Hey everyone! Today’s popular comment is about the crankshaft bore being slightly below the split line, thus the crankshaft won’t slide in from above. This was addressed by putting a very small chamfer on the edge of the bore. I’ll talk about it in detail next time! And heck, maybe a few people will even read this pinned comment and not post what I just said 15 times. A girl can dream.
As software designers we both know that "there are no mistakes," only "undocumented features!" Keep up the good work. With your brains you won't be making these same mistakes again, and you'll need to choose increasingly complex projects for new xxxmistakexxx ah feature opportunities!
You hoping she'll help u fix your maho backlash? Use the spiral springy thingy coupler instead of a rubber thingy like u said. Either way it's looking good
Pretty tough on yourself today. I was impressed throughout. First, you recognized your mistakes and worked hard to fix them. Second, you learned tons! Third, you admitted your mistakes and shared them to help others. Out of the box thinking and a lot of determination. Well done!
@@jeffarmstrong1308 absolutely. She made some minor errors and she admitted them and learned from them. She will likely make some more mistakes in the future, but they won’t be these mistakes - and someday, she will have made all the errors that we have all made....and she will be even more skilled than she is now.
Hey Quinn. Grab a highlighter. As you machine each dimension highlight it on the print. It then becomes very easy to see if you missed a dim. Check for non highlighted dims before tearing down a setup. I'm known as the highlighter guy at my work. I bet you'll never guess why. :)
A great suggestion indeed, but it would not have helped in this instance. If you look back at the drawings in the first video in the series you will see that the dimensions of the steps on the bearing caps are missing.
I don’t know anything about your background or education, but you do certainly know your stuff and in particular, your use of the correct terminology (bosses, spot facing etc.) and sharp little tricks like using an odd-ball size drill for a pilot hole, as well as your ethics and frankness about tiny boo-boos...is refreshing. Well done Quinn!
Love the humbleness in your videos, to error is human. With bigger rough castings, I often will put a tiny blob of bondo on two or three faces and rough machine the bondo to a reference face that I can play with on the surface plate, using height gages and squares to find my finished part in the fuzzyness of the casting. Then just knock it off when done. On line small dia line boring, often I'll use an old, chucking reamer as a line bore cutter, using the center in the end of reamer with tail stock, offsetting with tail stock set over as needed, this is especially useful when you can modify the reamer on the single lip cutter/grinder.
I've watched them all, Quinn, and I enjoyed this one the most. The combination of great teaching skills, self-deprecating humor and solid language skills makes these a joy to watch. You are a gifted teacher. Thank you for sharing your learning -- and especially the mistakes -- with us newbie machinists.
No, not mistakes. Those are called "learning opportunities". At least, after they're successfully recovered from. ;-) Otherwise, fully agree with Mr. Gardner's astute assessment.
Well Quinn I have worked on production engines that have castings off a lot more than that. As long as your tolerances on the mechanical and running fits are good then your doing it the same way the original engine makers were. I can't wait to see this one running :)
Actually, no matter how good your tolerances and fit are it does not mean you are doing it the way the original engine makers did it. In fact, there is an almost 100% chance that the original engine makers didn't even do it the same way. There is no single right way to machine something. Machining is the process of duplicating the geometry on the print using the stock given, by building successive features which can be used as references for future features. A skilled experienced machinist more readily sees the ways and orders to relate those features, a less skilled machinist often paints themselves into a geometric corner. A good unskilled machinist stops, figures out how to rearrange the order or the method of reference and adds skills. Other unskilled machinists just keep cutting until it is either good enough or undeniable trash. I have been the latter at times, but try to be the former. If I were to actually attempt the steam engine Quinn is building I think I would bandsaw a rough mockup of that base casting out of aluminum, or even wood, and find out how not to do it using that. I have often made pieces twice, because the first time I found myself in the aforementioned corner. One thing I still have to fight is the desire to cut pieces off of the stock material too soon, leaving features to be cut but no good way to hold the piece. My goal is always to never paint myself into the same corner twice, and hopefully get better at seeing the corner while it is still on the paper. It does seem that a bit of a youtube kerfluffle has grown around this particular project, but I am not too worried, all the actors involved are doing the stuff they want to be doing, and have chosen to share them with us, I am grateful for the freely given contributions. If someone were to decide to quit sharing because of drama, that's OK too; after all, until recently hobbies have all been personal things and only shared via small circulation dedicated magazines, or among friends, but people still got enjoyment and fulfillment out of them. The existence of things like youtube does not make them a requirement for success on a personal level.
Mistakes? Not a one here. After recovery they are officially upgraded to "learning opportunities". Get with the program there, Mr. Southhard. ;-) And yah, the LO's here are really interesting.
I agree that some of the most valuable parts of your videos are your mistakes. That's one of the problems watching the two Keith's, Dave Richards steam powered shop or especially Adam who's been doing this doing this for so long having started as a child with his grandfather that he just automatically avoids most common mistakes. Which is why Adam and the Keith's make it look so damn easy, then we step into the shop and it becomes a clown festival of mistakes and scrapped parts. I can't ever remember seeing Adam scrap a part because he blew a tolerance. On the other hand he has grilled it into me whenever there is a question, measure twice and take a smaller cut. You don't see any of the craftsmen take large cuts except for Adam and a few others when turning car large stock and they have the machine, tooling, and horsepower to take those cuts. They've also really demonstrated the versatility of using dial indicators to keep track of your starting point and your progressive depth of cuts! I've bought two more indicators with Noga bases just to be able to utilize the ease of there use.
It's difficult to bear the weight of making mistakes on TH-cam. Thank you for having the strength of character to do it! As someone who's gearing up to learn hobby machining, these moments are the ones that teach me the most!
In the course of building a kit plane, I learned along time ago that not making mistakes isn’t what defines a great builder (everybody makes them). Identifying your mistakes and recovering from them is what makes you great. You are doing great.
Quinn, What you are doing with this project is truly the type of thing that terrifies most home machinists. Please don't be too hard on yourself, after all what you are doing isn't a matter of life and death, but rather annoyances and a little bit of embarrassment that something went awry. Please know that we are behind you all the way and appreciate your transparency in what you are doing.
