FH - 30 miles in an Hour

Today's trip started out as a plan for a magazine article where you ride 30 miles in an hour taking in some local scenery, and so it worked out. I planned the route using Google maps and totted up the miles between a few local sites. Here's the map:

It made more sense to start and finish in Weybourne than at home to reduce the amount of time going out and back on the same road. I started at All Saints church at Weybourne and drove from there in the direction of Salthouse ,before taking a wrong turn I ended up on Salthouse Heath overlooking the sea and a cable lay vessel which wasn't there when Edward Seago painted a picture from here some 100 years ago.

Having taken the wrong turn, I rode down into Salthouse and took the steep road up to RAF Bard Hill. This was a radar tracking station during the war and stands on a bluff 75 m above sea level or thereabouts. There is nothing much left of the station apart from the foundations of the huge antenna towers and a memorial to a Lancaster crew who had the misfortune of flying into one of the antennae in the middle of the night.

Back down the hill and we stop for a minor carburettor adjustment at a regular watering hole, The Dun Cow. The idle is a bit rough and I spend the first half of the trip moving the idle air screw up and down.

 With a stop in the village of Cley to buy some cake for later we travel along the coast road to the village of Stiffkey and stop by St John's church, known for its slightly wayward vicar made famous by Michael Palin in the film The Missionary, and who met his fate after his ecclesiastical career finished as a rather unsuccessful lion tamer.

Next I'm off to find the iron age hillfort known as Warham camp, which I know to be on the Wells & Walsingham Light Railway, just inland from Wells-next-the-Sea. I find the village of Warham but I've completely forgotten how to get to the earthwork from the village and instead take the next road to Binham to take a picture of a beautiful priory in the morning sun:

We're on the way home now and running short of time. This trip is supposed to be 1 hour, but of course stopping and taking pictures (and adjusting the carburettor, which is now idling perfectly by the way - I have raised the idle speed a tiny bit and put the air screw back to where it was) all takes some time, and I'm supposed to be home by 12:30. There is time however to revisit a remarkable structure near the village of Langham, at RAF Cockthorp, known as Langham Dome. This is the anti-aircraft gun crew trainer which we visited before on the WNG, with my friend John on his MT350. Since we've been here it's got a full size Spitfire gate guardian and it's open as a museum.

Home from Langham through the pretty little town of Holt leaves us perilously close to the favourite North North Railway Holt station - but the station is closed today. I've got my keys and I could ride up to the station building and take a better photo what I really don't have time...

Another station to end the trip - Weybourne station, which is about 2.5 miles from Holt and another 2.5 miles to Sheringham - seen here with the marvellous English Electric Class 37 locomotive D6732 on a sunny day last year. The loco was built at Newton le Willows in 1960, so it's a bit younger than my Huntmaster.

So that's it, until next time. I'm pleased to find that the FH is all in order when I get home, nothing broken or falling off and it doesn't seem to have used any oil. It's done nearly 400 miles now and is no longer smoking from #2 cylinder. Those rings must have bedded in a bit.

Model A - Kickstart Shaft, setting up for milling

 After a turn on the railway and with the grandchildren coming for the weekend there's not much time for workshop stuff, but I'm inching closer to finishing the setup for milling. 

Some countersunk M6 screws have arrived to clamp the right angle plate to the cross slide, underneath the rotary table:

Using the slot that we milled a few weeks ago, we can adjust the rotary table to align with the centre of the lathe spindle: 

The tap follower I'm using as a pointer here looks like it might be useful for marking out the parts of the work we are going to mill away.

A little while later, after all the preparation for the visiting little ones is done, I venture back to the workshop. I've reduced the diameter of the 2" section to the required 1.990" to match the original, and increased the length of the 1 1/8" section by about 0.040" such that it protrudes from the kickstart shaft bush by 0.020" rather than hiding inside it. I've also changed the carbide tool inserts for new ones.

I've also made a new set of clamps, but I've made them a bit big - I think we might have to do that again... That's development work for you!

In the same package as the M6 screws for the right angle plate came some button head M6. These are to replace the cap heads on the cross and compound slide handles to avoid skinning our knuckles: 

They look a lot neater as well.

Model A - kickstart shaft inches closer

 First job today was to drill a 5mm hole in the 2" end of the fledgling shaft to prepare for the trial fit on the rotary table. That done, I discovered that the end face isn't quite flat, so that will need correcting before we start milling - it's difficult to get in close to face of the end with the revolving centre in the way - maybe I will use my half-centre.

Anyhow, I think I have enough bits in the milling clamp box to hold it together:

The work is located on the rotary table with this little 5 mm pin:

I'll probably improve the security of the clamping arrangement, like this:

In other news, rooting around in my collection of adjustable reamers revealed an H8 reamer, perfect for the kickstart lever.

It's now a perfect fit:

Model A - kickstart shaft and a big milestone

 Today I was pleased to make the last few cuts on the main 1 1/8" diameter part of the kickstart shaft. With carbide tooling, the right geometry and the right speeds and feeds the finish comes up very well and the fit is spot on.

The next job is to mark out and cut the 3/4" diameter for the kickstart lever:

I cut that in about 8 passes and followed it up with my form tool to generate the gentle radius on the end:

Unfortunately the inside diameter of the kickstart shaft is not round - I guess this is to be expected as it has been fitted with a cotter which pulls over to one side and has probably distorted the eye. I may have to obtain a 3/4" expanding reamer to sort this out - you can get cheap ones for about £15.

I'll probably leave ordering that until I've started milling and have worked out what other cutters I might need to buy. 

Fitting the kickstart shaft from the right side of the gearbox and cover reveals that it fits nicely:

I didn't expect this snag though. What we looking at is the stop that limits movement of the shaft - the bit I didn't expect was that these stops are riveted in place and cannot be removed, which means I can't check the length of the 1 1/8" section until I've milled the slot that this stop fits in.

Some measuring suggests that the length is acceptable - maybe even a little long, but only a couple of millimetres at the most. 

So the next step is to start thinking about the milling side of the work and to do this we need to have a flange machined into the waste in order to retain the shaft on the rotary table:

Second thing we need here is a 5 mm hole in the end, where the revolving centre is at the moment, to locate the shaft centrally on the rotary table. We will probably have to make some special washers to hold the flange to the table but more of that later.

So that was a good day of progress.

And the milestone? O yes! This week the blog has passed a million hits!

Mini-lathe - still making chips

 You might be wondering what happened to the Model A kickstart shaft project: well, despite various distractions we are still making chips. 

As you might imagine it's taking a while to reduce a 2-in chunk of EN16 to the main shaft diameter of 1 1/8" but we are getting there slowly. 

Currently I'm troubled by the finish I'm getting as I rattle through hogging out the material. I'm running at 700 rpm taking 15 thou cuts with a carbide tool - actually a selection of carbide tools. Yesterday I locked down the compound slide and tightened the gibs on the cross slide and we'll see if that improves matters. Right now the finish looks like a very coarse thread: 

Since we are not in any hurry for this part I think I will look for play in the saddle. Others have suggested removing the compound slide, checking the tool height - suggesting it's too high, changing the revolving centre for a carbide tipped fixed centre, and changing the tool for one with a wider tip, like a parting tool.

The tool height appeared to be the problem - this is much better: