Model Engine Maker
Engines => From Plans => Topic started by: swilliams on February 23, 2013, 09:28:37 AM
-
I've been wanting to build one of these for a while.
http://www.agelessengines.com/9cyl.htm (http://www.agelessengines.com/9cyl.htm)
No doubt it will keep me busy for some time, but I wanted to do a larger project. I'm starting on the cylinders, with 10 blanks and hoping to end up with 9 good ones. I'm making them out of 1-3/4" 1214. I couldn't get any leaded steel, as specified, but this will do. The final bore size is 1" and the blanks are just over 2" long.
After facing to length I needed to shove a hole through the middle. I drilled 10mm, then 16mm and then rough bored to about 40 thou under final size
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1198.jpg)
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1199.jpg)
Then roughed the diameter where the fins will end up down a bit
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1200.jpg)
and here's how they all are at this stage, so far so good
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1202.jpg)
Then I bored them all to final size and roughed down the OD on the other end. Stuffed one of them up, so I'm down to 9 now. I'll use the bad one as a guinea pig for the remaining operations. Here they are at this stage. I've poked an expanding reamer through them using very very small cuts. So now they all the same size bore and have a good finish. The reamed bores are pretty good and I don't think I'll bother lapping them. The one on the far right is the crook one. I got the outside shoulder length wrong.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1203.jpg)
This whole batch of ten business really slows things down.
Steve
-
Steve
For sure I will be following your journey and I am sure many new things in the process. Radial engines always fascinated me but still do not have enough confidence in starting one.
Vince
-
Looks great Steve! I'm watching!
Dave
-
I share the need to build one of those 8)
Jo
-
Steve: Will be following along also. Ordered the plans and casting last month. Been reading thru the plans and notes and trying to figure out what I'm about to get myself into. Good luck. Roger
-
I'll be watching too.
I've loved radials since I was a kid.
-
Hi Steve, I don't have enough courage to take on one of those. I will be tagging along with you and good luck bud.
Don
-
Id like to build one myself...think ill hold off on that one until im retired.
Just watched the video of the 18 cylinder...that doesnt sound like a model!!
-
Gotta love a radial. :cheers: I started an Edwards 5cyl several years ago. Made it this far before realizing I was in way over my head. :ShakeHead:
(http://i994.photobucket.com/albums/af62/jgroom/ed.jpg)
I'll be following along for inspiration!
Cheers
Jeff
-
Want to build this then I have learned inough to do it
:-\
I'm following for sure!
-
Thanks guys and gal, the interest is much appreciated.
Jeff - your crankcase looks great. Hope you pick it up again before too long.
Roger - glad to hear you're planning to build one too. Let me know when you get going. What I've learnt so far is you've got yourself into a large amount of work :insane:
Jo - yes you need to build one
Vince, Dave, Carl, DavidF, Don & Camm - thanks for climbing aboard.
So I decided to have a crack at making the fins today. That's the bit of the cylinders that had me most worried. To do that I had to make up the super narrow groving tool and an arbour. I've recently taken to making screw cutting tools with the right size flat on the end for a given pitch. So I made one of them for the 5/8 x 18TPI UNF nut I got to put on the arbour. BTW I'm not following the instructions from Lee very closely.
Here's an early test of the grooving tool on the dud cylinder blank
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1204.jpg)
Here's making the arbour
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1205.jpg)
Then I used an indicator
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1207.jpg)
and a list of stop positions
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1206.jpg)
then tried out the whole procedure. I ended up stuffing up another cylinder blank, so I'm one in arrears now. After much stuffing about I eventually got the grooving tool cutting very freely. I'm running the cylinders at about 650 rpm for the grooving now, which is fast given the 1-3/8" OD. The higher speed also helps with clearing the chips. Makes alot of mess with cutting oil though
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1209.jpg)
Finally I broke the sharp edges with my trusty old chamfering tool
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1210.jpg)
Here's the semi-finished product. The good one is at the front, the one that was already stuffed is on the left. Todays reject is on the right.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1211.jpg)
I've got the procedure working good now and think I'll be able to make good progress with the grooving from here. I'm now getting first hand knowledge of just how big a job this project is and it's sure alot bigger than what I've tackled in the past, but that's ok.
One last note for today - if anyone reads this who is trying to do the fins for them self and having alot of trouble. You could always make an arbour to go on the rotary table and cut the grooves with a slitting saw on the mill. Getting the grooving to work well on the lathe isn't easy.
Steve
-
looking good steve .
to help with the grooving why not use a rear mounted cut off tool ?
i use a rear mounted cut off tool on my south bend and it works great, no more digging in or chatter.
just a thought.
chuck
-
Nice progress already Steve, looks like you got the grooving sorted out well too ! These are some beautiful engines and I have seen one of the 0 cylinders running and it is a sight to behold for sure. Just not sure I have the patience to make 9+ of everything...lol
Bill
-
Hi Chuck and Bill
Chuck - I do have a rear toolpost but I'd need to make a new holder for it to hold the grooving tool. Perhaps I didn't explain well enough, but the grooves are only 31 thou wide and 1/8" deep. Being so narrow, and relatively deep makes things challenging. With the parting tool being so thin chatter isn't an issue, but maybe the rear toolpost would be less inclined to jam up.
Bill - I see you have the patience for 4+ of everything, so 9+ may be on the agenda some day :naughty:
Looking forward to seeing some more on your Wright brothers engine when you find the time.
Steve
-
Hi Steve
This looks like its going to be a fantastic project, Will be following along :cheers:
Pete
-
H Steve - yes will be watching along too. It's not the nine of everything thats so much the problem it's when you get into the multiples ;) . As someone 'failing' at the moment on a 9cyl engine hang on in there though - it's a great project.
Regards - Ramon
-
I'll be watching avidly. Love the sound of radial engines. A mechanic I know has a full size one he runs at the odd show ....what a sound (not too close though :Lol:)
Pete
-
Thanks Pete Ramon and Pete, nice to have you guys aboard.
Ramon - I'm sure this will get pretty tough at some point. Hope your 9 picks up from here. I'd sure be interested to hear more about your build.
Pete - a full size radial running must be very impressive. I get the idea that even the models are something to see when they're running.
:cheers:
Steve
-
Hey Steve!
There's a T6 Texan that flys over my house nearly Daily during the summer months....My kids know that sound! Pratt and Whitney 1340!
Dave
-
Steve, with no intent to intrude into your thread, I thought some here may not have seen one of these things running. This video is of Doug Kelley's 9 cyl. radial from Hodgson's plans built probably 9-10 years ago. He had brought it to our Cotton Ginning Days festival in Oct. of 2011 and i took this video with my phone. It sounds even better in person and is rather intimidating when revved up with that 3 blade prop
http://s257.beta.photobucket.com/user/wlindiii/media/VIDEO0003_zps72ed2504.mp4.html
Bill
-
That's a nice and challenging project you picked now Steve.
Good going so far; keep at it. There's definitely a multi-cylinder radial in my future as well, but not IC - just air powered.
Kind regards, Arnold
-
Ramon - I'm sure this will get pretty tough at some point. Hope your 9 picks up from here. I'd sure be interested to hear more about your build.
Hi Steve - Hmmm not quite so sure about the latter - could cause some serious soul searching :D
This is most of it out for an irregular corrosion check and oil up around last fall. I took the pic for someone on the ME site whose own model had suffered severe corrosion of the crankcase. All these parts live in these boxes wrapped in VPI paper and oiled with a paraffin and oil mixture. I made the crankcase first - in 1992 ::) - It's not a radial BTW but parts for a Bentley rotary engine
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-kQKjkQYCOBM/UMJd37U8iKI/AAAAAAAAGsw/hTYyltkIMn0/s640/DSCF1400.JPG)
What you don't see of course is all that tooling that you have to make too ;)
Good luck with your build - I will follow along with great interest
Regards - Ramon
-
Steve,
I will be following along with great interest as I have been bitten by the radial engine bug several times and I am truly infected! I have a 1/6th scale P&W Wasp Jr I'm very slowly working on and a 1/4 scale Wright Whirlwind set of castings tucked under my bench for later (like retirement in ~25 years!).
I feel your pain in making the fins - my next attempt at the fins on the Wasp Jr.will either be using a slitting saw stationary on a tool holder in the lathe or doing as you suggest and milling them on the rotary table - they are a bit thinner than the Hodgson at ~0.012" for the fin and 0.024" for the groove.
Please continue on - hopefully you will show me the way!
Mike
-
Ramon - I'm sure this will get pretty tough at some point. Hope your 9 picks up from here. I'd sure be interested to hear more about your build.
Hi Steve - Hmmm not quite so sure about the latter - could cause some serious soul searching :D
This is most of it out for an irregular corrosion check and oil up around last fall. I took the pic for someone on the ME site whose own model had suffered severe corrosion of the crankcase. All these parts live in these boxes wrapped in VPI paper and oiled with a paraffin and oil mixture. I made the crankcase first - in 1992 ::) - It's not a radial BTW but parts for a Bentley rotary engine
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-kQKjkQYCOBM/UMJd37U8iKI/AAAAAAAAGsw/hTYyltkIMn0/s640/DSCF1400.JPG)
What you don't see of course is all that tooling that you have to make too ;)
Good luck with your build - I will follow along with great interest
Regards - Ramon
A fellow club member, Rollie Gaucher....( Rollies Dad's method of lathe alignment...Rollie) has built one of the Bentleys....and it has run for a good number of years now....though at this years show...he didn't run it..he was tired of being covered in oil...
Nice engine!....bit of a beast!
Dave
-
Hi Guys, lots of cool posts here. I had a busy day today and finished it off in the shop. Started by instantly destroying another cylinder, then got in the necessary zen type of mood needed for successful finning and got 3 right. So I'm now on four correctly finned and two in arrears.
Dave - that sounds pretty cool about the Texan T6. Bet the kids love it.
Bill - the movie is cool. Thanks for posting it.
Arnold - thanks for stopping by. I'm sure you've got the energy to build a radial, I'm always impressed with the rate you turn good work out at.
Ramon - Wow looks great and you've done so much. What's the main thing that's holding you back now? At least the crank case is well aged :) BTW I have the book for building the Bentley, sure is an interesting project.
Mike - I'm definitely going to keep going. I'm making steady progress now. I think the slitting saw in the mill would be much easier. You could set the stop on the x axis and run the slitting saw in tangentially (full depth in one go), then spin the rotary table around once and the groove would be done. I'm enjoying hearing about your radial exploits.
Cheers
Steve
-
Hi Steve - sorry to hear of yet another 'loss' as I know just how you feel - I made three camboxes on this one ::)
I'm afraid time, and to a high degree, motivation, is the culprit at the moment. Last time I did anything was after someone new to ME came over and was asking for advice as to prevent 'prevarication'. At the time I was showing him these parts. "Try to do something, no matter how small, each day" was my response and after he left began to pack the parts all away again. Catching myself I thought it might be a good idea if I actually practiced what I preached and at least make a start on the topside of the cylinder heads which had been languishing for far too long. Three /four weeks later they were all finished ready for the valves but that was it - only found time to keep it oiled since ::)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-izoKa8XsptA/TPVw8KIhmBI/AAAAAAAAFig/BbWt3KJ_i8c/s640/DSCN2694.JPG)
In case you are wondering these are made from En1a leaded steel.
Like I say definitely not at the moment but I'm sure you are going to be the catalyst for a restart at some stage ;)
All the best now
Regards - Ramon
-
The heads look awesome Ramon. I'd love to help rekindle your enthusiasm. Maybe when I hit the wall you can take up the slack :naughty:
What are you going to do about the induction pipe elbows that Lew Blackmore die cast? Are you going to follow his method or go some other way?
Anyway I'm off to cut some more fins and inhale some more cutting oil :insane:
Steve
-
Steve,
I, too, am building the H9 engine. I've finished all the machining and have just now started the final assembly. Many of the sub-assemblies are already tested and so I hope there aren't any ugly surprises on the horizon. It took me about 17 months to get to this point (I'm retired and so this has been my full time job), and my biggest heartbreak was ruining my first crankcase during its very last machining step and having to start over. (Ruining the crankcase seems to happen with every IC engine I build). I actually started my engine with the crankcase because it looked like the most difficult part to build. As it turned out, the heads were considerably more involved. In case you haven't yet found them, there are two websites that you might want to visit that deal with the construction of the H9. The first is Tom Blough's site. He has completed many of the difficult parts and documented his work with lots of photos and comments. I found his site invaluable when building the heads because I was having a lot of difficulty visualizing them from the single drawing that Ageless supplies. His website is
http://thebloughs.net/hobbies/metalworking/hodgson9/
This second site takes the engine to completion in a courageous, persistent, and heartbreaking saga that is well documented with photos and comments (some in broken English). As the author admits after finally getting the engine running, many of his troubles were due to changes that he made to the original design but is well worth studying if you're into this engine. I think his plan se may have been from an earlier version of the engine. The location of this site is:
http://homepage2.nifty.com/modelicengine/h9index.htm
Of course, there is also 5bears website:
http://www.5bears.com/curproj.htm
but his engine was definitely an early version and before many significant changes were made to the design by Hodgson and not as interesting as the otherbtwo sites. If your planset is more than 3 or 4 years old you might want to check with Hodson to get the most recent updates. I found many minor errors in mine and a few that were not so minor ,but Lee was also prompt about answering my e-mails.
There is a cute You-tube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acHAGNUbOxs
showing highlights of another builder's machining steps on what looks like a Smithy as well as his engine running in front of a fullsize radial in a hanger.
