Wendelspanswick Posted December 24, 2017 Share Posted December 24, 2017 (edited) I looks like the piece of angle that your using as your bottom tool has a quite pronounced radius in the internal corner, cleaning that out with a grinder or using an alternative piece of angle with a sharper radius should give you crisper bends. Edited December 24, 2017 by Wendelspanswick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Bill Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 Yes, there is a pronounced radius there so I will try that. Thanks. Happy Christmas everyone! Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barney Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 I have noticed that Bright Drawn Mild Steel angle has a sharp angle in the bottom and on the top edges, Black Mild Steel is rounded. Merry Christmas all. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prague1996 Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 As an avid 'watcher' I'm a relative late comer to the world of WW1 restorations, but I stumbled across this thread just before Xmas and like a good book I couldn't put it down. I know it's been said before but the nation owes a great deal of gratitude to the Gosling family for their; patience, creativity and immense engineering talent, to bring back to life WW1 vehicles like the Dennis and the Thornycroft where many would have simply given up or not started in the first place. The attention to detail and faithful reproduction is a credit to you all and an inspiration. I hope the big Xmas build goes to plan and wait with eager anticipation for the updates. Good Luck 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Bill Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 It has been a busy day but we have managed to fit in a few workshop hours.We started off when Tim fitted the body mount brackets. He and Father then brought the cross-members back in and left them ready for drilling. The next objective was to get the fuel tank fitted, as much to get it out of the way as anything else. I fitted the securing straps, previously painted by Father, by rivetting them on using Andy Pugh's rivet squeezer which I have yet to return after making the tank! It worked very well and is simple to use. A most useful tool, Andy, and thank you for the loan. Both straps fitted. We wrapped the straps to avoid scratching the tank whilst wangling it into position. Once in place, I adjusted the original packing blocks using the belt sander and then inserted them on the rests. They were satisfactory although the roughest pieces of wood you can imagine. Thornycrofts obviously weren't known for their finesse! I took the packing out and we tightened them down. Now we could fit the instruction plate. This has been on my wall for 25 years so I am very pleased to see it in its proper place. Very satisfying. We then started fiddling with the silencer. We fitted the bands over some heat resistant tape it is too wide really. We then lifted it up to the chassis and inserted the bolts. The holes in the chassis could have done with being closer together and in line but alas! It is looking promising and ready for some pipe fitting tomorrow. Progress at last! Steve 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IAN_B Posted December 25, 2017 Share Posted December 25, 2017 I am really waiting on engine start up day! I suppose it is as frustrating for you as it is for your legion of followers, having to deal with all the peripheral issues beforehand. Ian 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Bill Posted December 26, 2017 Share Posted December 26, 2017 Yes, we are keen to start the engine too. Unfortunately, there have been an awful lot of the ancillary bits and pieces that we have had to make so that has rather delayed the job. I don't want to waste time lashing something up so it will happen when we are ready! In the mean time, I am concentrating on getting all the things to be done by other people in hand. We really are tight for time with this one. I have identified 65 items for the work list still to be done so we need to clear them at the rate of four per week if we are going to do it! Today has been a rather fiddling and messing day again, mostly in trying to get the exhaust system to fit. First job was to cut the tubes using Dad's band saw. This is a great tool. Then it was a case of cleaning out the ends of the elbow casting and dressing the ends of the tube until they fitted. Horrible job. Eventually it was done. Next part was to fit the down pipe. I had previously cut the flange so that was tapped onto the end of the tube and knocked into alignment. This will be brazed at a later date. The pipe was trimmed to length and the elbow fitted and bolted in. This was satisfactory but then highlighted the challenge of pushing the pipe into the end of the silencer and the elbow at the same time. We disconnected the front end and managed to slide the ball up to the silencer dodging bits of chassis on the way. That done, the down pipe was wangled in and the alignment checked again. All was well so the silencer was finally secured and the tail pipe pushed in. This will need securing, probably by use of a split pin right through. That little lot took all day with a lot of messing and fiddling to get it right and it is only two pieces of straight pipe! I cut out the swearing and cursing and the number of times it was tried in place! Anyway, I finished up by finally fitting the fuel tap and drain plug to get two more pieces out of the way and safely in place. We will start on the body cross-members tomorrow if we don't have too many visitors! Steve 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flandersflyer Posted December 27, 2017 Share Posted December 27, 2017 (edited) On 24/12/2017 at 9:35 AM, Old Bill said: Still pressing on with preparations for the body build, Adrian has kindly cut these out for me with his water jet machine. They are the corner braces for the front of the body, the hoop bases and the tow