Recent content by Charles Lamont

Wellseal is a good liquid gasket. The method explained by Jens Eirik is exactly what I would have suggested, and means no intermediate port plate is needed. I would only add that if the two steam ports end up slightly different in the distance between the edges (height in Jens' terminology)...

Good point. I would not argue with your 16°. The chapter on 'Turbulent Flow in Pipes' says the disturbance to the flow dowstream of an inefficient fitting like a globe valve may persist for for 50 or more pipe diameters before it sorts itself out. On the other hand, in the case of a straight...

That looks better to me, but we seem to have our wires a little crossed. I was indeed talking about the exit taper, and I did mean 10° included. For the entry side, I was trying to suggest that you do not actually need to have any a taper atall if you have a bell mouth and the inlet path is...

Perhaps counterintuitively, a sudden or rapid expansion is 'lossy' while a rather rapid contraction isn't. The bell-mouthed entry to a carb is efficient, and a shallow taper entry not as good. But the reverse is true on exit from the venturi. A taper of about 1 in 6 in dameter, or 10° included...

And a ball handle for engaging the thread dial indicator! Alan, that is classy.

Simple jobs, generally no. With a complicated part yes. Castings often need considerable care in finding a finished part inside them, sometimes involving compromises. After a careful survey, I may take initial light cuts just sufficient to create datum surfaces. These allow measurements to be...

Terry, not sure about the arrangement of your crankshaft that caused problems with the installation of the oil seal, but going back it looks as though you had to get it over a shoulder. If that is correct, and in the unlikely event that you had not thought of it, could you have used a temporary...

I can back up what George and Ian say. I made a small one with wiper dies, though I did not know that was what they are called. It works well. One surprise was just how tight the bearing clamp bolt needs to be

Nice to have one still working. I think the one I had was a 33E. I reluctantly gave up on it after it had to be sent back several times for a faulty power slide switch. I found a good landing involved free fall until the last possible moment and then full retro.

I'm impressed.

I prefer the angle method, but if for some reason I need to use the parallel method, I advance the top slide by half of the radial cut depth. This is equivalent to setting the topslide at 26.5° so it is close for 55° threads, and helps with 60° ones.

I use 3rd angle because I grew up with it. 1st angle does have a slight advantage in sheet layout. Three orthogonal views are often necessary and sufficient. With 1st angle, the plan goes below the side elevation, and if a view of the left hand end (so drawn to the right of the side elevation)...

Er, are you sure? Historically 1st angle may have been prevalent in the UK but throughout my engineering career, since tech drawing class in first year uni in the early '70s, the convention has been 3rd angle. I have a Stuart Turner drawing in front of me from 1958 that says it is in 3rd angle.

Oh, silly me.

You can put the camshaft wherever you like if you introduce an idler gear. This was E T Westbury's usual arrangement. It also allows smaller gears to be used which improves the appearance of the timing case. Big gears are not nessary to drive the camshaft.