Metal spinning

[RussellT]

This is my first attempt at metal spinning (not counting the one 10 minutes before this where I overdid the annealing and the metal went too soft  ).

I have a car radiator which is leaking from the join with the filler neck - I've soldered it once and a professional has done it once and it's leaking again.  This time the rest of the radiator is a bit tired so I plan to get it recored.  I want to try and stop this leak properly and I think a flange that bridges the joint might give it sufficient extra strength.  Here's a picture of the filler neck.  In spite of the bracing piece it cracks the solder underneath the neck.



I could turn a flange from a bit of bar but I haven't got any and it would be expensive.  I have got some brass sheet though so I thought I'd try metal spinning.

Here is the setup to try it. The former is from the scrap box (a collet chuck which I took too much off).  The brass sheet has been fitted to it with a hammer and a jubilee clip.  I drilled it in the lathe.



This is the lever arrangement.  The toolholder isn't clamped to the toolpost and the toolpost has been oiled.  The bar has a rounded end from a test of a ball turner.  The bar is just resting on the toolholder slot.



This is the result.  It took much less force than I expected.  I annealed it twice.



And here it is parted off and cleaned up.



I'm encouraged by this experiment - it didn't feel like I was abusing the lathe much - and the result was OK.

The next step is to make a former the correct size.

[rythmnbls]

I've done a little bit of spinning. One tip I was given was to use a small ball bearing mounted on the toolpost as the pressure point.

Here's a couple of pics, material is 316 stainless...





Regards,

Steve.

[ieezitin]

Nice job...

look forward to the repair with interest.

Anthony.

[ieezitin]

yo..

i looked through your complete library of the turbine you built.. you ought to think about publishing the build on here looks rather interesting.


Anthony.

[rythmnbls]

Thanks Anthony,

I did a build thread on HMEM a year or so ago, I assumed that most of the modding / machining community had seen it as I see participation by the same folks on all these sites.

Here's a link http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/showthread.php?t=17433

Apologies to Russel for the hijack

Regards,

Steve.

[RussellT]

No problem Steve.  Thanks for the tip.  Your setup makes mine look very crude.

Thanks Anthony.

I thought about using a bearing as Steve suggested but my test piece seemed OK so I tried the same way again.  I made a former out of a bar and had another go.  I annealed it twice and this time I made an effort to clean up the surface that will be soldered while the part was still in the lathe.

Here's the result.





There's a slight flat on one side but that's Ok as one side will need to be fitted against a seam.  I left the clearance around the neck generous as that will hold a fillet of solder.  I think this will work.

Russell