Collets are great. But if you are on a low budget, you can make your own to go into the 3 jaw chuck. A bar, bored to the required size and slitting on one side. When I started with that stupid waste of time, I only had a 3 jaw chuck and made really tiny parts. If you plan ahead, most parts can be done from the bar without re-chucking.
Going back to your original question, the nub of which I quote here
"Could anyone recommend a small steam engine kit of castings and parts which would be a good start in model engineering? I was looking at the Stuart Turner range, but they are very expensive - an old single cylinder castings kit went for £170 on EBay recently. This is over my budget."
The advice which Peter Whillance offers can't be bettered, except that *no* castings are involved. The whole point of Tubal Cain's books was to encourage beginners and they do exactly that. The end product is a simple working steam engine but to get there you will have been taken step by detailed step through every process of manufacture from marking out to
Didn't you tell us at some stage in the not too distant past that you had a doctorate in materials science or some other metrological discipline? Is there no 'practical' at uni any more?
I have both of the books Peter mentions and if you send me your address off list I'll make you a gift of them. Who knows, we may even enthuse your children as well!
--
Chris Edwards (in deepest Dorset) "....there *must* be an easier way!"
I have used a lathe for nearly 40 years. Last year I also bought a set of ER25 collets. They are useful, especially as you say, for holding milling cutters, but they are by no means essential, and a beginner on a limited budget should have much higher priorities.
Lots of jobs, especially second operation, are often better done by making a chucking piece of some kind, for example a stub mandrel, in-situ for the job in hand.
Thank you, that is a very kind offer, but I would definitely send yo something for the books. I cannot figure out how to contact yo off-list because you don't appear to be registered. If you email me a dr snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com we could arrange something off-line.
My son is only 2 weeks old, so he has a bit of time before starting o the lathe!
I have a PhD in ultrasonic machining of ceramic composites. I did practical engineering course at university (turning, milling etc.), an got a distinction for the course, but model engineering is a totall different proposition! I am basically still at the bottom of a stee learning curve. I gather that most of the machine tools at th university have now been sold, to make way for coputer science and th like. Practical engineering is definitely on its way out. Having sai that, I currently work with Boeing at the AMRC in Sheffield
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), and the machining we do here is state of th art stuff. I work in the customised assembly division though! I'm sur the guys in the machining dynamics division could knock out a stea engine in a matter of hours on a Mori-seki, Starrag or Cincinnati, o even build it up from thin air (almost).
Done. However, I'm surprised my e-mail address doesn't show up at your end. Put a fiver in the next Marie Curie tin you see and I'll be well rewarded. --
Chris Edwards (in deepest Dorset) "....there *must* be an easier way!"
There are a number of plans for engines that do not use castings at
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(Yahoo barstockengines group). You will have to join the group to access the plans but email traffic is not excessive and SPAM is quickly dealt with. Look in their "Files" section.
I know modern machines are a lot cheaper than the used to be, but as a teenager I built a Stuart 10A and finished a Basset Lowke 1/2" Burrel on a 1940's Portass with no more than a 3 jaw chuck and a face plate. Collets and 4 jaw chucks were for those people who could afford to buy a ready made model in the first place. Well not quite, but whilst desirable they're definitely not 'necessary' items.
With so much 'stuff' available these days at pretty affordable prices, people seem to be carried away by the idea that it's all mandatory - it isn't.
Have some fun and don't worry too much about perfection in the first instance. A working steam model can be achieved with a little inginuity and very rudimentary machinery. Victorian engineers built an empire without the aid of a computer or a CNC machine.
Without the benefit of your experience or a decent apprenticeship, its surprising how tricky it is to make a model from drawings. The Stuart Turner taught me to double check due to drawing mistakes, but left me in deep water when it came to such things as getting a true brass cylinder with a fine finish and then fitting a piston to it. One score from a reamer and you are in trouble (I should probably have reamed and then drilled the steam holes, and then reamed again to tidy up). There are also many tricks about work holding that come with experience, and order of operations. When faced with a drawing its easy to do the rights things in the wrong order and have a big holding problem.
I haven't found a club nearby, so have had to use a lot of trial and error (especially using a rough old 1950s Winfield lathe). Every success is very pleasant, every failure is something to learn from, but repeated failure can really put you off. Thats why it is so nice that the pleas for help are well responded to on this group. I still have problems with simple things, like clearance for internal boring tools, but I am bloody minded and so long as I know it can be done, I will figure out how - but it would be a lot quicker if someone like you was next door to show me how.
And of course, you are right - its a fairly quick job to make your own collets in brass to be held in the 3-jaw. I have some, but I still think the ER25s are the best things I have bought in some time, but a bit pricey I admit. One of these days I dream of a milling machine - and they ARE pricey (especially when you but the extra bits you find you need).
You don't need collets for a 10V. I know, I built one without. I did have both a 4-jaw independent, and a 3-jaw self-centering.
I did make custom holders for some parts; simple cylinders of material held in chuck, then bore to diameter, mark where no-1 jaw of the 3 jaw sits, then slit longitudinally. This allows re-centering of work quite easily.
I now have some collets. Its a lot quicker and easier.
There's a book on the 10V which goes through how to make it. The drawings supplied with the kit were only partly useful.
Building a Vertical Steam Engine, ISBN 1857610962
I built a 10V using a Cowell lathe, which is a little on the small side for the job, but I managed eventually. I re-made the connecting rod to my own design rather than using the casting (I really didn't get on with that bit).
There are various books which have designs for engines which can be made from bar-stock. So I'd not bother with castings for an oscillating engine. Example book would be Stan Bray, Simple Workshop Projects.
Try a specialist like Camden books, and staff in the UK who you can ring in the unlikely event of something going wrong. They will have many current titles on model engineering.
If you like the look of the twin cylinder marine engine then that is perhaps *the* best reason for choosing it. Perhaps the next most important factor is that once completed, you will have a choice of doing something with it other than using it to decorate the mantelpiece. I would rate 'level of difficulty' below either of the above.
I know where you're coming from: I also 'liked the look' of a 196 E-type Jaguar in several large boxes. *Eight* years of work later drove it! You are right - there is no point building a very simpl model that you don't really want to own at the end of the process, eve if classed as a beginners model. That is only my humble opinion though!
These are great books, if you want to do steam. Further, if you look at the steam crane model, there is enough detail to make the basic oscillator engine from barstock, I fabbed one cylinder and piston&rod. The castings are very expensive now (£56). I'm voting with the "build from barstock" guys.
If you really want to build a V10 or S50, make sure you understand what tooling you will need and what the full set of components will cost - you don't get oilers for example in the castings kit which ads another £10 or there abouts or a displacement valve - better to decide before you buy if you want one or not. They are £30+
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