January 2016
Bluewater Bulletin
Bluewater Model Engineering Society Sarnia, Ontario
Vol. 31 No.4 January 2016 Editor John Lovegrove
Our next Meeting will be on
Monday February 8th, 2015 @ 7:30 pm
Northern Collegiate Machine Shop (Rm. 148), Indian Road, Sarnia.
The January Meeting
Following the discussion about displaying models at Landmark Village, Bruce Mannerow has been in contact with them but is still waiting to hear back about possible dates.
We discussed Alex Herpers’ proposal for club T shirts again. ~$35 was mentioned but the price is related to the $US which makes them fairly expensive at present. We decided to shelve the proposal for the time being.
There was some further discussion about club finances: Tony Koolen mentioned that he is running a deficit on the coffee account. It was therefore decided that the cost of providing coffee would come out of club funds and he would submit receipts for purchased items to our treasurer.
Brian Lawson brought along something called "Gloves in a Bottle." This is rather like a barrier cream but forms a layer that does not wash off too readily. My wife bought me some a while back and I have used it quite a lot. This came from a knitting store and seems to be fairly popular with the needlework fraternity (sorority?) If you suffer from a dry skin it helps retain moisture. Brian indicated that it was not too easy to find but had managed to get something equivalent in his local pharmacy and handed out some samples.
Bruce brought along a gun drill and a D-bit for boring holes. He explained the self-centring nature of the gun drill and why it can be used for producing the long straight holes required.
I mentioned an issue with the packages of O rings sold by Harbor Freight. If one looks at the standard N. American inch size rings, the actual size is slightly larger than the nominal. For example, an 1/8" section ring actually has a 0.139" cross-section. I am really not clear why this is the case but that’s the way it is. If you take the Chinese rings from Harbor Freight, the actual size is the nominal size so in this case the cross section is 0.014" smaller. I don’t know about the quality of the rubber used but if you use them as a direct replacement for "proper" O rings, the crush will
encourage anyone who does not have one to take that step.
Unfortunately, the other side of the coin is that once you start surfing the web it can be very addictive and it is easy to waste a huge amount of time looking at stuff. In order to get something done in the workshop I tend to apply the same rule as drinking beer – not before 6:00 PM!
Show and Tell
Nick Jonkman brought along an example of inside-out turning. The approach is to take 4 pieces of square wood with an interesting pattern and glue them together in a square block using paper in the joints so that they can be broken apart later. The outside is then turned in a certain way. The pieces are then separated and glued back together (permanently) with the outside corners now in the middle. The new outside is then turned to the required shape, exposing some of the turning that was carried out previously. In the example he brought along, Nick had turned some solid rings to go on the ends, helping to hold the glued pieces together.
be insufficient to form a proper seal. If starting from scratch and dimensioning the housing appropriately the rings should be OK, but one clearly has to be careful.
Most of the remaining discussion was about web sites of interest so get ready for a few links:
Keith Appleton was a name mentioned and there is one video of his where models are taken apart: The following link leads to a whole series of videos:
https://www.youtube.com/user/keithappleton
Bruce has put a cross reference chart on our website listing North American grades of ferrous materials and their equivalents in the major industrial countries. http://www.mitsubishicarbide.net/contents/mmus/enus/manual/material_cross_reference.pdf
Modellers Guild was the next website mentioned, this is nearly all about model trains:
http://www.modelersguild.com/
Fairly close to home there is an excellent "O" gauge model railroad layout in London ON:
http://home.cogeco.ca/~rpaisley4/Londonmrg.html
There is someone from Germany; Stephan Gotteswinter, who has posted a series of videos (in English) on various workshop items. He is clearly a man of many skills. This link brings up a whole series of those videos:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UUY8gSLTqvs38bR9X061jFWw
On the theme of modellers outside the English speaking world, there are magazines catering to our hobby from Germany, Holland and maybe surprisingly Russia. The following brings up some of them but a few of the links it leads to seem to be broken.
http://www.nmia.com/~vrbass/steam/stmmedia.htm
None of this is very relevant to our members who do not have a computer + internet access and I apologise for that. On the other hand it is pretty clear that if you do not have one you are missing out on a lot of things nowadays and I would strongly
Keith Orr brought along the parts for his Tiny Power 2V-10. Bronze is used for most of the items and Keith is fairly well on with the machining. There was some discussion about piston sealing and O rings seem to be widely used nowadays on "steam" engines: The normal Nitrile (NBR) rings are OK with compressed air but EPDM is the preferred material if steam is used.
Keith's engine
Nick's wood turning
Tony Koolen brought along some of the work hardening bronze rod used to build up the rods shown in our November 2015 newsletter. The grade is All-State 13FC and the rods cost $1.20 per stick ~35 years ago. (No picture.)
Bruce had something that looked like a medieval torture instrument but was in fact a ring to go on his rotary table to enable parts to be centred when the
Bruce's torture device
Chuck Outhouse brought along some examples of machining carried out on a Novakon CNC mill just acquired by one of his friends.
CNC machining
I have now finished the major work on my Sealion head. The camshaft, rockers, eccentric rocker bushings, valves, retaining collets etc. have all been completed and the valves lapped in. Next up are the connecting rods.
The Sealion Head
Cabin Fever
Bruce, Tony, Stu and myself went along this year. It has moved back to January and the location has changed to Lebanon PA. Most of us felt that new venue is not as good (several different halls, somewhat strange layout) but attendance seemed to
A completed Sealion at Cabin Fever
but we were lucky. (The story would have been very different a week later.)
A lot of the usual exhibitors and vendors were there but a few seemed to have given the show a miss. One thing that caught my interest was a display of small engines like those used in model aircraft that actually ran on compressed/liquid CO2. The arrangement is similar to a normal 2 stroke with exhaust ports at the lower end of the cylinder. There is no carburettor, inlet port or transfer passage but there is little valve in the head that the piston hits at the top of its stroke. This admits a shot of high pressure gas into the cylinder pushing the piston down and providing the power. Residual pressure is released at the bottom of the stroke and the remaining gas re-compressed on the upward stroke. It therefore operates on the uniflow principle like some of the later steam engines. I don’t remember seeing this arrangement before.
I bought a chuck especially for this purpose and have used it for a number of jobs. 2 of the holes normally used to bolt it to a back-plate can be used to bolt it to the mill table, using the normal T nuts. This can be supplemented using clamps as required. For some jobs it is necessary to clock the jaws, the same as with a vise.
Workshop tip
CO2 engines
Our Website
https://sites.google.com/site/bluewatermes/
The TSME Newsletters
https://sites.google.com/site/tsmeweb/the-modeller
Remaining Meetings this Season
2016
February 8th
March 21st
April 11th
May 9th
June 13th
John Lovegrove - Editor
Workshop Tips
Another one of mine I’m afraid: The normal ways of holding a workpiece on a mill are either to bolt it directly to the table using various clamping arrangements or else hold it in a milling vise. A problem occurs when working on the end of a tall thin component because even clamping it firmly in a vise, it tends to be tipped over sideways. Working on the end of a piece of round material is particularly difficult. What does work well is to mount a 4 jaw chuck (less the back-plate) on the table.