Author Topic: Bolton No 2  (Read 6808 times)

Offline ths

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Bolton No 2
« on: May 09, 2013, 10:29:13 AM »
Recently I started doing a few things on the lathe, after a break of more than six months. Due to an injury, my time there is limited, and my movement is restricted, however it's good for the soul, even though small things can take a long time.

A lot of my machining time has been spent making workshop equipment, although there are a few steam engines completed. One that has spent far too much time maturing in the drawer is the Bolton No 2 horizontal mill engine. It's a fairly basic entry in the Bolton range, 5/8" bore x 1"stroke, less than half the size of the water pump equipped No7 (1 1/2" x 2 1/4"). It was one of those projects that gets started, but then finds itself shunted to the nether reaches as more immediate attractions pop up. I was able to justify the extended sidetrack, telling myself that the dividing head, pillar tool and other things would be really useful. Fortunately, I was right!

In returning to this engine, I find that I am much more confident in my machining skills (I only have a lathe), having got a decent amount of projects under my belt, and am much more willing to deviate from the supplied castings, and fabricate pieces.

Here is the G/A from the plans,

And here are the pieces as they existed upon recommencement.

You can see that the cylinder and valve were substantially completed, and that the eccentric had been partially fabricated. I think that the eccentric had gone that way because I had made one for the Westbury Trojan vertical (the Bolton No 5 is identical), after reading about the improvements made by John Bertinat in a mid seventies Model Engineer that I picked up. The 'improvement' I have begun on this engine may receive further thought!

I decided that the first job to get back into this, would be the bearing blocks. I found that I had faced one side of each casting, a check of the plans showed that I hadn't done anything silly, there was plenty of metal there, and more would need to be removed to bring it down to finished thickness. I began however, by milling the feet and width in the vertical slide, before drilling for studs, then cutting the blocks in half, tapping and bolting together for creating the bore.

After milling, I took the blocks over to the plan and marked out the shape that was to emerge from them. I compared them to the drawing, which is finished size, and came over all narky. The castings were huge compared to the finished article, and I couldn't think of how to responsibly bring them to size. I was actually quite annoyed by the amount of waste involved, and decided that I would fabricate something more appropriate visually, and materially.

Two lengths of 5/16 square steel were tinned and soldered together, cut to length, drilled, milled, bored and filed with the assistance of filing buttons. They were then brought to thickness using a turning fixture I made (quickly and easily). Brass bearing bushes were then turned to fit, they themselves also being brought to final length on a similar fixture. These fixtures are merely simple expanding mandrels, tapped with an appropriate taper tap only, then cut axially with a hacksaw. A screw threaded into the mandrel forces it to expand as it pushes into the tapered hole. The turned item was solid on the mandrel whilst being turned.  A photo of the finished items, complete with filing buttons. I will work the machining marks out with a bit of wet and dry at some stage.







As I mentioned earlier, work is slow, and I will post more when the next bit is done.

Cheers, Hugh.
« Last Edit: May 09, 2013, 11:13:41 AM by ths »

Offline ths

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Re: Bolton No 2
« Reply #1 on: May 09, 2013, 10:35:26 AM »
Sorry, I seem to have stuffed up the photos. I'll see what I can do. Is it the HTML code I copy and paste?

Hugh.

Offline Jo

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Re: Bolton No 2
« Reply #2 on: May 09, 2013, 10:45:50 AM »
Is this what you wanted:

Here is the G/A from the plans,



And here are the pieces as they existed upon recommencement.



You can see that the cylinder and valve were substantially completed, and that the eccentric had been partially fabricated. I think that the eccentric had gone that way because I had made one for the Westbury Trojan vertical (the Bolton No 5 is identical), after reading about the improvements made by John Bertinat in a mid seventies Model Engineer that I picked up. The 'improvement' I have begun on this engine may receive further thought!

I decided that the first job to get back into this, would be the bearing blocks. I found that I had faced one side of each casting, a check of the plans showed that I hadn't done anything silly, there was plenty of metal there, and more would need to be removed to bring it down to finished thickness. I began however, by milling the feet and width in the vertical slide, before drilling for studs, then cutting the blocks in half, tapping and bolting together for creating the bore.



