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[Jerry C]

We keep the boat in a marina just outside Chester in the north west. We haven’t been aboard for nearly 2 years due to being captive in Australia due to Covid. We monitor her via cctv over the internet. We’re hoping to return around November. However we won’t be coming to Birmingham next year as well be heading north to the Leeds Liverpool Canal. We may then travel south to Birmingham. We could always have a virtual drink over the internet.


Jerry C.

[Mark T]

We keep the boat in a marina just outside Chester in the north west. We haven’t been aboard for nearly 2 years due to being captive in Australia due to Covid. We monitor her via cctv over the internet. We’re hoping to return around November. However we won’t be coming to Birmingham next year as well be heading north to the Leeds Liverpool Canal. We may then travel south to Birmingham. We could always have a virtual drink over the internet.


Jerry C.

I reckon we should all meet up at the Black Country and have a few beers together.  Raphael I'll bring my little tug over too as this is just outside of Birmingham :)

[Mark T]

Cheers Mark. Next one is the triple expansion, too large to fit my little milling attachment so I need to get a decent sized milling machine and loads of tools!


Hoping to return around November time all being well.


Jerry C.

I hope so Jerry would be good to meet up :). I've just bought a Sherline mill from a UK supplier and all I can say is WOW!!!  What an amazingly accurate bit of tooling and I would have thought big enough for your needs.  Its will take end mills with a shank diameter of 3/8 if you want it too.  A very powerful little machine mate

[Jerry C]

This is the mill I’m going for
It’s $1150au.





Jerry C.

[BrianB6]

Cheers Mark. Next one is the triple expansion,
Jerry C.

You don't need all those tools, although I admit the might be useful.  My uncle built his in the 1930's, I think, on a foot operated treadle lathe. 

[Jerry C]

Lovely piece of kit. I’m jealous.
I’ve just been on Stuart’s website and was shocked to see the cost of the triples castings. The engine when compared to the twin doesn’t measure up cost wise. They can fish for that money. I’m not too impressed with them to be honest. They’ve been selling the plans for a century and they still have mistakes on them. Mine came missing piston rings which took a month to reach me in Oz. Shipping cost for the kit was £70. Pistons were too chilled to machine and the valve chest covers have visible chilling around the others. Anyway, change of plan, I’ll go for the twin Compound engine. I may as well continue it on this thread save starting a new one.


Jerry C.

[rhavrane]

Bonjour Jerryn
Do you know this brand ? https://www.multirex.net/tour-a-metaux-500w-moteur-brushless-c2x32004894
https://www.multirex.net/fraiseuse-500w-moteur-brushless-c2x32007586


And I fully agree with you, Stuart is awfully expensive, but in the hands of a good machanic as you are (and my friend Max), you  can obtain this result for example : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtoQT9tvom4&t=183s

[Jerry C]

They’re all more or less the same thing. Mine is exactly the same as this but painted blue.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/183744307087


I may make a D10 some day.


Jerry C.

[Jerry C]

This is my lathe, standard Chinese mini lathe with loads of modifications by me. EG. Chip guards, carriage locks, manual feed screw, digital readout X,Y and Z plus a tyre tread depth gauge attached to the tail stock. Only problem I’ve had is the toothed drive belt is badly worn and I can’t find replacements anywhere. I’ve turned it inside out so I can still use it but not for long.







Milling attachment with 50mm vice.





I just need 3 more DRO transmitters for the mill.










What suburb of Birmingham do your in laws live in?


Jerry C.

[rhavrane]

Bonjour Jerry,
I am not familiar ith all these tools so I fully trust you hen you say they are similar.
And my family in laws lives at Edgbaston.

[Jerry C]

The next time we go to Birmingham I’ll be going to Edgbaston to watch a test match.


Jerry C.

