Well after all the trials and tribulations over the last few months the Mills has at last breathed! It has not added a lot to global warming yet (unless you account the electricity and other energies used in it and the raw products manufacture). The new piston it seems was the answer after all.

To prove it has run I have put a small video on both my website www.mikes-models.com  and I have set up a You Tube account ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG7nm-SaOGg ) so you can visit there as well. Please leave a comment if you can, many thanks.

Full of enthusiasm I went out into the garage when not feeling my best. The cast iron had at last arrived and I hoped to get the engine running today. However I am just as far from the end, in fact slightly worse off!

When looking at the parts I thought that since I was at it I would not only make a new piston but the con rod and gudgeon pin as well. That way I would have a complete new assembly and they could form spare parts for the future. As said before I was in quite a bit of discomfort, but progressed fairly well in making the new con rod. The blank was machined to size. The little and big ens holes were center drilled, drilled then reamed to size. The insets were milled in and then the con rod edges milled to shape. All that was left to do was to mill the radius on the two ends. And it was whilst milling the last ^%$££ one that I didn't concentrate enough and the end mill grabed the con rod! (see photo below)

You can read more on my website www.mikes-models.com

So that was that I stopped work and instead of trying to get the engine to run with a new piston, I hadn't even started on the new one! Grrrrr...............

Well I have finally received my cast iron bar from Reeves 2000. Unfortunateley to late to make the new psiton. However tommorow it will be the first item to be made. After that it will be over to the starting, or trying to start the engine....watch this space.

My day was therefore spent checking out the fretsaw from Axminster tools, prior to listing it for sale. The fault was found pretty quickly. The owner who returned the tool to Axminster (I bought a pallet load of catalogue returns!) must have over tensioned the blade, or dropped the thing as the tensioner bar was bent. So it was a simple case of removing the parts and straightening up the bar. I then decided to try it out to make sure it works when I list it. Next year I will be building the Westbury 4cylinder Seal petrol engine and to put it into a large scale model boat. I have the plans and decided that I would try and cut some 1/4" ply used for the bulkheads. The job will be a joint project with my younger brother, Stephen (runs a very good silver eBay site since retirement http://www.silver2treasure.com ) 

It is a very impressive piece of kit! Cutting 1/4" ply was very simple and it is very tempting to try and find some space for it in my workshop, however it is mainly woodworking so it will have to go sometime soon. The only other fault I could find is a crack in the casting base. However it doesn't have any bearing on its performance as it is in the base. So some one will get a real bargain.

The second part of the day is the subject of a second post under the fowler heading.............