Thanks for all the posts guys. I joined this site short of a couple of a years ago and back then I could only just tell you the difference between a mill and a lathe
so everything I`ve got from reading the forums or meeting quite a few of you in person. So really appreciate all the advice, information and constructive criticism. This is certainly my biggest achievement yet! - thanks again.
I`m not ashamed to say I made quite a few errors during the build of which I`ve learnt from all of them. Here are my errors and how I got around them or the modifications I needed to do to overcome them:
First, in the video I don`t know if any of you noticed the brass end on the top of the steam chest. This is what it should look like:
However when I put the gland and packing in place I found my drill must have wondered so the hole supporting the other end of the valve rod was not in-line with the bore in the gland and jammed the valve rod. I couldn`t re-drill because you can only drill the hole through the gland. So I milled off the old support knob and drilled it through!! I then very very carefully bored a slight taper on the hole and turned down a stub of brass to enter the taper from inside the steam chest (so it wouldn`t pop out under pressure). It took ages and two attempts to get one that would just fit in and jam up in the taper. Perhaps a little more luck than judgment but my second attempt was perfect, I applied a little loctite and tapped it home. Filled it flat and re-drilled the hole, this time slowly and through the gland so I knew it was straight. OK - well now I have a little brass bell end on the top of my steam chest but it worked!
Second error was my threading on the piston. I haven`t got a clue why but on my initial test run I could just tell something was wrong with the piston. I took the cylinder top cover off and found the piston had a little movement on the piston rod (it wasn`t screwing down properly on it). Luckily I had an end mill about 0.05ish smaller than the size of a 7BA nut supplied. I aligned it on the mill and drilled the depth of a nut and hammered and loctited a nut on top of the piston. I threaded the end of the cylinder rod 7BA and this allowed my piston rod to screw really tightly onto the piston - no movement and no air escaping.
And finally, not really a modification and I`m still confused if I`ve done it right or wrong! It works but I`m not entirely happy. I was following the 10V build book and I read the instructions and still believe that they say to cut all the way through the eccentric. Reading the plans that came from Stuart, they definitely just say cut through one side. It still works but I`m not sure which is correct of if I have mis-read the plans.
So there you go....just a few pictures of my errors and how I corrected them! I know ideally I would have done it correctly from the start but you live and learn....
BTW, I`m thinking now Brunswick Green with a Cream flywheel!
Chris
