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Hi A rotary valve with inlet and outlet channels coming from the cylinder heads side will not work very well. You will get overlapping port edges, in any cases if you want to achieve a suitable timing for an IC engine. I think some pictures will say more than a long explanation….. In the...

Hallo Dave I believe using a small headstock for a spindle base is a good idea if you have a machine that’s big enough to carry this extra load and has the required working space around the tool post and between the centres as well. Another nice but commercial layout is the Quick Step milling...

Hi Ant To my opinion tool post spindles are very useful on the lathe, even though you might have a regular milling machine in your shop. And you can save a lot of time, especially with small but complex parts which will require additional dividing operations. Milling and dividing on the lathe...

Hallo George You are doing a really fine job with this transmission! It is always a pleasure to have a look at your construction progress. I also have experimented with this sort of gear cutters some time ago. And as you already mentioned, controlling the profile dimension (especially the tip...

Hi Max Here is another well proven method for fixing any sort of wheel/disk//flywheel to a plain drive shaft. When using this collet style insert the shaft can stay plain without any threading, taper or pin bores. The collet creates a really strong fixation, even for highly alternating...

Hi Jim If only sharpening is the aim, the wear of your diamond grinding wheels would not be that dramatic. If the cutting faces are not serious damaged or even broken away the abrasion of let’s say 0.001in would do the job quite well. Really deep grinding would make things more complicated...

Hi For machining the fins of my next scheduled cylinder heads I will need some special groove cutters. Special because for two reasons: A small cutting diameter to follow the desired contour tail combined with a relative high cutting depth, in detail about 20mm (0.8in) of diameter and 6mm...

A real CNC driven cam grinding system will be a “nice to have” for most of us anyway, but thinking of the immense effort for such a infrequently used tool in our hobby workshops makes me doubt about the real need. I don’t want to discourage someone nor talk you out of your ambitious plans, but...

Hi Kel Looks like a wire eroding machine. Such EDM systems become more and more common in well equipped hobby workshops nowadays …...ha ha ha…..but the Micron VC 750 vertical machining centre would be quite enough for me…… Achim

Thank you Chuck I already had a look at your article about helical gears some weeks ago. I think I didn’t used the correct word for my desired gears (I better had a look at my English dictionary first…ha ha ha…), I didn’t meant helical but bevel gears with spiral shaped teeth. Like this kinds...

Hi Thank you so much for all that really nice replies. Chuck, to your question concerning the diamond wheel: Nothing special about that, this is a usual cup wheel with a resin bonded diamond covering. This one only has a very slender contour, it’s the kind of wheels normally made for...

Hi As the topic “compound rest mounted grinders” is discussed in the “question and answers” section at the moment I want to show you my answer to this affair. Some of you will have seen one of the grinding spindles on my already displayed cam grinder as well. My first attempts at grinding on...

Hi Tom The inserts had to be cut from bar stock. Square bars are available from 3x3mm (sometimes even 2x2) up to 10x10mm, the length is normally about 80 to 100mm. Cutting is easy, you can use a Dremel with a small grinding wheel for this. And the tiny ones can even be broken away from bar...

Part two Okay, switching over to the next theme which is also related to small turning jobs ….. Even for us hobbyists, working with carbide inserts had become very common over the last years. Beyond controversy, indexable tools do a great job even on our small lathes today. As most of you, I...

Today I want to tell you about my latest activities on tool making for my small lathe. A well and true running live centre is a must have on every lathe, although most of us will not need this accessory every day. And some jobs like miniature camshaft or poppet valve making require a smaller...

Hi and many thanks for your interests and warm appreciation. And to Crankshafter and his questions: Sure one can realize this with a bench grinder instead of using a universal grinder. I have this plan in reserve if the grinding dust on my tiny tool grinder will drive me nuts some day. But...

Well, the small grinding attachment could be finished today and I was able to grind my ever first cam shaft……hooray….. But I should tell the rest of the story step by step. After building the missing tailstock and some other minor details the complete fixture was finally ready for operation. I...

Hallo everyone My first IC engine operates with a sleeve valve, so I wasn’t in need of making cam shafts in the past. Now, being busy in the design phase of some new IC projects, I had to think about a suitable way to build my own cam shafts in future. My plan is to make the shafts from silver...

Hi I believe in contrast to thermo plastics like POM (Polyacetal) or Nylon (Polyamid) etc. a Duro Plast material like laminated fabric should be more convenient for the parts of a small distributor. This stuff is made of linen fabric soaked with phenol resin, nice to machine, a very good...

Hi Steve I am deeply interested in your version of building a multiple piece crankshaft too. Just being in the end of the design phase for my next 2 cylinder IC engine I have to decide about my crankshaft layout soon. And as I have to do all the turning jobs on this little “living room toy”...