I made many of my own changes to the design especially with respect to the crankshaft which I turned from one solid piece to avoid piecing so many parts together. It also avoids the complex assembly fixture that is required for the stock process. I also made my own miniature gear cutter to cut the integral cam gear without chewing up the front bearing. I designed nicer rocker arm brackets to improve the looks of the heads whose plain stock dual towers I never have liked. Mine are more like a rocker arm box. I don't want to hi-jack your thread with my own photos. I plan to post some detail assembly photos in my own thread when I get the thing running. - Terry
-
Hi Terry
Thanks for posting all that. Some useful info in there and good to hear from someone who's been there already. I know exactly what you mean about the head drawing - seems to me that half the essential information is in the machining description, not the drawing. I'd love to see some pics of your heads, you are very welcome to post them here. I might make the heads next, they look like one of the harder jobs to me too.
I've made more progress on the cylinders. I've got seven up to the stage in the pic below. I'm going to try and catch the outstanding two up to this point now. As said earlier - I started with 10 but lost 3 along the way.
:cheers:
Steve
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1212.jpg)
-
Hi Steve, just catching up on your latest post, those heads came out great. Pity you lost three, I would of probably lost half. To much there for me to even get close to. I see you have the fins done like you want to now. Are they rounded on the ends I can't really tell?
Don
-
Hi Don
Thanks for the nice words. No I didn't round the fins off. I started out chamfering them with a lathe tool, but moved on to doing it with a millsaw file, which was much quicker. Still got a bit to go on these, hopefully no more stuff ups :noidea:
Steve
-
Hi Steve
Looking Good Buddy :ThumbsUp:
Pete
-
Keep it coming bud! I'm watching!
:praise2: :cheers:
Dave
-
Steve,
Since you might tackle the heads next and asked, here are a couple photos showing what I've done. I just finished pressure testing the assembled head/cylinders today and am now drilling the cylinder flange mounting holes for assembly with the crankcase. You might also notice that I silver soldered stainless steel exhaust/intake assemblies to keep the engine entirely of white metal. I also added a little more meat to the mounting flange. The stainless is much easier to bend than the thin wall brass tubing that plans call out. To tell you the truth, I'm starting to re-think the rocker arm supports. - Terry
-
Well I managed to get another two cylinders up to the stage of those in the last photo. So I'm now dealing with 9 again. Hopefully no more stuff ups on the cylinders :zap:
Pete and Dave - thanks for stopping in, I'll keep it coming Dave, at the moment enthusiasm is up.
Terry - the heads look great, so does the silver soldering and pipe work. Thanks for posting them. Keep us informed with how you go as you approach completion. The black on your cylinders looks fantastic, did you get that done by a gunsmith or something else? I'm procrastinating a little about what to do about that. Gunsmiths aren't so common here.
Steve
-
Steve,
They were hot-blued by a local gunsmith. I live in Texas. There's one on every block. :) - Terry
-
I'd love to help rekindle your enthusiasm. Maybe when I hit the wall you can take up the slack :naughty:
What are you going to do about the induction pipe elbows that Lew Blackmore die cast? Are you going to follow his method or go some other way?
Anyway I'm off to cut some more fins and inhale some more cutting oil :insane:
Steve
Hi Steve,
Sounds a possibility there but don't count on it will you ;D
Re the induction pipes I made a die from MS......
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-YrqkKK3Bm-s/UTUfH_60eCI/AAAAAAAAHO8/fsykW23tQyU/s640/DSCF2105.JPG)
So far only the lead test pour has been made and I'm still undecided whether to make wax masters from it (the die) and have them investment cast or to try to cast them myself. If the latter then some kind of pour sleeve which can be bolted on is going to be required. I was intending machining the lower ones from solid. As always too much to do - so much else filling the available time.
Good to hear you've got all nine cylinders back up.
Sorry for the delay
Regards - Ramon
-
Hi Ramon
I know its Steve's thread but as yet you have not started one on this wonderful build.
A pity as its such inspiring work.
I for one would love the opportunity to see what you've done!
You should be able to pour that pattern yourself if you preheat with a blow torch and perhaps give it a once over with a silicon based spray such as crc or rp7 etc first.
You may not have seen my steel piston mold in my current build.
Pete
-
Thanks for posting that up Ramon, it's really great and interesting to learn a little more about that from you and Pete. I'd also love to see a thread on your engine, but understand if you don't feel up to it.
With a little luck, I'll have some more to report on my build soon.
Cheers
Steve
-
Hi Guys
You're welcome Steve but as Pete says I don't want to encroach on your thread with too many pics. Thanks for the encouragement Pete but there seems little point in posting about something that is currently rather dormant and unlikely to see any kind of resurrection in the near future. I guess it's handy to refer to at times such as this but not much point in taking it further.
I confess to lurking on your build Pete - you never fail to impress me with your approach and tenacity. I haven't seen it all - indeed have missed the piston mould - for as much as I'd like to, there's simply not enough time to check in on all the super threads on here but from what I have seen you are carrying out an outstanding example of true 'model engineering'.
Hope you won't mind me saying that on your thread Steve. Keep up the good work - both of you are just as inspiring too :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp:
Regards - Ramon
-
Hi Ramon
Hope you won't mind me saying that on your thread Steve
No problems, I'm enjoying the discussion and I've really enjoyed seeing some pictures of your rotary. Besides; I'm a big fan of Pete's thread too ;)
Terry - I've pretty much decided I'm going to try and find a gunsmith to do the cylinder blueing. Definitely not like Texas here with regard to that one :'( A small question for you about the aluminium washers that go between the cylinders and the heads. I guess you just turned them up on the lathe, parting them off to final thickness? Is that the case?
Anyway back to business where I'm working towards putting the threads on the end of the cylinders that the heads screw onto. This requires a number of lathe tools to be ground up and a gauge to be made to get the threads all the same size. So to the photos -
Here's the 9 embryonic cylinders ready for threading
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1213.jpg)
Then knurling the OD of the thread gauge
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1214.jpg)
and internal screw cutting, with the boring bar cutter I ground up out of an old 6mm endmill shank. I'll use this later to cut the internal threads in the heads. I'm using the dial indicator clamped to the lathe bed so I know when to drop the half nuts out for the blind hole threading
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1215.jpg)
Here's the gauge and the tool I've just ground up to cut the external thread
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1216.jpg)
So now cutting the thread. I'm using the dial indicator again and dropping the half nuts out within a 6 thou wide margin, so things are pretty tight. Having a variable speed drive on the lathe has been so good right through making these cylinders. I made good use of the previously ruined cylinders to get everything working the way I wanted first
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1217.jpg)
So I've got two threaded, seven to go. Here's the two, one with the gauge screwed onto it
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1218.jpg)
So I'm lined up for quite a bit of screw cutting and hopefully no :zap:
Cheers
Steve
-
in 2010 I had the opportunity to stop by Lee Hodgson's home and workshop and get a firsthand look at his engines. He's an amazing guy and was great to talk to. I haven't decided which plans I want to order just yet, but due to other projects I want to do far down the road, I am leaning on the 14.
Watching your build with great interest!
-- Rayanth
-
Steve,
Nice job on the cylinders so far.
On the aluminum washers used to seal the heads to the cylinders, I had a short piece of 6061 tubing that was reasonably close to the needed ID and OD, and so I finish-turned it to the final dimensions and then parted them off. I then annealed them in my heat treat oven to make them dead soft. I machined my heads from 7075 and so I thought having a soft material between them and the steel cylinders was a good idea. I was intimidated by threading the two together because there was a lot of work invested in the two pieces about to be permanently joined, but as a test I found that they can be unthreaded and re-threaded if necessary with no damage. The no-return point is when you drill the mounting holes and so you want to be happy with the pressure testing before that last step. Lee said that you would feel the parts relieve slightly after initially tightening them together, and so he suggested coming back after they are allowed to stabilize for a few minutes to retighten. I didn't see any sign of relieving. There was a rather abrupt stop when they were initially tightened, and usinig the recommended tool and all my strength they could be tightend no more. I even temperature cycled a head to to 300F to see if anything changed but even then I couldn't tighten it anymore from my original position. I measured a crush margin of .010" on my washers and so I don't think my heads were bottoming on the the cylinders. Lee strongly recommended not using any anaerobic sealer on the threads which was what I was originally planning to do. This was because the sealer is likely to set up during the initial tightening and if the combination relieved a completre seal wouldn't be achieved.
You might want to reconsider lapping the ID's of your cylinders before you declare them finished. I've only built two other IC engines, but it seems the general wisdom is that ring seating may be difficult on a bored-only model engine cylinder no matter how smooth it might seem to your finger. You've probably done this already but you should also measure and record the ID's on two orthogonal axes at various depths into the cylinder to make sure they are truly round to better than a couple tenths. I had some problems with this that turned out to be a combination of bad material, a crappy 5C collet, and a less than optimum machining sequence. The blueing adds nothing to the ID and should be a nice marker to show ring seating patterns. - Terry
-
Hi Rayanth - good to have you aboard. Must have been fun visiting Lee and the 14 sounds like a nice choice. I've been meaning to make a move on starting to build one of these for some time. Now that I've taken the plunge I'm glad that I did.
Terry - Thanks so much for all that detailed info. It's very helpful indeed. I might give the cylinders a bit of a lap then. To be honest I'm not too worried on that front, I've built i.c. engines before and know what I need to get that part right. But screwing the heads on is new territory for me, so your advice on that is invaluable. The pressure testing sounds challenging, so many places you have to seal off. The spark plug hole, valves etc. Anyway I'll worry about all that later.
Cheers
Steve
-
Well I managed to finish all the turning operations on the cylinders without loosing any more :whoohoo:. Here they are, all successfully threaded
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1219.jpg)
then the final turning operation, finishing off the other side
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1220.jpg)
and the current status
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1221.jpg)
I still need to polish them, lap them and drill the holes that secure them to the crankcase. These holes aren't drilled until the heads have been permanently attached. I'm going to start making the jigs and fixtures for the heads next.
:cheers:
Steve
-
That's looking Awesome Steve! Well done there bud! ....keep it coming, I love jigs and fixtures!
Dave
-
Thanks Dave. I have the day off tomorrow, so might have some more soon with a bit of luck
Steve
-
Very nice Steve.
Nine identical parts made one at a time. Pretty awesome shot.
-
Awesome. Steve, you have done a jam up job on the cylinders they look great. I am enjoy this and I might get a little more confident from watching your build. Maybe not I have ways to go yet.
Don
-
Excellent work Steve :ThumbsUp: - nothing like a bit of repetition to keep the mind focussed eh? ;)
Looking forward to more
Ramon
-
Great going Steve :ThumbsUp: - and very nice threads there :NotWorthy:
Kind regards, Arnold
-
Carl, Don, Ramon and Arnold - thanks for the nice comments.
Started work on the tools to make the heads. First is a jig for drilling the two holes in the top of the valve towers. I'm going to tap these holes M2, which will hold the brackets for the rocker arms.
Here's drilling the holes in the jig which will guide the drill
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1222.jpg)
Here's the finished part that fit's over the valve towers
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1223.jpg)
Then there is an arm held onto the side with a screw. This arm registers against the other valve tower to get the rotational alignment of the holes correct. The arm can be swung over to the other side so the one jig can do both the left and right hand towers.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1224.jpg)
Next was to make a spacer washer for the fixture that's used to turn the valve towers and to do some of the milling. I'll get to making this fixture pretty soon. There are three of these spacers of different widths. I'm making these out of an old bit of steel that my Dad acquired nearly 30 years ago, so it's got those years of rust :o We used to use it as a roller to push his printing machines around on, but it's a bit on the short side now :headscratch: Not sure what it is but it turns like 1040 or such, not bad stuff
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1226.jpg)
So here's the state of play after I pulled the pin for the day
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1227.jpg)
I still have to face the back side of the spacer off. I'll make the other two, then stick them onto a bit of aluminium using super glue to get them nice and parallel.
That's it for now, more to come on the spacers when I get back to the shop.
Steve
-
Still following along and admiring your work Steve. Keep it up.
Vince
-
Steve, you are really getting an amazing amount of work done on the radial. I have heard that there are a lot of fixtures to make and will be interested in all of those and how they are used. Still following along in awe at your progress !!
Bill
-
Thanks Vince and Bill
Bill I'll slowly go through the fixtures as I go. Still getting my head around how it all goes, but that's part of the fun ;)
Cheers
Steve
-
I'm late to the party again; things have been pretty hectic around here.
Great progress on an interesting project; I will be following along while you create this masterpiece.
Dave
-
Thanks Dave, you're just fashionably late :Jester:
hope you find some more "me time" soon.
Steve
-
Did a little more on these spacers for the head fixture which I'm yet to build
Here's the 3 of them, all different thicknesses, after parting off. The one on the left has the parted side face up
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1228.jpg)
Then a bit of aluminium in the chuck and some super glue to face off the other side
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1229.jpg)
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1230.jpg)
At the end I washed the excess super glue off with acetone.
And finally a family shot of the tools for making the heads that I've got so far
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1231.jpg)
:cheers: Steve
-
Steve,
I did a calculation of the compression ratio from the drawings and got a value close to 5 for the compression ratio instead of the advertised 6.7. Can you take a look at my calculations and see if you see an error and/or verify the cr from your drawing set?
Head volume due to conical section of head = (pi/3)(r^2)h = (pi/3)(.6025^2)(.281) = .107 cu.in.
Head cylindrical volume due to thread relief = (pi)(r^2)h = (pi)(.6025^2)(.030) = .034 cu.in.
