3" Burrell Traction Engine build.

Day 9 of lock-down - situation getting desperate now The Virus is killing me, as there is no excuse from saying in the past that little job I'll do when I have time. So all fence panels painted, someone else's dog walked, now time for the workshop. I've been busily making the chimney base ring, this is meant to be an aluminum casting but as I ordered the wrong part number I ended up with 2 chimney saddle castings. I was not enthused that it would have been aluminum anyway, and since we went on lockdown I decided to make it from mild steel, using a bit I found in the workshop.  The photo on the left is me smoking the ring down to size quickly 2mm deep cuts at a time. The 2nd operation was to divide the 4 mounting holes on the outside for 4mm bolts. Finished chimney base ring in mild steel! Feel better riveting this to the chimney rather than an aluminum casting and saved £13 + vat on a casting that I perhaps would not be able to get in t...

Day 2 - In the Big Brother House Lock-down Well, Corona Virus has turned out to the virus that just keeps giving, its lockdown but the garage has been tested and is clear so evening entertainment is sorted. The Perch bracket has been started boring the main hole and facing the recess for the thrust washer, next is to fly-cut the smokebox curve. Made a start on the chimney base casting. Just rough turning of the flange for further machining from this datum after. Not easy to position and get running true, went with a tapped bracket held in the chuck and bolted on from the front. This will be for security on the majority of the turning and last little bit in the center just machines slow with its gripped by just the 2 jaws.

COVID-19  It seems everything has gone mad, thank god for hobbies and my wife . I've been trying to drill the axle hole exactly in the middle of the casting and there is not much room for error on this part. The initial drill looked ok, until I got to a drill size of about 16mm then it seems to be a bit off by about 1mm on the right side. reversing the casting on the mounting I managed to drill out the error with the next drill with just a small amount of reaming left until it is the finished size at 3/4". with my eyesight not that great, use of my phone camera to check the drill's tracking down the length gave me the confidence to carry on, that it would end up perfect. Front axle finished and built up, there is some weight here just in these few parts.   I've started drilling this bit, same again difficult to tell 100% if it's exactly in the middle. I'm tempted to take the whole chuck off and look from the back with a torch to...