I like it that you don't try to hide your mistakes. That teaches your audience how to think like a machinist, which is essential for planning the steps in the process. I enjoy watching you solve problems, and you do nice work as well.
Thank you for all your patience and candor in taking us along for this one. Don't forget to take some time to be kind to yourself; there's no shame in your first engine being a learning process.
I have a friend who owns a body shop (fixing cars) They do very fine work. Only Corvettes. He told me something I have never forgotten. He said " You know it's funny, when we get a very special job in and spend extra time and attention on it it seems that it never comes out as good as we hope. But when we get jobs in and just do them. Not hurrying, but not fretting over the work, they often come out as show pieces." There is something to that idea of over analyzing of what ever you call it. You do fine work Quinn. Far better than I could ever with to do. Trust your skills... looking forward to seeing your engine chugging away.
I am learning more by seeing your mistakes and how you attempt to fix them than I ever would by seeing a video with no mistakes. This is giving me a lot to think about while I am waiting for my tools to be delivered. Thank you Quinn!
People undertaking complex tasks, perhaps for the first time, and not making mistakes is quite impressive. What I find really, really impressive however, is when people make mistakes, but follow up with analysis of the issues and learn from them. Not only do your videos demonstrate great skill in the machining department, which I find fascinating, but the followup to understand what could be done better next time is equally as satisfying.
I was catching up with my machining class. The teacher received us (I said I was late!) with her usual greatings. Then she started with the lyrics of one of my favorite songs, “The Devil Went Down To Georgia”. The class was as usual, a master class full of joy and learning. Then I searched here on TH-cam for the song and saddly I find that Charlie Daniels passed away just a few weeks back. RIP Charlie Daniels and I take Quinn’s as a respectful tribute. Thank you very much for your time and sharing.
Ref machining the two bearing caps, instead of using any parallels under the part, use three parallels, one pair of equal thickness lying on top of the jaws, then holding the face you need to machine against a third parallel rest this on the two atop the jaws. Close the vice, then remove all three parallels. That's some tough nut build, great vlog. Thanks for sharing. Regards John.
Opposition really. For those of us who are machinists of the God fearing variety; patience, love, and peace which are big teaching points of christianity sometimes directly wage war with impatience, the hatred for "that piece of material" or "lovely machine (think of every machinist having a "moby dick and captain Ahab" relationship with something lol), and the desire to reduce the "personality rich" object to chips. There was a lathe in the shop I went to school for two years in and it just cut well, every part I made on it had good surface finish and run-out. It was a good machine... except every time I used it I bled. Maybe I would cut myself on accident, bump my knuckles, maybe a lever would move a little too far and I ended up scratching my hand. It was the oldest machine in the shop and was used in WW2. I figured she was still angry from the whole fighting the Nazis thing. Lol. But basically I had a love hate relationship with that...THING!
Hats off to ya Quinn, you don't give up and always manage to figure a work around or a way to fix your mistakes. You are right about the PM castings, they are quality pieces but some of the parts won't clean up completely for lack of enough meat. When it's all done and you put a nice coat of paint on it and it runs, you won't notice those little boo boos. When I build those kits I try to study the prints over and over and I high light the potential problem areas and make notices on the prints. This most of the time will save you some grief, sometime the devil gets you anyway. Thanks little lady for the entertainent.
I like watching your stuff because you talk to us like we are all learning together, no pretences like “ I don’t make mistakes and that’s how you learn things. “ 16:00 if the drawings didn’t specify, it not always easy to know what should be done first, but now you’re getting much better jigging the base casting!
I can really relate to this process of redoing things constantly, 2 steps forward followed by 1 step back! :) Super impressive seeing you tackle these castings however and I really admire how thorough you are explaining the process and the mistakes that can happen.
This video has helped me to realise two things: first that I am nowhere near ready to tackle a project like this, and second that most of the skills I need to develop before I am ready have nothing to do with the machine tools themselves. Thanks for showing your whole process, warts and all. It's incredibly valuable.
Quinn, this is most definitely your best intro to date! Don't be too hard on yourself being a self thought machinist! I'm sure you have enlightened many apprentices or aspiring machinists the importance of thinking the whole part/project threw! And like I said, don't be hard on yourself about it, all of us have done something like this in there machining career! If you haven't made mistakes, you haven't done anything with your life! Keep up the awesome work! Love the content! Stay safe out there! Dan @6-4_Fab Glen Rock, PA.
Hey Quinn, Just a tip for ya, the bellows that covers the column dovetails (Z axis) can be unbolted at the bottom and left to hang free all the time. When you run into a situation where you need a couple more inches of Y travel, just slide that bellows up and out of the way for that task. I know this because I own and use a PM30MV bench mill, I often use a small rope to lift and hold the bellows out of the way, then drop it back down when I'm done. Mine hangs by gravity with no issues, I just let bellows rest on the Y axis way cover bracket by gravity, works great. BTW, I have free access to a Bridgeport MIll so I didn't see the need to buy large mill for my basement shop. The point is, maximizing the Y travel by raising that bellows has saved me from having to travel 4 miles each way on many occasions. All the best!! :-)
this will be plenty good. no one is going to ever notice the issues besides yourself. Welcome to the world of castings. they actually look pretty good compared to some I've seen. looking good!
I really appreciate not only the demonstration of troubleshooting problems, but also the explanations of the thought processes behind the troubleshooting. Really glad your channel appeared in my recommended feed some weeks back, have been enjoying the backlog but this project has me hooked!
You know, this is probably the most fun I've had watching someone move through frustrating problems since the original StarTrek. The episode is a defined length and you know everyone will be okay at the end. Very dramatic, but ultimately very satisfying, right Spock? [Vulcan eyebrow lift]
Oh the joys of machining castings. I have machined hundreds of the darned things over my 34 years as an aerospace machinist. In my opinion they are the bane of any machinist. They are difficult to hold and set up. They are in most cases always under size or warped in key locations. I have machined most anything that can be cast. Aluminum ,steel, bronze, brass, titanium you name it they are all the same. You speak of re set ups. I ran a huge DevLeig horizontal boring mill. I would have to re machine castings that came from the NC machines because they would stress relieve after machining. Sometimes it would take hours to do a setup just to save a very expensive casting. I think you are doing well with what you have to work with...