Head cylindrical volume due to aluminum washer offset = (pi)(r^2)h = (pi)(.6025^2)(.030) = .034 cu.in.
Cylindrical volume from piston top below top of cylinder at TDC = (pi)(r^2)h = (pi)(.5^2)(.062) = .049 cu.in.
Total volume at TDC = .107 + .034 + .034 + .049 = .224 cu.in.
Volume at BDC = .224 + (pi)(r^2)(stroke) = .224 + (pi)(.5^2)(1.125) = .224 + .884 = 1.108 cu.in.
CR = 1.108/.224 = 4.9
One builder's compression measurement shows a cylinder pressure of 65 psi as measured by a
model engine compression gauge. I think this corresponds to a measured
CR = 65psi/14.7psi = 4.4
which is probably low due to the non-zero uncompensated volume of his compression gauge.
I verified from the drawings that the stroke is 1.125" as spec'd. All the parts I made agree to the drawing dimensions, but my assembly isn't far enough along yet to measure with an actual compression gauge. Maybe I'm not calculating it correctly but it has me bugged because leaks in the cylinders/heads are a big deal with model IC engines and I was going to use my cr measurement to see if I finally have a workable process.
By the way, I sent an email to Hodgson 4 days ago with the above calculations but haven't yet received a response. - Thanks, Terry
-
Hi Terry
Sorry for the slow reply, I've been travelling. My drawings are from last year, I'll check your numbers later on and let you know what I find. With regard to sealing valves, make sure you use very fine polish, ordinary fine lapping paste is usually too course. I use autosol. I think this is a major cause of probs with getting model IC engines to run. Sorry if I'm telling you how to suck eggs.
Cheers
Steve
-
Ok Terry, here's my attempt at your problem
Head volume due to conical section of head = (pi/3)(r^2)h = (pi/3)(.6025^2)(.281) = .107 cu.in.
I'd go for, h = tan(25deg) x 5/8 = 0.291", but the drawing is a little ambiguous. That's 10 thou more than your h.
Head cylindrical volume due to thread relief = (pi)(r^2)h = (pi)(.6025^2)(.030) = .034 cu.in.
My drawing has 0.03" thread relief, not 0.034"
Head cylindrical volume due to aluminum washer offset = (pi)(r^2)h = (pi)(.6025^2)(.030) = .034 cu.in
OK
Cylindrical volume from piston top below top of cylinder at TDC = (pi)(r^2)h = (pi)(.5^2)(.062) = .049 cu.in.
I get h = 0.028" here. We have
h = crank case radius + cylinder height - conrod length - piston height - crank throw radius
= 2.25 + 1.5 - 2.687 - 0.478 - 0.5625 = 0.028"
So that number for h is significantly different to yours. What do you think?
Cheers Steve
-
Steve,
Thanks for checking my calculations and responding back.
The biggest discrepancy between our numbers is the piston height. My piston drawing shows the piston to be .875" tall and the distance between the bottom of the piston and the center of the piston pin hole to be .437". This leaves .438" as the length of the piston from the center of the pin to the top of the piston. This would bring the cr to 7.5. Can you double check your drawing to see whether your .478" number is correct?
On the thread relief, I think you confused my .034 in^3 volume with my .030" and so I think we get the same numbers here.
On the conical section, I used .6025" for the radius and you used .625" and I agree the number is ambiguous since it isn't spec'd in the drawing, even though it impacts the cr. So, the biggest question is whether your piston drawing is correct and whether I need to re-make my pistons. Grrr..... Terry
-
Terry - my piston drawing is the same as yours. I made an error with my arithmetic; sorry.
Personally I wouldn't get too hung up on what the compression ratio is. It will still run well and it's not like you're going to be trying to compete in races with this thing Is it possible to just measure the volume with light oil or some other liquid, with a type of Archimedes inspired approach?
Cheers
Steve
-
Steve,
Yeah, I think you're right. I got a response over on the Yahoo radial forum:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/R_and_R_engines/
from a builder who also measured his compression and said he was getting only 60-70 psi which would put his cr down to around cr=5 also. I don't think measuring the head volume with a liquid would give any different results from the calculations. If everyone's result is at the same low cr and they all run, I guess that is all that matters. Anecdotally, I asked Hodgson at one of the NAMEs shows if soft soldering would be OK for the exhaust (when I was still considering using brass tubing), and he mentioned that even after long runs the exhaust was cool enough to touch. I thought it was all from the prop cooling but now I know it is in large part from the low compression. I remember turning over the prop on another builder's model (with his permission) at one of the shows and I could feel hardly any compression. But he hadn't yet gotten his to run - he thought he was having ignition problems. - Terry
p.s. When you start tool CH2, pour all your machining talents into making it as accurate as possible and especially the 25 deg angle. There comes a time in the machining process when your reference datum point transfers from the head to that fixture. And it is real nice to be able to leave that fixture in both the lathe and mill and just feed workpieces into it and also to be able to work on both towers by just spinning the part 180 degrees. (I found that none of my imported machinist squares weren't accurate enough to relocate the workpiece and I had to machine one on the mill.) In my head machining process there was 19 sequential setups (going back and forth between the mill and lathe) with that fixture to do one head. I used Tom Blough's suggestion of using dowell pins to locate the parts to the fixture and to locate the fixture to a 5C collet pot chuck instead of relying on the center bolt.
-
Terry
Thanks for all the info. I'm going to start on that fixture shortly, as you probably guessed. If you have a photo handy of how you put this dowel arrangement in your fixture I'd really like to see it, sounds like the way to go. Does the dowel just register against an edge on the head? I assume you don't drill holes in the heads?
I take your point about screwing the fixture on. I don't have 5C collets, but think I'll put a register behind the thread and have the external thread on the end of an MT that goes in the lathe spindle. That way it will be adequately accurate.
Cheers
Steve
-
Steve,
Here is a photo of the fixtures I made to machine my heads. The CH2 fixture is drilled on its two faces for the securing bolt and these are where I added the the dowell pin registering holes. There are three pairs of dowell pins. One pair is located in the 5C lathe pot chuck, and the other two pairs are located on two holding fixtures which are held in my mill vise at various steps in the machining process. I offset the dowell pin holes from the bolt hole by different amounts to make sure the head/fixture would always go onto the holding fixtures in the same direction. The angle on the triangular holding fixture (my own fixture - not Hodgson's) is at a complementary angle to the CH2 angle and I machined it which the two assembled together. The heads must all be drilled for the dowell pin registering holes at the same time the center mounting hole is drilled in them. The registering holes are put in close enough to the centering hole and shallow enough so they are cut away cleanly during the combustion chamber machining step. My pot chuck and CH2 are steel, but all the other head fixtures are aluminum. Hodgson's fixture scheme assumes the builder doesn't have a 5C lathe chuck, but if you do have one there will be several other fixtures down the road that you will not that you will not have to fabricate. If you don't have a 5C chuck for your lathe you can make a simple dowell pin fixture and just leave it in your lathe chuck until your head machining is completed. I spent enough time to make sure the CH2 angle as measured by a sine bar was as accurate as the resolution of my DRO's allowed. Also, when I cut the slit in CH2, the free portion that grips the circular head tweaked a bit and I had to re-machine it in my mill vise. - Terry
-
Steve,
I started a final assembly 'build' thread for my H-9 over on HMEM. I placed it over there to avoid conflicts and confusion with yours. I felt awkward about posting so many of my own photos in your thread. Feel free to continue to ask any questions that might help you with your build. I have some construction photos that I took along the way and can post them over there if there is something additional you would like to see. I'll continue following your build here with great interest. - Terry
-
Thanks Terry, and thanks for all the info on the fixtures etc. It is very helpful. Hope to get back to my build on the weekend. I will come over and check out your build thread.
Steve
-
Got some more work done on my fixtures etc. for the heads. This time it's all about the CH2 tool which is used to get the heads slanted over at an angle of 25 degs and is used for a number of turning and milling operations. The 3 washers I turned up previously go into this fixture to control where the head is relative to the lathe spindle axis. Well hopefully this will make more sense as I progress, but for now I'm just going to show how I made the fixture. The bigger picture is somewhat involved and I won't burden you with all the details.
So here's my bit of 2" bright drawn (cold rolled in the US I believe) steel in the lathe chuck. The bit that is bored out here will hold the head.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1232.jpg)
The plans show how to use a 1/2" dowel to do some measurements to get the angle and locating hole correct. Seeing I only have two hands I decided to put a fence on the side of my dowel and call it a gauge. Here's a bit of old rusty stock being fly cut for the fence
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1233.jpg)
and the finished gauge. My so called dowel is held on with one screw
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1236.jpg)
So then the fixture had to be set up in the mill vice at 25 degs
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1234.jpg)
Then make lots of swarf
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1235.jpg)
More to come
-
So the gauge is used for two things, first to get the height right. Here I have the gauge fence pinched against the work with the back edge of the endmill. I need to lift the work up so that the endmill pushes in the middle of the face but you get the idea. Anyway this worked exceptionally well and I was able to measure things very accurately with great repeatability.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1237.jpg)
So then I put a thread in, positioned relative to the dowel, which is used to locate and hold the fixture. I made this tapping chuck up for my lathe, but it's handy for the mill also
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1238.jpg)
So that thread screws onto a true running thread in the lathe, and the fixture is pulled up to the face plate by it. I drilled out the first 0.1" to provide a location register.
Then I finished up by attacking the whole thing with this somewhat barbarous slitting saw
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1239.jpg)
So here's the finished fixture
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1240.jpg)
:cheers:
Steve
-
NiiiiiiCE!
Cool fixtures!....can't wait to see them make good parts!
Gotta get me that plan set!
Dave
-
That's a good bit of work for a fixture and nice fixture by the way. It will be interesting to see you make parts wirh it. Looking good Steve.
Don
-
Dave stole my words :) - Great going Steve!
Kind regards, Arnold
-
Thanks Dave, Don and Arnold
Dave the plans are certainly worth getting your hands on.
I got some more done, I've still got some fixture work etc to do and I've got to grind up several special lathe tools. But I decided to get going on the heads. I'm going to try and get the first one done up to the point of turning and grooving the towers before I go into production. At least that's the current plan. I've got ten blanks ready, going on the cylinders I should have made more, but I'm a slow learner :insane:
First off, one more tool. This time it's all about getting a 3/8" NF thread running true with the lathe spindle so I can pull stuff back onto the face plate. Here it is made up to sit in a 3/4" 3MT collet. The NF thread was screw cut on the lathe to ensure it runs true.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1241.jpg)
The coarser thread on the left was to screw into the back of the collet, but I failed to notice that the collet thread wasn't tapped all the way through. Anyway I removed that thread and the collet grips well enough without it. The NF thread has a register that I'll use to locate the CH2 fixture which is the angled one above. It's also used to hold the head blanks on directly for the first turning operation. For this I push the tool further back into the collet and just use the thread.
So here's my first block attached onto this little 3/8 NF thread stub. You can see how they are held against the face plate making it nice and rigid, and pulling it straight. The hole going through the side is between what will become the two valve towers.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1242.jpg)
I roughed the front bit out to a square on the milling machine and then turned it. When I do the next one I might just do the lot on the lathe, being aluminium you can rip through it pretty darn quick.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1243.jpg)
So here's a pick of what's left of the bar of aluminium I stated with, one of the ten blocks I've cut out of it, squared up on the mill and centre drilled and the first guinea pig as far as I've got.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1244.jpg)
Progress is slow, but steady. Might find a little more time over the next few weeks with a little luck.
Cheers
Steve
-
Thats very interesting Steve. I like faceplates. They are one of the most versitile work holding devices.
Dave
-
Very nice work on the fixtures and the cylinder head both...looking forward to seeing how the towers are done. You are really making some phenominal progress on this one Steve and I for one am enjoying the journey with you well done posts!!
Bill
-
Hi Steve, although I like the use of the faceplate I can't seem to understand what you are using to secure the stud to. Is there a collet behind the faceplate inside the spindle or do you have it threaded to the faceplate? Forgive me for my ignorance but I can't seem to see it.
Don
-
Thanks Guys
Don, yes it's held in a 3/4" 3rd Morse taper collet that fits directly in the spindle. I didn't put up a photo showing that, which is my bad. Sorry
Steve
-
Thanks Guys
Don, yes it's held in a 3/4" 3rd Morse taper collet that fits directly in the spindle. I didn't put up a photo showing that, which is my bad. Sorry
Steve
Thanks Steve, now I understand and nice setup.
Don
-
No worries Don
Bill - just got an email from HSM and saw the postage size version of the front cover of the next edition. Now that engine on the cover is a piece of work to aspire to ;)
:cheers:
Steve
-
Picking up where I left off, getting stuck into the first head. So there is a 50 deg cone at the bottom of the combustion chamber which matches up with the angle between the two valve towers. There's also an internal thread to screw the head onto the cylinder
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1245.jpg)
Then more grooving, makes me wish I got something easier to turn than the 6061-T6 I'm using
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1246.jpg)
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1247.jpg)
Next milling out the shoulder where the valve ports will go through
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1248.jpg)
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1249.jpg)
and so you start to see the valve towers emerging.
Turning a witness diameter for the first tower
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1250.jpg)
and then roughing the shape on the mill
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1251.jpg)
-
So here's partially finished head screwed onto a cylinder, showing how it goes together
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1252.jpg)
So now turning the first tower
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1253.jpg)
So more grooving using another specially ground up tool. A tool and cutter grinder would sure come in handy for some of these, but I've managed to get by with free hand grinding so far. I think hope I'm past the worst of it as far as lathe tools go
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1254.jpg)
and here's where I'm up to
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1255.jpg)
I need to get some spark plugs, so I can match up the depth of their seats correctly. After seeing some of Terry's pictures I'm leaning towards 1/4" threaded plugs.
