SHED MATTERS 2

[Stanley]

Nice to have a little treasure box full of small section HSS.... Never walk past anything like this, hoover it up!



The cutter installed, sharpening comes later....



I popped it into the lathe and scribed a centre line at right angles to the orientation of the cutter with the cutter already in the lathe as I am sure it's at centre height.



Then found the centre under the VM and locked the table.



Then I cut a slot with a 3/8" cutter and widened it a touch as the usual bit I use in the nose is about that. I have to have the bit in the original nose so I can lock it into the clapper.



I admit to 30 minutes overtime because doing the final fitting was a fiddly job. It's a very close fit.... In case you're wondering, any final adjustment to orientation can't be done by loosening the nose as the set screw on the cutter is buried in the extension. I fitted it with the cutter as near vertical as I could get it. Any small adjustments can be made by slackening the whole head and rotating it. All I need now is a 5/16" set screw to lock the nose. I'm pretty sure I could leave this out as the extension is such a good fit but it will loosen up in time. All the set screw does is hold the extension on the back stroke, the cutting forces are transmitted direct to the clapper.A satisfying morning! No slip ups so I'm pleased....

[Stanley]

First job this morning was to install the 5/16"Whitworth set screw in the sleeve of the extension.



Soon had that done.....



Then I put the cutter in and sharpened it to what I hope is a good angle.... Not too sure about this but the way to find out is to try it!



Once I had the extension finally fitted I began to look at the next problem. Holding the workpiece. My problem is obvious, I am too far out across the table! What I have in mind is cutting a keyway in a bush as this will be more difficult than setting say a gear up and working on the bore, plenty to get hold of there....



I decided to try a small machine vice first and gave it a good going over and clean up which included draw filing the mating surfaces.



I've never used this vice in anger and the slots for the holding down bolts were undersized so I milled them out to take a 3/8" stud. One thing that struck me was the lovely quality of the cast iron used to make it. It filed and cut beautifully.



I got the vice fitted but while it is a good asset it didn't solve my problem. So, as you can see, I started exploring other ideas.... Knocking off time came so this is where I stopped. Not a wasted morning, I'm learning and have an interesting problem. There is an answer but as yet it hasn't jumped out and punched me on the nose. I'll see what the design committee comes up with during the night!

[Super_7b]

Hi Stanley,

Dave Richards (Old Time Steam Powered Machine Shop) has posted a new video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WztXI8zG5mw

In this he uses two shapers; a "small" one in his steam workshop, which looks similar to the ones I have seen in other workshops at about 10" stroke and a much larger one in his electrically powered workshop.

This large one looks quite a beast. It has a 30" stroke and has a lot of head room. He is levelling a 2 pot diesel cylinder head which is about 16" across and then rotates it 90 degrees and faces the manifold face.

As always, the shapers just chug away nice and steady, needing almost no supervision. The finish on the Cast Iron head and the ally block in the smaller shaper look excellent. Makes me want one just to have it clonk away in a corner!

BR

Mick (Ossett Mick)

[Stanley]

Nice video Mick. I'd love to have that in the shed! Bit more room on the table! Keith Fenner did a video of spline cutting with a shaper attachment on his big HM. Did you see the video of the 11oHP Case steam tractor at the tractor pull? Good example of the torque of a steam engine, never jibbed once, just pulled the drag all the way....

[Super_7b]

Hi Stanley,

I think I remember watching that spline cutting by Keith Fenner. I've seen him use the slotter attachment a few times. He calls it "The jumping Jack". Of course, the stroke is much shorter than on a conventional shaper, but the action is the same.

Only thing that bothers me about a slotting head after watching a few shaper videos is the lack of a clapper. They just pull the tool straight back. Can you allow for that in the tool shape or do you just have to accept that either the tool will wear out faster or the finish will be less good?

As to the Case steam tractor, where can I find that video? I've loved watching the traction engines and steam waggons in John Doubleboost's recent videos. I thnk watching the engines idling in neutral is almost hypnotic. It's very soothing, like watching a well adjusted mill engine. The effortless gliding round belies the enormous torque and power available.

BR

Mick

[Stanley]

CASE TRACTOR Steam engines give full torque on first stroke, that's why they don't need a clutch.

Most of them have a clapper box. My Adept has and it's working on my extension. The design committee has come up with an idea during the night which might solve my problem.... We'll see later.