This is already one of my fav projects. So complex and sometimes really difficult. Calls for a lot of creativity in setup. Defo coming out way better than I could have done first time. Very satisfying to see small "learning opportunities" be successfully corrected too. Can't wait to see this thing running, and every step until then.
I appreciate your videos and your humor! I even pulled the trigger a month ago and bought the same PM-25 mill you have, been very happy with it. But it looks like you spent a little extra and got the cleaner model, mine never looks that clean! lol
A couple of tips. For machining the bearing tops bottom edge square to the top. Open vice to just wider than width, place two thin pieces of metal across the vice and suspend the block upside down between the pieces of metal with the round hump hanging in the gap between them.clamp vice tight.tip 2 when getting any castings go round with marking blue (or sharpie) and mark every feature cast into the surface that will require machining. Just like surgeons who write and draw on people whilst they are awake to avoid mistakes. Steve
When I made my first steam engine two years ago i put the half ready engine aside for long two times so the overall building time was about a year 🤗🤗 the more I enjoy seeing quinn doing everything the right way ,😎😎
Thank you for this outstanding series. There are so many chances to make critical mistakes in a project as complex as this so your honesty in sharing your mistakes is extremely important, especially as you have a wealth of knowledge and experience. I admire your patience and critical thinking skills to not only deal with the frustration but to work out solutions. I look forward to every episode. Oh, and I do also play the fiddle!
Kudos to you for picking such a challenging project. You always learn a lot more from projects like this that really force you to stretch. I think you are doing great and the most important thing is you are learning things that only come through experience and hopefully having a good time doing it.
I loved the honesty of the process where you didn't hide the little bumps and mistakes. We all make them when doing something new and with lots of simultaneous details needing attention. Your mistakes will help others to avoid the same sort of things. The good news is that all the little booboos were aesthetic in nature and won't hurt the operation or to casual passerbys the looks either. We are our own worst critics after all... :D The use of the machinist's clamp and 123 block is a nice trick that had never occurred to me despite my own holding of small oddball parts. I'm going to shamelessly borrow that trick for the future.
Really enjoying your videos. Owning up to your mistakes make me feel better about mine. Did a lot of woodworking over the last 30 years or so and learning machining is a whole new skill set for me. Keep up the good work!
This is fascinating and a pleasure to watch Quinn...nothing in this world is perfect, though we strive for perfection, critically we are hardest on ourselves. I find your work-arounds and problem solving most enjoyable.
This takes me back to the 2nd machine shop I worked in the 1980's. Most of the work was with castings. All castings have "Draft" to release the pattern from the molds (cope & drag). The misalignment of the mold would cause the part to be thicker on one side, much like your main bearing surfaces.
This series has been so great! I've learned so much and I love seeing these parts come together! I hope you have another model project lined up right after this!!!
I'm learning a bunch of good things from you! One in particular is the bearing caps having a particular orientation for the glass oilers. I don't know how the instructions made that clear, if they did at all. My take away is when dealing with something unfamiliar, spend time looking over the various parts and how they work. It might help to catch something early. You really do a great job making your videos! I'm so glad I found your channel!!
OoO ... Order of Operation... The most important thing that we all struggle with, which in turn denotes how many tappy taps we do 🙂 Thanks as always for sharing, Cheers
I admire your dedication to the drawings. Honestly I would have removed the feature completely. The shaft is good enough to maintain alignment as the bearings are tightened down. I’m way too lazy to put that much effort in☺️
Thanks for the great video and I appreciate you pointing out things to watch out for and how one might improve the process based on what you learned. Sometimes we are too afraid of messing up so we never try something outside our comfort zone, and showing how things can still work out even if there are some "opportunities to learn" along the way is cool.
Over the course of many years as a chef I have occasionally found myself up shit creek in an ice cream tub with only the lid for a paddle. Knowing how you got there and remembering that is called experience. .......... Experienced person= Someone who has made all the mistakes and has a good memory.
You have to know these things as a King, I guess you don't have to know them as a Quinn. Great video, the engine is going to look fine, close-up photography is so unforgiving, it will be wreathed in steam and everything spinning fast, neither you nor anybody else will look at the relationship between the crank and the casting centre. I learn a lot from you.
Love the videos on this engine build and your honesty re the mistakes we all make but try and cover up before anyone notices. Always remember “If it can go wrnog it probably will!”
For unusual sideways holding I sometimes use a pair of 2-4-6 blocks as a vise. I clamp one down to my table with the clamping kit and then use the other block as the movable vise jaw by bolting it to the fixed jaw with bolts that match the threads in the blocks.
If you follow enough builds of not only steam engines models, but also internal combustion models, you find that the tin of lapping compound frequently comes out to tweak the fits of lots of precision machined parts before the engines will run properly. There's a reason that many times the first version never does run and several subsequent versions get built, and it's not because the machinists enjoy their jobs.
Great video!!! Casting can be a real pain to machine.. you have to really plan all operation before you drive in and start machining.. then to boot you have matting parts to add to the mix.. all and all I must say your doing a bang up job keep up the great work!!!!!!!!!😀😀😀
Quinn, great videos. The difference in a machinist and a good machinist is the ability to correct mistakes, theirs or others. Kerosene is a great machining fluid for cast iron. It's looking good so far.
Thank's for the fitting tribute to the late " Charlie Daniels " ! The Steam Engine is coming along nicely. Stay safe Quinn, see you on the next video !!!
Quinn, Mark the caps for ease of assembly in case you need to tear it down. A light single center punch mark or etch mark say on the flywheel side should suffice. Cheers Eric
Mega light-years beyond anything I could do, but thoroughly enjoy, and benefit from your warts n all videos. I find myself saying tappety tap when setting up too. Many thanks.