Cheers
Steve
-
Nice work Steve! There's a lot of whittling isn't there!...I like that grooving tool...that took quite a bit of effort to make free hand.
:praise2:
Dave
-
Thanks Dave
yep there's alot of whittling all right, but it's good fun. I've pretty much decided that I'll build something along the lines of a Brooks tool and cutter grinder. Want to finish this first though, which may take a very long time :Lol:
Steve
-
Fantastic :) Love that fixture :cartwheel:
-
Thanks Dave
yep there's alot of whittling all right, but it's good fun. I've pretty much decided that I'll build something along the lines of a Brooks tool and cutter grinder. Want to finish this first though, which may take a very long time :Lol:
Steve
If your going to make your own...consider one of Glenn Wilson's units...just food for thought..for lathe tools and endmills...it would seem easier to set up...but then again....NONE of them are EASY to set up :lolb:
Projects in Metal has the plans
Dave
-
Thanks Bill
Dave - I'm not familiar with Glen Wilson's design but a quick search lands on one of your old threads. Obviously you've looked into this stuff so what do you see as being the major advantage of the Glen Wilson grinder? Perhaps I should look into that one more seriously.
Steve
-
Even more amazing Steve...I had an idea how the fixture was going to work but seeing it in action is even better. There is a LOT of work in each of those cylinder heads and 7 more to go as well....my hat is off to you!!! Thanks also for the heads up on the HSM thing. I knew it was coming but haven't seen it yet.
Bill
-
Thanks Bill, you are too kind
I'm looking forward to getting the next issue of HSM. Takes a while to arrive down here
Steve
-
Thanks Bill
Dave - I'm not familiar with Glen Wilson's design but a quick search lands on one of your old threads. Obviously you've looked into this stuff so what do you see as being the major advantage of the Glen Wilson grinder? Perhaps I should look into that one more seriously.
Steve
I'll send you a PM...so we don't Hijack.
Dave
-
Nice bit of work Steve, I would say you have been Machining for a while. Amazing how its turning out using your fixture. Keep it coming bud.
Don
-
:praise2: VERY good going Steve.
Got to love that parting tool you ground up - it has to rank right at the top for inspiring one to grind up tools to suit the needs :NotWorthy:
Kind regards, Arnold
-
Thanks Don and Arnold
Don - I used to mess about making stuff on the lathe a lot when I was a teenager, left school and did an apprenticeship that didn't work out very well, then turned my back on machining for almost 20 years. Most of the toolmaking was still done in a very old fashioned way back then, like still using drilling machines quite a bit. Production was already full of CNC machines though (I managed to largely steer clear of that). I got back into things seriously on the hobby side about 4 years ago.
Arnold - the plans go as far as providing a drawing for that tool. They're really good.
:cheers:
Steve
-
A small status update. Been working on the heads, not alot new to show, just more of the same. Here's where I'm at, a real ongoing turning frenzy. So far so good
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1261.jpg)
There's one at the back that I've taken further than the others and one on the right that I've still got to bring up to the others. Got 10 at the moment.
:cheers: Steve
-
Slowly but surely ............
Steve, still following along.
Vince
-
Awesome Steve, they sure look pretty!.......
I think you got a lot done bud. Great gain on your project. Keep um coming.
Don
-
Looking Fantastic Steve
really taking shape!
Pete
-
Looking great Steve!
Dave
-
Thanks guys. I'm going to keep ploughing along on these heads, they're taking some time.
Steve
-
Just another small status update on the heads, which are a real machining marathon.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1266.jpg)
Getting somewhere (I hope)
:cheers:
Steve
-
There is a LOT of work in those I know Steve. How is the little grooving tool holding up with all these cuts? You are making really nice progress on these!!!
Bill
-
Hi Bill
I had a couple of hiccups with the grooving tool. The first one I had in a groove with the lathe turned off and stupidly wound the carriage sideways. Turns out that tool was pretty fragile :zap:
Broke the second one on Sunday doing something that was also quite stupid, so now I'm on the third.
I'm making the heads out of 6061 aluminium. If I had my time over I'd definitely use a free cutting aluminium. I find 6061 very stringy to machine and this doesn't help with the grooving at all. I've got alot of other stuff to make out of 6061 but on the bright side I succeeded in grinding up a chip breaking tool that works well.
Steve
-
Lot of work in those heads. My hats off to you. :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp:
Ron
-
Really like it Steve!
Dave
-
Steve I can only imagine. I just did only four small cylinders, and if everything is working good it gets routine and then that's when you screw up. Great looking stuff.
Yo Redneck,
Whiskey
-
Lot of work in those heads. My hats off to you. :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp:
Ron
I say the same and I love this motor. :cheers:
Ove
-
Steve that is some bit of work bud. Those heads are looking awesome. I like.......... :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp:
Don
-
Great work Steve :ThumbsUp: Your tenacity of approach is truly inspiring ;) (though perhaps not quite enough to get a certain someones butt into gear ;))
Keep it up Steve - absolutely brilliant work.
Ramon
-
Ron, Dave, Eric, Ove, Don and Ramon, thanks for your interest and kind words.
Eric and if everything is working good it gets routine and then that's when you screw up
I hear ya on that one! Too true.
Ramon - Looks like you've been plenty busy lately :Lol:. I have a Topsy Turvy engine which is perhaps a worse case than your Bentley. I've got it to the stage where even the ignition is hooked up and it's been sitting around for a year waiting to have it's first pop :-[ The main task left is to make a fuel tank, must get back to that one :paranoia:
:cheers:
Steve
-
I'm thinking about spark plugs. I bought some 1/4 x 32 plugs but they are a bit small and the threads are too short. Now I'm leaning towards making my own (with 5/16 x 32 ME thread), which will be a first for me. I can get a 12" stick of 8mm Teflon rod off of ebay for about $14 which is alot easier than trying to get my hands on some corian. I assume Teflon will be good for making plugs??? Anyone able to reassure or warn me off on this one? I need to make a decision before I start sinking the holes for the sparkplugs in my heads.
Steve
-
Steve,
You might consider threading the heads for a 10 mm plug (much cheaper cm-6) and then making an insert which is drilled, counter bored to achieve the correct thread depth, and threaded for your tiny plugs. You could use the cm-6 plugs until any oil control issues in the running engine are resolved and then install your inserts and small plugs for a better looking scale plug. Sinking the plug into the counterbore of the insert will make it appear even smaller for better realism.
I've seen numerous threads by builders who have tried their own plugs and it seems like about half are successful. Getting a reliable seal seems like the challenge to me since it is yet another potential leak in the combustion chamber, but most of the problems other have run into were electrical. I've heard of Corian, Macor, and Teflon being tried for the insulator. I also recently read about someone's experiences with trying to get a surface gap plug working to try to simplify the design, but he couldn't get it to work in a combustion chamber although it performed fine at atmospheric pressure. I'm sure if you do an archive search on the engine building forums you'll get a lot of personal experiences. - Terry
-
Hi Terry
Thanks for your thoughts. What I have in mind for home made plugs at the moment is teflon insulation, three pronged surface discharge style, a soft copper washer to seal the plug and perhaps a TIG welding electrode to make the electrodes out of. I've read that people use loctite to seal the insulation and electrode. I've taken quite a few ideas from this video series on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k9B2CLd7yc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k9B2CLd7yc)
Still thinking about the best way forward. Interested to hear what others think.
Cheers
Steve
-
Steve,
That Youtube series was interesting to watch and I liked the two piece construction that avoids the crimp. Here is a Youtube link that talks about the 'ignitibility' of multielectrode sparkplugs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53yfHLdn41k
This may have been the problem that I remember a model engine builder having with the surface electrode plugs he made. I looke for that thread I remember reading but so far I haven't found it. - Good luck, Terry
-
Thanks Terry, that's an interesting little clip. I might try and get around the less heat problem by trying to arrange for a bigger wack to go through the coil. I'm thinking of using a full size car coil and maybe some power transistors for more juice. Not too worried if it sucks more power out of the battery.
Steve
-
Got to a certain landmark last evening
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1269.jpg)
I now have 9 heads up to a certain stage. Still got one more to go for good luck. Next stage will probably be putting the spark plug holes in. Some of the grooves have swarf stuck in them but I'll get that out when the time is right.
Cheers
Steve
-
Some of the grooves have swarf stuck in them but I'll get that out when the time is right.
That sounds to me like the sort of thing to do whilst you are contemplating a difficult machining task ;D
Looks good, as you say a major milestone. Does this mean that most of the repetition stuff is now over?
Jo
-
Thanks Jo
Well I imagine the worst of the heads is over. But repetition, well there are 18 valves, push rods etc. to make :censored:
Not to mention your old favourite (studs), but I'm thinking of cheating by purchasing stainless steel screws and chopping the heads off them.
Anyways I expect there is plenty of repetative stuff left, mainly in multiples of 9 :Lol:
:cheers:
Steve
-
Love your Work Steve :praise2: :praise2:
pete
-
Congrats on the milestone Steve...just seeing those nine heads almost done must be motivating....they look great too!!
Bill
-
Steve that is a great looking bunch of heads. :lolb: seriouly bud great job. Are the big parts done now?
Don
-
Thanks Pete, Bill and Terry
Terry the set screw (grub screws down here) is a good idea. I'll have to check out what I can get. I expect such items may be more difficult to obtain here
Cheers
Steve
-
Hi Don, sorry I missed you there.
Still lots more to go. The crankcase and the crank are pretty big. I've only scratched the surface really. But I wanted something to keep me busy over the longer term :insane:
Steve
-
A lot of work Steve, the repetition can go wrong at the end. Well done.
Hugh.
-
Hi Steve,
Just a shot of my H9 crankcase.
I debated about starting with the heads and cylinders or the crankcase. Loved all the tapping. John
(http://i370.photobucket.com/albums/oo143/johnlesar/H91.jpg)
-
Hey John,
Great looking crankcase! Very well done!
Do us a favor and tell us a bit about yourself.
Thanks!
Dave
-
Looks great John! Lots of tapping hey, I might do that in front of the telly :embarassed:
I think I might make a start on my crankcase soon.
Bit sick of standing in front of the lathe at the moment. I'm taking a small break from the Hodgson and I've finally got my Topsy-Turvy engine running. Need to make the water tank and a couple of other small items for it and it will be complete. Got about one evenings work left in it.
Cheers
Steve
-
Well I decided to put the cylinder heads aside for a bit and made a start on the crankcase
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1270.jpg)
Above is my I need a bigger lathe photo. I'd buy one but I see a workshop move in my future so I'm holding off :noidea:
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1272.jpg)
And that's as far as I've got at the moment.
On a side note I managed to get my Topsy-Turvey engine largely finished and going, here's a picture
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1271.jpg)
Surprisingly my old point and shoot camera managed to take this while the engine's running. If you look you can see the governor on the flywheel has swung out. I'm not happy with the journal bearing oil arrangement. I'm going to make some grease lubricators, once I get that dirty big chunk of aluminium out of my lathe that is :zap:
Cheers
Steve
-
Coming along very well Steve! I like the Topsy Turvy!
Is that a "Hercus"?
Dave
-
Still making nice progress Steve. The topsy turvy looks terrific as well....hope we can see a video of it running when you have a chance too!!
Bill
-
Thanks Dave. Indeed it's a Hercus, I've had it a long time.
Bill - thanks, I'll see if I can get a film together for ya. I never really mastered a good way to post videos on our forum here.
Cheers
Steve
-
Woo! That is a chuck for that small lathe Steve, but it looks like its doing its job well. Love the topsy turvey engine too. And like Bill said a video would be nice.
Don
-
Thanks Don
I'll do my best to post a short video for you when I get a chance. Stay tuned :DrinkPint:
Cheers
Steve
-
Good going Steve :ThumbsUp: - looks like there's a few of us around who've been pushing our lathes to the limit of late ;)
Great work on the Topsy Turvy as well; Phil Duclos's engines are all very good lookers.
Give me a shout if you have problems with posting up the video :)
Kind regards, Arnold
-
Thanks Arnold
If I have video issues I'll give you a bell
Cheers
Steve
-
As per request - here's a short video of my TT-engine. The video is on Photobucket. Hope it works, let me know??
Cheers
Steve
(http://vid815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/th_tt.jpg) (http://s815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/?action=view¤t=tt.mp4)
-
Nice little runner :ThumbsUp:
Jo
-
The video worked for me Steve...thanks for posting it and as Jo said....nice runner!!!
Bill
-
Runs Great Steve!
Dave
-
Nice runner like everyone said, and loved the video........thanks Steve.
Don
-
Hi Steve,
Cool runner. Just one question is the "flash" under the base part of design, bet it's not a great place to put a finger!
Cheers Kerrin
-
Thanks Everyone
Kerrin - the "flash" is not part of the original design. I put a Hall effect transistor electronic ignition on instead of points. There is an LED that comes on when the Hall effect transistor is switched on, which is what you are seeing. I've also got a miniature coil under there. The high tension wire is pretty well insulated, except at the sparkplug. You'll get a zap off the plug, but it's not too bad.
