Seal Cylinder Liners - Session 1 09-01-2009
Well a start has been made at last on the pair of Seal Engines I started this time last year! There are 8 cylinder liners to be made and they are turned from cast iron. I was soon reminded on how dirty cast iron is to work. Fortunately I remembered enough to protect the lathe as much as possible from the swarf.
The first cylinder is 3 thou oversize so its piston will have to match, that is of course unless I remake it in the end. My excuse for the oversize is the new honing methodology I am trying. It comes expensively from industry but its performance is exceptional and quick!!!!
The allowance I made of 2 thou undersize first time before honing proved to be insufficient! The second one came in 1 thou over when honed which was within the tolerance I set myself. Now the lesson has been learnt the others should come out the same, but I suspect I will need to make more than the 8 (already one down out of two!!!).
Edgar T Westbury, the engines designer, recommends painting the cylinder liner with paint or varnish when pressing home and for the liner NOT to be a tight fit. I will wait until later before making up my mind what, if any, sealant I shall use.
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Drilling out the liner
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Boring out to finished size of 5/8″
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Flex -Hone available from Industrial tool Suppliers MSC & JL
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One liner pressed into position, the other is just ‘resting’
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Just 45 seconds to hone the cylinder to finished size
About Mike Freeman
Hello, my name is Mike Freeman and I am a retired Chief Fire Officer from the United Kingdom with a keen interest in model engineering, silver caddy spoons and sea fishing. I live in the pretty fishing port of Brixham, South Devon, in the United Kingdom.
I am a sufferer of degenerative osteoarthritis, which impacts on the amount of time I can spend in the workshop, and is the reason why you will see seats and a stool in some of the photo's. I have only recently added the above sentence after a discussion with one of my Doctor's from the excellent pain clinic, based in Torbay. This does affect concentration one of the reasons why I double then re-double my measurements and set ups.
Before completing nearly 30 years of public service I and my wife Sandy, owned and ran, a small restaurant in Okehampton Devon. Prior to marriage I worked for my father in his various businesses, in the early days these were garages, which he bought in a run down state, then built them up before moving on, to start again.
I took every opportunity in those early days, to work in his workshop's
learning 'on the job' rather than as an apprentice. This, I suspect, is the reason why my building various model's in the early days, turned into model engineering, when funds allowed the required equipment to be bought.
My workshop comprises one half of a detached double garage. It has a
stud wall separating the two halves and unusually perhaps, its own
shower/toilet/washbasin compartment! (the true reason for buying the
bungalow - don't tell the wife!!!)
It is fully insulated with a ceiling and fluorescent lighting supplementing the one window. Several double electrical sockets are dotted around in
relevant positions.
Equipment consists of 2 lathes (1 Myford ML 10 and 1 Chinese variable
speed motor with etched glass DRO's), 1 milling machine (RF25 far East) floor standing pillar drill, Proxxon bandsaw, Warco bandsaw, 6" wire brush and polishing mop motor, 6" coarse and fine grinder, Proxxon mini drill, various benches and an engineers vice. I have just acquired a third lathe, a Myford ML7 which I am at present evaluating so I can decide which of the Myford's I will keep.
I have only just bought the Chinese lathe and had it fitted with DRO's prior to delivery. And what a bonus they are! So good in fact that I decided to buy another set for the Milling machine. Whilst my engineering experience can only be described as limited, I find the use of DRO's has affected my accuracy levels which have improved tremendously (although that's not saying much!) and would recommend their fitting to any model engineer.
Prior to retirement I built for my son's 17th birthday a Locost car. This
was a tremendous project and a great feeling when it passed its test. The book it was based on suggests it can be built for £250. Ours was nothing special in the sense of all new parts but still cost about £900 to build!
