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[Jerry C]

Now my bit. I finished the cylinder, valve plate and covers, then made the bottom cover/cylinder support and lastly the O-ring retainer. I assembled the cylinder assembly, then used the sanding station to reduce the size of the covers to almost perfect and finished them all on the dressing plate. Seeing how close everything was got me thinking about packing. The drawing (there are no instructions) mentions 1/64" thick Hallite or Dixel. I don't know what this is and a quick search on tinterweb wasn't very helpful. Except for the worry of excess foofoo getting where it shouldn't I would prefer to use my (very expensive) BMW Dri-bond but it's getting a bit thicker now than when I built the TVR1ABB engine. So now I'm thinking of the brown paper that he supplies with his kits. But has anyone got any views on using simple greaseproof paper?

Anyway here's some pics, the fastenings are temporary only to prove all the holes line up.
Jerry.
 

[wrongtimeben]

Lovely work all round. Inspiring.

[derekwarner]

Jerry...Paper Gaskets?

An acquaintance [92 years young ex steam engineer] from a model steam group....has suggested to stay away from silicone coated  'Glad Bake' type baking paper as whilst it may be good for say 220 degrees C...it is too thin @ 0.001" thick and because of the silicone coating, oils will not penetrate & soften the cellulose fibres ...instead he suggests good quality brown paper ...approx. 0.004" thick and with a liberal brushing of caster oil [on both sides]

The beauty here is the course texture of the brown paper will adsorb the caster oil and swell the thickness of the material...& thus filling the voids between the mating surfaces

This natural oil has some interesting properties....as noted by the WIKI people.........just don't drink it... ....Derek

"Castor oil is a colorless to very pale yellow liquid with a distinct taste and odor once first ingested. Its boiling point is 313 °C"

[southsteyne2]

I use this one with no problems so far LOCTITE R T V 5920 copper high performance silicone also George what thickness are your endplates on your boiler ? ps nice work

John

[Jerry C]

Hi Derek, sorry for the delay in replying but the forum's been down until just now. I like the sound of the castor oil and brown paper. I'll get the blow lamp on a bit. I adore the smell of hot castor oil (Castrol R). FYI BMW Drei Bond is used on the K100's oil/water pump assembly. Keeps hot water away from hot, high pressure oil. I used it on the TVR and it been great. It glues it together and when it's gone off I can remove the screws from the valve chest covers and it still runs! Only trouble is it's £17 for a little tube. It's too thick to use now on this pump.

John is your Loctite ok to get on very thinly as I don't want it to creep into the ports and galleries as they are all in very close proximity.

I've nearly finished the pump section Will finish it and post tomorrow.
Jerry.

[ooyah/2]

I use this one with no problems so far LOCTITE R T V 5920 copper high performance silicone also George what thickness are your endplates on your boiler ? ps nice work

John

John,
Boiler end plates are 10 s.w.g. ( 1/8" thk ) all the boilers made in the last 10 years are 10 s.w.g. as I had a 4 ft x 4 ft sheet.

This is a boiler that I am making for a friend who supplied me with the tube 4.25" dia x .109" thk ( 12 s.w.g.)
I have never made a boiler with such a thk shell and was a bit taken aback by the amount of heat required to melt the S/Solder.

I had to take the jet out of my Bullfinch burner which was a No 30 ( Microns ) and drill it out to .030 and increase the air intake before I could get enough heat to get the solder running, I tell you it was like Dante's inferno in the shop.

So Jerry and anybody else contemplating making a boiler with such a thk shell don't try it with plumbers blow lamps as it just will not work, you will not get enough heat to melt the solder.

The boiler is in the pickle bath at present so if you wish I can ask Jerry to post some pics.

Thanks for the P.S.

If I can post a warning on paper gaskets, I use nothing else other than brown paper from large brown envelopes coated each side with steam oil.

Do not use brown packing paper that has stripes thro' it as when under steam pressure and heat they leach out a sticky black tar type substance and nearly impossible to clean, be warned.

George

[frazer heslop]

Nice work Jerry and George.
Water colour paper is also good for gaskets as it has a higher rag content.
Must build one of these steam engine thingys again soon.
At least theres no scorthched flowers this time  eh
OK I will go quietly before [size=78%] [/size]

[southsteyne2]

Hi Jerry I have found that a very thin layer of loktite apply with small brush is ok and have had no problems with blockages yet , it is amazing stuff
Cheers
John

[ooyah/2]

Nice work Jerry and George.
Water colour paper is also good for gaskets as it has a higher rag content.
Must build one of these steam engine thingys again soon.
At least theres no scorthched flowers this time  eh
OK I will go quietly before

Frazer,
 Is your spil chek wurking.