Nice work! Makes me wish I had some machines at home to do something like this. At work, I am the "fixer" and I know you were making a little joke near the end about having a fixture to hold it to do the oil cups. I'm sure what I am about to say to you is something you have already thought about but, I live and die by my little 4x6 aluminum mini pallet that has 1/4-20 tapped holes. The great thing is just to get a few holes where you need them now and as you need them, add more. It was fast just to square up the piece of 5/8ths aluminum and get a few needed holes in it and start working. I am about to make another one out of steel. It is a cutoff from work and I'm thinking 8x5 on this one.
Hello, I have been working on the same model and had to set it up twice myself. Those bosses on the bearing caps are not even visible on my castings so not to worry. Like your work and commentary. If you need a new crank down the road I have the original casting left over as I built a new crank from scratch.
I have spent a lot of time looking at castings and deciding which particular feature will dictate the location of the others with minimum visual misalignment. It pays to dwell on this problem of locating the object within the bounds of the casting so that no particular feature is obviously misplaced. I find that this thinking period is time consuming but vital before I go into the workshop and start making chips. It's nearly always a compromise as to which feature will be off centre/displaced and so don't beat yourself up too much if the looks are not perfect! Try and imagine the end result and if necessary hide any unavoidable surface feature misalignment out of sight. What's important is that the resultant machined surfaces are in the right place and to dimension.
You are certainly doing really great so far. I was holding my breath while you were tapping those 2-56 holes. I started to build a mrpete222 wobbler steam engine one time. After multiple mistakes I managed to break of a 4-40 tap in the aluminum. Turned me sour on model engine making and I quit right there.
@@Blondihacks Alum from the spice aisle of the grocery store. Used in making pickles I see from reading the label, perhaps some confusion between cooking and metal working use of the word pickle! lol
Oh, Quinn... I' feel your pain. The project has gone into I-can-still-make-it-work territory, it's 100 degrees in the shop, you're just trying to get your intro in the can, and the best take so far gets wrecked by a barking dog, a lawn mower, an airplane, or your neighbor admiring the new muffler on his Civic.
Loud exhausts and airplanes- the worst. One time an airplane circled my house for an hour while I was trying to film. I just sat there waiting for it to leave. 😂
Good work! I am building the same one and started a little before you. My bearing caps came out the same way and later found out the distance from the end of casting to crank bore has some wiggle room trough adjustment of crosshead and piston rod. Those bosses are barely visible on mine. Got one out of 2. I do have the crank casting if you need an extra as I built the crank from scratch. Thanks for the vids.
I have, without the good reasoning, been using that "use an odd size drill". My thought was more like "well, I don't really care what size hole the pilot is, so I may just as well use one of these odd ones that aren't a common size". Similar thought, more that I don't want to wear out the usual size drills... I'll keep doing that. I have also bought some "odd size" drills that are much lower price than the next bigger or smaller, specifically to have them for drilling "I just need some decent size hole here, before I go in with the final size" - for a while, my supplier was seling 8.9mm drills for about a pound each, and I added a few of those on different orders when padding small orders to get free shipping. I also have some unusual inch size drills that I bought for basically the same reason - I think my biggest drill is 1 7/32", which was a quarter of the price of a 32mm or 1 1/4" one. If I'm going to bore it out with a boring bar, I don't really care what the precise size is - it probably won't be that precise anyway!
You don't have to say that "it's not a looker". You just added a little personal touch, and made the machine special. Now it's not an anonymous steam engine, but *your* steam engine, with all it's oddities and perks. Really, if this were a work of art (it kind of is!), this would be the opposite of depersonalization and objectification.
***Kinda Cool Occurrence*** To confirm.... I checked many times and each time it worked. At 11:57 of your video, when you say “So...this area here....”, if you play it with enough volume for an Apple HomePod device listening for “Hey Siri”, your video audio activates Siri. Sometimes it actually starts playing music. I found this kind of neat and wanted to share.
Nice "recovery" You had some issues, (You could have edited them out,) but you didn't, and we all are wiser now.... Good Video...! Keep up the good work
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Hey everyone! Today’s popular comment is about the crankshaft bore being slightly below the split line, thus the crankshaft won’t slide in from above. This was addressed by putting a very small chamfer on the edge of the bore. I’ll talk about it in detail next time! And heck, maybe a few people will even read this pinned comment and not post what I just said 15 times. A girl can dream.
But it's not pinned.😁
Been waiting for an update on this project. Thx for posting and letting us learn with you
This small chamfer will help in the lubrication as it will hold a small amount of oil.
Never admit a mistake
As software designers we both know that "there are no mistakes," only "undocumented features!" Keep up the good work. With your brains you won't be making these same mistakes again, and you'll need to choose increasingly complex projects for new xxxmistakexxx ah feature opportunities!
nice work, enjoyed!
I agree, Tony!
Tony & Quinn your videos are most relaxing for me. I wish i could add 100 likes. Keep making good quality machining videos.👍
You hoping she'll help u fix your maho backlash? Use the spiral springy thingy coupler instead of a rubber thingy like u said. Either way it's looking good
Oh! You like machining too, Mr Tony? HAHAH
ToT bet you used your time machine and know how it turned out🤸😱😎
Pretty tough on yourself today. I was impressed throughout. First, you recognized your mistakes and worked hard to fix them. Second, you learned tons! Third, you admitted your mistakes and shared them to help others. Out of the box thinking and a lot of determination. Well done!
I think I heard a bit of frustration at one point.
@@jeffarmstrong1308 absolutely. She made some minor errors and she admitted them and learned from them. She will likely make some more mistakes in the future, but they won’t be these mistakes - and someday, she will have made all the errors that we have all made....and she will be even more skilled than she is now.
Hey Quinn. Grab a highlighter. As you machine each dimension highlight it on the print. It then becomes very easy to see if you missed a dim. Check for non highlighted dims before tearing down a setup. I'm known as the highlighter guy at my work. I bet you'll never guess why. :)
Very good suggestion!
Nice hack!!
A great suggestion indeed, but it would not have helped in this instance. If you look back at the drawings in the first video in the series you will see that the dimensions of the steps on the bearing caps are missing.
I don’t know anything about your background or education, but you do certainly know your stuff and in particular, your use of the correct terminology (bosses, spot facing etc.) and sharp little tricks like using an odd-ball size drill for a pilot hole, as well as your ethics and frankness about tiny boo-boos...is refreshing.
