Hello all,
I am building my first miniature live steam traction engine.I have just received the cylinder casting from the suppliers and the first thing i notice is the thing i was dreading.
The cast-in (inlet) steam ports are specified as being 1/4" wide. Now i am not exaggerating if I say they would not clean up if i used a 1/2" slot drill.
Clearly i should return them to LSM and I'm sure i would get either a refund or another casting to the same pattern.
Neither of these options is much use to me as i still wont have a useable casting.
I remember reading in the Model Engineer many years ago about reclaiming a port face by milling undersize and fitting a seperate screw-on port-face.
This is quite a Big ,heavy iron casting approx 8" cube.
If i decide to rectify it ,how would I seal the underneath of the plate ? Would a steel or gauge plate port-face be suitable?
Model is a 6" scale Ruston Proctor.
Thanks,Mike