May 2018
Bluewater Bulletin
Bluewater Model Engineering Society Sarnia, Ontario
Vol. 33 No.7 April 2018 Editor John Lovegrove
Our next meeting will be on
May 14th, 2018 @ 7:30 pm
Northern Collegiate Room 128, Indian Road, Sarnia.
The April Meeting
Again, attendance at the meeting was good with our members from Michigan present and also those from far away places like Paris, London and Bothwell. Our Treasurer gave his report and all is still well.
The first item for discussion was NAMES that is on 21st and 22nd of April. We asked around to see who wished to go and there were several takers. Bruce and I planned to go on the set-up day (Friday 20th) and grab some table space, then, the two of us would drive down again on the Saturday for the actual show, taking those who wanted to go. Experience from past years is that although the organizers do a lot to encourage exhibitors to stay for the Sunday, many (including ourselves) do not. Therefore, there is a lot less to see if you go on the 22nd. Brian Lawson pointed out the up-side of being there on the Sunday - that towards the end there are some bargains to be had because vendors would rather sell stuff off at a significant discount rather than haul it back home. Because the newsletter comes out after the show some pictures will be shown later.
Last time Bruce talked about vibratory tumblers: He has now bought one - from the Bulls Eye Gun Store in London. The experience so far is that it does a good polishing job but does not remove hard deposits or rough edges. The possibility of using a more aggressive abrasive medium was discussed.
The next item discussed was CF Struck, among other things they make kits for mini bulldozers. If you go on to their website they have video of one of these in operation. (Toys for boys of all ages!) http://struckcorp.com/
Another Item worth looking at is "The Steam Channel". This gives access to a number of really interesting videos of American steam trains; full size and model. They are well worth watching (the girl doing the intro is quite worth watching as well!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npB0olLYV3
Turning now to workshop stuff; a technique Bruce talked about is how to turn a fairly thin walled cylinder from a tube without getting the distortion associated with holding it in a chuck. The approach involves
follows the original that was forged from a piece of bar. He started with a piece of 5/32" diameter drill rod and had to heat it up so that it could be bent.
Making 4 bends and getting the two journal parts to line up afterwards is understandably quite tricky. I wonder how they did this sort of thing for full size equipment? Some type of jig perhaps?
welding the starting piece to a plate then holding the plate in a chuck. This avoids holding forces being applied directly to the cylindrical part. (You still have welding stresses to consider.)
Another workshop tip was about lapping a flat surface. A suitable surface plate/table is needed along with lapping compound but to avoid removing any material from the reference surface, one useful approach is to put a sheet of aluminum foil down first. The hard, abrasive particles will become embedded in the relatively soft aluminum, creating an abrasive surface while ensuring that no wear occurs on the surface plate itself.
There was some discussion with Ed Spencer about steaming in Komoka this summer. The outcome was that he will be but he is not intending to publish dates – best give him a call if you are interested in going along.
Occasionally we get to talking about radio control: Larry Stevens is into this and brought us up-to-date with some of the developments that have taken place. Stabilization and GPS systems are now available sufficiently small in size and low in price to be incorporated into the equipment and what can be done is truly amazing. I think back to my teen years when I took an interest in radio control. This was just one channel control and when I found that the single thermionic tube needed was outside my budget, I moved on to something else.
As a final piece of trivia, Bruce asked if anyone knew the origin of the word to STEAL. His interpretation is based on old British army jargon was: Supplies Taken in Excess of Allocated Listing (there was me thinking it was from some ancient Germanic origin.)
Show and Tell
Nick Jonkman has been making some real progress on his model of the 1830 McCormick reaper. The bevel gears have been cut (apparently, he did have a few problems with them) and he is now trying to get the crank made. This is what converts the rotary motion (indirectly) from the wheels to reciprocating motion to operate the cutter blade. The design
calculates stock removal rate given cut width, cut depth and feed rate. I am not sure about how the fourth one works but it appears to relate tensile strength to the hardness of a material as measured by one of the standard methods.
Bruce had his 4 ½" Howitzer for us to look at. He has been working on the components that operate the brakes on the wheels.
These involve some fairly intricate parts including several really fiddly threaded components.
Tom Dunn brought along the latest iteration of muzzle brake that is now at a point where it really does eliminate muzzle lift.
Dale Masters brought along the "cow catcher" and headlamp for the 2-8-2 K27 "Mudhen" that he is working on.
Mike Clark brought along the chess set he made as a practice exercise when he first got a lathe.
Very nice pieces of work Dale. (I did not get a picture of the headlamp.) He also brought along a slide rule like device produced by Niagara Cutter that enabled the machinist to calculate a number of things needed to carry out a milling operation. I did not have time to figure out how it worked during the meeting, but I took a picture and have had another look. The top part enables one to calculate the spindle speed required for a given cutter diameter and surface speed. The next enables one to calculate feed per tooth given the number of teeth, RPM and feed rate. The third
the 9:00 opening rush was not as pronounced this year.
The Water Transfer Passage on my Sealion.
I brought along my Sealion with the few additional parts I managed to get done since the last meeting. Both oil and water pumps are now complete and I have been running the bottom half of the engine in the lathe to break in the parts and check the pump operation. The connection between the water pump discharge and the engine block presented an interesting challenge. In the end I chose to make two special flange pieces with compound angles for the connection ports so that a straight piece of tube could be used between them.
NAMES
Earlier on I mentioned that several of us were planning to go. Bruce, Kasey, Mike Clark and I took models to display. The show is certainly holding its own in terms of exhibitors and attendance although
Here are a few photographs from the show: At one of our meetings we did talk about Marco Terenzi who makes miniature tools.
He was at the show along with some of the items he makes.
I never cease to be amazed at the craftsmanship of Ian Wynd’s 9-cylinder Bristol radial engine.
How he manages to make things of this complexity and quality using conventional machining techniques I will never understand.
I am not sure what you call these things (astronomical clock maybe)
but the intricacy and workmanship here are quite phenomenal:
Dave Bowes has had his EVIC engine at previous shows. Just about every function is computer controlled including the valves that are solenoid operated.
Meetings for the rest of the Season
2018
May 14th
June 11th
Our Website
https://sites.google.com/site/bluewatermes/
TSME Newsletters
https://sites.google.com/site/tsmeweb/the-modeller
John Lovegrove