Well done Quinn!
Love the humbleness in your videos, to error is human. With bigger rough castings, I often will put a tiny blob of bondo on two or three faces and rough machine the bondo to a reference face that I can play with on the surface plate, using height gages and squares to find my finished part in the fuzzyness of the casting. Then just knock it off when done. On line small dia line boring, often I'll use an old, chucking reamer as a line bore cutter, using the center in the end of reamer with tail stock, offsetting with tail stock set over as needed, this is especially useful when you can modify the reamer on the single lip cutter/grinder.
sorry, ignore the tailstock off set comment, conflated an eccentric internal groove process with the reamer line bore.
I've watched them all, Quinn, and I enjoyed this one the most. The combination of great teaching skills, self-deprecating humor and solid language skills makes these a joy to watch. You are a gifted teacher. Thank you for sharing your learning -- and especially the mistakes -- with us newbie machinists.
No, not mistakes. Those are called "learning opportunities". At least, after they're successfully recovered from. ;-)
Otherwise, fully agree with Mr. Gardner's astute assessment.
When you mentioned the flat-bottomed bits, I had a bit of a Queen flashback.
Well Quinn I have worked on production engines that have castings off a lot more than that. As long as your tolerances on the mechanical and running fits are good then your doing it the same way the original engine makers were. I can't wait to see this one running :)
Actually, no matter how good your tolerances and fit are it does not mean you are doing it the way the original engine makers did it. In fact, there is an almost 100% chance that the original engine makers didn't even do it the same way. There is no single right way to machine something. Machining is the process of duplicating the geometry on the print using the stock given, by building successive features which can be used as references for future features. A skilled experienced machinist more readily sees the ways and orders to relate those features, a less skilled machinist often paints themselves into a geometric corner. A good unskilled machinist stops, figures out how to rearrange the order or the method of reference and adds skills. Other unskilled machinists just keep cutting until it is either good enough or undeniable trash. I have been the latter at times, but try to be the former.
If I were to actually attempt the steam engine Quinn is building I think I would bandsaw a rough mockup of that base casting out of aluminum, or even wood, and find out how not to do it using that. I have often made pieces twice, because the first time I found myself in the aforementioned corner. One thing I still have to fight is the desire to cut pieces off of the stock material too soon, leaving features to be cut but no good way to hold the piece. My goal is always to never paint myself into the same corner twice, and hopefully get better at seeing the corner while it is still on the paper.
It does seem that a bit of a youtube kerfluffle has grown around this particular project, but I am not too worried, all the actors involved are doing the stuff they want to be doing, and have chosen to share them with us, I am grateful for the freely given contributions. If someone were to decide to quit sharing because of drama, that's OK too; after all, until recently hobbies have all been personal things and only shared via small circulation dedicated magazines, or among friends, but people still got enjoyment and fulfillment out of them. The existence of things like youtube does not make them a requirement for success on a personal level.
I like it when you make these mistakes that we can learn from. It proves that you are human, and it results in a longer video! Thanks!
Also those oil cup bosses are so insignificant, anyone would overlook them.
@@nefariousyawn On video I at first thought it was a scratch or another surface imperfection.
Mistakes? Not a one here. After recovery they are officially upgraded to "learning opportunities".
Get with the program there, Mr. Southhard. ;-) And yah, the LO's here are really interesting.
I agree that some of the most valuable parts of your videos are your mistakes. That's one of the problems watching the two Keith's, Dave Richards steam powered shop or especially Adam who's been doing this doing this for so long having started as a child with his grandfather that he just automatically avoids most common mistakes. Which is why Adam and the Keith's make it look so damn easy, then we step into the shop and it becomes a clown festival of mistakes and scrapped parts. I can't ever remember seeing Adam scrap a part because he blew a tolerance. On the other hand he has grilled it into me whenever there is a question, measure twice and take a smaller cut. You don't see any of the craftsmen take large cuts except for Adam and a few others when turning car large stock and they have the machine, tooling, and horsepower to take those cuts. They've also really demonstrated the versatility of using dial indicators to keep track of your starting point and your progressive depth of cuts! I've bought two more indicators with Noga bases just to be able to utilize the ease of there use.
It's difficult to bear the weight of making mistakes on TH-cam. Thank you for having the strength of character to do it! As someone who's gearing up to learn hobby machining, these moments are the ones that teach me the most!
And I know I would be doing multiple set ups too.
Yeah there is a guy making machining videos that has a million dollar shop and never makes a mistake but I learn more from watching Quinn.
In the course of building a kit plane, I learned along time ago that not making mistakes isn’t what defines a great builder (everybody makes them). Identifying your mistakes and recovering from them is what makes you great. You are doing great.
There have been so many things that I have loved about this channel, but finding out that you are also a Python fan has made my day completely.
Quinn, What you are doing with this project is truly the type of thing that terrifies most home machinists. Please don't be too hard on yourself, after all what you are doing isn't a matter of life and death, but rather annoyances and a little bit of embarrassment that something went awry.
Please know that we are behind you all the way and appreciate your transparency in what you are doing.
I like it that you don't try to hide your mistakes. That teaches your audience how to think like a machinist, which is essential for planning the steps in the process. I enjoy watching you solve problems, and you do nice work as well.
Thank you for all your patience and candor in taking us along for this one. Don't forget to take some time to be kind to yourself; there's no shame in your first engine being a learning process.
Blondihacks, a mug of coffee and a jelly doughnut after a hard week. What bliss!
I have a friend who owns a body shop (fixing cars) They do very fine work. Only Corvettes. He told me something I have never forgotten. He said " You know it's funny, when we get a very special job in and spend extra time and attention on it it seems that it never comes out as good as we hope. But when we get jobs in and just do them. Not hurrying, but not fretting over the work, they often come out as show pieces." There is something to that idea of over analyzing of what ever you call it. You do fine work Quinn. Far better than I could ever with to do. Trust your skills... looking forward to seeing your engine chugging away.
I am learning more by seeing your mistakes and how you attempt to fix them than I ever would by seeing a video with no mistakes. This is giving me a lot to think about while I am waiting for my tools to be delivered. Thank you Quinn!
