The first job tackled today was marking out the latch blank and drilling the hole for the phosphur bronze pivot pin. Then the radius around the hole was shaped. To get the shape of the latch handle a 1/4" brass bar was secured in the vice trapping the latch. Careful 'tapping' with a copper headed hammer soon had it to shape. Pleased, it was taken to the door only to find it was the wrong way! Doh! So after straightening it was then tapped over the right way.

latch for fowler traction engine

The next task was to mill out a recess in the fire door casting to allow the latch to be set flush with the back of the fire door. My method was to use a rotary table to machine the recess. I decided that it didn't require my 6" rotary table and as I have a small table as well, that was secured to the milling table. This is the first time I have used this little rotary table and when looking for a method of securing the fire door, I realised I didn't have any nuts for the small 'T' slots!

Fowler traction engine fire door rear milled area

So I had to machine some up and this took a little while. The rotary table was raised off the mill table by setting it on some machine blocks (their first use as well). This raised the rotary table up clear of the handle and the fire door was then secured with some aluminum to protect the front face of the door as it was only the raised letters that would be in contact with the surface it sat on. Therefore very light cuts were made with the digital readouts used to maintain the accuracy of the recess.

Once checked that the angle of clearance seemed to be correct, the fire door was removed and placed against the boiler to make sure the latch would be able to be raised high enough to come out of the catch plate.

And that was enough for me today so the hinge plate and catch plate will be left to the next session (or sessions!).