Countless times i have cursed the fact that after the welding is done nothing on my steel valveplates is as straight as i would like it to be.
Aluminium, on the other hand, is great v-plate material but not easily welded without the right equipment.
What if one was to give the steel valve plate a heavy coating of aluminium like what is used on exhaustsystems?
It would fill up scratches, provide a soft surface for the reeds to seal against and be a lot easier to polish up to mirror finish than steel.
What do you think?
Cant cost much to get it done.
Aluminium coated steel valve plates ?
Moderator: Mike Everman
If you use thick enough aluminum for the plate you can assemble the whole thing without the need for welding.
On a small unit you can use M4 cap-head or countersunk screws and drilled/tapped holes to hold everything together quite successfully. I've done this with a big valvehead using M6 cap-head screws and it worked just fine.
On a small unit you can use M4 cap-head or countersunk screws and drilled/tapped holes to hold everything together quite successfully. I've done this with a big valvehead using M6 cap-head screws and it worked just fine.
Yes, but i have yet to find a scrapbin wellstocked on thick alu plate and the MIG is pretty handy for quick n´dirty testing of ideas (and bending things beyond recognition).
Steel, i guess,is the most common material used for prototypes.
Flamecoating(?) it with aluminium may be a way to get the good of both materials.
Some day soon i will cast the whole valvehead in aluminium using the "lost foam" technique, but until i´ve desided the final design steel will have to do.
If you haven´t tried casting with "lost foam" you really should.
It´s a really quick and easy way to make things in alu one wouldn´t dream of making from steelplate (or alu-plate).
Since styrofoam is used for the plug a hotwire-foamcutter is all thats needed.
Not much is needed to melt and pour the aluminium either, even a flowerpot as furnace and a soupcan to melt in will do (at least a couple of times).
The final alu-casting is an exact copy of the foam-plug (OK, theres some shrinking)
Steel, i guess,is the most common material used for prototypes.
Flamecoating(?) it with aluminium may be a way to get the good of both materials.
Some day soon i will cast the whole valvehead in aluminium using the "lost foam" technique, but until i´ve desided the final design steel will have to do.
If you haven´t tried casting with "lost foam" you really should.
It´s a really quick and easy way to make things in alu one wouldn´t dream of making from steelplate (or alu-plate).
Since styrofoam is used for the plug a hotwire-foamcutter is all thats needed.
Not much is needed to melt and pour the aluminium either, even a flowerpot as furnace and a soupcan to melt in will do (at least a couple of times).
The final alu-casting is an exact copy of the foam-plug (OK, theres some shrinking)
Chrome
Hello- Sparks, have you considered chrome plating? This element and the material Stellite have been used for years to provide a hard seating face to poppet valves. Hotsprayed Aluminum could work also. Either way you will wind up with a surface with a greater life expectency than your valves.
As I have mentioned in other posts here I am in the market for hand operated (crank) sheet metal beading and rolling tools. I am located in the southern US. Gulfrose@Juno.com
Hank
As I have mentioned in other posts here I am in the market for hand operated (crank) sheet metal beading and rolling tools. I am located in the southern US. Gulfrose@Juno.com
Hank
Hello!
Yes, well no not chrome But i´ve thought about electroplate the reedvalves with nickel.
When i did some reading on electroplating some years ago i found out it´s much easier and cheaper to "basement-electroplate" nickel with good results than chrome.
It should add some resistance to heat and corrosion, but i haven´t tried it and really dont know.
As i see it the way to go is soft valveseatsurface and hard reedvalvesurface.
After all there have to be one hard and one soft surface to get reiable sealing of the valves and flamecoating the reeds would anneal them for sure as well as adding to the thickness making them too stiff.
What is stellite?
A cheramic or?
Yes, well no not chrome But i´ve thought about electroplate the reedvalves with nickel.
When i did some reading on electroplating some years ago i found out it´s much easier and cheaper to "basement-electroplate" nickel with good results than chrome.
It should add some resistance to heat and corrosion, but i haven´t tried it and really dont know.
As i see it the way to go is soft valveseatsurface and hard reedvalvesurface.
After all there have to be one hard and one soft surface to get reiable sealing of the valves and flamecoating the reeds would anneal them for sure as well as adding to the thickness making them too stiff.
What is stellite?
A cheramic or?
I regularly nickel-plate valves for several reasons:
1. it stops them rusting while being stored or when the engine is only used for intermittent service
2. it can (if done properly) reduce the tendency to split around the edges.
For every-day use it's not worth the effort though and you have to be cautious with nickel electro-plating solutions as they contain very toxic components. You also have to take great care in respect to cleanliness, temperature, current densities and a number of other factors that can affect the plating process.
1. it stops them rusting while being stored or when the engine is only used for intermittent service
2. it can (if done properly) reduce the tendency to split around the edges.
