Another Elmer #33 (Second project)

[Heffalump]

My first project served its purpose, and now I think it's time to make something I can be proud of! I'd picked this engine before I realised that Stan was making his. When I did see, I thought again, but then I reasoned that having someone as good as Stan making his at the same time could be beneficial to me! I'm going to try to make this thread as detailed as possible, and leave in my many mistakes, so if there are any other beginners like me, we can share our travesties!

It will probably be quite a slow build, due in part to the many mistakes I will inevitably make, but also because I will be building this during my lunch breaks at work. I have taken Elmer's plans and begun converting them to metric measurements, as my machine tools are metric. I'll be buying some imperial drills and reams for the fitment of shafts & bearing surfaces etc, but all the fasteners will be metric.

I decided to start with the sub base for no apparent reason. I laid it out with permanent marker, and scribed the edges to cut out, as well as the centres to drill. I started with our little bandsaw in the shop, but soon realised it was too weedy, and cracked out the hacksaw.

Quite a lot of time and a cup of tea later I'd made it this far:

And finally got it free.

I made a mark with the hacksaw when it jumped out of the slot. (Sweary swear swear) But I'm hoping this will disappear when the edge is bevelled.

If you have any tips, advice, or questions please pipe up - I can take criticism!

 

[Sshire]

You have my admiration for cutting that out with a hacksaw. I doubt that I'd build anything if I had to do that. It might help to chain drill the line and then the hacksaw has much less metal to cut through. Clean up the edge on the mill and you should be done much quicker. Looks like that nick will go away when the sub-base is beveled. Keep at it and take your time. No rush there.

 

[Heffalump]

I got the base set up in the mill ready to tidy up the edges to size

And got to work!

Re-viced the work piece and cleaned up the last edge

After using a drill blank to indicate the work I got ready to drill the three mounting holes, looks like my maths was right!

Didn't take any photos of the actual drilling. I'm going to use M3 screws through the base, and had some handy 3.1 drill bits to spare, so I used the DTI to set my locations whilst checking against the marks I made earlier, centre drilled then drilled out the holes. Then it was time to flip the part to machine the slots for the fake anchor lugs. As they were purely cosmetic, I didn't mark out to double check my winding, but used the DRO and trusted my maths for the locating. The plans call for 1/4", and I had a brand spanking 6mm end mill ready to cut the slots with, I just need to remember to annotate the drawing before I start making the anchor lugs.
I needed the slots to be 4.762mm deep, so I took two 2mm cuts down before measuring and taking a final cut.

All ready now for some de-burring and cleaning up, before the bevels are added much later on.

Lastly, does anyone have any tips for holding work in a vice/chuck without marking it, but still keeping it true?

Thanks for looking.

 

[Swifty]

When using a hand hacksaw on aluminium, a squirt of WD40 on the piece works wonders.

Paul.

 

[Heffalump]

When using a hand hacksaw on aluminium, a squirt of WD40 on the piece works wonders.

Paul.

Thanks for that paul, now the Sub-base is finished I need to hacksaw out a blank for the base, I'll try that.

Unfortunately I had a fight with a scalpel this morning and the scalpel won so I spent the morning in the emergency department. Doris says I'm not allowed in the shop today, so that will have to wait for tomorrow.

 

[BaronJ]

Thanks for that paul, now the Sub-base is finished I need to hacksaw out a blank for the base, I'll try that.

Unfortunately I had a fight with a scalpel this morning and the scalpel won so I spent the morning in the emergency department. Doris says I'm not allowed in the shop today, so that will have to wait for tomorrow.

That will teach you to go around picking on sharp things ! They usually win...:hDe:

 

[Heffalump]

That will teach you to go around picking on sharp things ! They usually win...:hDe:

Yep!! Managed to cut thru a vein, wont be doing that again in a hurry!

 

[BaronJ]

I got the base set up in the mill ready to tidy up the edges to size

And got to work!

Re-viced the work piece and cleaned up the last edge

After using a drill blank to indicate the work I got ready to drill the three mounting holes, looks like my maths was right!

Didn't take any photos of the actual drilling. I'm going to use M3 screws through the base, and had some handy 3.1 drill bits to spare, so I used the DTI to set my locations whilst checking against the marks I made earlier, centre drilled then drilled out the holes. Then it was time to flip the part to machine the slots for the fake anchor lugs. As they were purely cosmetic, I didn't mark out to double check my winding, but used the DRO and trusted my maths for the locating. The plans call for 1/4", and I had a brand spanking 6mm end mill ready to cut the slots with, I just need to remember to annotate the drawing before I start making the anchor lugs.
I needed the slots to be 4.762mm deep, so I took two 2mm cuts down before measuring and taking a final cut.

All ready now for some de-burring and cleaning up, before the bevels are added much later on.

Lastly, does anyone have any tips for holding work in a vice/chuck without marking it, but still keeping it true?

Thanks for looking.

Strips of cardboard cut from cereal boxes or use strips of manilla folders.

But wait... You and sharp things don't go well together... :hDe::hDe:

 

[Heffalump]

Hee hee thanks Baron, The girls on the shop floor have gifted me a pair of side snips which apparently must stay with me at all times for fear of using a blade!!

Quite a deep cut on my thumb has made certain operations on the tools a little uncomfortable so I've been taking my time, but it's about time for an update. I got the base marked out on an ali sheet ready to cut out.

I do love to use that hacksaw

a little bit of trimming down and sizing in the mill, and a check against the sub-base

Wheres where I made a mistake, I marked out the through holes on the bottom of the part, but I forgot to flip the Y axis for my bottom face marking out. When I flipped the part, unsurprisingly, my marks were in the wrong place! Point to note, if marking the bottom, flip the Y axis!