[Stanley]

We're on plan B this morning, this neglected machine vice could be part of the answer so we might as well have it clean and properly looked after!



Don't forget the advantages of a sharpened wire brush, makes an amazing difference. And don't use the file card any more than you need to, they blunt files in the end.



All the surfaces brushed and flat filed before lubricating and rebuilding. Then I thought while I had the tackle out I'd do its mate....



I shame to have let it get into this state. Then I turned it over and some silly bugger who didn't know his own strength had overtightened it and cracked the casting so it went back onto the shelf for spares.....



I found an end of brass with a hole through it, cleaned it up in the lathe and bored the hole to 3/4", the smallest size bore I'll be using. Funnily enough, all this would be a lot easier with a bigger workpiece. I set it up like this but it's no good, I haven't got hold of it firmly enough so on to plan C!



This could work. Time was going on but I set it up temporarily before I knocked off... It won't nod now!

[Stanley]

This setup worked well and I cut a keyway just to prove the concept....



The idea works and here's a rough keyway in the bush to prove it. I hit all sorts of problems on the way, most of them because 3/4" bore is a bit too small. I also had to do a lot of experimenting with the shape of the cutter. In the process I buggered this one up but now have a pretty good idea of where I went wrong. I told you it was a learning curve! I knocked off when the pan fairy visited..... (See what did you have for tea....)

[Stanley]

When the Pan Fairy came yesterday I was in the middle of making two tee nuts to hold this machine vice on the shaper table. They are slightly smaller in the head than the slots on the millers so I had to make two. The slots in the body of the vice had to be milled out as well. So the first job was finishing this off. I'm satisfied with where I have got to with the shaper so I'll leave it alone for a while....



I've been so busy on the shaper that I haven't done any cleaning up. So the next job was a deep clean of the lathe and the VM and a vacuum round of the carpet. This took over half an hour, things were bad! Here we are afterwards, a nice clean shed.....



The next job I had in mind was to take a skim over the bottom of this pan. It has warped slightly since it was cast and I can make it perfect. In order to get it in the lathe the handle had to come off and as soon as I saw the rust on the rod where it had been inside the wooden handle I knew I was heading for trouble. I've been here before!



I got the threaded rod out of the body of the pan by the skin of my teeth. I'd assumed that it was threaded on the pan end as well and screwed in but to my surprise when it finally gave up the ghost it turned out to be plain and either glued in the pan or cast in when it was made. Either way, I will have to make a new rod and thread the body, I'm not going to rely on shaft lock!



I took the small three jaw off the lathe, cleaned it out and swapped it for the big old 3 jaw with the external jaws. Now all I needed was some pieces of sheet led to gently but firmly grip the pan body....



This was where I had got to at knocking off time. No problem about the sheet lead, I have plenty under the big stacking toolbox. I had a different problem!
There is nothing worse than mislaying a tool when you want it. There are thousands of items in the shed and I can find almost all of them from memory but occasionally something slips you.... I have two pairs of tinsmith's shears, an old but serviceable curved pair and a pair of Gilbow parrot bill straight cutters. It was the Gilbow's I wanted and could I find them? I've searched high and low and in the end gave up and walked out of the shed. I shall let my head work on it until tomorrow, that usually brings up the answer!

[Stanley]

No progress on the Gilbow front. Have abandoned the search. They will reappear as soon as I don't want them. Bit like the missing sock syndrome in the washing!
There may be a delay in getting into the shed this morning, I am going to build the first essay in slow cooking using the new CI stew pot.....

[Stanley]

I cut the strips of lead to cushion the jaws on the chuck with a big pair of scissors....



I set the pan up very carefully using the minimum of grip, it seated quite well in the chuck, very little run out.



Two light slow passes later and I had a good clean up with no dramas. This base is definitely flat now!



I decided to give the Shaftlock a chance, if it works it will be much easier. I put a lot of trouble into cleaning both the hole and the rod, inserted it and left it for more than an hour to cure. I filled in the time by swapping the three jaw I usually use for the big old one on the lathe and then had a read.... We aren't on piece work!



I put it back together and carefully tightened the end up. Worked like a charm. The weight of the pan is taken by the wooden handle on the cast spigot of the pan, not this rod. This will do me. Very pleased to have got away with it.

[chinatyke]

Before this I'd never heard of anyone turning down a pan base. Obviously a good idea. When you look at pan bases they often have grooves or concentric marks on them so is this a normal operation in pan manufacturing?