For every-day use it's not worth the effort though and you have to be cautious with nickel electro-plating solutions as they contain very toxic components. You also have to take great care in respect to cleanliness, temperature, current densities and a number of other factors that can affect the plating process.
I think i will have to try to find the nickel-electroplatingpapers.
The platingbath was nothig to spice up thr friday-martini with, but it wasn´t anywhere near the toxicity of most platingbaths i´ve heard of.
Not very touchy about current density either as i recall.
Temperature was very important.
Keeping things clean, well everyone who tries to anodize Al or electroplate something manages to make their fingerprints last for ever at least once ;-)
The platingbath was nothig to spice up thr friday-martini with, but it wasn´t anywhere near the toxicity of most platingbaths i´ve heard of.
Not very touchy about current density either as i recall.
Temperature was very important.
Keeping things clean, well everyone who tries to anodize Al or electroplate something manages to make their fingerprints last for ever at least once ;-)
-
Mike Kirney
- Posts: 517
- Joined: Fri Oct 03, 2003 11:11 pm
- Antipspambot question: 0
- Location: Round Lake Centre, Ontario, Canada
Re: Chrome
E-Bay!!! There are all sorts of shears, slip rolls, brakes, benders and 3-in-1 machines on E-Bay, and they are generally well-priced too. Perhaps I shouldn't be telling you this, but after a few auctions you will realize that all of the bidding is irrelevant except for the last five minutes. Any bids you place before then will only drive up your price. If you wait until the very last minute, then put in a bid that is like two bucks higher than the last guy, you just made yourself a very sweet deal. It's happened to me twice so far and it's very annoying, although now I do it all the time. Happy hunting, Hank!Hank wrote:
As I have mentioned in other posts here I am in the market for hand operated (crank) sheet metal beading and rolling tools. I am located in the southern US. Gulfrose@Juno.com
Stellite
Hello- Thanks, Mike. I haven't sold on or even looked at eBay for a while.
I make swaging dies for projectiles. The market just wasn't there for either the dies or the bullets.
Stellite is the original hot spray surface coating. Developed by Vickers in the late 30's for Rolls-Royce Aero, it is Chromium with trace element in consistency. They used it on Poppet Valves, originally. Use carried through to the jet era. Bearing races are treated with it. Hank
I make swaging dies for projectiles. The market just wasn't there for either the dies or the bullets.
Stellite is the original hot spray surface coating. Developed by Vickers in the late 30's for Rolls-Royce Aero, it is Chromium with trace element in consistency. They used it on Poppet Valves, originally. Use carried through to the jet era. Bearing races are treated with it. Hank
[quote="sparks"]I think i will have to try to find the nickel-electroplatingpapers.
The platingbath was nothig to spice up thr friday-martini with, but it wasn´t anywhere near the toxicity of most platingbaths i´ve heard of.
Not very touchy about current density either as i recall.
Temperature was very important.
Keeping things clean, well everyone who tries to anodize Al or electroplate something manages to make their fingerprints last for ever at least once ;-)[/quote]
An alternative is to use electroless nickel plating (ENP). I've had extremely good succeess with this process and now use it quite often when I want to turn/mill up a complex part that will be used in hi-temperature environments.
Using plain steel and then dropping it in the ENP bath for an hour or so means that you end up with a very durable component without the hassle of working with stainless (which is far more expensive and can be a bitch to work with as well as being harder on tooling than plain steel).
There's a nozzle in the G3 X-Jet that's done quite a few hours and was made this way. It still polishes up to a brilliant shine and shows no signs of erosion.
ENP is *very* safe and involves no *toxic* chemicals (although you wouldn't want to drink the stuff).
These chemicals are also far more readily available than electroplating solution.
The platingbath was nothig to spice up thr friday-martini with, but it wasn´t anywhere near the toxicity of most platingbaths i´ve heard of.
Not very touchy about current density either as i recall.
Temperature was very important.
Keeping things clean, well everyone who tries to anodize Al or electroplate something manages to make their fingerprints last for ever at least once ;-)[/quote]
An alternative is to use electroless nickel plating (ENP). I've had extremely good succeess with this process and now use it quite often when I want to turn/mill up a complex part that will be used in hi-temperature environments.
Using plain steel and then dropping it in the ENP bath for an hour or so means that you end up with a very durable component without the hassle of working with stainless (which is far more expensive and can be a bitch to work with as well as being harder on tooling than plain steel).
There's a nozzle in the G3 X-Jet that's done quite a few hours and was made this way. It still polishes up to a brilliant shine and shows no signs of erosion.
ENP is *very* safe and involves no *toxic* chemicals (although you wouldn't want to drink the stuff).
These chemicals are also far more readily available than electroplating solution.