Here's the kit I used
http://www.model-engine-plans.com/partskits/ignitionsystems/transistors.htm (http://www.model-engine-plans.com/partskits/ignitionsystems/transistors.htm)
Steve
-
Some more work on the crankcase.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1275.jpg)
Above is the tool for turning the large wide internal groove that the crankshaft throw (along with the connecting rods etc.) is housed in. It's made out of an old 6mm endmill shank. I put the grub screw (set screw for the US folk) on top because I wanted the hole for the tool right at the end of the bar. It's got the middle ground out like a crankshaft turning tool.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1277.jpg)
So all the turning on the first side is done. Next I have to flip it around to do the second turning opps. I'll tackle that on the weekend. It's slow going because the 6061 I'm using is so stringy. I did grind chip breakers in my tools with some success but not enough. My chip breaker works great on smaller diameter 6061 but this big stuff is super stringy. Yuk :ThumbsDown: But I'm getting there :DrinkPint:
Cheers
Steve
-
Progress is still progress Steve. Nice work so far and looking forward to seeing more!!
Bill
-
Steve, another project that's slipped through my net some how! I'll leave this as a place holder so I can go back and read the rest but it's looking great from the last few pics I've seen - need to have a look at the topsy turvy engine too :ThumbsUp:
-
I made almost the same boring bar when I did my crankcase.
-
Looking good Steve. Just how big is that chunk of 6061? Those stringy chips are a pain, but, they sure make you think you gotta real sharp tool :lolb: :lolb:
Eric
-
I like that tool Steve!....I'll need to try that one out. :ThumbsUp:
Dave
-
Good progress on the crankcase Steve.
Vince
-
Awesome Steve, your starting to move right along bud. Looking real nice from here. That tool you used, was that the same tool Phil Duclos used to bore the Victorian engine with? Looks like it worked a treat and should reduce the chatter.
Don
-
Thanks guys
Bill - you are correct of course.
Nick - great to have you aboard mate. I know where you're coming from; there's so much great stuff going on here it takes alot of effort to keep up.
John - so where are you at with your build? I'm interested of course.
Eric - the chunk started as 130mm (5-1/8") diameter x 4" long. Nothing Booboo couldn't chomp down on, but I'd feel better with a bigger chuck than my slim body 6" 4-jaw.
Dave - sounds like something that should be tried on a particularly accurate Southbend :DrinkPint:
Vince - thanks, I've been meaning to catch up on your build. Time has been slipping lately.
Don - yep the tool is pretty much the same as Phil's. I had to look his book up on that one. You should build a version of the Victorian :stickpoke: :stickpoke: :stir:
Cheers
Steve
-
Dave - sounds like something that should be tried on a particularly accurate Southbend :DrinkPint:
:lolb:.....OK....one of the first tests...will be with a boring bar and a bit like that. :cheers:
Dave
-
Yep that's the text book test :lolb:
Steve
-
Steve the Victorian is on my list of engines to build, believe me. That is a soon as I complete my tooling.
Don
-
Cool, that's what I wanted to hear Don ;)
Steve
-
Hi Steve,
I've finished the cam and retainer. Ready to cut the lobes, just need to get the woodruff cutter.
I will move on to the oil pump, rear seal plate and the impeller next. Need to pickup some material for that.
John
(http://i370.photobucket.com/albums/oo143/johnlesar/camretainerinstalled.jpg) (http://s370.photobucket.com/user/johnlesar/media/camretainerinstalled.jpg.html)
-
Looks great John, I like the build from the middle approach. Are you going to go for the square hole in the crankshaft as per the plans?
Anyway - continuing on with the turning opps on my crankcase.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1278.jpg)
above is the job turned around in the chuck for the second opps. The chuck is an old 125mm (4.921") Bison. I've turned the backplate spigot down a little so that I can make it run dead true, i.e. the poor man's griptrue chuck.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1279.jpg)
Above is an action shot of turning the outside. I got my chipbreaker working good. Using kero (paraffin in the UK) mixed with a little cutting oil made the world of difference. Words don't do justice to how stringy this crap is, so I'm pretty darn happy with getting the chips to break up :cartwheel: The cut is a piddly 25thou deep with 8thou per rev feed. It's spinning at about 500 rpm which loaded my little 1/2 horse motor right up on such a large diameter.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1282.jpg)
and finally all the turning finished, but lots of other opps to go yet.
This will be my last post on this for about a month, I'm going to Beijing.
Cheers
Steve
-
That came out very well Steve !
Kind regards, Arnold
-
Thanks Arnold. I'm back from my extended stay in Beijing. Posting from my new smart phone.
Steve
-
The finish on that is beautiful!....Show us the tool please!
Dave
-
What Dave said!
Do
-
Hi Dave and Don
I'll get back to you on that one. I'll just have to get into the shop and take a photo, which many take a couple of days.
Cheers
Steve
-
Glad to see you back Steve. I love seeing these radials coming together.
Bill
-
Thanks Bill, nice to be back ;)
Dave and Don, I haven't forgotten the photo of the lathe tool. Well yes I did, but only temporally :Lol:
Anyway I been making up some stuff to attach the crankcase directly to my rotary table. I'm going to bypass using a chuck.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0008.jpg)
Above is the basic kit I've made. Some T-nuts that allow me to get near the middle of the rotary table and a decent bit of steel to make a keep plate to hold the crankcase down. The nut up the top actually has the hole in the middle, it's an optical illusion due to multiple passes with a slightly too small endmill.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0009.jpg)
So some 8mm all thread to go into my T-nuts
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0010.jpg)
and this should make it clear what I'm up to.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0011.jpg)
Well I decided to make it more pretty, so I picked up a centre pop in the middle "lathe style"
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0012.jpg)
and then made the edges all nice and round like.
So slowly getting back into things.
Cheers
Steve
-
Nice 1 steve, good to see you making progress.
-
Thanks Nick, back into things now
Dave and Don, I remembered your request for the photo of the lathe tool :)
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0016.jpg)
The tools from left to right are, a round cornered form tool for the corners on the outside of the crankcase, my main turning tool which I think I used to turn the finish, the tool with the chip breaker ground into it and the boring bar with the chip breaker ground into it. I guess it's the second tool you guys were primarily interested in. This one has a bit of 1/4" hss silver soldered into a part I milled out tangential tool style. The hss is a bit I bought off some one liquidating a collection of cutting tools out of a factory many years ago when I was young and had little money. It has Czechoslovakia marked on it and is by far the hardest HSS I've ever had, really tough to grind. Anyway none of this matters much about the finish I got. I just ground a tool and honed it by hand with an ordinary pocket sharpening stone I bought down the hardware shop. I tend to hone the round nose and just keep working on it with the stone as I resharpen it. I don't favour trying to grind the round nose as it gets too big too easily. With the stone I get a good controlled round nose on the end. Not sure there's much more to it, maybe it's just practice.
Back to business at hand,
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0019.jpg)
with the job on the rotary table set up on the milling machine. I've put a toolmaker's button at the middle of the clamp plate so I can find the axis of rotation easily. I rough milled the flats with a 1.5" cutter and finished them off with a flycutter.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0020.jpg)
Then bore some holes
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0021.jpg)
The shape of things to come!
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0022.jpg)
Finally I managed to spot all the holes to later be drilled and tapped with a centre drill. I'm going to use 2.5mm threads rather than the #4x40 in the plans.
That's it for now
Cheers, Steve
-
Good going Steve :ThumbsUp:
That last photo shows a lot of work in one image!
Kind regards, Arnold
-
Thanks Arnold. It's good to be active in the shop again :)
Cheers
Steve
-
I gotsta go make another batch of popcorn, this is getting interesting. Keep it up Steve, I like how you are documenting your progress with lots of pictures. Nice going :ThumbsUp:
BC1
Jim
-
That is a lot of progress Steve. Are all those cylinder mounting hole going to be through holes or blind holes? Also, why not go ahead and drill them while you were set up and spotting them? Its looking great though and I am still following along!!
Bill
-
Steve thanks for showing your tools, they are very interesting and produce a great finish. Your projects is shaping up nicely. Looks like this is at some critical stage here. I am sure you are handling it well. Great work buddy. :ThumbsUp:
Don
-
Thanks Jim, Bill and Don
Jim - popcorn hey? You're making me hungry :o
Bill - the cylinder holes are blind. My milling machine lacks a quill so I'm probably going to drill those particular holes on the drilling machine.
Don - this project certainly has an endless amount of machining that needs to be done. But it's good to get back into it after being away for a month.
Cheers
Steve
-
That is really looking great Steve!...Never really tried a chip breaker, but I will. I am surprised by the feed rate of .008"....I would have guessed lower...but I'll try that too!
Thanks for sharing that bud!
Dave
-
No probs Dave. 8 thou feed made the chips break but the finish wasn't good of course. I think I used 4 thou for the finish cut
Cheers
Steve
-
Just went thru this thread and all I can say is ... AWESOME !!! Really nice work you have there !! I work in the aviation field so it's very cool to see these engine builds !!
Again great work !!
Dave
-
Thanks Dave, glad to hear that you got something out of going back and the trawling through the whole thread.
I've done more drilling around my crankcase. Needed to make a counterbore
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0029.jpg)
It's made of silver steel (drill rod), I milled the two sides out and filed some clearance on the end before hardening and tempering.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0030.jpg)
Above is the current state of play. You can see the shallow counter bored holes on the right end. These will contain some O-rings to seal the inlet pipes. Still got some more holes to drill with this set up in place.
Cheers
Steve
-
Well some more work on the crankcase. I moved the rotary table onto my drilling machine and kept drilling
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0031.jpg)
and reaming
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0032.jpg)
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0033.jpg)
So directly above is the crankcase with all of the holes from the horizontal setup completed.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0035.jpg)
and (above) is how the cylinders go into the crankcase
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0034.jpg)
So now for a tapping marathon, with the photo showing the little guide I knocked up to get the tap straight and a little knurled disk I knocked up for a tapping wrench. I'm tapping these threads 2.5mm and this little disk will hopefully mean I don't end up with a broken tap in such a major piece of work.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0037.jpg)
And more tapping, this time on the holes in the foreground. I made another guide, this one uses the pin to fit in the larger drilled holes to register in. BTW these holes have tubes that go from the crankcase here to feed the inlet valves. There is an impaler inside the crankcase that blows the fuel air mixture through these tubes. It acts like a simple super charger.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0038.jpg)
So you can see here how I arranged to tap all the holes to the same depth by using the knurled disk as a depth step.
So far I have tapped 92 holes in the crankcase. I think I have 45 holes left to drill and tap. These holes are all in line with the crank cases' axis of symmetry.
So I haven't been posting that much, but I have been active in the shop. Not a bad way to be!
Cheers
Steve
-
Nice bit of progress :ThumbsUp: You must have the patience of a saint
I know how boring it can be drilling, drilling, drilling, then tapping, tapping, tapping for some reason I keep remembering the DTC cylinder stud holes :ShakeHead: utterly soul destroying.
Out of interest: what are you using to lubricate the tap?
Jo
-
Beautiful work Steve! .....Lots of practice tapping holes!
:praise2: :cheers:
Dave
-
That is a LOT of holes Steve...hope it all goes well or if you are done with all the tapping, I am happy for you that it went off without incident :)
Bill
-
Thanks guys
still another 45 holes to tap Bill, so Joe - if I get all them done without breaking a tap it will be a second miracle. That would put me in the running for sainthood wouldn't it :mischief:
regarding what I used for lubrication: I'm just using the sulphured cutting oil I have (seems pretty similar to Rocol RTD but was much cheaper) diluted down with about 50% kero (paraffin).
Cheers
Steve
-
Beautiful job Steve, a whole lot of holes there buddy. Go luck and wishing you well in not breaking a tap. As we say, " easy she goes ".
Don
-
Thanks Don, hope my luck holds with the tapping.
I went on a road trip to Sydney yesterday with a mate who is also into this caper.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0041.jpg)
Got some booty. Amongst it is a 3/8" square broach that I need later on for the crankshaft. That was one of the hard to get items I've been after.
Steve
-
Had a big day in the shop yesterday
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0042.jpg)
Here's spotting some holes deep down with a long series centre drill
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_0043.jpg)
and above is the essentially finished crankcase with 137 tapped holes. There's a couple of holes that have to be tweaked, but I need to make the oil pump before doing that.
Need to think about what I'll do next now :thinking:
Cheers
Steve
-
Lovely work Steve...that crankkcase is a work of art!
Bill
-
Looks good Steve. It's a relief to get all those small holes tapped.
John
-
Yes, there is an immense amount of work in that Steve, looks very professional too :ThumbsUp:
-
Great work, and lots of it too!
Hugh.
-
Enjoying the progress; beautiful work.
Dave
-
Love your work Buddy :praise2:
Pete
-
Steve that is just to cute, awesome buddy! :praise2:
Don
-
Thanks everyone, and John you are definitely correct.
I arrived at work a little late this morning after making a trip to the bearing shop. I'm now ready to make the front cover that bolts onto the crank case.
Cheers
Steve
-
I arrived at work a little late this morning after making a trip to the bearing shop. I'm now ready to make the front cover that bolts onto the crank case.
;D I know how that goes. For me, it's a trip to the Ally remnants store in San Jose (Cambell Metal Supply).
You've done an amazing job of this crankcase. Can't wait to see some bits that fit onto it!
Simon
-
Thanks Simon, the ally remnants store sounds cool, that would make me late to work too.
