4th April 2022 Here I have marked out the guide lines to be able to drill the inlet ports each end is similarly marked. The marks are to be able to properly align the drill and to align for the end mill to provide a flat surface
7th May The new angle plate has arrived and thus setting up can be started. First I had to locate bolts and "T" slot basses, then the threaded rod which needed to be shortened and lastly the retaining bar had to be drilled. The retaining bat may need to have the ends shortened if they fould the drilling chuck !! The piece of paper under the cylinder block is to stop and likely movement that a metal to metal surface can allow even if bolted down. Now I need to align the cylinder block to the angle plate and the ange plate to the cross slide adjust the angle to proceed with light cutting of a flat to drill into.
The first set up did not take into account the angle to be drilled so setting up was repeated. I shone a torch at the face shown and the shaddow confirmed the I had set up the correct angle.
The drilling of the steam ways was very difficult and the drill wanted to go in a different direction and hence the initial slightly larger cut than require. I then used a guide hole in a piece to metal trapped under the bar which locks the cylinder to the angle plate and the rest of the drill wen well. With minor adjustment to the X axis the second two holes went well, without the need to the metal guide, with the DRO indicated the depth that I had to drill very well. A small amount of the side of the cylinder will be filled away to allow ingress to steam through all three steam ways. This has taken about 3 hours to achieve so time for a coffee break.
Learning from the first set of holes all the others drilled much quicker. I shown a torch at the steam port and you can see the three holes of the steam ways one end and two out of three the other end ..., That I think is the most difficult drill that has to be done and took in total about 7 and half hours.
10th May The replacement wheel for the drving wheel with blow holes and the remaining trailing wheel arrived to day. Thank you Reeves 2000 for your service. Machining can continue !!
After reading how I machined the other three Driving Wheel I proceeded to face, centre and face outside edge and lastly drilled and reamed the bore. All went according to plan.
25th May After a break from engineering due to a planned eye operation I can now proceed for a little while again. Machining the front of the last driving wheel.
A stub axle was made up to complete the turning which will need to be done very carefully.
26th May More turning of wheels with very fine cuts. I decided to place pieces of paper either side of the wheel in an effort to resist turning on the metal to metal surface
The bringing to size was done little by little and I even replaced the cutting tip to make it easier to cut !! The old tip had done a lot of work !!
All major sizes brought to size so just the tape on the tread to do !!
The cross slide was set over 2 deg to put a slight angle on the tread. All that remains to do is profile the flange
27th May The cutting tool was brought tyo a right angle / parallel with the face of the tread, then the cross slide was set over by approx 20 degrees
With the tool set it was just a matter of moving sideways the cross slide until the tool pin met the vertical. Very fine cuts were taken and the stop at the rear of the lathe set so that every wheel was profiled the same
Here the wheel has no bevel.
The the face of the wheel was also given a 20 deg angle to take of the sharpness followed by a file
To take the sharp edge of the rear side of the flange I decided to use my mini belt sander with the wheel rotation in the lathe. This gave a nice finish Now I have to finish the fettling of the spokes prior to painting !!
Lastly for today the tender wheels have been brought to size over all and the tread brought to size over all, the flange brought to thickness. So remaining to do it Angle the Tread, Angle the flange and angle the front of the tread and finally smooth off the rear of the wheels just as done for the driving wheels