When reading an old edition of Model Engineer from 1902, in the days of treadle lathes, I came across a piece on making metal piston rings which might be relevant today.
The method was to rough turn a tube with the od too large and bore too small this was then faced across one end and a batch of 5 rings parted off. The rings were bought to final thickness and then then split diagonally.
The stack of rings were then clamped round the outside with a ring clamp like a worm drive hose clamp, the assembly was then clamped to a face plate using several clamps reaching over from the inside and pressing on the end of the stack, although a single bolt in the centre with a washer might do as well, the ring clamp removed and the outside turned to size.
The rings were now put into another fixture, this was a tube again on the faceplate, the tube was bored to cylinder size, the rings were clamped on the end and the stack bored to Inside diameter.
It goes to show that there is nothing new in the world, What I like is that the slitting is done when the blank is strong and by closing the ring gap before turnIng, there is built in spring in the ring.
The method was to rough turn a tube with the od too large and bore too small this was then faced across one end and a batch of 5 rings parted off. The rings were bought to final thickness and then then split diagonally.
The stack of rings were then clamped round the outside with a ring clamp like a worm drive hose clamp, the assembly was then clamped to a face plate using several clamps reaching over from the inside and pressing on the end of the stack, although a single bolt in the centre with a washer might do as well, the ring clamp removed and the outside turned to size.
The rings were now put into another fixture, this was a tube again on the faceplate, the tube was bored to cylinder size, the rings were clamped on the end and the stack bored to Inside diameter.
It goes to show that there is nothing new in the world, What I like is that the slitting is done when the blank is strong and by closing the ring gap before turnIng, there is built in spring in the ring.
