good Chris.  I can't wait for this thing to be finished.

-Bob

[crueby]

Wow!

Yeah...I know it's not 'plenty'...but wow. 

Thanks Carl! Learning to fabricate some of these parts that were castings on the original has opened up lots of new kinds of parts for me. Finally getting more comfortable with the silver soldering on the smaller parts.
 

[b.lindsey]

Sometimes it's hard to gage size but that picture of the cylinder in the lathe chuck on the rotary table I can relate to!  Smaller than it looks like in some of the other pictures of just the cylinders. Well done though!!

Bill