Gears Part 5

Progress report on Little Walt's gears. Don't need to tell you what's buzzin'  'cos you've been keeping up with the exciting instalments I'm penning into the matrix. Surely you have?  One day someone will find these electronic words and maybe wonder what the fook world civilisation was doing. Aye, at the moment humanity seems to be on a path of self destruction. These electro-communications may be all that's left?  Hang on Alb, this isn't the blog you use to reach out with jottings of wisdom....Whoops, keep that to the almost legenday 'Vintaker Blog'. Let's start again with engineering news for the oily micrometer club stalwarts.

I have 3 x gears that are now centre good remember?...precision eroded...call it what you want. Next step let's get some of the unwanted metal turned off the sides of these blanks and fill the lathe catch tray with swarf. 

I'm penning this like it happened in a flash....No way old chap, the replicating of the original spec gears into the new blanks took me quite a while. Mainly 'cos the workshop is a place of peace and quiet. an inner sanctum.... Why shouldn't I go the long way round on the slimming down process? No need for efficiency scoring when the zone you're in is far removed from the daily news of 'Dirty Bastard Politician Pedophiles'. DAMN!!! and thice Damn!! Stop this sentence right now. Fear of arrest alert!!! Digital Police likely to come knocking.....one wrong world and it's likely a lock up in the same cell with 3 x Ukranian rent boys.

Ok, forget all that. I'm back in my no thinking inefficient zone...'The Old Sidevalve Bar' .

The sand of time ran through the hour glasses many times but no worries at last I have finally done what I intended. See below for some wonderful lathe action followed by some delicious piccies of the results. Feast your mincers on how close the new looks like the old...Hey, you could easily be back in the late 1920's................. Aye the 1920's..when any thought of belonging to the fabian society (pedophilia branch) meant testicals likely to be cut off and hung on the Town Hall door!! You know I can't let this breakdown of society go unscripted....getting side tracked again....Sorry!! Stop now...that's enough. 

Stay tuned....Alb over and out!

Gears Part 4

 A trip to a company called  'Aire Erosion' (in the outskirts of Leeds UK) with my precious gear blanks was arranged. On arrival I pointed out that one of the old gears seemed to have a timing mark in line with one of the keyway slots and also that corresponded to mid-way on a gear tooth. If the keyway that they were about to 'erode' for me could match likewise that would be brilliant. I'm pretty sure this is linked to timing the valve camshaft but as the engine has never being together with a view to run it's a guess. No problem, I'll dial the teeth in as I centre for eroding. Phewwweee!!!!, thought that ask might have been a problem but no...easy peasy.

Couple of weeks go by and I can collect. Well, they certainly look the part, but will they fit the crank.? I'm not doubting the erosion accuracy but the measurements we put on the DXF were my best guestimate using a set of digital calipers that may or may not be accurate up to 0.02mm which is nowhere near the 0.002mm possible using the eroding engineering process. 

Back in 'The Old Sidevalve Bar' it was time......time to see if I had wrecked 3 gears and paid for the privilege...A trial fitting could be held off no longer....Oh Crikey!! Cor Blimey!!! Sometimes the Vintafake Gods are smiling on the Vintafake living . They were today... A crank made in the Black Country and gears machined in the 'Shire' sat there in front of my eyes....like they'd always been a pair. All unique...Art and then more art stacked one on top of another.!..

Next job for these 3 gears will be machining to size width ways. Flanges to incorporate too, replicating the Raleigh originals as near as possible.

Keep looking in..

Gears Part 3

 We're entering the final stages of making the Myford internal grinder now. The few remaining parts needed have arrived from China. Toothed belt and toothed pulleys. The grinding wheels as I think I've suggested in a previous blog from Good Old Blighty.

Only job remaining now is to bolt the motor carrying bracket to the back of the cross slide. The belt tension will be adjusted on the compound slide if its set in line with the motor shaft. I'm thinking that I can get away with a few more microns back and forth of the compound slide to actually grind the gear to finished size without over stressing the belt.. Micro adjusting the cross slide will not be a good idea without a D.R.O. (which I have, but it's still boxed awaiting fitting. This digital upgrade is booked in for when the lathe is moved into 'The New Sidevalve Bar'....hum!... when it's built)

Just as the above tooling was in the 'Final Work In Process Stage'.  I happened to have to make a visit to a local Wire Eroding Company. I was collecting bespoke engineered parts for one of the machines in the Government workshop. I seem to have a habit of being invited onto factory floors and this day I was on another new one....How lucky am I.  H &S can sometimes thwart this wonderful experience. Must be the way I dress?. or look? In front of me as I collected our small order (in comparison) were 2 x huge gears that according to the owner weighed in at least a tonne a piece. A fork truck had to lift them on the eroding bed. Got to have been at least 0.75mtr x 0.75mtr in size. Down the centre ran a hole for shaft fitting but more importantly they had keyway slots...HOLY MOLY!!!!!!!!!!!!! "Did you cut those keyway slot?"  "Yes, we erode to tolerances of +/- 2 microns"....(Dude, that's 0.002mm.) Alb's brain all of a sudden thinking that's way better tolerance than a 1928 Raleigh needs. "Send me your DXF files and I'll give you a price" "Awesome I will"

So, through Government contacts I had drawn for me 2 x DXF & PDF files at a design studio. (2 of the gears are the same shaft dimension) It's not only what you know but who you know....   A lifetime building and enjoying camaraderie with people who understand dirt under finger nails and can talk the same language has it's rewards. The cost was nil. Free to me !!!! Much appreciated.

 I emailed the files to 2 Wire Eroding Companies on our Government supplier list. Competitive quote hunting as you do as I'd no idea what cost to expect.... By return I received a quote for 3 x gear blank centres eroded to match the 2 x files. Local too, only 4 x miles away, so I can do a collect and not risk postal loss. In todays money I thought the price was good and of course it was going to speed up the Raleigh gearbox rebuild by months or even years.......I'd no idea how long it would have taken to work the gear blanks on the lathe and then after grinding perfect the art of broaching keyway slots....A skill I'd like to have but I'll have to save learning it for later, when I'm older.

That's how a sharp change of direction happened, all the internal grinder fabrication and parts now stored in a box for safe keeping, they'll come in handy one day I'm sure. Hours not totally wasted as far as I'm concerned.