Sunday 16 January 2011

Time for toast


Lots more filing and basic milling finally brought the upright to shape. The top bits are going to be another 'tongue and groove' arrangement when it comes to mounting the cylinder and liquid end hence the tongues ;P


I don't have the equipment, skill or knowledge to mill the curves so they're the result of careful marking out and filing. The stub of 3/4" diameter rusty steel at left will form the ring into which the cylinder is screwed. As the simplest part so far this part this bit caused me no end of trouble...
  • My HSS lathe tools needed sharpening to cut it (must have been some work hardening, it's certainly been parted off from something in the past
  • A hex wrench slipped out of the toolpost bolt while being tightened and I cut my finger on the top-slide casting - hideously painful
  • I broke a centre drill while starting the hole
No matter, I turned the slug around and worked from the other end instead - damned if I'm throwing away a penny's worth of steel :)

Once that bit was made I decided to solder up the base/upright. Assembled with two clamps this total mass of metal was just about at my limit for silver soldering (using a hand held propane torch). I'm not sure that solder penetrated all the way along the joint but it's solid enough.








I like the appearance of metals after soldering, it gives them a proper industrial look so here's a picture with the cylinder holder thingy perched in place...

The aforementioned part is threaded ready to accept the cylinder top cover but it needs a couple more threaded holes to hold the gland bush. Once the corresponding part is made for the opposite side they'll both need to be soldered to the upright as well...might need to upgrade the gear or build a better 'nest' of firebrick to achieve that!

No comments:

Post a Comment