Amazing video.

It felt a little like watching evolution in action. The first stage lathe and machining was like I imagine James Watt's workshop to have been like, but by the end of the "production line" everything seemed more modern.(well, a little more modern)

Rod

Am I right in thinking that the ‘Final Check’ is done without any lubricant ?

MichaelG.

Thanks for that Andy, now all I need is a longer piece of gas pipe on my chuck key.

To you sir only £160 in Belarus who knows.

Edited By Dave Halford on 02/10/2021 19:41:20

Lathes being switched off and on by the wall switch, no emergency switch!

Yep, we used to work for a living too. Surprising what precision can be achieved with a single chuck key and a lump hammer.

Regards Ian.

Agreed. Founders sometimes use "semi-steel".

What was the process involving rotating a batch inside an enclosure? I thought it looked like some form of heat treatment.

Also, were the oilways completely drilled?

I assumed it was shot blasting given the surface finish that came out.

They're fast, but I bet they're not as fast as our Jason

The 15 minutes inside the enclosure was shot blasting. Note the bag being opened and emptied.

Maybe as a means of stress relieving after the rough machining.

From the writing on the grossly overladen truck, would imagine that then factory was further south east than Belarus

Wish that my eyesight was so good that In read a vernier so quickly.

Looked more as if they were being used as gauges rather than measuring.

Note the bolt being used to check the tappings in the crankshaft palm!

The only measurements seemed to be on the grinder.

It all looked very much "near enough is good enough" to me.

But then, I've seen lots of the genuine article being produced, so am biased!

Howard

Shot peening, the bag the bloke emptied was full of round shot. Shot peening increases the fatigue life of the unmachined surfaces.

For old car projects, I've had several "one off" cranks made here in the UK, other than starting out as a piece of round billet EN40B, none of the machining processes are any different to those in the YouTube video. These cranks are always Nitrided before final finish grinding.

Edited By Stueeee on 03/10/2021 13:24:55

As stated, shot peening, common in crankshafts, normally at the fillet radius or other areas of high stress reversal. Idea is to introduce a compressive stress into the surface such that as stress becomes tensile the tensile magnitude is limited. Helps prevent fatigue cracks propogating in the surface of the material. Very important on cranks this process has been used on that the important areas like fillet radius are not machined when undersizing the journal or the benefit is lost.

Paul.