People undertaking complex tasks, perhaps for the first time, and not making mistakes is quite impressive.
What I find really, really impressive however, is when people make mistakes, but follow up with analysis of the issues and learn from them.
Not only do your videos demonstrate great skill in the machining department, which I find fascinating, but the followup to understand what could be done better next time is equally as satisfying.
I was catching up with my machining class. The teacher received us (I said I was late!) with her usual greatings. Then she started with the lyrics of one of my favorite songs, “The Devil Went Down To Georgia”. The class was as usual, a master class full of joy and learning. Then I searched here on TH-cam for the song and saddly I find that Charlie Daniels passed away just a few weeks back. RIP Charlie Daniels and I take Quinn’s as a respectful tribute. Thank you very much for your time and sharing.
I just can't get over how practical every single one of your screw ups is.
THANK YOU...for sharing. "It"s not those who make mistakes but it's those who can correct their mistakes". Watched and very much enjoyed.
Ref machining the two bearing caps, instead of using any parallels under the part, use three parallels, one pair of equal thickness lying on top of the jaws, then holding the face you need to machine against a third parallel rest this on the two atop the jaws. Close the vice, then remove all three parallels.
That's some tough nut build, great vlog.
Thanks for sharing. Regards John.
Just remember... there is as designed then as built. Great work by the way. Adapt and overcome.
You not only learned from your mistakes but taught us as well. Bravo! And I am grateful for the lesson.
They say the Devil in is the Details, so I would expect the Devil will be a constant companion to any machinist.
Opposition really. For those of us who are machinists of the God fearing variety; patience, love, and peace which are big teaching points of christianity sometimes directly wage war with impatience, the hatred for "that piece of material" or "lovely machine (think of every machinist having a "moby dick and captain Ahab" relationship with something lol), and the desire to reduce the "personality rich" object to chips. There was a lathe in the shop I went to school for two years in and it just cut well, every part I made on it had good surface finish and run-out. It was a good machine... except every time I used it I bled. Maybe I would cut myself on accident, bump my knuckles, maybe a lever would move a little too far and I ended up scratching my hand. It was the oldest machine in the shop and was used in WW2. I figured she was still angry from the whole fighting the Nazis thing. Lol. But basically I had a love hate relationship with that...THING!
Hats off to ya Quinn, you don't give up and always manage to figure a work around or a way to fix your mistakes. You are right about the PM castings, they are quality pieces but some of the parts won't clean up completely for lack of enough meat. When it's all done and you put a nice coat of paint on it and it runs, you won't notice those little boo boos. When I build those kits I try to study the prints over and over and I high light the potential problem areas and make notices on the prints. This most of the time will save you some grief, sometime the devil gets you anyway.
Thanks little lady for the entertainent.
I like watching your stuff because you talk to us like we are all learning together, no pretences like “ I don’t make mistakes and that’s how you learn things. “
16:00 if the drawings didn’t specify, it not always easy to know what should be done first, but now you’re getting much better jigging the base casting!
I can really relate to this process of redoing things constantly, 2 steps forward followed by 1 step back! :)
Super impressive seeing you tackle these castings however and I really admire how thorough you are explaining the process and the mistakes that can happen.
This video has helped me to realise two things: first that I am nowhere near ready to tackle a project like this, and second that most of the skills I need to develop before I am ready have nothing to do with the machine tools themselves.
Thanks for showing your whole process, warts and all. It's incredibly valuable.
Everyone needs a shoulder to lean on, even bearings
Quinn, this is most definitely your best intro to date! Don't be too hard on yourself being a self thought machinist! I'm sure you have enlightened many apprentices or aspiring machinists the importance of thinking the whole part/project threw! And like I said, don't be hard on yourself about it, all of us have done something like this in there machining career! If you haven't made mistakes, you haven't done anything with your life! Keep up the awesome work! Love the content! Stay safe out there! Dan @6-4_Fab Glen Rock, PA.
They are not mistakes, you are adding genuine character to the engine.
Hey Quinn,
Just a tip for ya, the bellows that covers the column dovetails (Z axis) can be unbolted at the bottom and left to hang free all the time.
When you run into a situation where you need a couple more inches of Y travel, just slide that bellows up and out of the way for that task.
I know this because I own and use a PM30MV bench mill, I often use a small rope to lift and hold the bellows out of the way, then drop it back down when I'm done.
Mine hangs by gravity with no issues, I just let bellows rest on the Y axis way cover bracket by gravity, works great.
BTW, I have free access to a Bridgeport MIll so I didn't see the need to buy large mill for my basement shop.
The point is, maximizing the Y travel by raising that bellows has saved me from having to travel 4 miles each way on many occasions.
All the best!! :-)
Hey Quinn, they're not mistakes, you just made it your own!
this will be plenty good. no one is going to ever notice the issues besides yourself. Welcome to the world of castings. they actually look pretty good compared to some I've seen. looking good!
I really appreciate not only the demonstration of troubleshooting problems, but also the explanations of the thought processes behind the troubleshooting. Really glad your channel appeared in my recommended feed some weeks back, have been enjoying the backlog but this project has me hooked!
You know, this is probably the most fun I've had watching someone move through frustrating problems since the original StarTrek. The episode is a defined length and you know everyone will be okay at the end. Very dramatic, but ultimately very satisfying, right Spock? [Vulcan eyebrow lift]
I believe the correct phrase is "oddly satisfying".
Oh the joys of machining castings. I have machined hundreds of the darned things over my 34 years as an aerospace machinist. In my opinion they are the bane of any machinist. They are difficult to hold and set up. They are in most cases always under size or warped in key locations. I have machined most anything that can be cast. Aluminum ,steel, bronze, brass, titanium you name it they are all the same. You speak of re set ups. I ran a huge DevLeig horizontal boring mill. I would have to re machine castings that came from the NC machines because they would stress relieve after machining. Sometimes it would take hours to do a setup just to save a very expensive casting. I think you are doing well with what you have to work with...
A runner, not a looker, just like every class project of mine during college!
Thanks for sharing your learning experiences, its fun and educational!
