johnsmachines

Firstly the base.  I wanted to drill all of the wooden pieces together, to make sure that they aligned, even if the lengths weren’t absolutely accurate.  Wood is like that.

So, using the bottom piece as a pattern, and squaring each piece as it was placed, I glued them together using PVA glue.

And squaring each piece as it was placed.

Those angle blocks made handy glueing weights.  The short bits are intentional.  That allows the flywheel crank room to rotate.

My workbench.  I needed some room, so I tidied it.

That is better!

Now some short videos of the drilling.  Sorry the videos are so short.  If my Internet connect was better I would have stitched them into one video, but alas…

I was intending to show making a 5mm drill bit longer, by silver soldering a piece of 5mm drill rod to the bit, end to end.  I have done this before, quite successfully.  Silver solder is very strong.   Almost as strong as the parent metal.  But in this case it was unnecessary, as the videos will show.

With the base complete and bolted to the engine, I made the last pipe connection joining the feed pump to the pre-heater.

Ready for the first run on steam next session!