[Jerry C]

OK, I’m back, this time building the Stuart Compound Twin Engine. The price of the triple was way too much. I’ve put the Twin Launch Engine up for sale here in Oz on Market Place. No takers yet. At the same time I put my motorcycle up for sale as it’s too cold to ride it and we’ll be staying in the UK on the boat for 18 months so it made sense. It sold immediately for $500 more than I paid for it 3 years ago!  With the proceeds I bought the aforementioned mill, loads of tools for it and the lathe, the  Stuart castings set for the Compound Engine. I ordered stuff from Blackgates Engineering, enough nuts to replace all the nuts on both engine to freshen up the two engines as they suffer wear from over spannering during repeated assemblies.
Two sets of the lazer cut BA spanner’s as my first set are worn out and some other stuff. I’ve also ordered a 3” rotary table from India which will take about 6 weeks to arrive.
The mill is superb for the money, it came with a starter kit comprising a selection MT3 collets, a nice 3” machine vice (they obviously didn’t have one so sent a 4” instead), and a small fixings kit. Everything’s stowed away in my new drawer set up, the mill is mounted on the bench and trammed. I be fitted X, Y and Z axis DRO transmitters to it and I can swap over the display and wire connections from the lathe quickly enough when needed.
So, everything’s up and running. I ordered the mill and the Stuart kit at the same time and the Stuart stuff got from UK to Oz in 2 1/2 days with TNT and arrived when they said it would. The mill and tools  came from Membourne 5 days later also by TNT and they really gave me The runaround telling me it would be delivered on Monday so I waited in all day and it never came. The same thing happened on Tuesday. Lost my rag and said I’d come and collect it myself next day. When I got there they couldn’t put it in the car cos they had to use a forklift and they wouldn’t with a car. Said i needed a ute or a trailer. My son in law collected it next day in his ute and he and my daughter hooked it onto the bench.
Any way, I’ve made a start in the engine. I’ve machine the cylinder top covers and cylinder block, bored the cylinders, drilled and tapped all the holes with the exception of the top and bottom cylinder cover fixing holes which need the rotary table to complete. I’ve turned the H.P. piston but the LP piston casting was missing from the Stuart kit and they’d put a HP top cylinder cover in by mistake so that’s on its way fro Stuart’s.
I had an epiphany the other day. My lathe I’d assumed was imperial but the wheels were marked up as having 1 thou graduations and 0.025mm graduations. I dawned on me that the two couldn’t possibly be the same. I checked with my DRO kit and found one revolution of the  wheels was correct in mm but slightly wrong in thousandths”. So it turns out that the lathe is actually metric!!!  My assumptions were wrong which goes a long way to explaining inaccuracies I found when machining the Twin Launch Engine. Fortunately I always mark up a piece before I Machine it and didn’t rely on the graduated wheels so I got away with it. I find working in imperial units easier because I can “ picture” a thou in my head but not so with 0.025mm. I found it a nightmare having to calculate every movement in metric finding out how many revolutions and graduations before hand for each movement. Now with DRO I can work directly in imperial or metric with ease swapping between the two systems with ease.
OK, on with the build. The cylinder block. Firstly, forget that the pistons are different diameters. All the measurements must come from the longitudinal cener of the center mounting lug. Mark that on the lug. Clean up the top and bottom of the casting then remove metal from the top and bottom faces and bring to size keeping the steam ports central. Next find the center of the base and scribe the longitudinal line. From this line it’s easy to find the lateral centres of the 5 lugs. Drill them to size.   Return the mill to the center of the base laterally and longitudinally. The center of the cylinder bores are equidistant each  side of this center. With a piece of sacrificial material under the block to protect the vice, bore the cylinder bores to size. The length of the block isn’t critical, in fact the H.P. port face is a tiny bit closer to the marked centre of the base than the LP port face is. The eccentrics have plenty of space on the crankshaft each end and are only secured on the crankshaft on final assembly. That’s where I am on the block.
Next I moved on to the bronze base. I cleaned up the base first then, without moving it from the vice, I found the longitudinal centreline and scribed it. I found the center of this line and measuring from this point I milled  the base to length (3”). Back to the center and milled the bearing faces to size. Then I drilled the column holes in the 5 lugs. That’s as far as I’ve got. Tomorrow I will tidy up and enlarge around the crank web spaces in way of the bearings. ( on the Twin Launch Engine on assembly the big ends on the conrods fouled the base in this area and I had to enlarge the spaces).  The plans don’t show any dimensions here but intimate the same width as the column centres which don’t work out!
Next job is to flip the piece in the vice and using a ball end cutter cut the crankshaft location. Then drill and tap for the bearing cap studs.
Sorry it’s such a long post but I’ve been too knackered each evening to post but tonight Mary’s been doing her weekly quiz night with family in Oz and UK on t’interweb so I couldn’t have the TV on.
Here’s some pics.


