There is a gun barrel blueing agent that must be similar to the stuff you "blue-tempered spring steel" with. I don't know what metal the agent is but perhaps arsenic or some other strange sulfide agent. I just remember seeing a bottle of it in my Dad's garage for treating gun barrels. I have a huge roll of .006ths blued, tempered, spring steel I bought from some company in Chicago over ten years ago. The box and round cardboard spool is perhaps 2 feet in diameter. Blueing is another way to go to prevent corrosion.Bruce wrote:An alternative is to use electroless nickel plating (ENP). I've had extremely good succeess with this process and now use it quite often when I want to turn/mill up a complex part that will be used in hi-temperature environments.sparks wrote:I think i will have to try to find the nickel-electroplatingpapers.
The platingbath was nothig to spice up thr friday-martini with, but it wasn´t anywhere near the toxicity of most platingbaths i´ve heard of.
Not very touchy about current density either as i recall.
Temperature was very important.
Keeping things clean, well everyone who tries to anodize Al or electroplate something manages to make their fingerprints last for ever at least once ;-)
Using plain steel and then dropping it in the ENP bath for an hour or so means that you end up with a very durable component without the hassle of working with stainless (which is far more expensive and can be a bitch to work with as well as being harder on tooling than plain steel).
There's a nozzle in the G3 X-Jet that's done quite a few hours and was made this way. It still polishes up to a brilliant shine and shows no signs of erosion.
ENP is *very* safe and involves no *toxic* chemicals (although you wouldn't want to drink the stuff).
These chemicals are also far more readily available than electroplating solution.
I was toying with some fluorescent glass tubing yesterday, I dissolved off the aluminum ends in NaOH and it left the sealed glass ends. I tried sawing the ends with a 12 or 14 inch diamond saw blade. It sawed nicely until the last bit when it cracked the glass. I guess more careful pressure and holding the short end of the cut also might prevent cracking. But then I read about some ammonium bifluoride compound that mixed with HCL(hydrochloric acid) will frost glass. I would have liked to dissolved the glass into a neat edge with hydrofluoric acid, but if you inhale a small amount or spill hydrofluouric acid on yourself, you may very well say goodbye to your life on earth. Funny how some compounds play pretty rough, hydrofluoric acid eats/dissolves glass and can kill you with only skin contact.
Bluing on its own is not a particularly effective method of preventing rust. The reason for this is that it creates a very porous surface layer which allows air to get at the metal below.
To stop something that's been blued from rusting you have to oil it. The oil will fill the poors and keep the air away from the metal.
To stop something that's been blued from rusting you have to oil it. The oil will fill the poors and keep the air away from the metal.
Yea, it wouldn't be as good as plating I admit, but it must be better than just oil, which works pretty good, even though oil is a bother to take off and reapply as needed, as I have described it wrecks havoc by gumming the flutter effect. I just re-examined my large roll of.006ths that has been in my humid Florida garage for over a decade and then a cardboard can of some thinner spring steel I have almost as old, but this too still has the lovely sheen of mirror blue as bright as the day I bought it.Bruce wrote:Bluing on its own is not a particularly effective method of preventing rust. The reason for this is that it creates a very porous surface layer which allows air to get at the metal below.
To stop something that's been blued from rusting you have to oil it. The oil will fill the poors and keep the air away from the metal.
The oil layer seems to be very, very slight. Once you touch the metal though, you can set up a corrosion spot. Maybe the salts from your fingers or just disturbing the surface or something.
I was reading a tag inside my Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum clothy/synthetic fiber gun case. I don't even know what metal coating and/or alloy the gun is made out of but it looks kind of nickelish. Anyway it reads: DO NOT STORE GUNS IN THIS CASE Gun cases are designed for the transportation and protection of guns only-- not for lengthy storage! Without proper air circulation around the gun, there's no way to prevent guns from rusting in any type of gun case. Temperature changes outside the case and inside the case do not occur at the same rate thus resulting in condensation which turns into rust. Because of the above, we cannot guarantee that your gun will not rust in this case. No cases can make such a guarantee.
Maybe a vacuum chamber would be the best place to store metals. Next might be a nitrogen environment with silica gel thrown in for good measure. I have some platinum/iridium wire, it use to be the standard for the meter because it was found to be the least affected of anything they had "back then." http://www.mel.nist.gov/div821/museum/length.htm
I know some of you might want to make fun of the guy with the wide tie, but he's one step away from a suit and a pulsejet no doubt. Iridium hardens the platinum and the two together are a super anti-rust alloy. Maybe a deluxe pulsejet reed could be coated with such.
I have some 1 inch by 2 inch long neodymium magnets that are nickel plated. Unfortunately, I let them grab/bite each other and chipped the two ends. One magnets surface looks crumpled, it must be fairly thick nickel plating. The other magnet chipped deep like glass, with sharp curvy edges. Now the air will get to the neodymium, iron, boron, alloy. If you have ever used lighter flints, you will notice they are protected by a coating. The metal(s) are in the same family as neodymium and react with air, it's called spalting (sp) I think. I found some old flints and they were crumbly and friable, almost dust. The air had gotten to them even though they were never used, still in the little yellow plastic holder you flex to release one.
Mark