Continuing on with the babbitting (whitemetalling) job.
Pressing the tapered mandrel out, gotta watch that the mandrel is put in the right way around and that it's pressed out the right way. It resisted for a while then "bang" and it shot straight down. On the second bearing I did I used a clay and graphite mix wash, it let go a lot easier.
Machining the excess whitemetal off. Because this is nice clean stuff I can collect it (on a clean rag or tray on the lathe bed) and re use it.
The RING test. After the old whitemetal is run out and wire brushed out I did a ring test with the flange down. I'll call it THE ORIGINAL RING. Now that the bush has been re whitemetalled and the excess machined off I re did the ring test with the bearing sitting the same way, that is with the flange down. You can see the mild steel strip on the left that I am using to "ring the bell" well I mean bearing,, anyway the ring is a nice clean ring and as good as I can remember it's the same as the original ring. This indicates a very good bond of bearing metal to bush. If it's a dull thud you have to run the metal out again and start again.
Pressing the bush back into it's housing.
A tinning session. I have the bush held in THE GRAVITY CLAMP :) :) Some of these photos are out of sequence because I did the complete job spread over some weeks. I completely did one main first just to make sure I was on the right track.
After scrubbing out as much of the old metal as possible using heat and a wire brush I then re tinned the surface. Pure tin is recommended for tinning of Tin based babbitt metal but if you don't have pure tin you can use some of the nice new ingot. I melted some ingot and cast it into mild steel angle to end up with a stick of babbitt metal. I then used this stick to do the tinning.
Tinning stuff. From left small wire brush(the plastic handle broke off so I Araldited and screwed the head to a piece of pine), home made sheet metal spatula for rubbing and spreading the molten metal on to the bearing shell to get a good full tinning, thin stick of babbitt metal, small brush and some soldering flux in the cut down tin.
Main bearing housing set up and bearing being bored.
You can't see it but there is a good amount of top rake on the tool and it is nicely oilstoned to give a nice "crisp" edge and polished surfaces so the shaving can slide nice and freely.
Ahhhh beautiful. fits Purrfrrrfect. I bored to give.07mm clearance( .002 and three quarters (inch) clearance. In decimals it's .00275"
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