I made more good progress this week. Continuing on with the valve work I made the valve rod next. First I turned down the end of the rod to fit the hole drilled into the far side of the valve chest.
Next I threaded both ends of the rod.
With the rod complete a squared up a piece of brass for the rod end and drilled it for the pin.
Then it was over to the lathe where I rounded the end and then drilled and tapped the part.
Next I stuck the round end into a collet block and cut the slot with a slitting saw. It turns out that the part rotated a little bit when I tightened the block so I wasn’t perfectly aligned. It was nothing a little file work couldn’t fix.
The next part was the connecting rod. I squared up a blank and mounted it in the four jaw chuck. Then I drilled it for a center. The belly of the rod was turned to the major dimension. Then I turned the near end to the minor dimension.
After a little trig I realized that the angle between the major and minor dimensions was less than half a degree. As I have no means of accurately setting the cross slide to that small of a dimension and since it’s not a critical dimension , I decided to taper the rod the old fashioned way. Using my lathe files, I filed the taper until I found it acceptable.
Then the connecting rod was taken to the mill and the holes put in.
With the holes in I milled down the end to the minor dimension.
At this point I would have made some filing buttons to round over the ends but my drill rod order hasn’t arrived yet so I’m calling this part complete for now. The last thing to get worked this week is the crosshead. The blank was squared up and put in the four jaw. I drilled and tapped the end.
Next I turned the boss on the end.
In the mill, the hole for the pin was drilled.
Then the slot was milled out. I tend to have problems with drifting on this type of operation but this one came out perfectly.
Lastly I milled the top to shape.
I mounted the crosshead in the guide to check for fit and it seams ok. I’ll leave you with this current family shot.
Till next time.
Tony
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