What Did You Do Today 2025

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

It looks like you got the stud hole that you used at the junction of the two in the wrong place. looking at the photo if the holes are 1/4″ then it is about 3/16″ closer to the central recess than all the other holes. If you had picked any of the others when you machined the flat you could have got away with it.

 

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Not quite Jason. That’s where I had to chop both but especially the larger cover about a bit to make them both fit. The holes all lie on two pitch-circles that are tangents at the common one. I drilled them before forming the flats, but I think what threw it was mis-reading my own drawing for the various diameters.

Mulling it over I realised this construction can never give the effect I wanted, but can be done by making a single plate shaped like a figure ‘8’.

 

Studying the one photograph I have of the original engine, it’s clear that the covers were not circular, but more ‘D’-shaped, the bolt-hole pattern reflects that, and they were quite deeply dished, but the image is at too low an angle and too far away to show the true form.

So I have just spent something like 3 hours re-drawing them to something like the photo:

The LP cover studs all lie on a circle except for the central one – displaced slightly to centre between the cylinders.

The HP studs are all at 60º angles but have two displaced outwards so the outer ones lie parallel with the straight edge. The central hole is on the pitch-circle and was the leading one for generating the rest.

There is no real reason why the arc in the LP cover recess cannot continue round to meet the straight wall, with a fillet formed by the cutter.

I’ve also realised the underside can stay flat. These covers, unlike the crank-end ones, do not need closely register with the cylinder bores.  It could be a single plate but I thought that would be harder to make flat all over.

Overall length just over 5 inches. Height 3/8″ , recesses 3/16″ deep. LP cover 3.25″ dia.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Post-breakfast look at my drawing… the one a few posts back up this thread.

Of course – that’s where I went wrong!

The dotted inner circles represent the registers for compound cylinders. Enlarging the HP bore and reducing the LP to make two identical cylinders, moved their common centre so trying to use non-identical covers in the same way cannot work. That was what I had failed to realise, despite the dimensions!

I created the 3D model above in TurboCAD, though not quite as CAD is intended to be used. The supplied “Student 2D” template makes all that fancy geometry fairly easy, and I saved that as an orthogonal drawing. Then copied-&-pasted it to a new drawing from the “Normal 3D” template, for the extruded image saved as a separate file. (I do not know how to derive the elevations from the model, in TurboCAD, nor how to copy drawing elements properly from one drawing to another.)

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

I want to see your engine with D-shaped cylinders. 🙂

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Very droll, Bazyle! 🙂

”'”””‘

Finished the day by replacing the chuck key I had managed to snap! It seemed to have been hardened and barely tempered, if at all.

I had an old key I had acquired along the way, ready-filed to “fit” some unknown and probably knackered old chuck, and milled its un-flats to my intended size.

 

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Soemwhat languid afternoon sorting out after returning from a half-weekend at the MSRVS annual “steam up” (formerly rally) at Tewkesbury.

My part-built wagon attracted some interest due to its very unusual nature (like its builder, I suppose…), and in return I picked up a few useful tips. Including, by studying the details on a 4″-scale compound Garret traction-engine, a possible answer to that cylinder-covers conumdrum.

……..

 

Our hosts, the local Rugby Club, were in celebratory mood, especially their Ladies’ Team. One of their members died unexpectedly two years ago and in memory of her, they set up fund-raising for a medical charity – including on Satruday, selling raffle-tickets to our members! The celebrations were for passing a huge financial milestone in the whole collection.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Sick as a dog, again!  Back to bed, ho hum!

🙁

Dave

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Not your usual fare but have finished them off today, inspired by pre-war versions.

[DiogenesParticipant @diogenes]

They are scratch-built? ..very nice indeed, is that wood or ?phenolic product – really like them, thanks for posting.

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Yes scratch built, ball raced mainshaft with ptfe brake and yes 1/8″ paxolin side plates with 1″ thick paxolin centres which are bored out to reduce weight. Glad you like them and they will get used.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Please explain, why use ptfe, a low friction material, for a brake.

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

to get finer adjustment and yes it works

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Well if it works that’s great, proof of the pudding and all that.

Very nice job by the way

[DiogenesParticipant @diogenes]

Best of luck!

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Took my battery electric Y3 for a test drive. Been putting it off because I didn’t want to know if it didn’t work.  Good news is it did. Just the ammeter, speedo and sound system (whistle) to sort out and it can go in a box like the other locos.

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Went trotting tonight with one of the reels and got 3 small chub and the reel performs well.

[DiogenesParticipant @diogenes]

Quite a satisfying expedition.

I wouldn’t be disappointed to see suchlike projects written-up in the mag., nicely made and finished, some interesting ‘mechanism’ manufacturing and material choices to discuss..😁

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Thank-you and no water was boiled on completion of this project, just a beer drunk.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Yes – with those fishing-rod reels it is good to see the more unusual projects from time to time!

Me –

On a Society day out: with the club’s portable track at a local school fete. Most of the hauling used the society’s own Ken Swan-designed Kerr Stuart “Wren”. This was replaced for the last hour by a member’s loco, a narrow-gauge “Hunslet” (I think), after its owner had sorted out a problem with the driving-truck’s vacuum-brake.

The “station” end of the line has a point and short siding to allow this two-locomotive option.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

The task was to measure from the centre line of a vee groove to the mounting face. Easy, clamp a bit of 1/8″ silver steel in the groove and measure to the face using a depth mic. A bit of arithmetic and there’s your answer. Then make up the mating part, and it’s 1/16″ too small. Yup, I forgot to divide the 1/8″ diameter by 2. The old saying ‘you win some you lose some’ doesn’t seem to apply to me, I only ever lose. Fortunately I can put a bit of 16g sheet behind the bit I’ve just made, so not a complete catastrophe

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Duncan,The only people who dont make mistakes never do anything.

[DiogenesParticipant @diogenes]

Here you are Duncan..😁 ..as you can see, was pretty much the last pass on the whole job..

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

I turned this pile of scrap

 

most of which was rescued from a skip, into a stand for my bead roller(not the large handwheel which came out of another skip and used to be the base of a garden chair)

the angle welded to the front is an attachment for a folder

or a shrinker/stretcher

They’re all quickly changed, and are far more usable than trying to use them in the vice.

 

I’ve also made several fid and spike pairs from spare M16x100 bolts and scrap copper pipe

 

which are used for splicing and adjusting bell ropes

 

 

[DiogenesParticipant @diogenes]

Looks handy – skips here never seem to have anything other than plasterboard, porcelain, and old rockwool in them..

 

[Diogenes]

On Diogenes Said:

Looks handy – skips here never seem to have anything other than plasterboard, porcelain, and old rockwool in them..

 

I have struggled with the folder in the vice for twenty years! Buying some proper material back then would have been a better deal.

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