This is already one of my fav projects. So complex and sometimes really difficult.
Calls for a lot of creativity in setup. Defo coming out way better than I could have done first time.
Very satisfying to see small "learning opportunities" be successfully corrected too.
Can't wait to see this thing running, and every step until then.
I appreciate your videos and your humor! I even pulled the trigger a month ago and bought the same PM-25 mill you have, been very happy with it. But it looks like you spent a little extra and got the cleaner model, mine never looks that clean! lol
A couple of tips. For machining the bearing tops bottom edge square to the top. Open vice to just wider than width, place two thin pieces of metal across the vice and suspend the block upside down between the pieces of metal with the round hump hanging in the gap between them.clamp vice tight.tip 2 when getting any castings go round with marking blue (or sharpie) and mark every feature cast into the surface that will require machining. Just like surgeons who write and draw on people whilst they are awake to avoid mistakes. Steve
When I made my first steam engine two years ago i put the half ready engine aside for long two times so the overall building time was about a year 🤗🤗 the more I enjoy seeing quinn doing everything the right way ,😎😎
Quinn, always a pleasure to watch you negotiate the speed bumps . Endeavor to Persevere.. Stay safe
Thank you for this outstanding series. There are so many chances to make critical mistakes in a project as complex as this so your honesty in sharing your mistakes is extremely important, especially as you have a wealth of knowledge and experience. I admire your patience and critical thinking skills to not only deal with the frustration but to work out solutions. I look forward to every episode. Oh, and I do also play the fiddle!
Kudos to you for picking such a challenging project. You always learn a lot more from projects like this that really force you to stretch. I think you are doing great and the most important thing is you are learning things that only come through experience and hopefully having a good time doing it.
"That I shouldn't have had to need to do" at 13:08 is poetry to polite, self effacing, English ears. Even has a touch of the ol' iambic pentameter.
I loved the honesty of the process where you didn't hide the little bumps and mistakes. We all make them when doing something new and with lots of simultaneous details needing attention. Your mistakes will help others to avoid the same sort of things. The good news is that all the little booboos were aesthetic in nature and won't hurt the operation or to casual passerbys the looks either. We are our own worst critics after all... :D
The use of the machinist's clamp and 123 block is a nice trick that had never occurred to me despite my own holding of small oddball parts. I'm going to shamelessly borrow that trick for the future.
@
Blondihacks - Hey, Quinn, please don't be so hard on You. Mistakes only happen to those who dare to make! You're a fantastic machinist.
Really enjoying your videos. Owning up to your mistakes make me feel better about mine. Did a lot of woodworking over the last 30 years or so and learning machining is a whole new skill set for me. Keep up the good work!
This is fascinating and a pleasure to watch Quinn...nothing in this world is perfect, though we strive for perfection, critically we are hardest on ourselves. I find your work-arounds and problem solving most enjoyable.
This takes me back to the 2nd machine shop I worked in the 1980's. Most of the work was with castings. All castings have "Draft" to release the pattern from the molds (cope & drag). The misalignment of the mold would cause the part to be thicker on one side, much like your main bearing surfaces.
This series has been so great!
I've learned so much and I love seeing these parts come together!
I hope you have another model project lined up right after this!!!
I'm learning a bunch of good things from you! One in particular is the bearing caps having a particular orientation for the glass oilers. I don't know how the instructions made that clear, if they did at all. My take away is when dealing with something unfamiliar, spend time looking over the various parts and how they work. It might help to catch something early.
You really do a great job making your videos! I'm so glad I found your channel!!
OoO ... Order of Operation... The most important thing that we all struggle with, which in turn denotes how many tappy taps we do 🙂
Thanks as always for sharing,
Cheers
I admire your dedication to the drawings. Honestly I would have removed the feature completely. The shaft is good enough to maintain alignment as the bearings are tightened down. I’m way too lazy to put that much effort in☺️
Thanks for the great video and I appreciate you pointing out things to watch out for and how one might improve the process based on what you learned. Sometimes we are too afraid of messing up so we never try something outside our comfort zone, and showing how things can still work out even if there are some "opportunities to learn" along the way is cool.
I have heard that song about the devil for 20 years, but never realized it was well written until Quinn recited it.
Nice progress! Love that you talk through your thought process here in the video.
Thanks Tanda! 😬
Over the course of many years as a chef I have occasionally found myself up shit creek in an ice cream tub with only the lid for a paddle.
Knowing how you got there and remembering that is called experience. .......... Experienced person= Someone who has made all the mistakes and has a good memory.
Sometimes your hobby make you wanna cry. It’s just part of it.
You have to know these things as a King, I guess you don't have to know them as a Quinn. Great video, the engine is going to look fine, close-up photography is so unforgiving, it will be wreathed in steam and everything spinning fast, neither you nor anybody else will look at the relationship between the crank and the casting centre. I learn a lot from you.
Love the videos on this engine build and your honesty re the mistakes we all make but try and cover up before anyone notices. Always remember “If it can go wrnog it probably will!”
I enjoy these videos way too much (in my wife's opinion), thank you for making them.
Wow, what a great learning experience. You got to learn a lot from making mistakes and analyzing the causes. Good on ya!
For unusual sideways holding I sometimes use a pair of 2-4-6 blocks as a vise. I clamp one down to my table with the clamping kit and then use the other block as the movable vise jaw by bolting it to the fixed jaw with bolts that match the threads in the blocks.
8:35 - African or European?
Beat me to it... 😄
My thought exactly!
Cracked me up! Been a long time since I've heard that line!
Beat me too it also
I'm late too!!!
But , remember , 6, is Right Out !! lol
A small Starrett level works well for leveling small castings prior to machining. I enjoy watching your videos.
Yeesh. That was a whole lot of "growth" in that one. Thumbs up for making lemonade!
If you follow enough builds of not only steam engines models, but also internal combustion models, you find that the tin of lapping compound frequently comes out to tweak the fits of lots of precision machined parts before the engines will run properly. There's a reason that many times the first version never does run and several subsequent versions get built, and it's not because the machinists enjoy their jobs.
I've waited for this one since you started this series!