As you can see in the pics I made a horlicks of the holes in the 5 lugs. They were in the wrong place hence the long post explaining how I should have done them. I’ve milled a hole one size larger on the undersidea quarter the way through and will form a shoulders on the tops of the columns below the threads to locate the lugs correctly and will fill the voids with Devcon Steal or JBWeld if I can find some. The nuts will cover the mistake.
The cockup  on the top face by the H.P. cylinder was caused by the center drill slipping in the collet and the collet rubbed the face I was unsighted at the time and thought the noise it made was the drill hitting some chilled part of the casting of which there is quite a lot. It will be disappeared on the finished model !!
On another note NSW has gone into lockdown due to a covid case in ACT Canberra. I’m not allowed to leave the shed to go to the shops as I’m not the designated shopper. Heaven!


Jerry C.

[Mark T]

Hi Jerry - I'm glad your back on it and I'm looking forward to watching this one mate 


Its great that you've got a good mill as I just couldn't do without mine now.  I think I use it more that any of my other machines.


If you haven't got one get you hands on a fly cutter.  They are not expensive and remove material over a large area very quickly.  You could also use it for facing off the mating surfaces on your engine.


Good luck going forward - Mark

[Jerry C]

Cheers Matey. I bought a boxed set of three fly cutters, small medium and large. I’ve just got to grind the cutting tools to the correct angles as they’re not quite right. That’s my first job today. Waiting for it to warm up cos it’s freezing this morning. The sun shines into the shed doors and warms it up pretty quickly.


Jerry C. 

[Jerry C]

Here you go Mark.

















Back to the build.


Rough as a badgers 'bottom'.







To a thing of beauty.





I don’t quite get those sloping surfaces on each end of the casting in way of the bearings. If the finished piece is meant to be 3” long then they have to go??? I suppose you could leave them but then the bearings wouldn’t be flush with the ends of the casting. It wouldn’t look right to me.


Anyway, my method. I put the piece upside down in the mill vice and skimmed the bottom. Then I flipped it and put it in the vice on parallels and trimmed the lugs to thickness. Once I’d done that I milled the top to the correct height.


I cleaned up the sides with a file and rounded the corners.


Then I blued the top, found the centre and centre punched it. 


Using a probe I made a centre finding tool matching the point of the punch, put it in a collet and centred the mill over the piece. Shipped a small centre drill in the collet and walked the mill around using the DRO and centre drilled for 15 holes then repeated the route and drilled and tapped 11 holes and clearance drilled the lugs.


Next I returned the mill to the centre and shipped a 7mm (couldn’t get an imperial version here) ball end mill and made several passes to a depth of 3.5mm cutting the crankshaft bottom bearing halves.


Last milling operation was to bring the bearing faces to correct dimensions and trim the crank web voids? as per drawings.


Removed any marking out and tool marks with 240, 400 and 600 grade wet and dry paper on a sheet of plate glass.


Tomorrow I’ll sort out the bearing caps. I’ve already appraised them and they’re already ground a bit short by Stuart’s but that won’t be a problem.


Jerry C.

[Jerry C]

I’ve moved on to the bearing caps. I secured them one at a time, base up and milled the base clean. Found the centre, popped it then centre drilled it followed by a 1/16” drill right through for oil holes but also a good reference point for future setting ups. I used DRO to find stud centres and drilled 5BA clearance holes. Repositioned in vice and milled bearing faces to size. I shipped the shaft of a broken 1/16” drill bit in the drill chuck [size=78%]and used it to centre the piece back in the vice base up with enough clearance to run the 7mm ball endmill through to a depth of 3.5mm. [/size]

