Hello all,
I promised I would get back in the workshop and it's taken ages but finally I have!
I spend a while setting the lathe and milling machine up to give acceptable results. I designed and am part way through making a Simple Oscillating engine to get me back into the swing of machining before starting any more complex projects!
Below are some screen dumps of the assembly, I used Alibra Design free edition to do the 3D model & drawings, but the main limitation of that is only being able to save assemblies with up to 12 parts. This also means I can't create a general assembly drawing. Therefore I had to do the assembly, take some screen dumps and then watch it all go down the pan! I've still got sub assemblies saved though so it doesn't take too much to resurrect it!
Also below are some photos of what I have done so far. You can see that I it looks like I am getting a strange finish on turned components, the surface of the components. The lathe I am using is very old, however, I thought I had sorted it out and got a really good finish when I first turned the components. It was when I tried to polish them with emery cloth that I seemed to ruin the surface finish somehow.
The milled upright is somewhat of an experiment for me. I have never used my vertical milling machine before, it is a home made jobby, a Dore-Westbury. It seems to give decent results. Although the surface finish isn't great, this could be down to the cutter I used or the speed. I didn't use any coolant either. I need to practice and experiment more with this. One one side I used a slot drill and the other I used a four fluted cutter which was better but still not how I would like it.
I made a bit of a hash of the flywheel. It's ended up much thinner than I intended and hence not as heavy. I found that when I'd machined it, it wasn't running true. So I decided that when it was mounted on an arbor for turning the outside diameter I would skim across the front and that induced bad chatter marks due to not being supported enough! So I had to put it back in the chuck with external jaws and thin it down futher still! It's ended up about 1/16" thinner than it should be. I am pretty gutted about that but it will still do its job!
Last night I turned the inlet nozzle. I didn't do it as I had designed, I used a bit of brass hex instead of round as I couldn't find any round. Anyway, because the wall is thin when I tried to tighten it in I just kept going without thinking and snapped it! I think I made the thread slightly too tight so will make it slightly looser next time! At least I got the snapped part out without damaging the threads in the pedestal though!
I will keep you posted on further developments. I only have the inlet nozzle, cylinder, cylinder cover, piston, piston rod and big end to make now.
The wooden base is just a temporary thing, I may make a metal one but probably not, I will probably just end up making a better wooden one!
Certain components such as nuts / spring, screws etc. are omitted on the 3D model for ease!