Turning the Standard Feet

Machining the Standards

At first sight, the standards look a bit daunting, not the sort of thing, you want to turn on a lathe, but with a little patience and care, they can be easily be accommodated.

You can see in the picture that the standard is held in a three jaw chuck, and I have used an empty soda siphon cartridge to provide a means of adding extra support.

A wooden support would work just as well, or a piece of scrap metal.

I used a slow speed and light cuts, it probably would have been better to use a "tipped tool" to cut the feet, as the casting skin was a bit hard, and I had to re-sharpen the tool several times.

Boring the Standards

Once the feet are turned flat and square, comes what seems the most daunting task, boring the standard column.

I mounted the standard on an old cast iron faceplate, made from a retaining plate, from an old chuck.

Any faceplate that is wide enough will do.

Line the casting up, using a centre, in the tailstock, pushing into the bore, lightly tighten the screws.

Then use a "Scriber Block" to align up as accurately as you can, alternatively use the tool tip to show any wobble.

Tighten the clamping screws, take a facing cut to remove the casting skin, then using a slow speed, use a boring tool/bar to take light cuts down the bore, until the desired size is reached, mistakes in sizing can be accommodated, by adjusting the size of the crosshead.

The Turned Standard

As you can see, I have used the "high tech hone" to polish the bore of the standard, to a high polish, this procedure is not necessary for the running of the engine, but just something I like to do :-).

 An Assembly of Part Machined Castings

An Assembly of Part Machined Castings

Just to give an idea of the finished product.

It's nice to put the parts together, just to see you are making progress.

The parts are standing on my very old cast iron surface plate, which came with a job lot of parts that I bought at a local auction.