Flipped the piece and spot faced for the 5BA nuts at the same time setting the height of the faces.
Finally using 2  5BA bolts and nuts I bolted 2 caps together on the shaft of a 7mm drill bit. Removed the drill bit and shipped piece in the 4 jaw chuck on the lathe and turned the faces down to the 5/8” diameter. That was the plan but things didn’t go smoothly I’m afraid. I was just finishing the first face when the piece grabbed the tool and broke the carbide tip off the tool. The piece suffered some damage too but was recovered though the diameter ended up a little less than 5/8 but this will still function OK on completion. The visible damage of a scuff is fortunately on the conrod side so will be hidden. If I get picky I’ve 3 spare top cap castings left over from the Twin Launch build when I thought I’d horlicksed the bearings on that one but did manage to work around it. When I assembled the Twin Launch Engine I found the conrods fouled  on the sides of the recesses and I had to remove more material to clear the conrods so on this soleplate I extended them the same amount. 
Finally I bolted the bearing caps onto the soleplate on a 7mm drill bit to line them up then shipped the piece in the vice vertically end down on a parallel to keep the piece off the base of the vice. I put the the drill bit in a collet and ran it down through the bearings without it revolving, it slipped through nicely. Eased the vice a fraction then retightened it  to relieve any stress. Replaced the drill with a 5/16” reamer with the cutter up close to the collet to resist any wander and with low RPM gently lowered it through the first two bearings then stopped the motor,loosened the collet and lifted the milling head up and retightened the collet before continuing down through the third bearing. It couldn’t have gone any smoother!
Dead chuffed. Tomorrow I have to sort out my rotating table backplate. It needs a register turning and an adapter made up to take my chucks.












I forgot, I finally drilled and tapped the holes in the caps 4BA to take the oil cups.

So that’s it, all ready for painting but I’ll wait until I’ve cut the lagging sheets and the weather warms up a bit.


Jerry C.

[Circlip]

Good to see that someone knows how to use clamps properly    An acknowledged "Exspurt" on another forum still doesn't, after ten years.


  Regards  Ian.

[Jerry C]

Thanks matey. Just an understanding of loads and simple levers.


Jerry C.

[Mark T]

Very nice indeed Jerry - I think you have tamed that mill already.  I would ask the mods to start you a new thread though mate as its a new build.  Just a thought 

[Jerry C]

Cheers Mark. I didn’t bother starting a new thread as it’s pretty much the same work as for the Twin Launch but I’ve new tools and the mill is really good and offers up different methods.
Today I’ve been sorting out my new 3” rotary table. It fits on the table with two T nuts and a couple of 6mm  hex cap screws and a couple of washers. First job was to machine a register to match my chucks on the supplied backplate. I looked up the bolt circle dimensions in my chuck data sheets and drilled them 6mm clearance. The bcd already on the backplate were different but I found space to fit mine in. I made some short 6mm studs to crew into the chucks and these locate in the drilled holes so the rotary table can drive the chucks. There is a problem though. I can bolt the back plate to the chuck and I can bolt the backplate to the rotary table but, I can’t do both. The backplate locates in the table centre with a large peg on the bottom. It has a 14mm x 1.0mm pitch thread on the top peg which I’m supposed to screw the chucks on to but all three chucks have different size holes in the bottoms so I’ll have to make some adapters. I don’t be 14 x1.0 tap and neither do I have taps to to tap the centres of the chucks. We’re in lockdown atm so can’t go and get any so I’m thinking superglue. I wind be doing any heavy work on the rotary table, ta mostly drilling the holes for the 4BA studs for top and bottom cylinder covers.
I managed to break the data socket on my X axis DRO transmitter. These are more or less the same as digital callipers so I stripped it down carefully and found the micro USB socket that sends the signal to the display  was torn off the circuit board. It has 6 tiny (microscopic) soldered connections to the board. So with nothing to lose, out with my little USB soldering iron which I bought two of from Bunnings (like our B&Q), cleaned everything with a Q tip and acetone. Nothing melted. Re soldered all the connections back to the CB and wicked superglue under the socket and.. the display on the transmitter has some sections missing but blow me, the display works perfik.
George (ooyah2) once said, if I fell in the Spey I’d come out with a salmon in my pocket. Jammy  or what!!
Anyway, some pics.








Jerry C.

