Gallery, Projects and General > Project Logs
Project Halo
bogstandard:
I was due to start this project last year, but a combination of ill health and a complete workshop rebuild meant that it has been delayed until now.
Because this will be a talk thru, and because I am not making just one engine, I will in fact be treating if it was a production job. So I will be doing a few things different to normal, just to allow me to make a lot of items in the shortest possible time, but you should still be able to do it as I do, as some of the parts you will require five off of each one, whereas I will be making over twenty, so I will be making some easy jigs to help.
As far as I am concerned, this engine requires that you have a lathe, mill and an RT. I just cannot go into any depth about using other methods, which I am sure you can find workarounds for, because of the limited time I have to get the job done.
I know that the plans are perfect, as I know two people who have built straight from plans, and everything fitted together with no problems. I will be making the parts to the drawings (bling allowing), and will be concentrating on one part at a time, before continuing to the next. With a tiny bit of checking throughout the machining, a few fitting checks will be made. By doing this, I should be able to make all the parts, then it is just an assembly job at the end.
You should all know by now what engine I am on about, but if you don't, here is a nice link for you took have a look thru.
http://lineymachine.googlepages.com/l5
So without boring you to death any more, lets get on with it.
I am actually going to be building six engines. The first will be a set of 5. This engine can be made with 1 up to 5 cylinders, I will be making the whole set for a display. Then because I found I had spare components for assembly, I will be making a 5 cylinder for my collection, so in fact, I will be making 20 cylinders, but only showing on here the basic 5 cylinder engine. It would just take too long for me to show all the working out and machining for the others, as each engine has different angles and components to be worked out.
I contacted Lance at Liney Machine, and asked him just to send me the assembly pack and plans, as I had all my own raw materials. I went that way because I didn't want to start changing over from the US unified system to either BA or Metric. But John S has built a 3 cylinder version using 2mm fasteners.
Once I received the plans, and saw how good they were, and how the engine could be built with any number of cylinders, I contacted Lance again, and asked him to send me another few assembly packs of just the bearings, bolts, springs etc. Basically, anything that I would have a little bit of difficulty obtaining in the UK, because they were just as cheap for me to import them as buy from here. I even had him send me a few very good quality 2-56 taps. Just a little note here, every thread on the engine is 2-56, and only taps are required, standard fasteners take care of all external threads.
I will also add now that this engine was designed to be made by CNC, but having gone thru the whole list of components, there is nothing that cannot be fairly easily done by manual machining, and good tolerance control.
The pic below shows all the items I was sent. The ring bound plans are great and well detailed, there is even a set of acetate overlays that shows how each part builds up into the finished engine. IMHO, if all plans were like this, making engines would be a whole lot easier.
So now to get down to making the thing. I am starting by making the cylinders. The plans call for 3/4" square brass bar, but because I am making mine out of bar ends, I want to work with round bar, and I will machine the square bit on later.
So out with the desktop engineering calculator, and I soon had the diameter I required. Near as damn it 1 1/16".
I have loads of hex bar ends, and a quick measurement showed they would turn down easily to the size I required. So I measured the length of a few, and got enough together to get the job done with very little wastage.
When I start a project, I get together a few boxes at the back of my assembly bench. In these I store everything parts wise that I already have and things that are to be made. There is nothing worse than searching around for bits you have already done but can't find.
The job now starts in earnest.
I turned the hex bars down to size in one hit, flip it around in the chuck and turn the other end down. I didn't go down to finished size just yet, that will come later. These were about 0.020" over size.
Ten minutes later, I had enough round bar to do the job.
I tried parting them all off to length under power, but it was just too slow. So I went in by hand as fast as I could, and they were all soon to rough length.
Millions upon millions of tiny hypodermic needles. Get one of these in your skin and you will soon know about it. They start to corrode and fester in less than a day.
Time for a very good clean up.
Enough to do the job, and a few spares, just in case.
The next job will be to get accurate holes thru all these, then the work to get them to shape can start.
Bogs
shred:
wow.. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this build.
NorthOf40:
Thank you, Bogs.
I always learn quite a lot from your write-ups. :thumbup:
Brass_Machine:
One of my planned builds... I will be watching this one with anticipation!
Eric
kvom:
This is my planned winter project. I have to obtain a rotary table first. It will be nice having this thread as a reference.
The 2-56 fasteners are a bit daunting, but I guess I need to bite the bullet and learn to work smaller.
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