hook protector plate for the tailboard. He even put the screw holes in so the first job was to countersink them. The corner plates have a 90° bend in them so I have made a bending attachment for the press. Something is not quite right with the geometry of it as I can't get very crisp bends but these parts will be fine. Then on to the hoop bases. These have two 90° bends at 90° to each other. To try to tighten the bend, I pushed them hard into the bottom of the vee but this caused an over-bend. I rectified this by pushing a piece of round into the bend to ease it back. This worked OK but I need to refine the press some more. The second bend was a bit trickier as my tooling is not robust enough to bend away from the centre line of the ram. I took the blade out of the ram, moved it to one side and pressed on the top of it with the ram flat face. It was a bit of a lash-up and took some setting up to get it all aligned but it did work. Two bases of each hand: Two coats of Bondaprime all over and we are ready to go. Getting exciting now! Steve A quick one on using brake presses and folders Steve: If there's a slight overbending of sheet then it's not too much of an issue... Think about what's happening when you put a return on sheet/plate: Your STRETCHING the outer edge of the return...and SHRINKING the inner edge... And as it's considerably easier to stretch...rather than shrink metals then by taking your return just over the required angle....it'll always want to pull back a little to where you need it...🙂 Incidentally: When putting long returns on heavier stuff (1/4" upwards)... what you'll often find is...say you get the return at 90* at the ends...it'll often be under towards the middle...what we used to do was take it to a point where we achieved a 90* return across the middle section...this meant the ends were often over...say 93*-94*...then we'd flip the folded plate over on some trestles...copper hammer and you can bring back the ends cold to 90* by planishing with the copper hammer... Don't forget that once a material has been worked it'll want to relax a little...with a bit of know how you can use this to your advantage...😉 Kind regards Glenn GLMelectrical Edited December 27, 2017 by flandersflyer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flandersflyer Posted December 27, 2017 Share Posted December 27, 2017 On 05/12/2017 at 10:17 PM, Old Bill said: Still preparing for the Christmas push, Dad has drilled out the body mount castings to match the holes in the chassis. A trial fit of the first one and it looked good so he carried on and did the rest. The fun then started with the front and rear ones as they have a hole through for a 1" bolt. Dad's biggest chucks are half-inch which made the job look tricky until I realised that we could use a 'blacksmith's bit' which has a half inch shank for all sizes of drill. A visit to my local Toolstation provided a 15 and a 25mm bit so we put the 15 through first and follwed up with the 25, finally finishing off with a hand reamer of 1". It was all fun and games as the mill was set to maximum height and the quill would not drop low enough to do the hole on the other side. Once the first one was through, we had to lower the head to allow the drill to reach right through! It all worked in the end and the castings are now in the paint shop. Still lots to do! Steve Another way of pushing larger diameter holes with a modest machine would be using a rotabroach... They cut out a slug...(on the radius)...rather than taking out the whole CSA One of my antique steam powered radial drills has a brass rating plate on it that states: 5" drill at 36RPM You can't even get a 5" drill now... Dia's that size are rotabroach and flycutter work nowadays... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Bill Posted December 27, 2017 Share Posted December 27, 2017 Thanks Glen. All useful stuff. We have been outside again today between visitors. Progress is slow but we have done a bit more. We started on fitting the body cross-members. Two of them have 1" bolts right through to hold them down into the mount castings and this was a bit of a challenge. I started by7 using my adjustable drill bit to cut the counterbore in the top for the end of the bolt. Then I used 28mm bit in the battery screwdriver to drill half way through wauth Father watching to keep me vertical. Turn it over and back from the other side. Not quite in line but good enough. A trial fit showed that I had got my castings too tight. So I made a cut-out to allow it to fit. This took a few goes to get right but all was well in the end. I poked a reamer up from underneath just to clear the hole. Father had previously made the 1" bolts so we fitted them and trimmed them to length. Then it was on to the centre cross-member which was also too thick so I cut some more out of there. After about six goes at it, all was well and the beam was installed. Dad took the opportunity to drill the bolt holes in the water suction elbow so that can be fitted now as well. It gives me the position of the end of the elbow to the pump so that can be finished of too. More guests tomorrow but we hope to be able to fit the last cross-member during the day. This was going to be an easy job but it has been a real pain! Steve 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enigma Posted December 28, 2017 Share Posted December 28, 2017 A lot of progress on the truck. Looking good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Bill Posted December 28, 2017 Share Posted December 28, 2017 Not much progress today. However, we did manage to fit the final cross member. It needed drilling and also relieving where it sits in the casting but that was all OK. The bolts needed dressing for length as well but all was successful and the five cross members are now in position. We are off to see Jim Clark at Allied Forces tomorrow to pick up the canvas. That will be exciting! Steve 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flandersflyer Posted December 28, 2017 Share