[Stanley]

Good point China and one that puzzles me with some pans. The Le Creuset saucepan is as cast like this one was. The new stew pot is porcelain enamelled like the rest of the pot but is performing OK so I'll leave that alone although I am sure heat transference could be improved.



The Le Creuset pan, as cast but truly flat.

My stainless steel pans with heavy bi-metal bases are mirror finish. A coarse 'gramophone turning' finish is the most popular with CI I think. Quick and easy to do bit the finish I have put on the small pan will be more efficient. Bear in mind that the top of the stove is as cast so as long as it is flat the porcelain or as cast finish probably has the same degree of contact. And no, I am not considering machining the top of the stove!!

[Wendyf]

The small pan was made by Cousances, here is a bit about them from Wiki Cousances. Shows how long I have had it tucked away in the cupboard, the name hasn't been used since the 1980's. I wonder if I stopped using it because the base wasn't true? I also have a grand little frying pan made by Cousances, but I use that a lot.

[Stanley]

Dead right Wendy and as the base was well out of true you could right about why you haven't used it. Castings can be funny things, they warp with time as the unequal stresses caused by the shape and differential rates of cooling after casting come out. Heavy machining can have the same effect, that's why in the old days, after the initial heavy cutting, castings were left outside in the weather to argue with themselves before final finishing. Every good foundry had piles of good castings lay in the stock yard looking like scrap.... Dean Smith and Grace, one of the finest makers of lathes in the world at Keighley (Long gone....) tried making lathe beds out of high quality concrete to get round this problem for very high precision lathes. The very best surface plates used for super precision measuring are made of ground slate for the same reason. (So are the best billiard tables)

[Stanley]

I had nothing specific in mind this morning but went in the shed for a good potter. No cleaning up needed, I did that yesterday. You've all seen this little lad many a time but let me make one of my bleeding obvious comments. If you're buying a vise, get the biggest one you can find, this is a six inch Parkinson Perfect Vise. Long out of business but they are still about and new jaws are easy to make. the factory was in Oldham and my late friend Graham Riley told me a good story about them. Graham had an engineering firm in Rochdale and went to Parkinson's one day to buy two vices. He was taken into the shop by the owner who directed Graham to two just like this. Graham said that what impressed him was the Mr Parkinson, even though wearing a three piece business suit, fished a steel rule out of a ruler pocket in the trousers!



A bad pic of my stone dresser, an industrial diamond set in the end of a cast steel rod. Harder than any stone they are the best thing for dressing grinding wheels because they leave an open grain. Dressing wheels is a mucky job but I did the big grinder and the stone in the tool and cutter grinder. Small jobs but essential occasionally.



Once this was out of the way I tidied some small corners out sorting HSS cutters and identifying some small bolts, they are 1/4" BSF, a rare size these days! None of this was time wasted, we should all have a useful potter every now and again!

[Stanley]

My first job this morning was the most expensive one of the day in terms of leccy... After doing my ordinary household washing I washed my shed dust-coat which was disgusting! I took the tablecloth off as well and put a clean one on.



Then I put the big fly-cutter I made into the VM, turned it down to the lowest speed and fixed this old cast iron frying pan down solid on the table. I've been threatening to do this job for a while but have always been put off by the fact I was convinced it was a steak pan with ribs in the bottom but when I got it down to have a look I found I was mistaken, it's a smooth interior. So we'll give it a flat bum. It's a cheap Chinese pan and was nowhere near level on the base.



You can see after the first pass on a very light cut how far out it was.



After three passes I had it as close as maybe to dead true. I didn't go any further because these pans only have thin bases and this is good enough to make a vast improvement. I breathed on it with a big smooth flat file....



This is the real test. After washing it thoroughly I put some dripping in and fried two eggs. Lovely job and no sticking. We have another serviceable CI pan to add to our armoury!

[Stanley]

Today was a short pottering day because I had to go for my annual flu jab. First thing I did was clean this jaw up. It's one of a set of four jaws from a Taylor 4 jaw SC chuck. I got the jaws in a workshop clear out but not the chuck which is a shame because they are amongst the best chucks ever made. I cleaned this up to read the marks and do a good measure up. The jaws are 13/16" thick and the length of the square gripping face is 2 11/16", the rack is 4tpi and the identifying mark in the channel is B 15. It must have been at least a 6" chuck. The thing is that if these are any good to anyone they can have them, all they have to do is mail me and arrange to pick them up. Someone somewhere out there has a chuck they will fit and it's such a waste them just sitting here so spread the word if you are on any other forums and let's see if we can give them away.



