Dec.2019

costs do not rise further, it is still the best option.

However, I am beginning to get very frustrated by all

the idiot stuff one has to deal with.

Moving on to other things; one of our former

members; Win Hawley died a year or so ago and

Bruce received a call from his daughter asking for

some help in disposing of his “stuff”. Bruce and I met

up with her at the house to look at the things and see

what could be done. There is quite a large book

collection with a huge number of Popular Mechanics

and Popular Science magazines from the 50’s, 60’s &

70’s. If anyone is interested in these, please call

Win’s daughter on 519 331 5132. His son-in-law will

take some of the equipment but there will still be a lot

available for sale at some point. When the situation

on this becomes clear, we will let everyone know.

On a similar theme, Robert Langlois, who lives in Port

Stanley and who some of us know through another

connection, has been clearing out some of his “stuff”.

Like most of us he has bought or acquired things in

the past with the intention of making up a finished

item. He has now got to the stage where he realizes

he never will and wanted to give things away to

someone who might. He had a huge collection of bits

and pieces including a set of castings for a small drill

press, gears, bearings and lots of items that could

serve as bar stock. I brought it all along and quite a

lot of it went to good homes. Brian Lawson has taken

charge of what remains so please contact him if there

is anything you would like to have.

Bruce then talked about a website that brings up a

series of videos about machining various things;

including a cube.

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheToolandDieGuy

Another thing he talked about was the shape of the

piston used on some old engines. Instead of being

perfectly round, they were slightly oval. In fact,

pistons in all production engines are deliberately

machined slightly out-of-round so that when they are

at operating temperature, they end up close to being

truly round.

Bruce continued the discussion by mentioning a new

3D solid modelling program, Solid Edge, that is free

for students and hobbyists. It is a stripped-down

compression ratio of 14 or 15:1 (and very skinny

cooling fins.) However, the supercharging used on

drag racers probably dictates a lower compression

ratio than this.

Todd Michael has been persevering with his iron

casting techniques and is now managing to produce

some fairly decent castings.

Using a PowerPoint display he had put together,

Bruce explained how he had made some of the

complicated cuts on the breech block of his howitzer.

The technique used is based on what is set out in an

old book “Accurate Tool Work” by Goodrich &

Stanley. This used to be available from Lindsay

Publications while they were still in existence. It

basically involves setting up the component on a

rotary table, using stop plates mounted on the table,

so that a combination of arc and straight cuts can be

made as required. There is a picture in the next

section relating to this.

Here it is mounted on the engine

Because components are so highlystressed, the connecting rods and pistons arereplaced after 18-20 runs and the engine completelyrebuilt after 2 seasons.Methanol is used as a fuel and this acts as an internalcoolant so that no cooling is needed in the block orhead. (One way of looking at methanol is that it is a

sort of combination of natural gas and water.) Tony

did not mention what compression ratio is used but

speedway motorcycles use this fuel and have a

A little more about Spin Indexers

I have been using mine quite a lot recently and can

pass on some more tips: As supplied, the base part

is just plain but it is worth drilling some holes to make

it easier to fix on the mill table. It is not wide enough

to span 2 of the T slots on my large mill but being able

to bolt down to one of them is still useful. (A clamp

then has to be used to hold down the other side.)

At the October meeting Don Eastman talked about

starting on a model of the Sarnia station as it was in

the 40’s. It has taken 2½ months to complete and

there is one impressive number: The roof needed

12,000 shingles! He had a production line going to cut

these but there was still significant time and effort

involved.

One other point with these devices: For manypurposes a little axial play in the spindle part does notmatter but for some jobs such as drilling a series ofradial holes (with the axis horizontal) it does matter.In this case it is important to adjust the black coloured

sleeve on the shaft (pointed to above) so that any

axial play is taken up.

For some jobs it is necessary to mount the indexer

with the axis vertical. This can be done with the aid of

a large angle plate. (See photograph on next page.)

For this set-up, in addition to the plain holes

mentioned earlier, it is helpful to have some tapped

holes in the indexer base. This makes attachment to

the angle plate much easier. You then just need bolts

(or studs and nuts) to fix it in place. (For my mill setups

I have standardized on 5/16” studs, nuts and

bolts. This size is quite adequate for model

engineering needs.) I also had to remove the handle

at the end of the rotating spindle part to keep the

height manageable.

For the particular job shown, some operations were

carried out with the indexer horizontal. It was then

Meetings dates for 2020

These will be as follows:

January 13th, 2020

February 10th, 2020

March 9th, 2020

April 20th, 2020

May 11th, 2020

June 8th 2020

Our Website

https://sites.google.com/site/bluewatermes/

John Lovegrove

I have been working on completing the remaining

parts for my Sealion engine. It is rather like building a

house; you get all the main parts done then there

seems to be almost as much work involved in

finishing off all the minor bits and pieces that remain.

I have now finished the carburettor and thought I

should do something about an exhaust system. To

get up and running (reasonably quietly) I thought I

would just use the small lawn mower muffler I bought

to test my Wyvern engine and make a connecting

piece to go on to the manifold of this engine. I had

been working on a simple CNC program for the lathe

to cut tapered pipe threads (internal and external) so I

used it to make the ½” NPTF thread needed to attach

the muffler. It is possible to do this with a pipe tap but

a lot of torque is needed when you get to this size of

thread.

Another Tip

When setting up a component in a 4-jaw chuck it is

often necessary to use packing pieces either to avoid

marking from the jaws, or, in the case of a small

component, because the jaws would be in the way of

each other before the component is gripped. The

problem is that when “clocking up”, as you loosen off

one side ready to tighten on the other, a packing

piece often falls out. To avoid this, you normally have

to make very small adjustments each time – which

can be tedious.

The problem can be overcome if you have 2 chuck

keys the right size; you can then simultaneously

slacken on one side and tighten on the other.