Building my new Class 5

Please keep this post open for the building sequence and directions. Kindly ask questions and post comments both negative and positive in the posting above. This help would be most appreciated
Joe and Kody

When starting to build a new project, a list of the tools required is very helpful. Most of the tools listed will be found in your garage/workshop. If you don’t have one in the list, ask to borrow it from your best mate. If he’s like me, he will say “No, buy your own”. Yep, life is tough. So this is what you will need. The list is not in any special order.

Scriber, I recommend a tungsten tipped style.
Steel ruler, 12 inches, with metric divisions on one side.
Engineers square.
Hacksaw with new blades, 24 tpi.
Center Punch
Hammer to drive the center punch.
Drills, assorted sizes as needed.
Hand drill,
Round file, 10” (250mm)
Mill saw file, 10”.
Half-round file, a 10” Bastard cut would be best
File handle. for that Bastard file. The Bastards are rough on the pinkies.
Rotary Scraper, it removes the sharp burrs and edges inside round holes.
4” Angle grinder
Grinding wheels for the above.

Try and find the cheap grinding wheels that are sold in the “Wharehouse” stores or similar places. The brand I use are “Penguin”. These wheels are much softer in the bond and wear away quite fast. The best thing about them is precisely that! By wearing away, the wheels don’t become glazed over in the manner of the wheels that last “hours and hours”. The softer grade cuts the metal VERY fast. For the price of an expensive “hard bonded” wheel, you can buy 5 of the Penguin brand. If you cant get Penguins, try another cheap brand, - Walrus, Seal, Orca etc.

An Arc Welder, hopefully you have one that will burn 3.2 diameter rods.
Welding Rods :- Satincraft 13

Please don’t buy the cheap Chinese, Indianese, Japanese, Rusianese or other cheap junk. Use CIG rods. Yes, I know they are expensive, but use them. My favourite are the Satincraft 13 rods. These burn with a very stable arc, are easy to use and form a beautiful smooth weld. The fumes from Satincraft rods are not as bad as the fumes from the imported rubbish. Satincraft are excelent for welding Duragal

A Cold Chisel and a packet of wide Band Aids.
Protective eye goggles and ear plugs, (ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE!)
Felt tip pen with small tip.
Steel tape, 8 Meters is a good size, it’s a blessing if it has Inches as well.
A Bench Grinder, a 6” will do but an 8” would be far better to use.
A wheel dressing stick to shape the wheel face back to straight and true running. You need a true wheel to sharpen your drills and other tools.
Vernier Caliper, these days, it’s a digital caliper.
A 1” and a 2” micrometer (25mm and 50mm) would be a great asset.
Now, let’s see, have I forgotten anything that might be useful? Ummm, oh yes, a small Myford if you have one would also be good.
Joe

The Axle Joiners
This is the very first group of parts to make. A lathe is definitely required for this part of the construction. Set the pipe up and clean up the inside of the bore. What we want is a smooth internal surface free of the weld bead. Machine the "plugs" as shown but leave some material to finish turning to size after welding. A fully dimensioned drawing will be posted later. Drill thru the pipe, clean the burrs and tap the plugs into the end. The plugs must be a firm fit. Weld the holes up and carefully machine to size. the parts are to fit with about .003" clearance. These mating sections and surfaces must be kept clean, free of sand and rust. In other words, do look after them and keep them oiled/greased for protection. The keyways are cut and a key is inserted and welded in place. Ajust with a file if needed. The two pieces of pipe should fit together so good that only a thin line will show at the join. Everything presented so far can be machined on a 4" lathe, even the keyways after welding. Ooooopss - After checking the drawing just now, I realise that the cap screw will have to fit the part on the right and screw into the part on the left. If this is not done. the welded assembly cant be machined in a 4" lathe. You will understand this better from photos when I make the parts.
Joe and Kody

I finally finished making all the parts to hold the pipe on the lathe for the required machining and shaping. The first photo shows how the pipe was drilled with a 13mm hole to enable welding the joiners into the pipe. There are four holes spaced at 90 degrees. The same pipe holder, it's called a fixture, was later rotated to 53 degrees for machining the "birdsmouth", see the next photo. The fixture (or clamp if you wish) is held to the cross-slide with a 1/4" Cap Head screw. The pipe is inserted and the two clamping bars are fastened down. The bolts holding the whole assembly are only 1/4" as well.

This photo shows how I set the 53 degree angle to then machine the ends. The thing with the holes and two rollers is called a Sine Bar. The center distance of the two rollers is 5.00010 inches. By using simple trigonometry. the length of the spacer to set the angle can be worked out. To use this precision tool on the lathe is a bit of an overkill as there is still some error due to the unmachined sides of the steel plates of the clamp/fixture and the closeness of the two clamps themselves. BUT! It does work and it works extremely well.

This shows the assembly of the pipe on the cross slide and the first few cuts being made. The dirty rusty bar with the ugly chunk of steel welded(?) on is the modified boring bar. The cutting tool, made from a broken center drill, can just be seen. The cutter was held in by a 1/4" cap screw and it worked perfectly. Even though the cutter was round in section, it did not move during the cutting process. The HSS Center Drill was good quality but not as good as the normal square tool bits that I use for general machining but it certainly did the job.

The next photo is the finished birdsmouth. I will get a better photo of this latter. The edges have a thin feather that must be removed to re-form the original "square" wall thickness of the pipe. This will make it much better for welding.

The last photo shows how perfect it all fits together when placed against the spine. It took a few hours to make the bits and pieces to then do the machining but doing this stuff is very satisfying. It certainly beats watching tv in my opinion.


Kody