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Progress on Building the Stuart Turner Victoria Horizontal Steam Engine And Designing The Frame For The Makita 2107F Bandsaw
The Stuart Turner Victoria Horizontal Steam Engine
I’m still working on the base for this engine. Actually this is the second base – the Stuart Turner casting kit has the real base but it needs a sub base to sit on. The sub-base was, in the real engine, made from wood, but I had a piece of steel channel that I decided to use at least as a temporary base. I may change it for wood in the future.
The holding-down lugs have been brazed on to the channel steel base and the ends closed with plates sawn from a 1 m square sheet of 2.83 mm black steel using the Bosch GST 25M Professional jigsaw.
Now I have milled and filed down the lugd and end plates to match the steel channel and covered the whole baseplate with car body filler.
Sanding flat is in hand at the moment.
I’m sanding the base outside to keep the dust out of the workshop but because it’s a boring and slow job and it’s cold outside (16 Deg C – freezing for Thailand) I do a few rubs on the sandpaper then go do something else. Like writing this Post. Then go do another rub on the sandpaper.
Designing The Frame For The Makita 2107F Bandsaw
I’m still working on this using AutoCAD to make the drawings.
The (updated) prototype has been such a success and so useful that it’s a permanent (temporary) attachment to the work bench. It will remain so until the real one is built.
The prototype Makita 2107F Bandsaw frame on the workbench has also proven vital to obtaining some vital dimensions to use in the actuel CAD design. Centre-line of fixing screws to centre-line of cutting blade, just for one example.
Today I Bought A Tool And Cutter Grinder From All Arm Co In Bangkok
Today I went down to Bangkok to buy a Tool and Cutter Grinder from Sam at All Arm Co Ltd.
Sam also made me an offer on buying a big lathe and milling machine which I am considering.
As normal a visit to All Arm Co Ltd is a bit quirky and this was no exception. The story will be developed below.
But for now I’m back in Pak Chong feeling rather tired after a 5 hour round trip (we took a wrong turning trying to leave Bangkok which cost us an hour) plus 2 hours with Sam. I have a tool and cutter grinder on the workbench but I’m not quite sure what I have bought and no idea how to use it.
To follow…
New Page Added About Buying A Big Lathe In Thailand
My life’s ambition is to build a model steam traction engine and drive down to the nearest pub here in Pakchong (Pak Chong).
I want a big engine, not some small little model that you have to stoop down to operate.
No, I want a big one that you can sit on and that’s big enough to take a proper place on the roads in Thailand.
I have settled on a 6″ scale (that’s half full size) Little Samson model and have bought the drawings already.
My existing lathe that I bought in Thailand a year ago is not big enough to make the big parts for this traction engine so I’m considering buying another big lathe from a supplier in Thailand.
Buying a big lathe in Thailand will be quite an event. There are many things to consider such as size, price, accessories and not least a three phase power supply.
So this subject deserves a page or pages on it’s own which is why I have started the Buying A Big Lathe In Thailand Page.
New Page Added For Tools Suppliers In Thailand For Model Engineers
Just added a page about Cromwell Tools, a huge supplier of tools in Bangkok.
I knew about Cromwell tools in the UK but had no idea they were here in thailand until Andrew told me by email this morning.
They have a website (in English Language) where you can download their catalogues.
The catalogues are massive and contain thousands of tools. I would most likely not have placed that order for tools from RDG Tools in the UK if I had known about this place.
Sill not sure whether you can buy tools from them directly at the warehouse or if you have to buy through their agents. There is no list of agents on their website.
I might visit them – after making sure I can – when I go down to All Arm Co to buy the tools and cutter grinder next Tuesday.
General Update On What I Have Been Doing Relating To Model Engineering In Thailand In The Last Few Days
Continuing the Makita 2107F Horizontal Bandsaw Frame Design
This is still progressing in AutoCAD. The swing arm design is complete and I have managed to achieve 120 mm capacity for round material and 180 mm square material capacity without making the arm excessively long.
I’m now drawing up the base and trying to minimise the material content and weight with compromising strength and function.