After milling, I took the blocks over to the plan and marked out the shape that was to emerge from them. I compared them to the drawing, which is finished size, and came over all narky. The castings were huge compared to the finished article, and I couldn't think of how to responsibly bring them to size. I was actually quite annoyed by the amount of waste involved, and decided that I would fabricate something more appropriate visually, and materially.



Two lengths of 5/16 square steel were tinned and soldered together, cut to length, drilled, milled, bored and filed with the assistance of filing buttons. They were then brought to thickness using a turning fixture I made (quickly and easily). Brass bearing bushes were then turned to fit, they themselves also being brought to final length on a similar fixture. These fixtures are merely simple expanding mandrels, tapped with an appropriate taper tap only, then cut axially with a hacksaw. A screw threaded into the mandrel forces it to expand as it pushes into the tapered hole. The turned item was solid on the mandrel whilst being turned.  A photo of the finished items, complete with filing buttons. I will work the machining marks out with a bit of wet and dry at some stage.















As I mentioned earlier, work is slow, and I will post more when the next bit is done.

Cheers, Hugh.
Wrap the HTTP address inside [ img ] [ /img ]  - without the spaces  ;)

Jo
« Last Edit: May 09, 2013, 10:50:33 AM by Jo »
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Offline Jo

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Re: Bolton No 2
« Reply #3 on: May 09, 2013, 10:49:06 AM »
Looking good hugh  :ThumbsUp:, I need to do this for the Crosskill over the weeked.

Jo
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Offline tel

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Re: Bolton No 2
« Reply #4 on: May 09, 2013, 10:50:04 AM »
No, it's the IMG code you want



« Last Edit: May 09, 2013, 11:02:08 AM by tel »
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Offline Jo

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Re: Bolton No 2
« Reply #5 on: May 09, 2013, 11:06:35 AM »
Tel: I have found the same problem with the new photsuckit and have had to modify all of my postings as they have been padding the img code with that  :censored:

Jo
Enjoyment is more important than achievement.

Offline tel

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Re: Bolton No 2
« Reply #6 on: May 09, 2013, 11:11:57 AM »
Yeah, I had to fiddle around a bit there - but in the end it's just the IMG code pasted directly into your post without hitting the 'insert image' button above.
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Online steamer

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Re: Bolton No 2
« Reply #7 on: May 09, 2013, 11:14:15 AM »
Yup...I usually do the copy and paste of the image code...and not insert.

Dave
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Offline tel

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Re: Bolton No 2
« Reply #8 on: May 09, 2013, 11:16:02 AM »
Works for me!
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Offline ths

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Re: Bolton No 2
« Reply #9 on: May 09, 2013, 11:22:43 AM »
Thanks, Jo and Tel. I appreciate the help, and Jo, thanks for making them visible. :ThumbsUp:

Hugh.

Offline ths

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Re: Bolton No 2
« Reply #10 on: May 09, 2013, 11:24:27 AM »
And thanks to you Tel, for being even more visible.

Offline tvoght

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Re: Bolton No 2
« Reply #11 on: May 09, 2013, 03:17:47 PM »
Good to see this build, and nice job on the bearing blocks!

--TIm

Offline Maryak

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Re: Bolton No 2
« Reply #12 on: May 09, 2013, 08:36:22 PM »
And thanks to you Tel, for being even more visible.

Are you sure about that  :stir:

Best Regards
Bob
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Offline Don1966

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Re: Bolton No 2
« Reply #13 on: May 09, 2013, 11:11:48 PM »
Hi Hugh, just catching up on your thread. Those bearing came out great and look forward to more
Progress. I am afraid I have done the same thing as you with tooling. I started the Dividing Attachment and other tools in hope to help me when I start building again. Also the Pillar tool is on my list of tools plus the sphere cutting tool. So the rest of this year will be directed at tooling and probably next year.

Don

 

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