Building a bigger Easton & Anderson Grasshopper

[Don1966]

Oh wow! Jason that is looking awesome. You never cease to amaze me. Love the prime job and cast look is that JB weld you are using?

Don

[Jasonb]

Jo they are just ones I put on quickly for last week and will likely drop down one size, they are already smaller than what the doubled up size from AM's original would be. Probably not helped by me using the correct 12No fixings rather than his 8No.

Stand the can of paint and the part near a radiator for a while and then spray, leave to dry above the radiator

Yes its JB Weld that you can see Don

[NickG]

That looks stunning, can't believe how neat the fillets are, you would just never know. Different class compared to the models I'm used to seeing. 

[Jasonb]

One of the larger fabrications on this engine is the rocker frame that supports one end of the beam, I started off by making the bearing housings that go at the top of the frame, these were machined down to 7/16" from 1/2" material and drilled tapping size then I started to machine the semi circular ends.



A drill was placed in the bolt holes to act as a pivot and the curve roughed out in stages and the facets were then filed smooth



The blocks were then cut in half and a male and female formed and the holes tapped in the body and opened up to clearance in the caps




The hole for the bronze bearings was then drilled and finished with the boring head




A small amount was skimmed off the bottom half so that when the cap is screwed down it will grip the bearing



A hole was tapped in the cap to take an oiler



Finally a spigot was formed on the end of the bearing block to lacate in the side members of the frame



I had been trying out a few methods to make the oval sections for the frame and in the end settled on compressing 10mm steel tube in the vice followed by a quick lick on the linisher, this is a short sample and is what I used for the sides and X braces, the two curved parts were machined from flat bar and bent to shape



Jumping forward a bit all the tubes were cut and scribed to fit together and then placed into a jig made from some structural C section which was notched to hold two rods at the correct spacing.



Some fire bricks were packed up in the channel to help support the parts, correction fluid applied to the two rods then the bearing blocks were clamped to these and all the parts assembled before being silver soldered together.





After a bit of a clean-up, lick of JB Weld and a coat of primer this is how it turned out.





Next up are the beams

[Jo]

Looks as good as I remember it.

Question: when you look to make the stands you are milling the curves on the sides. I would have probably gone for drilling holes, sawing off mid way and then silver soldering in a piece of round. (Have I asked this before  ) What is the advantage of the way you have chosen to do it?

And, more questions,  what's with the block on the top of the machine vice.

Jo

[Don1966]

Jason, I am discoursed every time I read your thread. You just make it look so easy. Can you give us a small coarse on another thread as to how you go about Silver Soldering and making it look so good. Your skills are outstanding.

Don

[black85vette]

Ends up a very impressive piece.   Enjoy seeing how it was fabricated.

[Jasonb]

Jo, I did use the hole and soldered rod method on the bearing blocks that hold the bottom of the frame, the main advantage in this case of making it from solid is that there was no risk of it falling apart when soldered into the main assembly and that I could tighten the blocks onto the rod at the correct distance apart

The little block(s) on the machine vice are just a clamp on stop which allows the part to be held in the same position without having to locate the edge each time it is moved to machine the 4 edges. You can buy girly pink ones from Allendale but I just made mine from a bit a 3/8" square, two lengths of silversteel and a cap screw. Mine will also allow the vice to close down to 1/16"

Don I'll see what I can do.

J

[Jo]

You can buy girly pink ones

No good for me then 

Looks like another little gadget to add to my never ending  list of useful things to make.

Jo

[zeeprogrammer]

Awesome looking Jason. You do make it look easy.
Remind me again the use of correction fluid. Dam for the solder?

One of my first tools I made was a vice stop. (Got some good tutoring from Marv.)
Very handy.
It hadn't occurred to me that I should have, could have, made it so the vice closes down more.
That would've been a help sometimes.

[tel]

Remind me again the use of correction fluid. Dam for the solder?

More of a mask than a dam Zee, but yes. You need the proper stuff tho, not the water based.

[Jasonb]

Next up is the beam or more presisely the beams as there are a pair mounted back to back with all the rods etc fitted between. I started out with two pieces of aluminium flat bar 3/8"x 2" just over the required 11" long and squared off one end.



They were then blued and stood vertically on the squared end and clipped to an angle plate to mark out the hole positions. Mostly now I don't do this prefering to just locate an edge/end and use the DRO to position the holes but I wanted to mark in the outer diameters of the bosses.



Here the bosses have been scribed in and the outline drawn to touch the various radii



The beams were then clocked true on the mill and the holes all drilled using the DRO, the largest hole was finished with the boring head. I tend to use stub length drills in the common sizes as it saves having to crank the mill head up and down so much, they are also more rigid so tend not to wander.



The vertical bandsaw was used to trim off the waste from around the outside and then the edges were flycut back to the layout lines.



I set a pair of buttons in the back tee slot of the mill with a parallel against them, this then gave me a reference face to set the beams against rather than having to clock them in for each of the eight edges. I then used a 3 flute FC-3 type cutter to remove half the thickness of the plate. The edges were offset from my ref parallel and I stopped just clear of the scribed boss outlines.



With as much metal removed as possible I setup the rotary table and using various mounting mandrels proceded to round off the two ends and around each boss



This shows all the milling completed



Rather than use a ball nose or radius corner cutter to do all this milling I opted for a square edged one as they are far quicker at removing metal and there were also several cutter diameters needed but only one fillet radius. I put all the fillets in using Milliput putty as there is no need for any structural strength here, its just cosmetic.



A good heavy coat of primer was stippled into the recesses to give a little "cast" texture followed by a blast from the spray can.



The remaining work was just carful turning to produce all the various spindles and spacers, this used about 18" of mostly 5/8" dia steel rod and luckily it all went together without getting jammed.



J

[b.lindsey]

Totally amazing Jason...not only quality machine work, but a perfect combination of sculpting and artwork thrown in for good measure. This one is  a real beauty and a true inspiration!!

Bill

[AussieJimG]

Still following, still learning, still amazed. Great work.

Jim

[Jo]

  Brilliant,  I am very impressed

I like the look of those very thin parallells they must come in handy and I see one of the offcuts has already found itself used as a packing piece . What technique did you use to set the beam up for fly cutting the outside to make sure both were at the same angle?

Jo