The intere4sting round object came out of the pattern shop at Kirkhams many years ago. It has languished in the tray under the HM ever since and it seems a waste, The oil-stone is a good flat stone I use for occasional dressing of the miller table to get rid of any high spots.



The table rubbed down and polished. I mounted the machine vise ready for the next job and squared it up.



I set the pattern up in the lathe, found two good centres and cleaned it up finishing off with the old sharpened wire brush trick...



Looks a bit different now. Puzzle is what it's made of. It turns like good quality aluminium but seems to be too heavy. Question is, now it is rescued and clean what can be done with it? I haven't the faintest idea but sooner or later something will occur to me!

[Stanley]

No shed matters today, for a start off I am behind my normal schedule, second, I had my flu jab yesterday and feel a bit achy so I'm being kind to myself, and last, I have an article I want to write.
I was thinking about that pattern.... the shavings came off like aluminium and are not magnetic so not ferocious! But it's too heavy for aluminium. I've never had anything to do with exotic alloys like Muntz Metal. I don't think it's that because Muntz is 60% copper and this is bright silver.... Hee hee, I've just thought, suppose it's silver! Does anyone know of an easy test?

[PanBiker]

Here we go Stanley:

6 ways to test Silver

I think the last one will be easiest, we know you have plenty of bleach about.

[micktoon]

Hi Stanley , looks like you have been keeping busy but straying from the normal type of work lol. Good work on the pans, its good to see things not getting thrown away for fixable faults. Interesting with the 'silver' turned item too , I hope its silver as you might be able to cash it in and buy something more useful for the shed , fingers crossed

Cheers Mick

[Stanley]

Thanks for that Ian, I'll have a go with the bleach this morning. It's most likely aluminium even though it feels so heavy.
Mick, I have everything on a straight edge in the shed and so I need to find a project..... That's the bottom line. I'll come up with something shortly.....
Spread the word about the Taylor chuck jaws..... It would be great if we found a home for them.
Later, I tried the bleach.... no effect at all. I think the pattern must be an aluminium alloy, perhaps it has lead in it.....
Later.... No shed today lads, other things including Pluggy solving my graphics problem intervened....

[Stanley]

Well, it looks as though the only sensible thing to do is to make something out of the castings John Mills sent me. He sent the drawings as well and this morning I printed them out and had a good read.... The interesting thing is that the drawings are for a cylinder 1" X 1 1/2" and John's is 1 1/2" X 3 1/2" so it looks as though I am making it up as I go along again! Not sure about the launch engine, I don't like them, it may end up as a horizontal....



No point standing here looking at it. No matter what I do the cylinder is what will decide the rest of the design so I might as well get it made and see where we go from there. John put plenty of draw on the patterns but even on the narrow side I am covering the valve face so I'm milling the two long sides flat so that O have a good reference for the other cuts.



It didn't take long to get two parallel sides. I've not tried to get to the finished size, I'll make adjustment5s like that when I am sure of where we are going.



I offered the valve chest up to the face and you can see I am strong on the width but a touch short on the length. That's no problem, I can always adjust the length of the cylinder.



I decided to mill the ends on the same angle as John's draw so that I reduce the overall length as little as possible.



I offered the chest up again and we are OK I haven't lost too much getting it square but on an angle.



The next job is to take advantage of my two parallel sides and get the faces of the chest milled square.



One side done and offered up, still OK. It was knocking off time.
You may have noticed that there have been no fag packet drawings.... no need for them at this stage, measurements don't really matter, what counts is getting the castings square and talking to each other.... It's not as hit and miss as it looks!

[micktoon]

Hi Stanley , glad to see you are attacking the castings off John, I wonder if he knows the sizes are different? , as he seemed to think they were the exact match from what I remembered, I will mention it to him when I speak to him. As you say you can adapt to suit what you would like to build anyway, I hope the quality of the casting is ok , I seem to remember filming John cast the parts as he did some for Bob too so there is a video out there .
Cheers Mick

[Stanley]

The castings are fine, nice metal and well cast. No problems with the size, I'll make it up as I go on anyway. Making the cylinder first is the way to go as everything else depends on it. Looks as though the beginners are going to get another lesson in engine building...... They can watch me making my mistakes!