Geo

[Jerry C]

Yesterday and today spent on pump section. Cleaned up the casting in the three jaw, faced off the ends of the inlet and outlet stubs to length, then after centre drilling, drilled a 1/8" hole in to the middle of the pump. Drilled a hole for 1/4" x 40 tpi thread then finished off to depth with a 3/16" D-bit giving a nice flat bottom to the valve chamber. Tapped the 1/4" x 40 tpi thread  for union. Turned the piece round in the chuck and repeated process. Finally I ran a 1/8" reamer through both pipes giving a sharp edge for the valve seats.
       Next I turned my attention to the pump cylinder. The drawing shows the total height of the pump body from the base but gives no measure to say where the pipes exit. Of course it doesn't actually matter as far as function is concerned but I wanted it to look like in the drawing, so faced off the bottom so the pipes are a little above the base ensuring first there was enough metal on the top to machine to height. This wasn't clever! I should have done the top first! As it was I didn't have  enough for the three jaw to get hold of when it came to facing off the top so had to load it in the four jaw. Next I drilled the top ram hole and reamed to 1/4". Returned  the piece to the three jaw and drilled out the body to size. Shipped the milling attachment with the piece in it and drilled and tapped the top and bottom cover plate securing stud holes. These are of similar pattern and size.
        Next came the top and bottom covers. I thought I could get both out of the one casting and save time by making them more or less together at least until both had been turned down to their major sizes. I then parted off the bottom cover, then drilled the 1/4" hole through the top cover before boring out for the o-ring recess. I parted off the piece only to find that there was not as much metal as appearance suggested and I blew through the 0-ring securing lip. Curses!! So, I had to make the top cover again but out of the cast bar supplied. I cut a piece off and milled it to thickness, then drilled and bored the o-ring retainer, drilled the securing stud holes and finally drilled the 6BA clearance holes for the Tie Bar threads. All that remained was to mill the outline roughly to shape before final shaping on the sanding station. Burny finger time, but it does a lovely job. The same procedure for the bottom cover then both parts dressed up on the plate.
       Made and threaded the tie bars from 3/16" s/steel stock. Married the steam bit to the water bit and called it a day.
Jerry. 

[Jerry C]

I've been beavering away at the internals. It's been pretty straight forward really, no marking out just letting the lathe do the sums. Only thing of possible interest was the sequence of making the piston and the ram. I made the ram first from 1/4" s/steel stock. I machine the piston thread and shoulder and parted of to length. Next I made the piston 20th oversize but didn't cut the o-ring groove. I threaded the piston onto the ram and got a good fit on the shoulder. I put the ram in the 3 jaw and turned the piston down to size, checking for fit in the cylinder bore until it went in the bore. Finally, I cut the ring groove. I did it this way to avoid any run-out caused when cutting the threads.
     I slackened the tie bar nuts and installed the ram and piston assembly in the pump and cylinder, then little by little, re-tightened the nuts while moving the piston up and down so that everything lined up with the bore and pump axis. There is no binding.
     I've only got the valves and joints left to do.
Jerry.

[wrongtimeben]

Cot blimey you don't half move. Looks great Jem. Really enjoying following the thread. Did you do the pump as a practice for the engine?


Ben

[Jerry C]

No Ben, it's just to fill in while I wait for the balance of materials arrive. Also I don't want the new plant to be just a bigger version of Wear's.
Jerry.

[Jerry C]

 Except for the studding to secure the valve chest cover plate the pump is finished. It took me four tries at making a pump valve cos I couldn't hold on to it in the milling vice. I eventually found the small Jacobs chuck would hold the tiny valves and I could put the chuck in the vice squarely. The orientation of the chuck jaws also helped to index (by eye) for the three cuts.
I'm still waiting on stock for the boiler so used some of the time to go digital, measuring feed distance as suggested by Ian (thanks matey) it works a treat. Today I made a couple of boiler bushes out of phosphor bronze cast round. These are for the safety valve and filler plug. Then I made a start on nuts for the boiler stays. Will finish of tomorrow.
Jerry.

[Jerry C]

Forgot this pic.
Jerry.

[Jerry C]

I got an old oak chimney lintel and cut 9" off one end and rough cut it on the Kity. It's with the wood turner guy. While waiting I made up three boiler stays and their nuts from 3/16 phosphor bronze round with 2BA threads. Will cut the end plate blanks tomorrow. Still waiting for the fire tube and cast for the bushes. I've made the two 5/8" bushes out of a 3" piece that was in stock. Still, no rush.
Jerry.