Posted December 28, 2017 20 hours ago, Old Bill said: Thanks Glen. All useful stuff. We have been outside again today between visitors. Progress is slow but we have done a bit more. We started on fitting the body cross-members. Two of them have 1" bolts right through to hold them down into the mount castings and this was a bit of a challenge. I started by7 using my adjustable drill bit to cut the counterbore in the top for the end of the bolt. Then I used 28mm bit in the battery screwdriver to drill half way through wauth Father watching to keep me vertical. Turn it over and back from the other side. Not quite in line but good enough. A trial fit showed that I had got my castings too tight. So I made a cut-out to allow it to fit. This took a few goes to get right but all was well in the end. I poked a reamer up from underneath just to clear the hole. Father had previously made the 1" bolts so we fitted them and trimmed them to length. Then it was on to the centre cross-member which was also too thick so I cut some more out of there. After about six goes at it, all was well and the beam was installed. Dad took the opportunity to drill the bolt holes in the water suction elbow so that can be fitted now as well. It gives me the position of the end of the elbow to the pump so that can be finished of too. More guests tomorrow but we hope to be able to fit the last cross-member during the day. This was going to be an easy job but it has been a real pain! Steve Better making the wood to fit the casting in my book... Face it steve: It's either fettling the wood or packers...i know which one I'd have aimed for... They would have done the same at Thornycrofts no doubt... Keep at it... Maybe next year it'll make shuttleworth...my mate will be back with his albions so no doubt I'll turn up to 'inspect' the finished J... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Bill Posted December 29, 2017 Share Posted December 29, 2017 (edited) We have had an interesting day. Firstly, Mark turned up with another load of timber including side planks, kerb rails, head and tailboard planks. He wasn't sure about the position of a small moulding which is along the bottom edge of each plank as I hadn't positioned them on the tailboard drawing. We quickly looked at the photos and Mark cut it there and then with a router. We then had the problem of where to put it all as we are a bit tight for space! Father and I then went off to see Jim Clark at 'Allied Forces' as he has just finished making up all the canvas for us and it was ready to collect. This was the sight which met us: It is a lovely piece of work and we are very pleased. Jim enjoyed doing it too as he says it makes a nice change from Jeep hoods! Of course, then we had to pack it to take it home. Whilst not heavy, it is large and awkward and relatively delicate. We did not want to spoil it before it even goes on the lorry so we wrapped it first in a tarpaulin and then clingfilm. The clingfilm worked well and we placed the lot on a flat bed trailer and strapped it down. The cushions, doors and main sheet all went in the back of the car and are now safely stowed ready for the big day. Many thanks, Jim. You have done a super job and we are very pleased! Tomorrow, we will fit the kerb rails and screw the floor boards down. At least, that is the plan! Steve Edited December 29, 2017 by Old Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asciidv Posted December 29, 2017 Share Posted December 29, 2017 Steve, I see that there is a rear visibility panel in the rear wall of the canvas. I assume this is as the original. What transparent material did they use originally or was it just left open? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Bill Posted December 29, 2017 Share Posted December 29, 2017 I think you have caught me there! Dennis definitely had a panel of transparent material in the window. I have no evidence that Thornycrofts left anything but a hole. However, it does stop the draught going down the back of the neck! I don't know what Dennis used but we do have a couple of pictures which show something there although in each case, it is cracked. Could it have been a celluloid material at that period? Mica would have been too fragile, I would think. I will have to investigate early plastics. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Le Prof Posted December 29, 2017 Share Posted December 29, 2017 Hi, Steve. Transparent Cellulose Acetate film was certainly available at this point, so could have been used. It wouldn't have been resistant to folding too many times, but this is a back panel, so I guess would not have been demounted too often. That is about the only transparent plastic option. Best Regards, Adrian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Bill Posted December 29, 2017 Share Posted December 29, 2017 Thanks Adrian! There is always something to be learned! Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Bill Posted December 30, 2017 Share Posted December 30, 2017 (edited) More body work today but is nothing straightforward? As always, a simple job always seems to take ages messing and fiddling to get it right. Oh well. It takes what it takes. We wanted to get the floor down today so we started with the kerb rails. We drilled the ends of the cross- beams and then lined everything up. This was the point at which I realised that the lorry is hump-backed by 1/2". And then that the chassis has a 1/4" bow as well causing the ends of the cross-members to misalign with the kerb rail which is straight. Cross-members number two and four float so they were easy to bring into line. Number three, however, is held in the centre castings and had to be removed and adjusted. This was all successful but time consuming. Roy and I finished drilling the bolt holes whilst Dad was cutting down coach bolts to suit. The kerbs were bolted down. Then we tried dropping the floor planks into place. These are tongued and grooved with loose tongues inserted. Big Mark provided us with a couple of packs of tongues which he had had cut for us and they all went together very well. The last plank ended up just 1/4" too wide so that will need trimming to fit. We plan to screw them all down tomorrow and then cut the last plank and plane it to suit. It is looking much like a lorry now so it is exciting. However, the work list still has over 70 items to complete so I am going to have to increase the work rate by a significant amount if we are going to finish in time. Steve Edited December 30, 2017 by Old Bill 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lowfat Posted December 30, 2017 Share Posted December 30, 2017 Do you have a target date for running the engine? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Bill Posted December 30, 2017 Share Posted December 30, 2017 We have only one target and that is to drive on the Brighton run on 6th May. To be honest, it is going to be extremely tight to achieve and with around 70 tasks to do, I need to complete them at the rate of four per week. I have, this Christmas, written them down so that I can accurately monitor progress and must focus on those which will require input from other people such as my pattern making and getting the wings made. Once I have everyone else working, I shall focus on the last bits of the engine. We are quite close to having a fuel system and a water system, the exhaust is almost there and there remains only the oil filler and gauge, the magneto coupling, HT lead tube and the controls before we can run. We will be out this year but May? Well, that is going to be touch and go. Watch this space! Steve 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steelman Posted December 31, 2017 Share Posted December 31, 2017 I have enjoyed watching the progress on this vehicle. A couple of days ago you were bending some parts using a press. I actually own a steel fabrication shop where we regularly bend material from 0.024 inch thick to over 1 inch thick. General rules say the bottom die opening should be at least 8x the material thickness until you go over 1/2" thick, where rule of thumb is 10x the material thickness. For 90 degree bends, the bottom die is typically 82 degrees. If you are air bending, this works quite well, and the bend radius of the part follows what we refer to as its natural radius, usually 1x to 2x the thickness. We often need tighter bend radii like you did, and we use a narrower opening than 8x thickness, and "bottom bend", or coin the part. Required tonnage goes up exponentially, but the desired tight radius is achieved. When coining, the part does over bend like you described, but if you go further, it begins to open up as it gets closer to bottom. Most steel has about 2 degrees of springback, so by adjusting depth of bend, you can make very sharp bends. Be careful coining, as you can split the die, and it usually happens quickly and rather dramatically. I can forward a chart showing tonnage per foot of bend required vs. Thickness vs. Die opening if it would help you in the future. From what I have observed on this site, you fellows are doing some excellent work using tools you have available. My hat is off to you, and thank you for the progress photos. Steelman, in the "colonies". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Bill Posted December 31, 2017 Share Posted December 31, 2017 Greetings to our Colonial Cousin! Many thanks for your thoughts on bending. They are most useful and get me over the first hump of learning the process. Saves me a lot of trial-and-error! In the past, I have had bending done professionally but now that I have a press, I thought I would have a go myself. As always, there is more to it than meets the eye! The joy of this website is being able to tap into so much knowledge from around the world and I thank you all for it. Just going outside to do some more woodwork . More later. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Bill Posted December 31, 2017 Share Posted December 31, 2017 Well, we have had a productive day but, as usual, never quite as fast as we would like! Roy came over again with his big sash clamps and battery drill, both of which proved very useful. We started the day by screwing down the floor boards. This proved hard on the knees but with Roy's clamps to pull them all up, it all went well. When we reached the last plank, they were over-width by 3/16" so I ran a pencil along the last one and then planed it to fit. The challenge was in holding it but we pushed it up against the post of the garage and my big plane soon made short work of it. Mind you, this was helped by the quality of the timber which was beautiful. It is softwood but has a lovely straight grain and no knots. I don't know how Mark gets it. It certainly isn't from B & Q! A test fit and all was well. We removed the kerb rails so that Dad can paint them separately. Once that was done, we turned our attention to the water elbows. Dad drilled the bolt holes in the last one and it was fine, except that it fouled the radiator stay bar so I had to file a bit off the top. Eventually, all was well so all we need now is some hose and we can fit them permanently. That really will be a landmark event. It is back to reality tomorrow, getting ready for work, which is a great pity as I am just getting some momentum going. Oh well. Time to study the job list! Happy New Year everyone! Steve 2 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
42 chevy Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 (edited) When you installed the gas tank, did you use a "anti squeak" welting between the straps and the tank. I did not see it in your pictures. If you did not, may I recommend that you do. Besides one less rattle noise it will keep the strap from rubbing into the tank. Jim Clark, the best there is, we use his canvas on all of our vehicles across the pond! Outstanding work as always John G Edited January 1, 2018 by 42 chevy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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