I've been working on the front cover for the crankcase which begun life as a 110mm disk of Aluminium
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1310.jpg)
and here it is (above) after a bit of roughing
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1311.jpg)
Above: the inside side all turned to dimensions with the hole in the middle to take a ball bearing, which fortunately ended up fitting very nicely.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1312.jpg)
Then flipped around, and gripping on the largest inside diameter with more turning completed
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1313.jpg)
Now the fun begins with a 3/4" radius to be put on the corner. I used trigonometry along with my bed mounted dial indicator (featured earlier when cutting the internal threads in the cylinders) providing longitudinal position and the cross slide micrometer dial. I custom upgraded my lathes micrometer dials and feed thrust bearings, one of my better mods. So first a 45 deg monster chamfer, tangent to the 3/4" radius.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1314.jpg)
So the instructions said to put 3 different flats on and then file the radius. I decided not to go that way and to be frank, I don't think much of that approach. After turning the first 3 flats I hit the resulting four corners with the topslide at the intersecting angles, and on these last 4 flats dispensed with the trig and used a rule to get the widths of each flat the same.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1315.jpg)
Next, a hand graver with a large flat edge. I had a long bit of 6mm HSS sitting about and also a file handle, a little hammering and 30 seconds on the grinder and there's a hand graver. Then using the back of the toolholder in the lantern post and a spot of hand turning.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1316.jpg)
So some hand turning
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1317.jpg)
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1318.jpg)
a fraction of polishing with wet and dry
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1320.jpg)
drilling and some more tapping on the holes on the inner radius. I finished off the holes in the drilling machine, rather than putting holes in my rotary table :o
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1321.jpg)
and the whole kit and caboodle as far as the crankcase thus far put together. Now I need more screws.
Anyway that's the front cover finished.
Cheers
Steve
-
Wow, that's fantastic Steve.
Hugh.
-
Beautiful work :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp:
Tim
-
Good progress Steve. Coming along nicely.
Vince
-
wow, awesome hand turning! :ThumbsUp:
-
Steve, that turned out perfectly. Was the graver work done just by sight or did you have a template you used as a guide?
Bill
-
Looks great Steve! Excellent work with the graver :ThumbsUp:
Kind regards, Arnold
-
Hugh, Tim, Vince, Nick, Bill and Arnold
thanks for checking in and the kind words
Bill - I just turned it by eye. After carefully turning the short flats, accurately tangent to the required radius and all of the same width, it was easy. With the graver having the flat end about 1/4" wide, it automatically picks up the high points on the curve as you sweep it around.
Cheers
Steve
-
I've been busy working on the rear bearing and oil pump housing.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1322.jpg)
I lashed out and purchased a 4" billet of 6061. This served to prove what a POS my bandsaw really is. But I got there in the end.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1323.jpg)
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1325.jpg)
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1326.jpg)
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1327.jpg)
I'd already purchased a couple of hard brass disks to make the front and rear bearings out of. Above is the turning finished on the rear bearing and the outside shape of the pump housing completed. You can see how it all fits together in the crankcase too.
-
Next a whole lot of drilling
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1329.jpg)
Above is finishing off the drilling after first centre drilling everywhere on the milling machine. The two pieces are bolted together so that all the holes will line up. I made a minor stuff up and got one of the oil drain holes in the wrong spot. But it's ok, it won't hurt and can't be seen one it's assembled.
This next ones for Dave: I decided to take a leaf out of Dave's book and open up the bores for the gears on the face pate using the lathe.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1330.jpg)
I used a piece of silver steel to clock the holes I'd already put in with a reamer previously.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1331.jpg)
So there's where one pair of gears go. There's actually two pumps, one pumps oil into the crankshaft through the rear bearing and the other pumps the oil out of a scavenger tank under the crankcase and back into the external oil reservoir.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1335.jpg)
So here's how it all turned out.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1338.jpg)
Next milling oil passages. These passages clamp up against the face of the bearing and are thus sealed off. Sorry the photo's so crappy. I was experimenting with settings, and it didn't work so good.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1339.jpg)
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1340.jpg)
Then milled the outside to shape. There are some oil passages that still need to be drilled, but I need to get some screws to assemble the whole thing into the crankcase before I do that. Should be straight forward (famous last words)
Thanks for looking
Steve
-
Steve that's a lot of hole drilling buddy. I must of missed one of your post and just catching up and love the graving on the crank case cover. I like to do graving every chance I get. Great work bud. :praise2:
Don
-
That's coming great Steve!....I did my oil pump the same way .....it works great!
Keep at it bud! Your doing excellent!
Dave
-
Thanks Don and Dave
Don - I'm with you on the graver
Dave - yes, I paid homage to your oil pump work above ;)
Cheers
Steve
-
Next on my ad-hoc to do list for this project, the impaler. This is a little like a super charger on the wrong side of the carby.
So the initial turning done and
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1341.jpg)
then onto the rotary table.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1342.jpg)
Then I wanted to rough mill the curved round surface in the middle with a ball mill. Got desperate and used a spreadsheet on my phone. I can't say I recommend it
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1343.jpg)
milling said curved round surface
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1344.jpg)
milling fins
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1349.jpg)
finished fins
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1351.jpg)
back in lathe, turned taper on end and then smoothed out the curved surface with a round nosed tool. I put the other radius on the end with my friend the graver I made the other week.
So the impaler is pretty much done.
Thanks for looking
Steve
-
Looks great Steve!
I really like this engine....it's on the list....I just need to live long enough to complete the list!
Dave
-
Again...Well done Sir !!!!! Looks utterly awesome !!
Dave
-
Thanks Dave and Dave
Steamer Dave - hope you get round to that end of the list some day. It sure is a fun build
Steve
-
While this one is not on my list (so far at least), I am really enjoying your build Steve. I can only admire your tenacity and the lovely results in taking on this project. Always nice to see your updates and progress.
Bill
-
Thanks Bill, your tenacity is pretty darn good too ;)
Steve
-
I'm back on this build again
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1412.jpg)
Above is the air guide, which goes inside the casting and has a flat face adjacent to the impaler. The hole is to accommodate the bevel gear at the end of the distributor. The distributor is orientated at 90 degs to the crankshaft.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1413.jpg)
I needed a couple of 12 tooth gears for the oil pump, so I decided to make use of my new dividing head
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1414.jpg)
and here the gears are sitting in the oil pump
:cheers:
Steve
-
Glad to see you back on this one Steve. And nice work on the gears too!
Bill
-
I also have one half finished. I have it about 4th on the list.
-
Awesome Steve, that Dividing head works a treat buddy and glad to see you back on project again.
Don
-
I love it Steve!....Getting those to fit well in their housing is a tricky thing!....You made it look easy!
Dave
-
Hi Steve,
very impressive. I am only astonished.
May be in 100 years I will have a similar capability to do that.
Regards
Achim
-
Thanks Guys
Steve - not sure if I'm half finished but this is up the top of my list for now. When you get onto yours I'll be following along.
I had a good run at it yesterday. All small fiddly stuff like drilling holes and making pins etc. Made up a counter bore for 2.5mm cap head screws out of silver steel (drill rod). Didn't take any photos, but it wasn't anything exciting. I'm planning on cutting the rest of the gears for the pump and largely finishing off the back end of the crankcase next.
Anyway, thanks again everyone
Cheers
Steve
-
Steve just got on to this web site and saw you were building Hodgsons 9 cyl Radial. Your work looks great and thanks for all of the photos to go with it that helps to see what things look like. Keep up the good work and I hope to see more on this in the future post.
Todd
-
Thanks Todd
I've been pretty snowed under lately. I also need to get some more material. Will be back in due course
Cheers
Steve
-
Sorry for not posting for so long. I've been caught up with all sorts of nonsense, and work has been rather demanding. I have got some stuff done, will try and post it. I've been working on different parts of the crankcase, which is confusing to describe
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1421.jpg)
above shows the oil pump installed. The gear in the middle will be mounted on the crankshaft; I've just got it on a pin at the moment to see how the gears mesh. I want to get another photo to show how the air guide came out, I'll post that (all stuff from the back end of the crankcase at the moment) and then show what I've done on the front side of the crankcase. I'll have to come back and do more on the back end later.
Cheers
Steve
-
Good to see you back Steve! Nice work!
Dave
-
Thanks Dave, good to be back!
-
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1431.jpg)
Here's a pic of the back of the rear crankcase cover. The air guide is inserted in it and you can see it's back face. This is the face that the impaler mates up with. You can also see the opening that the distributor will go through.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1432.jpg)
Here it is from the front. You can see the other end of the air guide as the small diameter in the middle of where the carburettor bolts on.
Steve
-
Steve, glad to see you back on it, it looks like a clock I. The back of there!
-
Hi Steve, Glad to see you back in action. Looks like I missed a post but all is looking good buddy. Keep those photos coming.
Don
-
Thanks Nick and Don
More to come soon!
Steve
-
So onto the internals for the front end of the crankcase.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1423.jpg)
above is the cam about to have the profile milled on the rotary table. The cam profile repeats 4 times around the cam (instead of the usual 1), and to compensate the cam rotates 8 times slower than the crank instead of the usual 2 times for a four stroke.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1424.jpg)
after milling the profile I re-clamped to mark the 0-deg point with a centre drill, as per instructions
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1426.jpg)
This will be a plate that holds the end thrust on the cam and the outboard bearing for the intermediate compound gear that drives the cam
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1430.jpg)
Here's a family shot of various pieces for the front end of the crankcase. Made a slight stuffup on the initial spotting of the two holes in the bearing (large diameter brass piece), but it won't matter functionally and can't be seen upon assembly
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1429.jpg)
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1427.jpg)
Here's the parts assembled. The 3 screws were just to see how it went together, I need to get some more suitable ones.
That's me pretty much up to date. I'm now starting work on the internal gear that drives the cam. I'm going to make it myself in the shaper rather than buy it per instructions. I'm going to make all the various gears myself
Cheers
Steve
-
I'm going to make all the various gears myself
8) I'll be watching and learning
Jo
-
Still looking great Steve!! I can only imagine the amount of work and time one of these big radials takes! :praise2: :praise2:
Bill
-
Cool Steve, I will be watching for the making of the gears as well. More parts down though your making progress.
:popcornsmall:
Don
-
Looks good Steve.
I will be very interested to see the internal gear being made. It was an expensive gear when i bought one for my H9.
John
-
Hi Steve,
Quite some project you have going on here! Admire the patience and personality to keep such project going.looking forward on the internal gear making! Made the bevel gears for my Stanley Steamer with your help last year, or as it the year before last year.... Geee... Time really flies!
Jeroen
-
Good to see you back on it again Steve and looking forward to seeing more progress 'as and when' :ThumbsUp:
I just wish I could find the same tenacity.
Regards - Ramon
-
Thanks everyone
You are right Jeroen, time sure does fly :Lol:
John - I'm hatching plans for that gear involving the rotary table on the shaper.
Cheers
Steve
-
Ok I'm in the middle of the internal gear. Not sure how it will all go, but it's looking promising.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1433.jpg)
started with some 2.75" stock I had on hand to make the gear blank out of brass.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1434.jpg)
Bored out the back, currently the bore is deeper than the final dimension and the blank is thicker. I'll use this to give some more clearance when cutting the teeth and thin it down at the end.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1435.jpg)
This is the lantern type toolpost out of my shaper. I'm going to make something else up for this job
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1437.jpg)
and here it is. The block is bolted ontop of the clapper, with the spigot on the bottom having a couple of holes tapped in it to hold the block in place. The other piece there is a piece of silver steel (drill rod) that I'll make the cutter out of
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1438.jpg)
Here's cutting some teeth into the cutter. The rotary table is slewed around 4 degs for clearence. The OD turned the same. I'm using M0.8 which is very close to DP32. The original plans use 24 with a 48 internal gear and a 12 tooth pinion. I'm using 64 and 16 teeth instead.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1439.jpg)
Here's my contraption on the clapper of the shaper. The cutter has now been hardened and tempered and has an 1/8" hole in the middle that I've got a pointy pin in. This will help to line things up. The teeth are cut at the spacing to match a 16 tooth gear, which is divisible by 4, so the surface gauge lets me line it up with a tooth lined up with the machine's axes.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1436.jpg)
Here's my gear blank clamped onto the rotary table.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1441.jpg)
I put a lathe centre in the rotary table and used the pointer to find the centre. Then moved on to cutting teeth. This is as far as I got. So far so good. Hope it all makes sense, there's a lot going on here.
Cheers
Steve
-
:noidea: Ok Steve, you have me confused: why have you not machined gear cutting teeth all the way round the cutter.
Jo
-
Jo: I'm just using it as a form cutter, plunging straight down in the shaper, so it is only cutting on 5 teeth by the time it hits the bottom. My idea is it will be something akin to a hob. So I didn't make teeth all the way around due to laziness and a slight stuff up I made earlier.
I'm going to rotate the cutter half a tooth, then go around a second time to get a better tooth form at the end.
Hope this makes sense??
Steve
-
I get it :ThumbsUp:
Are you using the dividing plates on your rotary table or just trusting winding the handle and reading the degrees?
Jo
-
I'm resorting to the latter, only because I don't have the dividing plate to do 64 teeth. I've made up a spread sheet and printed out all the numbers in degrees minutes seconds.
Steve
-
Looking good. How big a cut are taking on each plunge?
Rod
-
Rod: I've been feeding it in at a very gentle rate, but am going to full depth. I did do the first couple sub full depth, just to ease it in. The form cutter cuts more than one tooth at a time, so that helps.
Steve
-
Hi Steve, thanks on the how to on internal gear cutting, get the picture. Just did not understand the part where you say to rotate the cutter Half a tooth to finish it in the second pass, for me this would ruin the gear tooth geometry. The only thing missing now in my shop is a shaper >:( since there is no space for one more machine I think to make something with an excenter on my mill instead. Another project on my list....
Jeroen
-
Hey that's awesome Steve! I am curious as to how well that works. Would it not cut better with the tip having a convex curve in it? Just asking if that's a option.
