Lane and Bodley 400hp Corliss

[Jasonb]

Yes, fixed the holes now lost a 3mm slip 

Ramon

Hope you have not been packing up your lathe tools with slip blocks Ramon

Simon if you don't want to set up the mill again to counterbore I have done it in the past using a cordless drill, you can also run them either direction.

[Jo]

Yes, fixed the holes now lost a 3mm slip 

Hope you have not been packing up your lathe tools with slip blocks Ramon

I have an old gash set of imperial ones that I do similar with 

Jo

[Jasonb]

I don't have any but seem to get by OK

[Jo]

They are really useful under your packing in a machine vice to bring the work up so that you can mill off that last little fraction of a millimetre without catching the vice jaws when holding thin items and I am sure that is what the gap under the jaws is there for - to allow for the slip to slide under it

Jo

[Ramon Wilson]

Concur with the cordless Jason and also a traditional hand brace but with a cordless you do need to be careful not to overdo it 

Simon just realised - you don't need to make a reverse spotfacer - just make a conventional one on the end of a length of silver steel and use it normally. I had to do this on my bed-plate and just used an ordinary hand drill - it's surprising how easy cast cuts.

Jo - now I know you have the mark of a real engineer - using slips as parallels 

I use mine mainly for setting depth stop distance - lathe and mill, and of course what they're designed for - measuring 

Found mine - bench blindness to blame

Ramon

[Jo]

Jo - now I know you have the mark of a real engineer - using slips as parallels 

I use mine mainly for setting depth stop distance - lathe and mill, and of course what they're designed for - measuring 

I have two good sets for measuring, one shiny steel and a second carbide

The one I use for parallel packing was very expensive, it cost £1  I also use old feeler gauges with them for the same job 

Jo

[sco]

Concur with the cordless Jason and also a traditional hand brace but with a cordless you do need to be careful not to overdo it 

Simon just realised - you don't need to make a reverse spotfacer - just make a conventional one on the end of a length of silver steel and use it normally. I had to do this on my bed-plate and just used an ordinary hand drill - it's surprising how easy cast cuts.

Ramon

Some of the holes are quite difficult to reach - I'll have a look what the access is like for a standard spotfacer - might have to be half one way and half the other.

I don't have a proper set of parallels, just a couple of pieces of ground flat stock and a bag of setup shim recycled from work.

Simon.

[Ramon Wilson]

Simon - If the spot-facer is cut on the end of a length of silver steel you have 13" to play with - is that not long enough to reach over the length of the casting?

Ramon

Ah just realised - you have four underneath  Reverse it is then

[sco]

So spent a lot of the week making back spot-facers - took 3 attempts but after some guidance from Ramon managed to get one that would cut properly.  I've also finish machined the cylinder end face - took ages back and forth with light cuts but didn't want to risk the casting moving at this stage!

Simon.

[sco]

Next job was the frame wear plates which turned into a mini project all of it's own, the plans suggest one method is to start with a bar, bore out the middle and then slit two sections out of it.  However the kit came with some flat cast iron bar specifically for the purpose so decided to use that - it was skimmed up, cut in half and three holes tapped in it for holding purposes. 

I wanted to cut the radius in the plate using a boring head but being such a long plate this meant the first job was to make a custom boring head using a blank arbor and a length of ally cross drilled for a piece of round HSS to give the right finished radius.

A piece of square ally bar was drilled to match the holes in the plate and mounted up on a large angle plate to bring it up to the right height for the boring operation.  It was then just a case of screwing the cast bar to the ally fixture, milling it to finished width and then very slowly cutting the radius into the top face which took ages to do with a very fine feed and depth of cut.

Seems to have worked out ok - the plates just need cutting to final length to match the main frame.

Simon.

[fumopuc]

Hi Simon, an interesting set up. Nice progress.

[Ramon Wilson]

That's worked out really well Simon  A damn good result   

Cross Head next?

Regards - Tug

[sco]

That's worked out really well Simon  A damn good result   

Cross Head next?

Regards - Tug

Hi Tug,

Yes the cross head is likely next - I need to work out exactly what radius I've ended up with in the wear plates first though.  I've got a couple of ideas including using the boring head to bore a hole in a bit of scrap plate and / or machining a plug and checking with blue.

Simon.

[Jasonb]

I'd probably go for boring a hole and use that as a slip gauge over the cross head though the plug would take into account any difference between a solid or interrupted cut and give the actual assembled dia in case there is a slight difference when assembled. Is it a solid cross head or does it have separate slippers?

You are making good progress

[Jim Nic]

Progressing well there Simon, some tricky stuff to be sure.
For the crosshead how about making an expanding cylinder hone to Tug's design (I'm sure he can supply details which he has previously been kind enough to publish) and use it in the tailstock thus ensuring the guide is to a known diameter and parallel.  Easier then to make a crosshead to fit.
Jim