Stanley

You've got to the point that any motorbike restorer knows well, you've done all the hard work and the enthusiasm for the fiddly and time-consuming bits seems to evapourate. The remedy is to take a few days break and then come back to it. I once had a friend who restored a Rudge Ulster from a heap to an award-winning show bike in 3 months of spare time. He lost over a stone in weight, his wife stopped talking to him, and he swore that he would never do a restoration that way again.

Sorry to hear that you will not be lagging the cylinder. Of course, it adds nothing to the performance but, personally, it always makes an engine, model or full size, look unfinished to me. A lot of people use brass sheet on models for the ease in bending. You have overcome so many problems in making the engines however, why not see if you can devise some easy and cheap way of adding the cylinder sheeting? If there is a way of producing a good result in steel, there are plenty of cheap chemical staining kits around to reproduce blue planished plate.

Malcolm 

Stanley

So that's how they used to blue steel, I'd always assumed that it was a chemical process, bit like the stuff that they used to sell for gun barrells, (gun blue? or something like that).

I had a racing friend who worked on power stations and heating installations, he always used to describe himself as "a lagger". I don't know if his company did the sheet metal kind, never thought to ask him. Another skill that has probably gone without anybody noticing.

If you are happy with the bare cylinder, so be it, you are the bloke who has put all the work in after all. .

You can still get blued steel but I suspect it will be chemically blued which is inferior to the old fashioned sand process.  There was a name for it but I can't find a reference, I think it was 'Brunswick Steel'.  I had a furtle in Osborne's Ecyclopedia of the Iron and Steel Industry (an old book but invaluable if you can find a copy) and here's what he says about it:

Blueing. (a) The formation of a thin film of oxide on polished steel to improve its appearance and enhance its corrosion resistance, i.e. blue-finished steel. Various methods are employed: (A) Highly polished steel strip may be blued by passing through hot sand at a temperature of about 350C.; by heating in contact with charcoal at , about 5ooC. or by immersion in molten potassium nitrate. Steam blueing is effected by the action of steam at a suitable temperature. In any modification of this process, when the desired shade of blue is attained, the treated surface is rubbed with a cloth which has been dipped in sperm oil. (b) A heat treatment of springs after fabrication, to reduce the internal stress created by coiling and forming. (c) A method of colouring gun barrels by the use of a dilute acidified aqueous solution of a copper salt and a selenium compound, preferably copper chloride and selenious acid, acidified with sulphuric acid. One suitable solution consists of about 94% distilled water, 1% sulphuric acid, 1% copper chloride, 3.75% selenious acid, 0.15 % wetting agent and blue colouring.

While I was at it another old term came to mind and I looked that up as well.  These bits of knowledge are worth preserving....  'Meehanite. A trade name applied to certain pearlitic cast irons in which the molten metal has been treated with calcium silicide, resulting, it is claimed in increased tensile strength'

In the old days when I was trucking I occasionally went to a place between Oldham and Ashoton-U-Lyne where they burned old healds (made from very pure steel) to make different coloured ferrous oxides for colouring paints etc.  They could get varying clours by modifying the temerature of the process.  Exactly the same in many ways as blueing steel. 

I am amazed at the things you all do in your spare time.

stanley your kichen resembles a submarine ,

 and your workshed... well if you close one eye and squint a bit its just like a bag of licorice allsorts, and you build steam engines in it, im flabergasted

Dordygail

always the one to make the best of things.

Ha ha ha.

and what if i may ask is a woman that does?if it has anything to do with cleaning i definately dont, i even pay sombody else in order noto do....and the the other opcion

of interpreting a woman that does....cuold turn out to be dangerous

 Nolic Sorry to hear that you have spots on it

Dordygail

always the one to make the best of things.

By the way I love the little penny airoplane.

Where do the ladies usually expose their arts and crafts,hobbies ect on this site?

Dordygail

always the one to make the best of things.

Look under forums for the craft topics...

Back to studding the cylinders....  Here's a pic that tells a story.  I crashed straight into the job and had a brilliant idea, put three asymetric studs in instead of four....  just as good.  I was just about to drill the cylinder when I realised there was a perfectly good reason for having four, the middle one wouldn't be straight into the steam passage on one side and the drin cock passage on the other.  Back under the drill and follow the original plan.  Good thing the mistake will be hidden when erected!

Then I spotted another mistake I had made earlier.  If you look at the right hand engine the valve is over the long end of the shaft.  The one where the flywheel goes!  The shaft will have to be turned round, not a big job and a good job I spotted it.  It can wait until tomorrow.....

Another idle day......  must pull myself together!

All is well.  It proved to be very easy to reverse the shaft.  The engine is slightly tighter but nothing to worry about.  The nice thing is that the centres are avidently so accurate and the bearins so uniform that it doesn't matter which way round they are.  It's a sign of consistent manufacture and close limits.  Almost approaching interchangeable parts!

Stanley

Midlands Model Engineer Exhibition trip today. Impressions the same as last year: fewer new models and more grey heads amongst the crowd! If you'd have seen the price of some of the materials, you would be either congratulating yourself on your foresight, or kicking yourself for not hoarding more. The Stuart stand looked very prosperous, evrything on purpose made wooden plinths behind glass, £6 for a catalogue, didn't dare ask the cost of a set of 5a castings though.

No big mill engine models, but this particular one took my eye. It is a model of the "organ engine" which used to sit on the smokebox of the centre engine for a set of gallopers (known to any foreign readers as a carousel). I think it is a commercial design, but the builder's legend says only castings used were for the flywheel and governor bearings. Nice little job though. 

Malcolm 

All the engines are studded up to the point where I can decide what to do next.....  piston rings or valves? 

Main reason for the pic (apart from the fact I need some fruit) is that the Lamb's Rum has bitten the dust and we're on Balvenie, Founder's Reserve.....  Not as good as the old Balvenie before they got commercial but not bad for a poverty stricken pensioner.....