Press Brake Update

Finished cylinder assembly today.  Found the missing gland cover cap screw.  Purchased a missing nut for the tie rods.

Had a heck of a time getting the dust seal over the shaft.  Went on what I thought was the wrong way but not with the lip facing into the cylinder.  Should not matter much in that there is no pressure on this seal.

Torqued them to 100 ft/lbs.   Was wondering if my old torque wrenches still worked seems they did.  It's a lot harder to torque something that is not part of a larger object.    C clamped the cylinder cover to the work bench then it was doable.






After they were assembled I ran into trouble mounting them to the press.   The rods are not a tight fit in the end caps.  After too much messing about with the digital caliper and a rasp I drilled 3 of the 4 holes 1/16th inch larger and they fit.  So far have just fitted one cylinder.   These cylinders are heavy and my back hurts.  :)

Did a little more general cleanup on the machine.

Added a muffler and found the leaking hose.

Unknow Lathe Update

Looks like the lathe is an Atlas or Craftsman 10".   I have been told its mine but due to the flue pandemic the people involved want to hold off on picking it up till things settle down.  A bit disappointing but I am OK with that.  Gives me some time to move some other projects ahead and maybe make space for it.

A while back I lost a mill because I futzed around too long.  The asking is not out of line by my thinking and worst case I think there are enough tooling with it to soften the blow should it be junk.  And I don't think it is.  These hobby machines are seldom used hard like a factory or machine shop tool.

Press Brake Update

After successfully test assembling one cylinder I could not get the piston into the second.   Looking at the old rings I found one set to be .087" and the other .110" along the dimension in the plane of the ring.   Discovered this by substituting parts between the good and bad.  

The good piston and rings went easily into both cylinder.  

The bad piston would not go into either cylinder. so not the cylinders.

This forced me to measure the rings and I found the difference.  I could have deepened the grooves on the bad piston to accommodate the new rings but I will move ahead and reuse the old rings.  At some point in the future I may choose to deepen the grooves, and hone the cylinders, but not till I get the machine working and determine if I want to keep it.

Why might I not want to keep it?  The machine is on the crude side.  There is no back stop to position the work.  There is no way to limit travel on the top die.  And it only came with the one die set.

Now if I can figure out how to limit travel I could try 3D printed dies.  A backstop should not be all that difficult to add.  But its another project or six.  Time will tell.

Unknown Lathe (Atlas 10F?)

Need to go have a look at this lathe.