The Home Machinist!

And the missing photos.

I give up. Missing photo 1 shows a six high steel scaffolding with the spout being lifted into place.

Missing photo 3 shows a bare sided water tank with two stub beams at the bottom and a hole in the soffit at the top.

When a passing locomotive snags the pull down rope on a water spout, the water spout and all of its trimmings are the loser. Weak joints, intended or otherwise, protected the tank proper. This is at Chama, NM, on the Cumbers and Toltec Scenic RR; one of last week's projects by the Friends volunteers.

Re broaches, cave man tactics are not needed, ie., pounding in. The broach has a 17/64 round pilot, and cuts a 1/4" square hole - at least in the corners where it counts. A ground 1/4" tool bit will be a snug fit. In the middle of each side there will be a short arc where the remains of th...

Get a 1/4" square broach and make your own boring bars, tool holders, etc. I got one years ago and have never regretted it. Later I added 3/8 and 1/2 square broaches but the 1/4" gets the most use.

There is one other option for grade 8 fasteners, and that is studs and nuts. Many industrial uses use stud material with nuts on both ends, particularly for piping flanges, heat exchangers, etc. You can buy B7 stud material which is equivalent to grade 8 at most industrial fastener places. It is ava...

You really want to stay with the reed valves. A ball type check valve, spring loaded or not, will pound its way through the seat in short order. This is one case in which the original design is next to impossible to improve on. Reed valves are the valve type used in all reciprocating compressors fro...

Check Surplus Center item 9-7686, page 38 in current catalog. They have new pumps with controls from zero radius mowers. All you should have to add would be motors, hoses, tank, and filter; and some form of control linkage. All the hard work is already done.

When you get to parts and pieces, check out Surplus Center, Lincoln, NB. They carry new and used hydraulic pumps, motors, valves, and fittings and have a good selection and decent prices.

There have been several recent threads about machining 1018 and 1020; generally very difficult to get a decent finish even for an experienced machinist. You might check for the threads for some clues or better yet consider a switch to a better machining alloy.

Still a work in progress, but I am hoping to get a number of grinders into a limited area - they are taking over one wall of the shop. I have a large slab of 3/8" steel plate, trimmed to octagonal shape and and it has been fitted with an indexing mechanism so the table can be rotated and stoppe...

And here is its ancestor - a 100 year old Gould and Eberhardt with 12" stroke. Currently surfacing a large chuck of free steel. With a little care it will last forever, well almost. The flat belt drive is gone and the bull gear has been retoothed and the chip pan is new but otherwise mostly ori...

You might want to rethink the use of cold rolled material. Cutting a long keyway on one side is going to leave you with a part that looks like a banana because the rolling stresses will not be uniformly released. Might go to a larger size of hot rolled and turn the OD down to the desired size.