I felt well enough this morning to restart the machining of the Seal Flywheels. Progress to date involved making the first one (which I made an early mistake on, but continued to check out my machining list), followed by the second today (which will be the first! - confused? You would be working with me!) which I am pleased to say went well and all done to a tolerance of +/- 1 thousandth of an inch (0.001").
And before I stopped I made good progress with the 3rd (well the second really - still with me?) by bringing the blank to overall diameter + 50 thou. Then it was centre drilled, before drilling through 0.250". The next stage was to bore out the rear recess and I am about half way there before stopping. I suspect there is only another hour or so left to do (I can't muck it up because I don't have any more 2.5" dia brass bar!) . Once I have bored the rear recess I will cut the taper for securing the flywheel to the crankshaft.
The blank will then be put onto the between centres fixture, so the work on the front of the flywheel can be concluded. One lesson learnt with the first and unsuccessful flywheel, was the benefit to be had by clearing some material before using the specially ground tool steel for creating the chord grove (see photo). I used the parting tool to depth and when changing to the profiled tool it was significantly easier to machine.
Perhaps because of the positive session today, I have changed my project priority list to next start the crankshafts. This will require some fixture work first so I can cut the very expensive HT steel bar in half (along its length), allowing two crankshafts to be produced from the one piece of steel I have.
I am still having problems with the web hosts I use in getting the main website updated. Why do support staff that are supposed to help not understand that you pay them to be experts in server support! Really wind me up!
Anyway here are a few photo's to help you understand the information above.
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My crib sheet of the dimensions taken from the plans.
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using the parting tool to remove some material before using the form tool
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The form tool for making the starting cord groove.
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!
£39.60
