Thanks, everyone! I really appreciate having you follow along here. I DO think it’s going to be a fun build and I DO think it will be a great piece of equipment to add to my shop
So, in his build video, Jeremy shows doing everything with a drill and a file. And that had been my plan. After all, it doesn’t require the accuracy of the engines we make. It’s all going to be welded together after all (and that’s not the most accurate of fabrication processes).
But after playing around with filing some, I didn’t like that. I can get a much better, more accurate piece by using the mill. So that’s what I’m doing. Jeremy doesn’t use one cause he's trying to make this build accessible to a wider audience. And besides, I don't think he has a mill!. But I do! So why limit myself? Sure, I’m probably taking longer and making parts that are WAY more accurate than are required, but I’m having fun and doing it the way that makes me happy. And that’s what counts, right?
I don’t plan on showing a complete step-by-step of every part like I generally do in my engine builds. But I do want to show the highlights reel
One of the first parts I milled were these hinge pieces. The only critical part of these is the distance from the bottom flat (in the lower left) and the location of the hole for the hinge rod. So I double-sticky taped them together, milled the bottom flat and even, then drilled the 1/2” hole.
And I used the rotary table to clean up the curves on the part. Here I’m shaping the outside curves. After this, I did the inside curve (no pic).
This is the hinge lock piece. To make the curved slot I chain drilled and then used a 7/16” end mill to clean up the edges. Again, Jeremy does this by chain drilling and then filing. But he doesn’t have a mill. And this will be WAY more accurate anyway, right?
Here I’m cleaning up the main grinding reset (fixed rest). I used the band saw to cut most of that notch out and just cleaned up the edges and bottom in the mill.
Then rounded over the corners on the disk sander. I’ve had this sander for 20-30 years. It will be replaced by this belt sander/grinder! I don’t think I’ll miss it when I have this bad boy done!
For the top of the angled rest, I needed to cut one long edge of a 3/8” plate to a 45
o angle. I couldn’t find any good way to do this setup. After a lot of work, I came up with this marginal setup. But when I tried a few light passes it was NOT good. Too much vibration and it just wasn’t held securely enough to provide any confidence.
So I abandoned that for a few days and did other things. One morning when laying in bed trying to get back to sleep (when I do a lot of good thinking) I came up with this ingenious and deceptively simple plan (OK, it was simple and obvious, but not to me!). I just held the plate up and down in the vice and stair-stepped in a 45
o slope with a standard end mill. Then I went back over it with a 45
o chamfer mill to take out the little Stairsteps. Took a few passes of the chamfer tool, but it worked quite well and was MUCH more stable. Like I said – probably obvious to the casual observer but it took me a lot of work to come up with it!
After a bunch more shaping here’s all those rough cut parts cleaned up for the party!
And the party’s being held in a vat of vinegar. I read about this online too. Apparently, people say that if you soak your HRS in vinegar for a few days it will eat away all the mill scale. I’ve tried that with some of the bar stock I’ve cut already and it seems to work – at least to some degree. I may still have to do some clean-up with a flap disk but hopefully a lot less.
And it sure makes the vinegar an ugly color, doesn’t it?
More small steps toward the belt grinder!
Kim