:ThumbsUp:
Don
-
Jeroen: The cutter has the correct form for a 16 tooth gear. I'll rotate both the cutter and work half a turn in sync, this will help to get closer to the required internal gear form
P.S. a slotting attachment on the milling machine would be ideal for this job. One could do it with a hand cranked slotting attachment on the lathe also.
Don: I'm curious too! You are correct that you could put some positive rake on the front. One way in the lathe would be to swing the topslide around to the required angle and just keep it straight. I'm cutting brass, so positive rake isn't required and probably not even desirable.
Cheers
Steve
-
Hi Steve,
Wasnt looking but I got myself a nice small shaper. I am rebuilding it now, hope to have it running in some weeks. Just one more question on the internal gear cutting. If would make a gear cutter to mount in the shaper like you did, why not to cut just one tooth with the correct cutter number (this would be the number when the gear would be a normal external gear)? In my opinion this would give you the correct shape without have to rotate the work and cutter. I think that the influence of the smaller diameter of the cutter on the tooth shape is neglectable. Hope you understand what I mean.
Thanks, Jeroen
-
Interesting point Jeroen! You've got me thinking (and drawing pictures). Against your proposal, I think an internal gear tends to have the teeth pointed off significantly more than an external one with the same number of teeth and I don't think the teeth of an internal gear are involute either.
If you are interested, and have a mind for geometry, I suggest you stare at the movie on this wikepedia page for a bit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involute_gear (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involute_gear)
consider the blue lines to be string unwinding from one pitch circle of one gear onto the pitch circle on the other gear. The unwinding string is an "involute" in the mathematical sense. When you have an internal gear, the pitch circle is on the wrong side of the teeth, so no involute. So with this in mind I don't think the idea you suggest will work very well.
In the limit where the internal gear becomes very large (# of teeth), then your way would obviously be correct. So if the internal gear has many teeth, you will get away with it.
My knowledge on this sort of stuff comes from having some background in maths and thinking about it over a long period of time. I've never studied it formally and so may well be missing something important. I am not an authority on all things gears. But in my opinion the form of an internal gear is not an involute and is something of a practical compromise. If you or anyone else knows better please correct me.
Steve
-
Nice!!!!!!
A brave man! Looks good! I ran a slotting head on a VanNorman#12 milling machine once and made up an internal gear like substance....just for fun....it was tedious, but it WAS fun.
That engine is coming along great Steve! :ThumbsUp:
Dave
-
Thanks Dave
I remember your pics of Norm. Will have more to post soon!
Steve
-
Steve, you are most likely right. I never cut an internal gear in my live so I am a complete novise on this. Further I have no any mechanical background at all, just like it a lot and learn every day a little. Just follow my initial ideas and when they dont work look on the net for reference material. The one tooth cutter was my first idea, after looking on the net I see it will not work. Have not figured it out yet, there is very little info available on tooth shape of internal gears. When I find something interesting I will post it here, I would like some procedure that I understand and that is repeatable. I have them available for belt pullies, spur gears and bevel gears, up to the next.... Internal gears!
Regards Jeroen
-
Great Jeroen, If you do find any info please do post it. I would be most interested to see it.
Of course you could make a single tooth cutter, but what shape to make it? That is the hard part. I'm sure I could work out a shape, approximated as a piece of a circle, with the help of the computer. But that is more work than the way I'm doing it and I'm not really on the lookout for maths problems to solve as a hobby either. A single tooth cutter would also be more sensitive to misalignment and more difficult to line up.
Steve
-
Steve:
Great job cutting the internal gear. An ambitious undertaking, thanks for sharing.
I do believe internal gears have an involute shape. I found a picture on the Internet showing the dimensions of an internal gear mesh. (http://nptel.ac.in/courses/116102012/47) Note the base circle, the one used to generate the involute, of the internal gear is inside its addendum circle. Thus, an involute will exist for the internal gear. The pressure line should be tangent to both base circles. This drawing shows it slightly off which I think is a drawing error but its clearly possible. The pressure line meets the intersection of both pitch circles at the pitch point (on a line between gear centers). This all matches standard spur gear geometry, just some sigh changes I think.
Using a spur gear, like you have, should work well to hob an internal gear. As with a hob, the cutter needs to be incremented go get the right shape on each tooth. An infinite number of increments for the theoretically right shape. I've seen reference, for hobby gear cutting, of not incrementing the hob. I suspect one or two increments will give a servicable gear. The link above indicates "The precision of internal gears is much lower than the regular spur gears. However, they have the characteristics of high load, high speed and high speed reduction." They don't explain but you may have a little more leeway in cutting an internal gear.
I look forward to hearing how smoothly they operate for the number of increments you use. I guess if the five teeth all cut then you already have 5 increments even without indexing.
Thanks for sharing.
Hugh
-
Thanks very much Hugh, that certainly clears it up. So Jeroen, looks like what you proposed should work. The internal gear tooth form is a mirror on an external gear tooth form with the same number of teeth
Regarding the hobbing business and number of increments. If the number of increments is on the small side, a little more clearance will help. Good enough for what we usually get up to.
Steve
-
Thank you Hugh and Steve, I think the fog is starting to vaporize slowly.....
I have found that the Main differences with internal gears are the addendum and dedendum get swapped over. This should happen automatically when you use a “gear shape” as a cutter. I am leaving my single tooth cutter and go for a multi tooth one as this will help to create additional clearance on the inner teeth shape. This is very well described by Achim (http://www.metallmodellbau.de/GEAR-CUTTING.php) (http://(http://www.metallmodellbau.de/GEAR-CUTTING.php)). This cutter shape is different but I think the effect will be the same on cutting inner gears.
I found an interesting summarize on gears at http://www.khkgears.co.jp/de/gear_technology/pdf/gear_guide1.pdf (http://www.khkgears.co.jp/de/gear_technology/pdf/gear_guide1.pdf) If you take a look at page 20 of the pdf there are some tables describing the number of teeth for a cutter related to the desired number of teeth for the gear to be cut. As far as I can understand and judge it, it seems that the number of teeth for the cutter must be bigger then 22 to prevent several interferences. Maybe you can take a look at the same data and see if you can agree with this conclusion.
In the end I would like to make some kind of thumb rule that I can use in future without having to :thinking: it all over again.....
If I take your 64 teeth gear as an example it might look like below:
- 64 teeth -> Use involute gear cutter No 2: 55-134 teeth
- Number of teeth for Gear hob = 64/2 = 32 (Cutter should have a minimum of 22 teeth ??? Is this TRUE?)
- Cutting depth = 2.16 * M (Where M is Module)
- Add +0.05mm to calculated center distance for extra clearance ???
Thanks, regards Jeroen
-
I have found that the Main differences with internal gears are the addendum and dedendum get swapped over. This should happen automatically when you use a “gear shape” as a cutter. I am leaving my single tooth cutter and go for a multi tooth one as this will help to create additional clearance on the inner teeth shape. This is very well described by Achim (http://www.metallmodellbau.de/GEAR-CUTTING.php) (http://(http://www.metallmodellbau.de/GEAR-CUTTING.php)). This cutter shape is different but I think the effect will be the same on cutting inner gears.
I looked at the link but don't do well with German. From the pictures it looks like a rack profile used as a hob. The diagrams show the incrementing I mentioned. However, he uses a one tooth increment, just advances the gear one tooth of mesh without moving the hob (i.e. a 24 tooth gear would be advanced 360/24 = 15 degrees). I think a better result would come from moving the gear and hob through half a tooth and repeating the cutting. Make another round of cuts after advancing the gear 7.5 degrees and the hob up the corresponding amount.
I found an interesting summarize on gears at http://www.khkgears.co.jp/de/gear_technology/pdf/gear_guide1.pdf (http://www.khkgears.co.jp/de/gear_technology/pdf/gear_guide1.pdf) If you take a look at page 20 of the pdf there are some tables describing the number of teeth for a cutter related to the desired number of teeth for the gear to be cut. As far as I can understand and judge it, it seems that the number of teeth for the cutter must be bigger then 22 to prevent several interferences. Maybe you can take a look at the same data and see if you can agree with this conclusion.
Well, that one goes over my head. The table ( 4.8 ) seems to indicate the largest pinion cutter that can be used for a given sized internal gear. But hey, I'm confused. I think a lot of this talks of "profile shift", on prior pages in spur gears and rack/pinion. I found this reference (http://www.geartechnology.com/issues/0812x/profile-shift.pdf) regarding profile shift. Interesting but I haven't studied it in depth.
I suspect with Steve applying no profile shift in cutting the pinion cutter, there shouldn't be any problem. I also suspect these details are more important on smaller gears. Internal gears tend to have a lot of teeth so these problems may not show up, but I'm guessing. The pinion cutter looks to be 16T which should work well.
We need some real world experiments. We need to find someone to make an internal gear and report how well it works. No wait, Steve already built a beautiful one. And he's doing a build log so we'll get a report of how well it works. How magical.
Hugh
-
Indeed Hugh! Should have a report this weekend.
-
Jo: I'm just using it as a form cutter, plunging straight down in the shaper, so it is only cutting on 5 teeth by the time it hits the bottom. My idea is it will be something akin to a hob. So I didn't make teeth all the way around due to laziness and a slight stuff up I made earlier.
I'm going to rotate the cutter half a tooth, then go around a second time to get a better tooth form at the end.
Hope this makes sense??
Steve
Steve:
I think this is the increment I tried to describe above. The pinion cutter cuts part of 5 teeth on each stroke. That should give 5 "increments" if the blank is advanced one tooth at a time. That would give 5 "flats" on each tooth. If you advance everything half a tooth and repeat you should have 10 increments or "flats" on each tooth face. This should give a very smooth surface. I've seen descriptions of making small external gears where it looked like only 2 or 3 "flats" on each face. Those reportedly worked well so 5 or 10 should give a very smooth running gear train.
I haven't made gears before and want to. This adventure into internal gears is very interesting and I hope you post how well they work.
Thank you.
Hugh
PS Your post came through as I was composing. (composing takes me some time) I'm sure they will work well and look forward to hearing all the details. Here's to a productive weekend. Thanks.
-
Hugh
Yes you are correct, and I appreciate your interest and contribution. Often you can get away with quite a bit in practice. 5 flats is perhaps a bit course, and the outermost 2 are are only just contacting, so it's probably more like 3. But a little extra clearance can compensate a lot. Involute gears can be very forgiving and hopefully we'll find out a little more very soon. :cheers:
Jeroen
All you need to do is make a one tooth cutter like you said first off. The cutter should have the same shape as a tooth on an external gear with the same # of teeth as your desired internal gear. You want to take the depth down a little extra for clearance though.
Steve
-
Thanks for checking the info. Sorry for the link to a German language site, did not even realise it was in German.... The cutter he uses is different but it shows the effect of cutting with multiple teeth very well, that’s all. The info on the other link goes over my head too....
I will wait for the results from you Steve and if you don’t mind I will try to make a short write-up of the procedure used to make the gear. Much easier when all still is fresh in mind and then just store it for future use. I will not continue with my single tooth cutter, it might work but it is more complicated to produce then the one you have made. I prefer to use a practical proven method then some theoretical one. If your gears work for you they will work fine for me too! I might do a test with your method and after the single tooth one to compare the results.
Looking forward to read your findings!
Regards Jeroen
-
Ok back to the real stuff
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1442.jpg)
Here's my gear
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1443.jpg)
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1444.jpg)
The pinion and the internal gear, pressed into the cam
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/IMG_1445.jpg)
Here's the assembly.
Now onto some of the nitty gritty. I had to come back and recut one tooth, as I didn't go down to full depth. The teath weren't down to the depth I intended. I put this down to slop in the shaping machine. I compensated for this when cutting the pinion.
I'm pretty sure the cutter I made is fine, but you could easily make a single tooth one (I'd do that).
I ended up lapping the pinion and internal gear together (600 grit/inch^2 paste I think), it now runs very smooth. If I was doing it again, I'd definitely do a few things different.
1) I would have made an index plate
2) I would have left some extra material on the front face, and turned a short recess to the diameter the teeth are cut down to. Then it would be easy to see when you're down to depth.
3) I would go around a second time with out adjusting the cutter depth, say taking 1 thou or so out. Then all teeth would be the same depth.
Anyway after some faffing about I am quite happy with the final result.
Cheers
Steve
-
Good job Steve :ThumbsUp:
This have been very intresting!
I think it would go easy in th mill to, just make a lock to the spindle so it cant rotate wilest
Plunging?
Ove
-
Awesome job Steve, I guess now things will go a little easier for your. Thanks for showing the gear making that was very interesting. I like............. :praise2:
:popcorn:
Don
-
Steve:
Great results, congratulation.
Hugh
-
Congratulations Steve, Thats a nice looking inner gear you have there! Good tip to cut a resses in the blank for visual end condition. Could alternatively mount a dial indicator to the table to have a teeth depth read out. Just to be sure, the one teeth cutter you would use next time, that is a cutter with the same tooth shape as if it would be an external gear as I initially proposed?
Thanks for sharing all of this with us, really learned something here!
Regards Jeroen
-
Great going on the gear Steve :praise2:
That's pretty much the same process I intend to use for my next engine which requires a similar gear - though I'll be using the mill instead of a shaper.
Kind regards, Arnold
-
Thanks everyone
Don - still a few major hurdles left, but they are getting less ;)
Jeroen - I did use a dial indicator to set the depth, but the shaper tends to have a certain amount of give. Re single cutter, yes what you say is correct.
