At this point I did a quick mock-up of all the parts and positioned the crank for transferring the hole position from the exhaust of the frame to the cylinder. Then after removing the indexer from the mill and clamping down the vice, I drilled the cylinder with a 1.6mm bit.
I then found a spring that was about the right size and assembled all the bits together, and here’s the result.
( notice the immaculate chatter on the flywheel )
The other side
Imagine my joy, now to get it running. But how? I have a little air compressor, but no way to attach the length of 3mm (id) tubing to it :bang:
So I decided to build an adaptor. I just copied the connector off one of my air-nailer, and bored a 4mm hole up the centre.
I then made another air-intake-to-aquarium-type-tubing-adaptor-thingy as above, except I haven’t milled the nut-shaped-bit on it yet as I had to come in to make me grub, and that’s all I got done.
I started today with the air-hose adaptor that I started last post, I drilled the other end and tapped it M6, and then I milled a flat and then drilled and tapped M4 for the air-hose-barb-thingy.
Then back onto the lathe, I chucked a 6mm brass rod, and turned a 5mm to 3.5mm taper on the end. This is gonna be the inner tapered pin that will block or let a controlled amount of air through to the air outlet.
Then I threaded the rod M6, and then knurled the end
(notice the slight mess-up on the threading, I hadnt got enough of the rod sticking out and didnt match the thread up well enough during the 1st pass on the 2nd section :doh:)
But when put together it fits and works ok. There is a little leak of air from around the knurled/threaded area when the home-brew valve is open, but not so much that would bother me at the moment.
I then made up a round base out of some ali bar I had, drilled it and counterbored for the mounting screws, and also drilled and tapped a center hole M6. The center tapped hole is for mounting the Ali base onto a wider turned wooden base that I plan to make. (if folk are interested I’ll do a project log on that too)
Here’s the little wobbler on its little base.
And then, (drumroll please)
It runs
I finally got round to finishing off this project by turning a wooden base for it. Now this is more familliar territory for me, and while I did this on my woodworking lathe, the techniques are the same on an engineering lathe equipped with a toolrest. 1st of all I got a chunk of oak that happened to be around my dad’s workshop (that’s where my woodturning lathe is residing), and that chunk of oak just happened to be quartersawn ( nice looking grain ).
I then marked it out with lines on the diagonals. This was because I was going to mount it on the faceplate, but then I realised that I had my external jaws on my 4jaw self-centering so I just gripped it with that.
I then turned a dovetail recess on what will become the underneath of the base. ( this was to match the dovetail jaws that I then mounted on the 4jaw ) then I removed the oak from the external jaws and bandsawed it into a rough circle. (the only type of circle I can cut on a bandsaw )
Then I mounted the dovetail jaws onto the 4jaw, and mounted the oak base onto them. Then I turned a recess to fit the ali base of my elmers#25.
I then turned a concave section, 2 flat bits and 2 tiny grooves.
Then I sanded it 120,220,230 and then 420grit, burnished it with 0000 wire wool (sourced locally from steel sheep :lol: ) Then I finished it with quick-drying friction polish, then I polished it up with some canuba ( I think that’s how it’s spelt :scratch: ) wax.
These are the tools I used,
I find woodturning a very tactile experience, when I started to turn the base I didnt fully know what shape I was going to make, the wood sometimes just lends itself to a certain shape. The shape just flowed on this one.
The key to getting a good finish off the tool is to let the bevel of the tool rub against the wood as the tip cuts, this gives a clean cut and also burnishes the wood, this is especially true when turning woods that are not close-grained (such as Oak, Pine, Balsa … )
Anyway, I spent some time today doing some final photos of this project, I’ll post up a bit about how I did it in my post about photography.
But here are 2 pics
