Babbitting of con rod shells
Freshly tinned shell. The brownish section across the middle must be a shadow or something as the whole surface is a nice shiney one.
The jig I whipped up to do the shells, I've made it a bit universal just in case I can use it again for some other white metalling job. I made sure when welding that I got the vertical plate as square as possible to the base plate. The half mandrel is held in place by a stud you can just see sticking out the back of the vertical plate. I have a nut brazed on the inside surface of the half mandrel. There is also a spring on the stud to make sure the mandrel remains held firmly against the vertical plate when the stud lengthens due to heat.
The half circle dam ring is made from a piece of home cast Aluminium as is the knurled knob on the clamp stud sticking out the front.
White metal has now been poured up to the top of the dam. Directional cooling should be from the bottom upwards with the bearing shell cooling before the mandrel. Cooling is achieved using a water sprayer bottle. You know the plastic ones with the pull trigger pumper.
Bit of home cast Al bar there machined to accept bearing shell.
Parting the excess dammed up piece off. That's an action photo, I think it looks pretty cool.
Trying to turn the lathe into a con rod boring machine. I have steel plate bolted to cross slide and mild steel channel bolted to a faced off piece of Aluminium to hold it reasonably square while I tack weld the channel to the plate.
Front view of the show.
Trialing the monster so far. So far so good.
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