[Jerry C]

I got a lot done today. Started off turning the LP piston on a mandrel in the lathe. I made it as per plan but can’t see the point of the recess in the base as there is no mirror image on the top of the bottom cylinder covers. Included it anyway for the practice.
Next I drilled the bolt circles in the top cylinder covers 7BA clearance. Only Stuart’s would think of dividing 360° by 7 ffs. Using the LP top cover as a guide, I centre popped the common hole, drilled and tapped it 7BA. Screwed in a 3/8” stud and secured the cover with a nut. I’ll pick up the holes with the mill tomorrow and drill and tap the remaining holes. I’ll repeat the process with the H.P. cover.   


More pics.








Jerry C.

[Jerry C]

This week I have been finishing off the cylinder block. All 163? ( I lose count every time I try to count them),drilled and tapped and studs installed.
Next I moved on to the valve chests. While studying and drawing up my plans I noticed another error on the drawings. The H.P. valve chest is shown as being 1 1/8” in width but the width of the chest is  1 1/4” wide. Fortunately I twigged. The bock is 1 7/32 wide to permit the lagging sheets to lie butted up flush to the valve chests.
The valve chest stud clearance holes went quickly as a repeat of the 7BA (tapping) holes and just a matter of chasing round the DRO figures. The rod guide domes are smaller diameter and length due to some inclusions in the LP casting. I matched it when doing the H.P. chest.
The covers were a different story however as the corners and edges were severely chilled. I gave up milling after dulling my brand new 12mm end mill. The mill was bouncing around the shop! I wasn’t prepared to wait 3 weeks for replacements from Stuarts so I did them on my belt sander, which blitzed the pair in 20 minutes. All corners square and correct thickness with minor titivating on wet and dry paper to finish. I superglued the covers to the chests and simply drilled through the holes in the chests on the bench with a 2.8mm drill bit in my battery hand drill.
Finally I completed all the PB glands. Ruined the first attempt as I misread the diameter of the bit that squeezes the packing. I confused the chamfer diameter with the gland diameter. Stuarts don’t supply castings for them now having replaced them with extruded oval lengths as shown in the pics. A simple job with the four jaw chuck on the lathe then shifted to mill vice to drill the stud clearance holes. Too cold this afternoon in the shed. Lost feeling in my extremities!  Retreated to the warmth of the living room to watch F1 qualifying at Spa.
Some pics.











Jerry C.

[Jerry C]

Today I started on the crosshead guide bracket. Again it’s like machining toffee but it went reasonably well with no disasters. However I had to get a bit creative with mounting and holding it.
First job dial in the vice with DTI.

I started with it on parallels in the machine vice on the mill table. Decided on the centre of the middle column hole, zeroed X and Y axis and used a 6mm end mill to drill the hole. My columns will be 6mm diameter as I can’t get any 1/4” stock. Then walked the piece via DRO and drilled the two outer holes. I put three 6mm shank end mills through the holes to act as “hanging parallels”and, again used  my DRO to set the Z axis and milled the crosshead faces and drilled and tapped the four 7BA holes for the countersunk screws to secure the guides to.
When I’d finished I milled the outer ends of the bracket to length.
Put a small drum sander in my Dremel and tidied up the curves on the edges.
Now I needed to drill and ream the 3/16” bores for the reversing shaft. Here’s where I had to think outside the box. As previously mentioned, the piece is like toffee,so, how to mount it vertically in the vice and drill and ream the 3/16” bores without it distorting.
I turned the vice on it’s side and secured it to the table. I put the piece in the vice, with the guide faces on  parallels. Then I used a G clamp to support the boss towards the parallels. I drilled through the top boss with a one size under 3/16” drill and carried on through to the other boss. I got most of the way through with the chuck jaws on the very end of the drill shank. It broke partially through. I only have a 3/16” hand reamer but no way could I get this to go through,so, needs must I drilled through with the 3/16” drill bit. It was still hard going to get the reamer through but finally succeeded. The PB seems to slither back into the holes. Anyway it’s done.
Tomorrow I’ll make a 3/16 threaded mandrel and turn down the ends of the bosses on the lathe with a live centre supporting the end of the mandrel.






As you can see below, the bottom boss is supported on the table just outside the T slot but the top boss sagged as soon as the centre drill touched it. I put the G clamp around the back of the parallels to support the boss during drilling and reaming.







Will finish tidying insides tomorrow and drill and tap for 7BA grub screws tomorrow.


Jerry C.

