Today I picked up another 1" tee for my H1FE project. I am almost caught up to the point where I was before I discovered that the spark plug thread was not going to work. All that is left is to bore the tee to accept the cylinder sleeve.
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Today was our fall Model A tour. despite There were only 4 Model As on today's tour, but it was a fantastic tour nevertheless. It was a beautiful day, the skies were clear blue and the temperatures were warm. My friend Tom and I put this one together a few weeks ago. This time I even found some roads Tom has never been down, and he has been on most of the back roads in the region at one time or another. Everyone enjoyed it and afterwards we gathered at his place for a BBQ and get-together.
Today I received the new upholstery via UPS. It looks pretty good. Although it is supposed to be the exact color, it is much darker in color than
Nearly finished making the combustion chamber, but I ran into a bit of snag. It seems the hole I drilled for the spark plug was a bit too large and there wasn't enough meat left to make a good thread. That means I need to re-make this part again from scratch.
Here is a picture of what I have so far. Spent the evening working on my HF1E project. Today I made up a tool to help guide a 3/4" NPT tap straight so I could tap a port on the tee I am using. Even though there is only about a 1/4" of material to tap through, it was quite tough. Since pipe threads are tapered you are always cutting material off of the walls throughout the length. I could only turn the tap about a 1/8 of a turn before backing up to clear the chips. In the end I got it tapped. Now it is time to do the other side, which requires only a 3/8" NPT tap, so that should not be as tough.
Today I got a call from LeBaron Bonny saying that my Model A upholstery was ready to ship. :-) That's an amazing turnaround time, considering I placed my order only a few weeks ago. I have heard stories from club members of these things taking over 6 months to materialize from other vendors, especially one of them here in Canada. I was also pleasantly surprised to find out that the shipping costs to Canada via UPS was only $250. Not cheap, but when you consider the weights and sizes of the packages and the fact that it should be here by Friday, I am not going to complain. My front seats in particular are in need of a major make over. The cloth covering across the top of each seat back is completely torn, so this comes at a good time.
I still have to get the body work done, so I will probably only redo the seat coverings and possibly install the new lower panels only at this time. Today I picked up a few tools that I needed to continue working on my replica of the HF1E. The milling vice I had was too small to accommodate the tee which would become the combustion chamber and I also needed a 15/16" drill bit to create the exhaust port. Neither item was cheap. The mill vice (which was well worth the price) came to $160. The drill bit was almost as crazy, coming in at $67. Those larger bits are not so cheap.
Tonight I finished up drilling all the holes I needed, and tomorrow I plan on doing the tapping. Charles... Back in 1996 or so, I created my first webpage on Geocites. That served me well for many years until the yahoos at Yahoo (curse them all) decided to can Geocities. It's too bad that they did that, because there were a lot of interesting pages that will be lost forever. True, there are some archived versions of Geocities around, but I found them to be incomplete at best.
I had (among other things), a set of observatory dome plans that I provided for free from that site. Even though it's been a number of years since my old webpage was up and running, I still get the occasional inquiry about them. So I guess it is time to re-invent the old web page and re-release them to the world. This new website also gives me the opportunity to release some new plans for a new improved version of my dome, and to detail some other projects I have been working on over the years. At this time, it is a work in progress, so stay tuned as I add new stuff to the site. Here's to a new beginning! Enjoy! Charles... |
AuthorCharles Baetsen holds a Bachelor and a Master's degree in Engineering Physics from McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. Archives
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