Great video!!! Casting can be a real pain to machine.. you have to really plan all operation before you drive in and start machining.. then to boot you have matting parts to add to the mix.. all and all I must say your doing a bang up job keep up the great work!!!!!!!!!😀😀😀
Quinn, great videos. The difference in a machinist and a good machinist is the ability to correct mistakes, theirs or others. Kerosene is a great machining fluid for cast iron. It's looking good so far.
Thank's for the fitting tribute to the late " Charlie Daniels " ! The Steam Engine is coming along nicely. Stay safe Quinn, see you on the next video !!!
Quinn,
Mark the caps for ease of assembly in case you need to tear it down. A light single center punch mark or etch mark say on the flywheel side should suffice.
Cheers Eric
Well done, good recovery. This is getting exciting...
Mega light-years beyond anything I could do, but thoroughly enjoy, and benefit from your warts n all videos. I find myself saying tappety tap when setting up too. Many thanks.
Well done, I think you have done a good job of it. I also think it will look just fine.
Nice work! Makes me wish I had some machines at home to do something like this. At work, I am the "fixer" and I know you were making a little joke near the end about having a fixture to hold it to do the oil cups. I'm sure what I am about to say to you is something you have already thought about but, I live and die by my little 4x6 aluminum mini pallet that has 1/4-20 tapped holes. The great thing is just to get a few holes where you need them now and as you need them, add more. It was fast just to square up the piece of 5/8ths aluminum and get a few needed holes in it and start working. I am about to make another one out of steel. It is a cutoff from work and I'm thinking 8x5 on this one.
Hello, I have been working on the same model and had to set it up twice myself. Those bosses on the bearing caps are not even visible on my castings so not to worry. Like your work and commentary. If you need a new crank down the road I have the original casting left over as I built a new crank from scratch.
I have spent a lot of time looking at castings and deciding which particular feature will dictate the location of the others with minimum visual misalignment. It pays to dwell on this problem of locating the object within the bounds of the casting so that no particular feature is obviously misplaced. I find that this thinking period is time consuming but vital before I go into the workshop and start making chips. It's nearly always a compromise as to which feature will be off centre/displaced and so don't beat yourself up too much if the looks are not perfect! Try and imagine the end result and if necessary hide any unavoidable surface feature misalignment out of sight. What's important is that the resultant machined surfaces are in the right place and to dimension.
You are certainly doing really great so far. I was holding my breath while you were tapping those 2-56 holes. I started to build a mrpete222 wobbler steam engine one time. After multiple mistakes I managed to break of a 4-40 tap in the aluminum. Turned me sour on model engine making and I quit right there.
Oh! There’s a chemical you can buy that dissolves taps but doesn’t hurt aluminum. I forget what it’s called though...
@@Blondihacks I was told to use pickling mix but it did nothing and the I was told to use hot pickling mix but by then I had lost interest.
@@Blondihacks Alum from the spice aisle of the grocery store. Used in making pickles I see from reading the label, perhaps some confusion between cooking and metal working use of the word pickle! lol
...She's got two bearing caps, and she's bangin' 'em together!
Oh, Quinn... I' feel your pain. The project has gone into I-can-still-make-it-work territory, it's 100 degrees in the shop, you're just trying to get your intro in the can, and the best take so far gets wrecked by a barking dog, a lawn mower, an airplane, or your neighbor admiring the new muffler on his Civic.
Loud exhausts and airplanes- the worst. One time an airplane circled my house for an hour while I was trying to film. I just sat there waiting for it to leave. 😂
Good work! I am building the same one and started a little before you. My bearing caps came out the same way and later found out the distance from the end of casting to crank bore has some wiggle room trough adjustment of crosshead and piston rod. Those bosses are barely visible on mine. Got one out of 2. I do have the crank casting if you need an extra as I built the crank from scratch. Thanks for the vids.
I have, without the good reasoning, been using that "use an odd size drill". My thought was more like "well, I don't really care what size hole the pilot is, so I may just as well use one of these odd ones that aren't a common size". Similar thought, more that I don't want to wear out the usual size drills... I'll keep doing that.
I have also bought some "odd size" drills that are much lower price than the next bigger or smaller, specifically to have them for drilling "I just need some decent size hole here, before I go in with the final size" - for a while, my supplier was seling 8.9mm drills for about a pound each, and I added a few of those on different orders when padding small orders to get free shipping. I also have some unusual inch size drills that I bought for basically the same reason - I think my biggest drill is 1 7/32", which was a quarter of the price of a 32mm or 1 1/4" one. If I'm going to bore it out with a boring bar, I don't really care what the precise size is - it probably won't be that precise anyway!
Really enjoying this series! Thank you Quinn. This episode was quite a roller coaster though 😂
You don't have to say that "it's not a looker". You just added a little personal touch, and made the machine special. Now it's not an anonymous steam engine, but *your* steam engine, with all it's oddities and perks. Really, if this were a work of art (it kind of is!), this would be the opposite of depersonalization and objectification.
Love your work and the way you explain things..I do wish your videos for the steam engine were numbered though.
There’s a playlist that has them all in order
***Kinda Cool Occurrence***
To confirm.... I checked many times and each time it worked. At 11:57 of your video, when you say “So...this area here....”, if you play it with enough volume for an Apple HomePod device listening for “Hey Siri”, your video audio activates Siri. Sometimes it actually starts playing music. I found this kind of neat and wanted to share.
Looking great! Mistakes happen, thats what paint was invented for :)
1:09 - bonus points for honest youtubing 😂❤👍
It was a good take, you could tell that was work 👍
Another very interesting and informative video, I can't wait to see this engine done and operating.
I love your lessons. You explain everything in easy to understand. PS; I think Joe Pies is rude and owes you an apology.
Nice "recovery" You had some issues, (You could have edited them out,) but you didn't, and we all are wiser now.... Good Video...! Keep up the good work
16:30 Don't blame yourself. Good drawings usually contain the information/instructions on how specific parts are to be machined.
"You got two coconut halves and you're banging 'em together!" lol Nice Monty Python reference! You're simply a HOOT! :)
Great video, can't wait to see you fire it up.