Buying And Using A SESA MMA200 Arc Welder
I knew that I would want to arc-weld the Makita bandsaw frame when I build it. I have oxy-propane equipment and have welded my steel workbench using it but it is slow, uses a lot of gas and the welds are ugly.
(Its all described with photos on the Page “Setting Up A Model Engineering Workshop In Thailand – Making A Steel Work Bench” on RetiringInThailand.net website. Also there are a few more photos showing the steel sections available at the Ying ja Luem shop in Pak Chong and a photo of the tools sections.
Also in the last few days I have started to assemble the Stuart Turner Victoria steam engine (just the main pieces that are complete or semi-complete) and want to put some holding down ugs on the base which is a piece of steel channel.
I could braze them using the gas torch but I wondered if I could weld them.
So it was a good excuse to go out to buy an arc welder.
Buying And Using the SESA MMA 200 – 200 Amp DC Inverter Arc Welder
I have started a new page SESA MMA 200 – 200 Amp DC Inverter Arc Welder Review where I’ll cover the story in more detail. I have already started the story on the previous Update page at https://modelengineeringinthailand.com/update-131215/
As I mentioned in a comment the welding glasses were too dark so I tried to find something better. I couldn’t find the automatic electronic type that George mentioned but I did buy an “auto-darkening welding” filter for 350 Baht.
I also bought some welding goggles with flip down glass and that was not so dark as the welding mask that came with the welder.
Needless to say when I got home and started to try out the new glasses:-
- The auto-darkening welding filter wouldn’t fit the welding mask nor the goggles.
- The auto-darkening welding filter instruction warned to use a polycarbonate clear shield in front of it so that weld spatter doesn’t destroy the photocell sensors.
The original welding mask didn’t have a clear glass protection filter and the dark glass was peppered with weld spatter. So I decided not to try the auto-darkening welding filter until I had the protective glass.
I was able to see a bit better with the welding goggles than with the welding mask and I produced some better – but still unacceptable – welds.
Building The Stuart Turner Victoria Steam Engine
I wanted to make some small steel lugs 15 mm square (ends would be rounded) and about 3 mm thick. Also I needed two 3 mm plates 50 mm X 100 mm to fill in the ends of the steel channel base.
I had already bought a piece of black 2.8 mm steel plate a metre square from Jing Jaleaum so decided to try out the Bosch GST 25M Jigsaw again. The first cut was to remove a long strip from one side which had been flame-cut and was both extremely rough and also hard.
To cut a long story short (and I’ll be giving more detail, photos and a movie on the “Bosch GST 25M Jigsaw Review” Page it was a struggle. With sparks literally flying from the blade it’s no wonder it went blue even though I was using plenty of oil on the cut.
I then cut of a strip just over 50 mm wide for the ends of the steam engine baseplate. This went much smoother because:-
- There was no flame-cut edge that the blade and jigsaw had to deal with
- I didn’t use a guiding fence – just followed a marked-out line by hand
- I changed to a finer blade
- I discovered the speed adjusting knob!
I made a two spare for trial welding.
For the holding down lugs I cut strips of a black steel bar and then sawed them to individual lengths using a slitting saw in the milling machine. I made a few spare for trial welding.
Except where they had been cut or machined all the parts were left with the black millscale on them. Not quite the cleanest surface for brazing!
Since my second welding practice session was not successful (third session pending the clear protective glass) I decided to gas braze the lugs and end plates on a spare section of channel I had.
I started to braze one end piece then it started to rain to I left that and went on the quickly try brazing the lug. I think I melted that.
The parts are stuck together but not very neatly. I couldn’t see what I had actually achieved because of the black flux.
I have put the parts including the unused ones in a bath of citric acid to clean them up. I’ll then see what I have achieved and the citric acid will make the other parts cleaner (and remove the black mill-scale) so that my next attempt at brazing should be an improvement.
Replies to Comments Added
Andrew’s comment: https://modelengineeringinthailand.com/#comment-106
George’s Comment: https://modelengineeringinthailand.com/resources/tools/importing-tools-from-uk/rdg-tools-order/#comment-105