You're welcome Kim and Bill, glad that was of help.
Bill I don't know where one would get whale oil these days but I'm sure someone will. It's not that important though as most oil will do for our needs, used or not - at a push even cooking oil will cope. Ha, I bet Ole Whiskey's got a pint or two of that going spare
Work steadily progresses down in 'tha ole shid' so a little more will bring us closer to current situation.
As said the right hand engine parts were exchanged for two new flywheel halves and the outer bearing pedestal. However sitting on the bench for near twenty years was 'one done earlier'
At one stage offered for less than half the cost of the castings it was met with a rather ill considered six word reply of "I won't be buying that then" Needless to say after sorting out the packaging and a potential courier that was really 'well received' and precipitated an immediate 'well there it can stay' attitude (well, sort of). And so it's sat, redundant until now.
Bolted together with cap heads it was thought it may be possible to cut it into two so it was up on the new mill without delay. To be honest I did take a big gulp before touching that cutter on but it just sailed through. The cutter was initially plunged in straight till near touching the arbour then moved across the Y axis. Once cleared the 'wheel was turned and the next cut made. Little packing pieces were inserted to prevent the top half nipping the blade toward the end and on final break through it just sat there, the cutter ticking in the slot.
It's held to the table with just one bolt through the lower half spokes into a tee nut. (There's a space between each set of spokes) The copy paper underneath is to enhance the grip - something it will do immensely over metal to metal contact. I was expecting the saw to protest as it passed through the capheads but it proved unfounded and the whole op was done in very short order.
The original join was a 'step and register' type and there was no way of knowing where this laid exactly but it was hoped the saw would remove this and this proved more or less so.
You can see evidence of the join in this image so the positioning wasn't too far out.The cap heads were dot punched .....
...and drilled out freehand.
Cast iron plugs were turned, Loctited and peened over ready for facing off on the lathe.
I knew I had done all the turning at home originally but at first could not remember how I had done it as it was not possible to place the wheel in the gap with the faceplate in situ. It soon fell into place though and the first thing was to turn a short plug that would fit the flywheel bore as close to the mandrel nose as possible - it's bolted to a Morse taper held in place with a draw-bar
The flywheel was placed in the gap first and tilted toward the tailstock. The faceplate was then screwed on and up tight before lifting the flywheel onto the plug. Tailstock support pushes the flywheel's central boss up against the faceplate with the rim overhanging the flywheel. Some lightly placed but secure clamps provided the drive.
I think you'd agree this was a successful, if a bit hairy, set up but little if any run out
The only thing that transpired doing this was that the spokes are slightly offset to the rim do to losing that stepped join. In hindsight I could have ignored that and made the wheel a tad wider but hindsight, as they say, is twenty twenty vision and that's not readily available these days
The plan is to board the flywheel however so it shouldn't be too much of an issue.
So, a successful outcome and there's still two nice un-machined flywheel halves in store. The icing on the cake however was at the Forncett Event in October. Both flywheel parts laid on the table and explaining it to a visitor was asked what was going to happen to the remaining half - let's just say a favourable deal was done
With this ready work could commence on the crankshaft and getting the bed plates aligned on the base but that's for later
That's it for now then - Tug