Found Dreaming

Today it's David Braleys Day, Happy Birthday.

Thanks for the thread Jammer, good idea, Happy Birthday David... Hope it is a good one.

Yes.. happy birthday. I hope you have a splendiferous day

Thanks Guys! It was a great day.

I spent some of it getting some more progress on a torque plate I'm making for an engine project. The plate will fit a 1957 392 Chrysler Hemi engine.

Rough cutting to length a bar of 2" by 8" hot rolled A36:




I'm tired just thinking about picking it up:




A little too wide, so I trim off one edge with a simple abrasive blade and a skill saw:




It worked!:




The blade just made it. I thought this was kind of funny:




Using a heavy rougher to remove the scale off the faces and sides:




And a long four flute to bring the sides to size:




A home made fly cutter to dust the faces closer to final size:




Squared up and ready for some bore holes:




Roughed in bore holes:




And where it sits at the moment:




Next, I will dust both faces with my surface grinder to make it super flat and smooth. I'll then final machine the bore holes to size and machine the head bolt holes. To finish it up, I'll radius all the corners and make some handles for the ends so I can safely pick the thing up!

Take care,

David

Wow! I never imagined you could cut a slab of steel with a skillsaw...... Amazing!!

Wayne

Man, when I first looked at the first pic I thought it was a plank of wood you where cutting that is a big bit of steel you have there. How heavy was it before you cut the holes in it ?

I had to cut a 6"x8" piece of cast iron a while back, I found that a diamond wheel for cutting concrete worked the best... fast and clean, I cut it wet just to keep the dust down.

Nudge wrote:Man, when I first looked at the first pic I thought it was a plank of wood you where cutting that is a big bit of steel you have there. How heavy was it before you cut the holes in it ?

The material is about 56 pounds per foot, and I loaded a 40" long piece into the saw. I cut off about 22" for the torque plate, so something around 100 lbs. Not too bad, but I needed to think about it a little before I picked it up.

I had to cut a 6"x8" piece of cast iron a while back, I found that a diamond wheel for cutting concrete worked the best... fast and clean, I cut it wet just to keep the dust down.

I saw those diamond blades at the hardware store. Then I saw the price difference. The abrasive cut-off blade was only $3.95, and the diamond blade was over $40. If I was doing a lot more cutting, I would have definitely gone with the diamond cuter.

David

The one that I was using was a $100 one I found that it was cutting a LOT cooler than the abrasive one (even without the water) I was also using it on a petrol saw

What is a torque plate? Sorry but I am pretty car dumb.

The machine work looks great, I would love to have capability of milling steel... some day

The idea goes way back to the late 40's and early 50's when manufactures started to make blocks thinner to save on manufacturing costs. They noticed with the thinner, lighter blocks that when a set of cylinder heads where bolted and torqued down, the stress of the head bolts placed around the cylinders would deform the cylinder walls a tiny bit. This deformation would result in a cylinder that was no longer perfectly round, causing the rings to not seal as well.

So a heavy plate is bolted to the top of the block and "torqued" down to cylinder head bolt specs during the boring and honing process. The torque plate simulates the deformation to the blocks cylinder walls that would normally happen when the head is bolted down. Machining the cylinders with the plate in place assures round holes when the block is under the stresses of the tightened head bolts. When the engine is final assembled after being machined with a torque plate, the cylinders should end up being nice and round for the rings.

It's the little details that make a difference on how much horse power you can make and how reliable the engine ends up being.

David