All set up and the bolt holes are getting drilled.  Biggest job of course is drilling them vertical to the faces.  I have no flat surface for a register.  I decided to level the milling machine while I was at it.  That took half a day with a precision level.  Still, it needed doing, the wooden bench it is on must have settled in the ten years it's been sat on there.

Moving on....  The flywheel is bolted together now and is very close to concentric so all the care in setting up for the drilling has worked.  Only one bolt hole on rim slightly misaligned so I cheated and waisted the bolt so it could bend as it went in.  The casting is on the welding bench here as it had a bad blowhole on the edge of the rim (look at about 25 past...)  I ground it out and filled it with a nickel welding rod made for CI and giving a very easily machinable deposit.

Getting exciting now.  Rough set up on the face plate.  I shall adjust it tomorrow and have some fun making CI dust!!  I'll turn the face of the boss and the rim and then do the outside diameter.  Then reverse it and true the other side.  Then I'll think about boring the boss.  Haven't decided yet on what fit to use.  It should really be staked like Bancroft but I might bottle out and do a plug fit like the beam engine at Earby.

Every picture tells a story.....  I've always said that the best way to learn about steam engines is to make one and I've been realising some of the problems the old lads faced when making an engine like Bancroft.  My last pic showed the flywheel mounted on the faceplate and yesterday I gave myself the luxury of a few hours in the shed and got it centred on the plate.  I realised right away that there was a problem and here is the wheel after the first roughing cuts.  If you look carefully you'll see that the teeth are bigger at 9 o'clock than at 6.  You've guessed it, the castings are elliptical.  This is because whoever made the pattern didn't allow for the half circle distorting with shrinkage as the metal cooled down.  Think about doing this with a wheel 16 ft in diameter and recognise the skills of the men who made the mould.  The cure?  Simple, I shall do away with the teeth and just make a plain flywheel with rope grooves.  A few cuts on the face and all will be well.  I've centred the boss and drilled it so when I turn it over I can get very close to an accurate centre and finish turning the other side up.  Then we'll be ready for boring the boss........

Rope grooves are rough cut and ready for finishing.  The grooves are to Kenyon's profile.  Kenyon's at Dukinfield were the foremost makers of driving ropes and are still in business in Ashton under Lyne.  J H Kenyon gave a series of lectures on cotton drive ropes and design of drives around 1900 and these are still the bible for design, groove profile and rope splicing.

No change on the flywheel, why is it that I never have time to get in the shop?  The little problem above arrived today, a mate of mine has an ex-railway crane boiler under repair and test at Rochdale and the spindle on the drain cock/blowdown valve is broken.  Nobody's fault, there has been a deep crack of long standing for years and it finally let go.  He contacted several people about a repair/replacement and nobody wanted to know so guess who gets the job.  Besides that, he knows I'll do it for nowt, I just like the challenge.  Fairly straightforward, the only thing I don't like is cutting sqare threads.  He suggested I just dowel it and pin it but I'd rather do a proper job and make a new one.  Now where did I put that bronze bar............

Well, I've finally got started.  Amazing how many little jobs there are to clear out of the way like getting three articles in fromt of the BET....  Retirement is hard work.....  First cut on a nice piece of drawn brass bar that has been lurking in the ditty box for years.  Only needed 30 thou off to get the largest diameter so exactly the right stock.  Mind you, it will be a lot smaller when it's finished.  The original would be made out of a casting roughly the right shape so as to cut down on waste.  Of course this was why it broke, one small blowhole in the casting was the start of the crack.  This stuff will be a lot better, it would bend a bit before it broke.

The valve spindle goes quietly forward.  Notice the shed dog behind the lathe.  Jack gets himself down in that corner and sleeps through everything I do in there.  No trouble at all.  Beats TV.........

Talking of which Stan, is there a reason why I am receiving advance copies of these same three BET articles in my e-mail all of a sudden?

I did think that perhaps I could sell them to the Craven Herald as I appear to be getting them ahead of publication in the BET but Doc informs me that this would be somewhat 'immoral'

Am I ment to proov reed them to chek fore speeeling meestakes or wot??  

Well, as any of you who have done one will know, the worst bit's over, the square thread.  I hate them.  One inch, 4 threads to the inch and a core diameter of three quarters.  I hate deep cuts in brass like that so I just took one thou at a time.  No way I could ever make money doing these commercially!