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spuddevans:
Thanks Darren, but I can't claim any credit for the split bush idea, it was straight out of Bog's plans. I do admit that out of not having a vice stop that is small enough for the job I did decide to use the split collet for holding the flanges in the mill, and it worked out ok.

Tim

Rob.Wilson:
Hi Tim

Great thread :thumbup: , I like your spilt collet , are you going to mill the flats on the flanges ? you could turn them oval with a quick jig

Cheers Rob

Edit :doh: done some quick pic's

spuddevans:

--- Quote from: Rob.Wilson on January 13, 2010, 02:17:06 PM ---are you going to mill the flats on the flanges ? you could turn them oval with a quick jig

--- End quote ---

Thanks Rob, yes the plans do call for milling flats on the flanges, the method shown in the plans is to put 2 2mm rods thru the 2mm holes and use them resting on the top of the vice to get the flats in line with the screw holes.

I like the idea of making them oval, but I dont think it would suit this engine so I will file that idea away for future reference :thumbup:

Tim

spuddevans:
:doh:

I forgot to post up some pics of my pipe bender.

John (Bogs) kindly sent me some plans for this bender when I mentioned that I would like to try using bent pipes instead of using a machined stand-off, and for the last few weeks I've been working on and off ( more off than on :lol: ) on building it.

I have stuck loosely to the plans in some areas, and not at all in others due to not having hardly any raw stock that was called for in the plans. I didnt take any "in-progress" pics, sorry. :(

Here's some pics for your enjoyment,

One handy hint I can pass on is with regard to turning the brass forming wheels. I ground up a form tool to a rough outline of a 4mm half circle, but slightly smaller. Now here's the handy hint, it only works for 4mm tubing/pipe, but to finish off the round grooves in the forming wheels to a perfect finish, get a hold of a chainsaw sharpening file, they are round and are 4mm in diameter. Stick one in a file handle and then it just takes a few strokes while the lathe is running slow to finish off the grooves. I also made 2 slightly different diameter sections on each wheel to give a slightly smaller radius of bend to choose from. ( if I was to make it again I would make the difference greater )

I also fabricated up the main handle from 2 pieces of 3mm steel and a lump of cast iron. I tried to silver solder it all together, but not having made a hearth for silver soldering it took about 10 mins, blasting it with the torch. I wasnt sure that the silver solder had taken, so I drilled and tapped M5 to re-enforce it ( so far it has held without putting in the M5 bolts ).

I also did not bother making the rest of the clamp as the plans called for. They call for taking a 2" length of 1" square steel bar and machining and turning most of it away. Not having any steel square bar, nor was I looking forward to machining all that away too. Standing looking at the plans for a while it dawned on me that there is no real requirement to make a clamp for it, a standard engineers clamp will do the job just as well, and I didnt have to spend any time making it.

I dont anticipate having to use this bending tool too often so I think just using an engineers clamp will do me just fine.

Tim

spuddevans:
So I got a little more progress made today. I milled the flats on the flanges using 2 2mm drillbits to position them in the vice.

That done I got started on bending some tubing. At this point I realised that the radius that I was getting with my bender was not tight enough, so I decided to reduce the diameter of the smaller section of the bending wheels by 1.5mm depth ( 3mm total reduction ), this proved to be just right so it was on to making the bent pipes and silver soldering them on to the flanges.

The silver soldering went ok, there was a 2 flanges that I had to redo, I dont think that I got the joint clean enough on those 2. I did find it amazing just how soft the copper tubing gets just after soldering, it's very easy to make the straight sections wavy by just handling it :bugeye:

Then after dropping all the flanges into the pickle for about 20 mins I fished them out and gave them all a gentle clean with a grubby cloth to get rid of the remaining flux, I finished off by trimming the tubing sticking through the flanges with a hacksaw, filed them, and finally a quick rub on some 360grit w&d on a flat surface to polish the faces of the flanges flat.

Anyhoo, here's the obligatory pic of the finished flanges with tubes,

Next will be onto the steam-control valve, that's bound to test me as it seems that you have to be very accurate with making the spool. I'm pretty good at making one part to an accurate size, but getting both the valve-control-block and the spool accurately made will test me a bit more.

Tim

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