[Jerry C]

And the stays.

[SailorGreg]

That's a fair chunk of oak there Jerry.  Is the plan to transform some of it into parts of a boat?

Nice metal work.  I hope all your materials arrive soon - some of us are getting impatient!   

Greg

[Jerry C]

Thanks Greg. Fortunately, patience is something I've acquired in later life. I wish it had come a lot sooner. As a seaman I have no real conception of holidays as we worked on all days so I'm constantly getting caught out by them. I phoned Blackgates this morning to chase them up only to realise it's Good Friday. To be fair the fact that we've been scoffing hot cross buns should have been a clue. They're not open til Tuesday. I'm collecting the former this pm and this morning I rough cut the end plates with a hand held jigsaw fitted with a steel cutting blade with no problem. I did try first an aluminium cutting blade but it chucked a lot and wasn't very good. I'll grind them to a circle on the sanding station. I know a lot of engineers look down on wood working tools but the circular sanding disk fitted with 120 grit sand paper seems to cut anything.
As to the use of the oak for a boat, it's nearly turned to stone. It took me an hour to cut the end off with a decent crosscut hand saw. It's nine inches thick and until I cut it down a bit was too big for Kity. However you've sown a seed. I've also got a 3' x7"x2" piece of beautiful mahogany left over from Wear so it looks like I'm sorted. All the best,
Jerry.

[Jerry C]

Got the former back. Turned on a hundred year old South Bend lathe brought over during WW2 on the lend lease programme. Used metal cutting tool. I've set the first end plate up central in these clamps at 120° just to get it started. Will anneal the plate and set it up again to do the missed parts and carry on the same until it's finished.

[Jerry C]

The clamps have smooth cast iron jaws with a large area of contact  they don't mark timber so they won't mark the copper. My vice is too small and the bench is just a canteen table which just serves to keep things off the ground. It won't take a good hammering. I made a start using quite a small hammer which was perfectly adequate for the job. After belting seven bells out of the copper I could feel it hardening so I repositioned the clamps by 60° and carried on. In all it took 4 annealings before it was finished. Repeated the process on the other plate using the other end of the former. Put one on the lathe and turned it down to a good fit in the tube, skimmed the face which gave me a centre for marking out. There was no way I could part it off with a parting tool as it's too big to get at so I used a disk in the dremel. Cut it with no problems. Weill finish the other tomorrow. The pics are in order of work.
Jerry.

[southsteyne2]

Hi Jerry I am amazed you are accomplishing this on the taig lathe ,do you have a speed control as I can imagine in the standard setup even on the lowest speed the boiler end would resemble a ufo also what thickness are the end plates?(tip a little kerosine helps cutting copper
Cheers
John

[Jerry C]

Hi John, the lathe has a two speed motor which I've called slow and fast. In general cutting the copper has been easy but of necessity very slow. I found sometimes it cut like butter and made large fluffy Brillo pads and then on the same pass would become noisy and difficult. I tried a little
Rocol which made me feel better. I like the idea of kerosene but it's £10 a gallon and difficult to get here. I've got a load of brushwood to burn soon and I'll need keep for that. I did hear somewhere that milk is also a good cutting fluid but is it full cream, semi or skimmed? I wasn't falling for that one, imagine the smell in a hot shed a few days later.
   I think my gas torch on Butane is going to be up to the job for the soldering. It takes just under 3 minutes to get an end plate up to cherry red. It certainly puts colour back in my cheeks! I have to wear thick welders gloves or I'd never be able to hold the torch.
End plates are 3mm thick.
Jerry.

[southsteyne2]

You are right about the smelly milk also 3mm is quite thick as my first boiler was 2mm and that took some bashing but I did not silver solder mine it was done by an old hand with oxy gear so this one will be my first to solder so watching very close,I have the fire bricks ready and about to form the ends so not far behind.
Cheers
John

[Jerry C]

I got collared for garden duties but managed to slope off after lunch. I finished the last end plate and marked them both up for drilling. I'm not going to drill them until I have the fire tube in my hand as knowing my luck after waiting two months I'll get told that size is now unavailable and will 30mm do. I might have to reposition some of the return tubes. Next I set up the shell on V blocks on the marking plate and marked top, bottom left and right to help align everything prior to soldering. Also marked out positions of clack valve, steam manifold/dome,safety valve, filler, pressure gauge and sight glass fittings.
Jerry.