lathes

so its been a while since i posted
last time dave posted i had spent a week or so installing a new fuel pump in the moelwyn and plumbing it in
had to blank off the old pump as well
then pretty much since then ive been learning to use a lathe
i first had to make some bushes for the merdins pistons
these were made in bronze which i realllly like working with its a nice soft material so very forgiving when just learning seeing as i started off being a little heavy handed
i made them all without too much trouble
just lots and lots and lots of checking my measurements
then i knocked the bushes in
and had to bore them out to fit the pistons
only thing was one i messed up by 6 thousandths of an inch thats about as thick as 6 rizla papers
so had to remake one this set me back by a good 3 hours not cooool
after this i had to make a couple of collars to go on the bar that holds the valve gear up
they were made from steel which is less forgiving so had a fair bit of chatter to start with lol
but got better at it
im not confident with the parting off tool though
then after this went back to helping pete drill the pins on the lifting links untill i get told to make 32 spacers for the flamming garret boiler
as when it was hydraulic tested it leaked from the dome
and garry couldnt tighten the nuts down the bolts any further so spacers were needed
i had to go find inch and 3/4 bar put a centre in it drill it out to an inch then part it off at about 15 mm
only problem was the drill was only long enough to part off 4 spacers at a time
and then after the first four i had a bit of a problem with the next four they wernt parted off square but had a taper on them
i tried tightening the bar in the chuck
then after this didnt help i went and got chris
we ended up changing the tip
this didnt help
so we turned the tool around and put a new tip in and bob was our uncle and back to nice square spacers
i busted out the rest without any trouble at all
on saturday me and emma helped out bonkers and rob with their wooden slate wagon
we had to cut a load of stainless to length then cut a thread on it
we spent a heck of a lot of time looking for bonks though to double check on the thread he wanted cutting and the lengths and what not lol
we did the same on sunday for a couple of hours but em kinda forgot to run a file around the base on a couple of threads so i got a couple of good cuts on the fingers from checking the thread doh
right now im checking out things to do in victoria i cant wait to go out there its only a few weeks now :)
right thinks thats it for now
oh grease is on now well that'll kill a few hours