Apr 22nd, 10
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I plan to use a butane burner in this boiler. One of the common ways to light these is to turn on the gas and put the match at the top of the chimney and hope you retain most of your eyebrows and that the resultant pop-back does not extinguish the burner. I was looking for a better way so I thought why not a door?
Since it will be painted, I am making it out of aluminium. Here is a shot on the mill whilst cutting the 1.5″ radius so that it fits the boiler shell.
Here is is transferred to the small mill to cut all the bits that don’t look like a firebox door.
Here we have just finished cutting out the centre and the two bosses that will be the top and bottom hinges.
Jan 12th, 10
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The lock nuts allow the boiler fittings to be positioned with more control. They are designed to lock against the boiler bushing. They are made out of 3/8″ hex brass stock, and are a bit of an exercise in small scale production lathe work.
Start by chucking up and drilling for the tapping size, in this case for 1/4″-40ME.
Now tap – I did start tapping with the tap held in the tailstock chuck and with the tailstock free to slide along the bed. This allowed me to start off square and straight. Once I had good engagement, I swapped for the tap holder to complete the job.
Pictured below is the final step in 3. Step one – turn to 3/8″ diameter for 1/16″. Step two – chamfer at 45 degrees to approx 1/32″ and then Step three – part to length.
Lather, rinse and repeat (4 times) and we come to the finished article.
Jan 11th, 10
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The steam outlet is a fitting at the top of the boiler that provides a threaded attachment for the main steam line. It is made of brass; of which we start with a small block on the mill drilling the passages out.
Once that is done we cut out a small bit of waste to make our lives easier when we mount in the lathe.
Using a spring loaded wobbler (actually it is the Taig live center, but it does double duty here) center the part so that the first boss can be turned.
Turning complete now we have to thread 5/16-32 ME – a common size for commercially available nuts and tails.
Threading complete. I also turned a small semicircular groove where the boss meets the square section and chamfered the end.
Here is a shot taken whilst turning the groove on the other boss. This boss is at 90 degrees to the other one and is smaller – in this case 0.250″.
This boss gets threaded 1/4-40ME and chamfered as well. Note the piece of soft aluminium protective packing between the chuck jaw and the part.
The finished article.
