Slapper

[PaulR]

Cheers Michael!

Sanjay, what's the Wolverhampton safe maker's plaque thing on your wall? Guessing it's not Chubb from what I can see?

[Sanjay F]

See photo - I have a few plaques for various engineering firms but Midlands seemed like the place for safe makers?

[PaulR]

See photo - I have a few plaques for various engineering firms but Midlands seemed like the place for safe makers?

Cheers. Safes and locks of all kinds were made in the town and especially nearby Willenhall. My home village (about 6m n of Wolves) was full of outworkers in the lock trade in the mid-late 19th century. Unbelievably it also had a steam (loco and traction) engine foundry!

[Sanjay F]

I won't barge into your build thread but I'm interested in industrial history and was long before I started model engineering. When you look around at the past 2 centuries there are so many clusters of industries in locations you wouldn't now imagine there would have been anything. Near where I live there was a car manfacturer Bentalls, it went out of business in 1912 a few years before Thomas Skidmore's the safemakers we were just discussing

[crueby]

Cool nameplate! I love the rope pattern in the ring.

[PaulR]

Braved the cold again this morning but got a fair bit done: drilled and threaded holes for one of the covers and shortened some screws to suit; drilled the air passages then plugged the holes; threaded a hole for the inlet and made a composite tube from brass and a drilled steel screw so I could get the thread right up against the shoulder - there's only 1.75mm of brass to screw it and the plugs into.

Photo shows plugs made from scrap brass loctited in place (one yet to be sawn off) and inlet tube bottom left.

[Sanjay F]

I'm trying work out how big the engine is against that Allen, looks 80mm long...ish?

[PaulR]

I'm trying work out how big the engine is against that Allen, looks 80mm long...ish?

I wish, it's just 40mm long. One day I'll try to figure out how to use the faceplate and vertical slide to try boring between centres then maybe I can make something bigger.

[Sanjay F]

Wow! I would never have guessed that, that small size makes it more challenging to my mind 

[PaulR]

Made the piston and rod this evening. Not very exciting to look at I'm afraid 

Still need to sort out that gland nut.

[PaulR]

A marginally more interesting photo of the story so far (ignore the nearest sticky-out bit and the one beyond bathing in Loctite, they're just scrap plugging holes yet to be sawn off).

[Sanjay F]

You've started me off now; now you've given the overall length, what diameter is that piston, 5mm?

[PaulR]

You've started me off now; now you've given the overall length, what diameter is that piston, 5mm?

nope, 8mm and the valve bore is 6mm. Probably seem odd sizes but the piston is just about max I can fit in the 3/4" cylinder (without any flanges) and the valve will just be easier to turn from solid if it's a bit chunkier.

[PaulR]

Got the holes and screws sorted for the inboard cylinder cover and finished plugging the holes. Need to shorten that inlet tube as it looks a bit too long.

Started thinking about making the crosshead guides; steel supports screwed into the base, brass flats with a vertical spacer between each pair and a nut on top seems like it'll work and will be easy enough to make ie a simpler version of this picture I found online.

[PaulR]

Made the guide parts from 1/4" x 1/8" brass strip. The 1/8" depth doesn't matter but I had to get the width down to 5mm. First I glued four sawn strips together and turned them to length before glueing them on edge to a steel carrier so I could file them down to the right width. Next I had to break them apart to I could stack and reglue them for drilling although they'd come apart a couple of times in the interim! The drilling went ok but one stack of holes is slightly off centre - the holes are currently 2mm and will need to be made bigger (once I've made my mind up how the thing will fit together!) so I can correct the position by filing at that point.

I really need some steel sheet for the base at this point but don't have anything suitable so there might be a short hiatus in construction; at least I can press on with the plan in the meantime.