Re-blacked and marked out again

Hot to trot now, I got the part viced up and used a 4mm rod to set the DRO

Now follows a lot of centre drilling...

Drilling...

And tapping. (Of which I don't have a picture.)

I've almost done all the drilling and tapping, maybe more updates later

 

[BaronJ]

Hi Jim,
Yes I can appreciate just how painful a deep cut on an often used digit can be !
But as my dad used to say "You won't do that again in a hurry".:wall::wall::wall:

As far as getting things on the wrong side you are not alone. I started making a new fly cutter the other day and started to drill a hole where I had marked out then realised that I had marked the wrong edge. So I've now got a little dimple to remind me.

I seem to be making a lot of fly cutters just lately...

 

[Heffalump]

So progress has been super slow on this compared to my last build, but I don't mind. I've been taking time converting elmer's plans to metric.
The next step for the base was to start milling out the slot. I couldn't work out a satisfactory way to give it a radius, so I left it vertical and rounded.

Those of you blessed with the gift of sight may notice I have a few too many holes in my base. This is because I drilled them in the wrong place to begin with Rather than start again, I reasoned that they would not interfere mechanically, only visually for now. If they are too easily seen later on then I will remake this part.

Next I was going to make the eccentric strap, but I don't have an end mill small enough to cut the slot in the turned part for the strap to sit into, so I will have to wait for payday. Just need to decide what I'm going to make next.

Thanks

 

[Sshire]

Jim
If you plan on painting the base, the "extra" holes are easily filled with JB Weld then filed flush. If you're not painting, some drill rod ( silver steel to you guys) pressed into the holes or Loctited and then filed. They wiill be nearly invisible.

 

[Heffalump]

Sorry this one might be a little long I've been saving a couple of steps up accidentally! :embarassed:

I decided to make the eccentric next as I had the material and knew what I was going to do. I started with some brass in the 4 jaw and dialled it in as best as I could. I lost the DTI so all of the following steps were done using the lathe tool as a zero point. I think they're pretty accurate, but if it's all off kilter later on I can always re-make using the proper test equipment! I turned the brass down to the Major diameter to start.

I decided to drill and ream the ID to size next, for no particular reason

By which time I was getting annoyed with the mess around the machine tools and had a tidy up.

Then as accurately as possible re-positioned the work piece to turn the eccentric. As above I used the lathe tool and the cross slide scale to position it as true as I could.

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Now it's time to start the dreaded (for me :'( ) eccentric strap. Using the same bit of brass I turned down the OD and went for the same process of drilling and reaming the ID.

For some reason the reamer gave me this finish. Does anyone know what has caused this to happen?

Luckily I still had a little bit of room left as the eccentric was a little oversize, so I swapped to a Boring tool and skimmed the inside. Time to part off again

and test the fit

For the strap itself I found a nice small bit of stainless that I thought might do the job, but first it needed taking down to size

and thickness

The surface was uneven due to multiple cuts but a bit of filing soon sorted that out.

Now I realised the error of my ways. I took my bits out the shop floor, and straight to the solder dip. I've never been that hot on metallurgy but I didn't think about the fact I was using stainless steel and trying to solder it with normal solder. Into the dip it went, and out it came as if it was hygrophobic.

back to the drawing board then, I got it back into the clamp

and used some lovely green loctite

It's curing now, so we'll see how well it works!

 

[Heffalump]

Update time!

Whilst I was waiting to see if my eccentric strap worked, I thought it would be a good idea to start on the crosshead guides.

More hacksawing! Then milling to size.

I decided that this chunk was big enough to make two cross slides out of, and that if I did then they would both be identical, so I drilled it out

On inspection it turned out that I had no adequate method of splitting the two in half whilst keeping the dimensions correct, so I cut the part down to just one crosshead guide.

And made another!

Just the final operation left, milling down to final size.

Bugger. That will need a bit of filing then.

And finally two crosshead guides.

Time to check the eccentric strap. It turns out the loctite I had used was really crap for the job I was asking it to do. So I cleaned it up and gave it another go with some structural epoxy.

a quick mock up to see how the crosshead guides look..

And time to start the crosshead

Got my blank cut out to size

And began by cutting the slot. The problem with making an imperial model in metric, I don't have the right size milling cutters!

A little bit of maths gave me the right settings for my 4mm cutter to make the slot the right shape in two passes.

And this is as far as I've got up to today!

 

[BaronJ]

Hi Jim,

Its coming along nicely ! Looking forward to the next instalment.

By the way, I like your other avatar !

 

[Capt,n John]

Nice....Thm:

 

[Heffalump]

Hi Jim,

Its coming along nicely ! Looking forward to the next instalment.

By the way, I like your other avatar !

hee thanks baron!

Nice....Thm:

Cheers Capn!!

 

[Capt,n John]

Could you post a photo of some of your tool holders that have replaceable inserts. Just wondering what you prefer. Thanks

 

[Heffalump]

Could you post a photo of some of your tool holders that have replaceable inserts. Just wondering what you prefer. Thanks

Of course - are you talking about lathe tools?

 

[Heffalump]

Only a very small bit of progress so far this week due to various things meaning my lunchtimes have been kept away from the shop.

From where I left off with the cross slide, I really definitely did things in the wrong order.

I started off by milling the sides down to size, leaving the small extrusion called for in the drawings

And then without thinking, turned the workpiece around and clamped it in the vice ready for drilling. squashing that nice soft extrusion.

Ho hum.. that will teach me to think about what I'm doing.

I've left it for now, I can't visualise a reason for having that bit sticking out, I'm sure it will make sense once I've got a few bits put together.

Finished off with line drilling.