tools, materials & knowledge for model makers
Most stationary engines are on a trolley, hence I though I should make a set of Whippet trolley wheels. As it happened we visited Wimpole Hall and there in the farmyard were some vehicles that might give some inspiration. The design that feels more in keeping with a trolley wheel is the one on the … Read more
Setting out an angle on the mill table so that I can machine a set of gears at 9.5°. I know lots who will now be screaming at me to use a sine bar. It might be easiest to start with the simple right angle triangle. Below we see the triangle with the 9.5° angle, … Read more
Machining the miniature Burrell cylinder cavity was quite interesting. Mainly because the cylinder was flat on one side and so the machining was an incomplete circle. This meant I needed to use the rotary table. I use the Warco HV4 rotary table quite a lot. To the extent that it has developed some slight slack. … Read more
I’m looking at making helical gears, as per normal I wanted to start with the fundamentals. What is the optimum angle? Can I index them on the milling machine? Can I machine with a normal cutter? Why do I need to make helical gears? The big benefit is they will be quieter. Gear noise on … Read more
The front wheel hubs are quite small, 18mm in diameter, considering the features that are machined into them. This is my excuse then for having to machine 5 of these hubs before getting a pair that were correct. I don’t want wobbly wheels on my miniature Burrell traction engine. The front wheels rotate independently on … Read more
Very soon after buying a milling machine I can guarantee you will be looking at rotary tables. A rotary table feels like a must have. Use it to machine: arcs flats on bolt heads and nuts rotate a part to be drilled at precise divisions or angles large circular parts that cannot be machined in … Read more
The rear wheel hubs for the miniature traction engine that I’m making need to be indexed with eight spokes each side of a single wheel. The trick is that the spokes are out of “phase” and so the hub needs to have this out of phase feature. This post talks about how I went about aligning … Read more
My first go at machining a rear wheel tread pair for my miniature traction engine was not that successful. That meant I needed another go. The rear wheel tread pair are handed and the tread grooves are 4mm wide and machined at 7 degrees with a depth of 0.75mm, 35 grooves in total. The rear … Read more
Aligning a rotary table or more importantly aligning a part on the rotary table can be tricky and this is just a simple rough and ready approach to aligning a part. What I’m actually trying to achieve here is the alignment of a workpiece on the rotary table and the first task is to align … Read more
4-Jaw Chuck on Rotary Table or perhaps more accurately: “Mounting a 4-jaw Chuck to a Rotary Table in the Simplest Way”. The simplest way is the part for me. I’ve had a small 80mm 4-jaw chuck hanging around my workshop for some time with the intention of either mounting it to the Hobbymat Lathe or … Read more