Hammer-Forming Boiler Parts - Pennsylvania A3 Switcher, Part 2

This episode on Blondihacks, I’m doin’ stuff! Exclusive videos, drawings, models & plans available on Patreon!

Here are links for many of the tools that you see me using:
(I earn small commissions on these links)

Want more content like this? Try these places:

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

[jasongrimes]

If you would like to speed up the annealing process, you can quench the copper in water to cool it off faster. Unlike steel, copper (and brass) are not affected by the quench and will come out fully annealed.

[TheRedstar]

Talking sheet or plate - it always depends on the perspective.
As some shipyard workers would say: "Anything below 20mm is foil."

[johnathancorgan]

Quinn, you don't woodwork often, but when you do, it's to the highest precision of any woodworking channel here 😄

[cerealport]

As my woodworking teacher said many years ago: "always cut on the waste side of the line".
From experience with various materials, it turns out that if you don't exactly know what you're doing, that line is totally surrounded by waste.

[PhotogNT]

I nearly wet myself laughing when you described a wood workers deburing tool, as a “sheet of dead tree with rocks glued to it”. 😂😂

[RonCovell]

Great job, Quinn! It's wonderful to see you work with materials and processes you don't have a lot of experience with, and to see how your apply your machinist's skills to get the results you want.

[michelhv]

This 25, 347-part series is off to a roaring start!

[jaredlanny]

woodturner here: broadly speaking, balls out is the correct speed for wood. our tools are strange, for sure. I think the word for the deburring tool is "sandpaper, " but it can be difficult to keep it all straight! lol :)

[seansysig]

Quinn as a 20+ year Stationary Engineer in a very larger steamplant with fire tube boilers producing 25lbs. per hour of superheated very dry steam your project is very cool to me. As a young power plant helper I rolled many tubes in to header plate with pneumatic chisels with specially formed rolling chisels.

[Galleitch]

Woodwind instrument makers talk about "growback" - it happens with all types of wood and you just have to know whatever size or type of cut you make the wood will move back into the space a certain amount - even if you drill, leave for a week, and then finish ream multiple times it will still end up smaller. In production of course you just make the cut to suit but it's really frustrating at the prototype stage. By the way, for woodturning in the metal lathe you can make up a vertical shear cutting tool in HSS - you have probably seen them in older modelling books - they work like a woodturner's skew chisel, they take off very little but leave excellent surfaces and work well on wood. I'm pretty sure Mr Pete has done a video on them.

[voots]

So glad you decided to start here with this project. I'm about 1.5 years into the Penn A3 in the same scale you are doing, but I started at the beginning of the book. I'm about 6 months away from doing the boiler and it scarred the heck out of me, but I'm not so worried now that I have a good video guide! BTW, your early videos are what got me to pull the trigger on a mill and lathe and now I have a full blown 2, 000 square foot machine shop a few years later. You sure sent me down a very expensive path LOL!

[briantaylor]

Woodworkers do use reamers. Mostly old timey woodworkers, hand reamers to make tapered holes.

I'm pretty sure your spring back is due to your use of a cutter with metal working geometry and low surface speed, both of which tend to compress the fibers. A woodworking router will spin at 20, 000 rpm, and the cutting edge will typically have a lot of relief. For future work you might consider trying a router bit, and crank up your rpms as high as they will go.

[askquestionstrythings]

10/14 is a variable tooth blade, a small section will have 10 teeth, and the next small section will have 14 teeth. They are great for killing the noisy harmonics and vibrations in the blades. Definitely, my favorite type of bandsaw blade.

[paulkinzer]

I want to thank your Patrons, too! I love this channel, but just don't have the funds to support it as I'd like to. I also just don't get why you don't have millions of subscribers, Quinn. Several makers that I watch have mentioned you with respect and admiration. Let's get the word out, folks!

[johnw.peterson]

Quin, you are very sharp. Thank you for these outstanding vids. Rock on girl!

[lv_woodturner]

I am a wood worker/wood turner who also does machining. I have machined wood on my metal lathe and milling machine. I normally run the machines much slower than e.g., wood turners. The wood may cut with a fast speed, but if the wood species contains resins/sugars like cherry, hard maple, purpleheart the high speed will cause a lot of heat and burn marks on the wood. Same as cutting the wood on my table saw.
Very nice work on these parts.
Dave.

[BlackSunCompany]

Nice job for a non-woodworker! Wood is indeed a little springy so that is worth keeping in mind for any precision parts made with it. That's mostly correlated to its density but you also have to bear in mind the ambient humidity will also affect sizing so getting everything done in one day or in a humidity-controlled environment is crucial if you want high precision.

Some highly dense tropical woods (like lignum) are more resistant to this and have even been used in marine applications. There were a number of ships in WWII, both surface and submarine, that used lignum vitae bearings for their shafts. Also crops up in hydroelectric plants for their generator bearings.

[LewHarriman]

Thanks especially for the tip about filing a curve by *dropping* rather than raising the handle. That approach would never have occurred to me.

[norWindChannel]

My first youtube video of 2023. Thanks for all the good content, and happy new year!

[mcknottee]

I love working with copper. With enough annealing you can make it do almost anything.