[Jerry C]

I finished most of the bracket but, I couldn’t see any way of cleaning and machining the final job on the rough bosses. The guy I’m following didn’t mention how he did his.





This is the best I could come up with.  I needed a 3/16” rod for the reversing shafts so I made one as a mandrel which I fixed in the machine vice located in the horizontal v groove on the movable jaw. I pushed the shank of a broken 6mm end mill through the hole furthest away from the milling operation to use as a lever and rotated the piece manually, cutting 5 thou of each time. On completion of one end, flipped the part and repeated on the other boss. Cleaned up after with a file. I’ve purposely made the piece thicker than on the plan because Stuart’s way don’t look right to me. The 4x 7BA tapped hole are however in the correct position in relation to the top surface of the piece. Amazingly I still have a full inventory of digits, no hitches, was easier than I thought.
I’ve made a start on the eccentrics. More about them on completion.


Jerry C.

[Jerry C]

I’ve been busy. I’ve completed the eccentrics, rods/straps, connecting rods and am almost finishing the crossheads.
First the eccentrics,
one problem with these is the grub screws, if you adhere to the dimensions on the drawings you end up with not enough meat on the collars so that there’s not enough threads in the grub screw holes, so when you apply enough force to secure the pieces to the crankshaft to hold them they strip the threads.  On the Twin Launch Engine I stripped the threads on both eccentric pairs. The get around was to thread for 3mm and replace the Stuart  7BA grub screws with 3mm hex screws. Even these weren’t really up to the job so I fell back on industrial grade cyo.
With this in mind I realised that it’s feasible to make the collars oversized and machine the eccentrics as normal but leaving a small, and when assembled, unnoticeable step back up to the collar. I ordered a load of nuts, bolts and hex grub screws from Blackgates 5 weeks ago but they’ve not yet arrived. I chased them up two weeks ago but have received no reply. I’m assuming they’re on their  holibobs. When I made the eccentrics I got carried away and completely forgot to execute my plan and ended up with a small flat on the collars. I’ll live with it I suppose.
The rods /straps. Completed without incident using similar procedure to thThe conrods.
I didn’t need to calculate the taper value as they’re in my notes from the twin build and I didn’t make the same mistake I made and recovered from with the twin build and they progressed well. The Crossheads.
In progress, will finish tomorrow.
[/size]
[/size]Ive marked with blue marker the area spoiled. On the Twin Engine I removed it. I’ve left it on this build. [/size]
[/size]
[/size]
[/size]First I drilled and tapped for the bolts. I put threads in the straps so the nuts will act as locknuts. Then I set up in the mill vice for cutting the straps off. Then cut all four and put witness marks on the parts to keep like with like 




[/size]
[/size]
[/size]I bolted them all back together again, put them in my four jaw chuck on the lathe and bored them to 3/4” and added the location groove using the HSS tool I made for the twin. [/size]I made a mandrel out of a scrap end of brass round bar and mounted each assembly on the rotary table to finish the final shaping. Previously I’d come up with a method of securing my 3 jaw chuck to the rotary table. I removed the jaws and bored out the centre halfway down leaving a step. Then I drilled and tapped an M6 thread in the centre spigot on the table, made a heavy duty washer to sit on the step and used an M6 cap screw to hold it down. The 3 M6 studs in the chuck screw in further and transmit the torque of the rotary table to the chuck. It works.




[/size]
[/size]
[/size]Running in on the lathe using a Brasso/oil mix. Tightening the bolts little by little which corrects any distortion of the PB pieces. Takes about an hour to do each one.
[/size]
[/size]Now the connecting rods. Similar treatment of bottom ends then set up on mill to drill and ream big ends.
[/size]
[/size]
[/size]
[/size]
[/size]I used a 5/16” mandrel in a collet to support the piece in central vertical groove in the centre groove in the moveable vice jaw then rigged up support for the top end with an adjustable parallel to support vertically and a fixing clamp to back up horizontally.




[/size]
[/size]
[/size]and milled the top end with a 5mm slot cutter.




[/size]
[/size]
[/size]
[/size]The finished articles[/size] 






[/size]
[/size]
[/size]
[/size]That’s all for now.
[/size]
[/size]Jerry C.
[/size]