Arnold - I look forward to seeing you attack your internal gear :)
Cheers
Steve
-
Steve
If you and I ever meet I want to stand next to you and have someone take our picture together.
I just read this thread and I am impressed significantly. That is some nice machine work you have done on this project. Not that I am any authority mind you, but I am impressed none the less.
While I was reading getting more and more involved I almost wanted to go outside and blow my shirt and pants off. These are some very good posts.
I am leaning toward starting a project such as yours, I am trying to make sure of the right decision as to what prints I buy. I have been reading all I can find on the ageless engine 9 cyl radial. Which brought me here.
Keep posting your progress please, I'll sure be reading it.
-
Thanks dbwelder. I'll keep posting, don't worry
Cheers
Steve
-
Hi Steve!
Do you have some more progress on the Hodgson?
It is a long time since we heard anything.
As I started a build to I am curios.
Hope you are healthy and dont stop building :)
Regards Ove Larsson
-
Hi Ove
Yes I am well and still building. I have made all the master and slave rods, the pistons and gudgeon pins, the compression rings (still have to do the control rings) and I am well along the way with the crankshaft.
I have been meaning to post more for some time, but somehow have failed to find the time. Currently I am away in Europe and will be really busy till at least the end of Feb, but I'll do my best to post some pics for you. Glad to hear you have also started building one! You can always send me a message, I'll get email notification if you do.
Cheers
Steve
-
Hi Steve
Good to hear.
Look forward to see your progress especialy on the crank.
Ove
-
Ok Ove, I've made it home and have a report on the progress with the crank for you
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1465.jpg)
Above are the bits and pieces as things stand. The large fixture is to drill holes for the taper pins and stuff upon final assembly. Also shown are some taper pins and rather old (but new) reamers I got off ebay. There is a small jig sitting on the fixture for drilling some oil passages.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1466.jpg)
next on the agenda is a couple of plates to form the crank webs. Here's the pair bolted together in the milling machine having the holes drilled and reamed through them. I decided to forget about the square holes in the crank webs and opted for round ones with scotch keys. Decided I liked that better even though I did buy the square broach earlier.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_0195.jpg)
Turning a radius required on the webs
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_0196.jpg)
and assembly mock up. Still lots of milling to go on the webs.
Cheers
Steve
-
Nice job Steve!
-
Nice looking crank Steve....very nice!!!
Bill
-
Thanks for the pics Steve! Looks great! :ThumbsUp:
My plan was to make it in one pice and split the webs later but then I have to make a small gearcutter and I don't now how to dothat bestway.
And it is a lot of turning from 70mm :o
What do you mean with scotch keys? square or round keys? And are you planning to make a slit in the webs and a screw to tight them to the shafts?
Cheers
Ove
-
Still following along :popcorn: :DrinkPint: As you say there is still some milling to go before the webs match the drawing ::)
-
Thanks guys
Ove, by scotch key I mean a threaded round key, i.e. a grub screw (set screw in USA)
We'll see how my plans go this weekend ;), I'm not planning on slitting the webs.
I suspect making it in one piece may make things unnecessarily hard. If you want to buy taper pins and a reamer for the job, I can point you to where I got them on ebay
Steve
-
Looking good Steve but looks like progress has been slow. Been busy buddy?
Don
-
Yer been on the busy side Don and will be bad again very soon, but I have more progress to show yet. Will try and get things back up to date over the next few days. Famous last words :DrinkPint:
-
Some more work on the crank, posting while whiling away some time in the departure lounge at the airport, waiting for a domestic flight I'm taking.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1469.jpg)
Above: milled some more out of the webs and mocked it up in the alignment fixture. I made the webs out of bright (cold rolled) steel. Ended up having to squash them slightly in the vice with the crank pin between them to get a small amount of warp out, which resulted from milling their thickness down.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1475.jpg)
Messing about fitting taper pins
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1473.jpg)
My aforementioned scotch key
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1479.jpg)
With one side stuck together things still line up, thank god.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1481.jpg)
Getting a bit crazy fitting the next tapered pin. The angle plate is held onto the drill's table with a bolt.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1482.jpg)
Drilling the hole for the next scotch pin in the lathe. The webs are mild steel while I made the shafts out of 1045, which made things a little difficult with the drill inclined to wonder off into the soft stuff; hence doing it in the lathe. It just happened that the part fitted nicely in an existing boring bar holder.
I've also drilled the oil passage through the first side. So far so good on that one.
And with just over 10 mins to boarding time that's it for now
Cheers
Steve
-
Hi Steve!
That seems to be a easyer way than any other, nice job!
So if I undertand it right when you finaly install it to the crankcase you put in the last taperpin
in the front crankpin? I have not read thrue the plans yet I have to say :-[
If you have a link to the right size of pins on ebay I would be glad.
Cheers
Ove
-
Hi Ove
I don't know what the plans say re. assembly off the top of my head either. Obviously you have to get the whole thing together before you put both bearings on, because they'll block access to everything. I'd say first you put the front together with the front bearing and crankpin, then put it in the crankcase with the connecting rods on, then put the rest of the crank together, slide the back bearing on, put the oil pump driving gear on, and then pray you don't have to pull it apart. I'm planing on putting the last taper pin in with a pair of multi-grips
taper pins
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/25-x-1-8-x-3-4-SOLID-TAPER-PINS-STEEL-1-48-/251667695597?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_15&hash=item3a989047ed (http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/25-x-1-8-x-3-4-SOLID-TAPER-PINS-STEEL-1-48-/251667695597?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_15&hash=item3a989047ed)
reamers (these are high quality, long defunct, Australian brand)
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/3-0-HSS-Hand-Taper-Pin-Reamer-Straight-Flutes-B-NEW-P-N-TOOL-AUSTRALIA-/371074047035?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5665bc9c3b (http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/3-0-HSS-Hand-Taper-Pin-Reamer-Straight-Flutes-B-NEW-P-N-TOOL-AUSTRALIA-/371074047035?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5665bc9c3b)
Cheers
Steve
-
Thank you Steve. Pins are ordered😊
I just have a thougt. Wy not put a sckotch key in the crankpin to so it is possible to disamble it if nessecery?
Many thanks
Ove
-
Interesting idea Ove
So a scotch key on one side of the crankpin with no taper pin? I think it could be ok, you'd have to drill a hole through the bearing to access the grub screw, which should be no problem. You'd also have to put the scotch pin in first, then the taper pin second, where the taper pin then critically lines the thing up. Be careful to make sure the scotch pin doesn't foul the oil passages.
It's still possible to disassemble the way I'm doing it. One just has to get the pin out of the gear that drives the oil pump. It would require a little effort in making stuff to push it out.
Your scotch pin way
pro: easier to assemble disassemble
con: may not line things up as accurately upon disassembly/reassembly. If so this could be a disaster.
all in all I'd stick with the taper pins.
Cheers
Steve
-
So finishing off the crank
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1485.jpg)
Above: ready to drill the last hole and ream for the tapered pin.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1486.jpg)
and with it all stuck together, everything still lines up, :smokin2:
Just a little more reaming to go on the last of the 4 pins
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1487.jpg)
drilling the final oil passage. Once the hole was started, I removed the jig and put a square on the vice to check where the drill was going. Then tilted the assembly in the vice slightly to get everything to line up just so.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1488.jpg)
rounding off some corners with my trusty plate in the vice that has a custom turned bush screwed onto it. This super simple tool, the bit of plate with a tapped hole in it, is very useful.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1489.jpg)
The finished article. I ran a small grinding bit in the Dremel over the oil passage hole. Pretty happy with how it all turned out.
I'm not a big wine drinker, but the new house red is hard to resist
Cheers :wine1:
Steve
-
:ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp:👍
-
Man that is coming along nice! Looks great Steve!
:ThumbsUp:
Dave
-
looking good :drinking-41:
-
Nice job Steve and I bet you were sweating. :ThumbsUp:
Don
-
Thanks Guys
Don, yer sweating both physically and metaphorically; no snow to be seen around here, in stark contrast to Dave's place :o
Steve
-
Just a quick post on something I did some time back; the bearing cap that goes on the front, turned out of a bit of 50mm aluminium bar
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1446.jpg)
Put it in the steady so I didn't have to waste any, and I felt like it because it was so long since I used my steady :thinking:
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1447.jpg)
spot drilling the holes with my 12v spindle and an indexing plate round back.
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1448.jpg)
I think I stuck the thing back on with super glue, after parting, for the second opperation
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1449.jpg)
And this is how the thing looks when put together. I got some stainless button head screws, which I like the look of.
:cheers: Steve :DrinkPint:
-
Hi I did my cap yesterday😊
-
Hi I did my cap yesterday😊
Sounds good Ove :D
-
some more old stuff, comments are below photo's
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1450.jpg)
embryonic slave rods
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1451.jpg)
finished slave rods
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1452.jpg)
embryonic master rod. I made it out of the piece of round I turned the bearing cap out of. I was desperate
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1453.jpg)
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1454.jpg)
milling out the pockets
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1455.jpg)
more milling
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1458.jpg)
and finally the partial assembly
So I'll finish off with a totally unrelated photo, just for fun
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1457.jpg)
A friend of mine is starting out on things and building a Radford ball turning tool. Things went a little astray when he drilled the hole for the feedscrew, which is half in the slide, half in the body. So we set it up on my lathe as shown and fixed it up with a D-bit made out of silver steel. Just thought it was a cool setup
Cheers
Steve
-
Hi Steve
If I remember right you turned your mainbearings out of brass, is that right?
I made mine of brass because I had it on hand and the cost of all material and tools are already very much.
The plans says brass as an option so I hope it will work.
Cheers Ove
-
Yep, I used hard free cutting brass. I think it will be fine so long as it's good brass, there is oil pump forced lubrication helping us out.
-
Yes I guess that if the oilpressure its ok its fine.
-
Exactly. Incidentally, I think you could bore the bearing holes out bigger and put bronze bushes in the middle if you really wanted to
-
Had a thouht on that before to press in a plugg of bronze before turning but didnt had any on hand big inogh.
-
Steve those look like a lot of fiddly bits and bet your glad they are done. You keep getting closer bud and some nice work. :ThumbsUp:
:popcorn:
Don
-
Steve-
Beautiful setups. Very inspiring.
-Bob
-
Thanks Bob and Don
Don, the list of fiddly stuff is getting longer and longer, just as you'd imagine :o
I've also made the pistons a little while back, some pics of course (captions below pics)
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1459.jpg)
a few of the all but finished pistons
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1460.jpg)
Using a jig to drill holes for the oil to fall back through for the oil control ring
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1461.jpg)
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1462.jpg)
Slitting my compression piston rings (a bunch at a time), the bit of scrap aluminium plate stops the slitting saw busting the rings when it breaks through. I used the method where you turn them after slitting so there is no heat treatment
(http://i815.photobucket.com/albums/zz72/wilstep56/hodgson-9/set2/IMG_1463.jpg)
All the compression rings finished, over 18 of them. You can see a broken ring in the background that lost its fight with the fat slitting saw.
Cheers
Steve
-
Nice Steve. You must have most of the parts ready.
I cant post more pics of my build right now. Tapatalk stops every time I try😕
-
Ove, as you can imagine there's still a lot of small bits to go. I want to make the stand, should have made that some time back.
I was wondering why you hadn't been posting in your thread. Hopefully things are back to normal soon
Steve
-
Coming along nicely :praise2: :praise2:
I guess that jigs are important when you have nine of everything to make ::)
-
Steve if you lost one ring out of 18 you done good buddy. :ThumbsUp:
:popcorn:
Don
-
What did you use and how did you go about pressing the tappet bushings in there holes?
-
Bit fuzzy on memory, but I expect this is what I did to press the tappet bushings in (definitely very close)
First I turned a short parallel lead in at the font of the bushings when I made them, so I could guarantee they would start straight (I always do that for interference fits), then I turned a bit of soft aluminium with a nose to fit inside the bushing and a shoulder to butt against the bushing face, then oiled em and knocked them in with a hammer, with the crank housing sitting on some soft wood.
Sorry for not posting for so long. I bought another lathe and have been doing a lot on that, which is a major project in itself. Will get back to this project soon
Steve
-
Thanks for the info.
So you drilled the hole in the bushings before pressing them in?
I ruined one case trying to press them in with an arbor press. No big deal, just made another case.
I made a press that catches the inside of the case and presses the bushing in from the other side. No load on the case other than interference fit. I didn't drill the hole first figuring I would drill and ream in position for a positive fit, and then lap for precise fit of the lifters.
I was wondering what others have done to press these things in. They are quite small for my big old fingers to manipulate as needed. I finally got three cases done now only three more to go.
What size lathe did you pick up and what brand. I always liked new toys in the shop.
thanks again for your info.
-
Hello my friends!
I turned my pretty loose and pressed them in when I stiĺl had the case in the RT after drilling the holes for them and did the last broaching in them day after when the loctite had cured.
So I drilled the holes in the case and the bushings and broaching in the same setup.
Ove
-
Hi,
On the two radials I built, I completely machined the tappet bushing outside the crankcase. I then drilled/ reamed the crankcase for a close slip fit with the bushing, added some Loctite, and then inserted the bushing by hand. - Terry
-
Sorry for the slow reply 1dbweldor
Yep drilled and reamed the bushing, pressed them in, then put a hand reamer through them.
I got a Hercus 260 which is 10" swing, similar to the second picture here, http://www.lathes.co.uk/hercus/
I got the bed reground, re-powered it with a variable speed drive, it's getting there. Still plan on getting a bigger lathe down the track, but regardless I plan on keeping this one till the end.
Hi Ove and Terry, nice to hear from you guys.
Steve