Piston rings

[SGW]

Has anybody used George Trimble's method of making piston rings that's descried in "Strictly I.C." magazine #s 7, 8, and 9? If so, do you have any words of wisdom for somebody who's about to try it?

Will ordinary gray cast iron work, or do you need to use the high-grade cast iron he describes?

[docsteve66]

Friend of mine claims, during WWll, he made many piston rings for automobiles from sewer pipe, and fittings. Might be worth a look, Never even chucked a sewer pipe up myself.

[OB]

Trimble's method works very well. The jigs and fixtures are a bit of trouble to make up, but the results are worth it. I used commercial cast iron stock from one of the hobbyist suppliers to make a set of eight rings for a four cylinder engine. I have heard that cast iron pipe fittings are made from a good grade of material and should be suitable for rings. A furnace and some anti-scale compound is handy for heat treating the rings, but isn't absolutely
necessary.

[Ragarsed Raglan]

Don't know how big your cylinders are or conversely how small your s**t is but sewer pipes sound to be overkill!

I knew a guy who made some very good rings for a vintage car race engine from some drain pipe. He said the stuff to look for is well weathered, spun cast pipe. He told me that he even managed to machine them with bias twist, although he was making Dykes' type rings.

RR

[metal mite]

swg
Used to work for a seal company making industrial as well as aircraft seals.
We machined a piston ring to finish size plus a couple thou, slit them with a jewelers saw or slitting saw (small lots only).
After that they were stacked on a flat plate and heated in the furnace with a gap block to hold them open.
They retained about 80% of the gap block size upon cooling, and had proper shape.

Don't remember the temperature. Somewhere around stress relief temp I think.

The large lots went thru the Gardner double sided Grinders, cam turn lathe,
slotting mills, and O.D. lap machines.

Another method:

Restrain the roughed and gapped rings closed with a copper wire, solder the wire to hold the ring closed.

Face clamp the "wired ring" on the faceplate, remove the wire and finish turn.

It's a bunch of "****" making fixtures.

mite

[docsteve66]

Raglan:I suspect what you call Drain pipe is what I called sewer pipe. Bell/Hub and spigot cast iron pipe, mostly centrifuge cast. Smallest size I have ever actualy used is 1 1/4 inches. Crocker's "Handbook of piping" (1945 edition) lists cast iron pipe as small as 1/4" and over 12".
Bell spigot seems to be the proper name. I stand corrected.

Some one said "Don't know how big your cylinders are or conversely how small your s**t is but sewer pipes sound to be overkill! "

For good info concerning the allowable sizes to passed through a monkey, I refer you to Mr David (Thrud) comments regarding the monkey peanut and billard ball. I would avoid the taste test. Toilets are required by law to pass a 1 1/2 ball (as best I remember) and higer quality toilets pass larger balls. I assume this is maximum/proper size of matter normaly encountered.

For cylinder size of internal combustion engines, On old Misspssippi tug boat engines, they used to hone scratch marks in cylinder walls by lowering a small man craw inside the cylinder and use a stone, I am reasonably certain the engine SGW asked about falls under that size and probably over 1/4" desired ID for the rings. But I have been wrong before.
PS: I may be wrong, but I assume the tugboat engine was shut down when the honing occured- but having consummed adult beverages with some of those men, I would not bet money on it.
Humbley
Steve

[Weston Bye]

This big ol' kid (don't know where he came from)comes to try out for the football team. Coach hands him the ball, says: Son, can you pass this? Kid says: Coach, I don't even think I can swallow it.

Must have met the monkey.

Wes

[SGW]

I need 1" dia. rings, so sewer pipe would be a bit big!

[Thrud]

SGW
I would just wander down to the plumbing supply I get a piece or fitting of appropriate dimensions. If you want to spend lots of money, Small Parts has some really good bar...

Dave

[charlie coghill]

Check out the MSC cataloge and their Gray Iron. This may be what you are looking for. Charlie

[charlie coghill]

Check out the MSC cataloge and their Gray Iron. This may be what you are looking for. Charlie

[Peter S]

There was quite a long discussion on rings recently on the Strictly Miniature Internal Combustion newsgroup. Includes some stuff in "files" that is way over my head.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/min_int_comb_eng/

[Dave Burnett]

You can get cast iron from McMaster-Carr. I bought some 1.250 dia. from them and I made the rings for my Plunket Engine from it. I read an article on making piston rings, cut the ID & OD and instead of slitting them you force them on a tapered shaft and they will break in one spot,stick a shim in the break and heat it red hot, let it air cool and it's done. Sounds crazy but it worked for me 6 times.

[Ragarsed Raglan]

Doc,

There goes to prove the old Churchillian adage "... a common people separated by a common language..."

Sewer pipes in the UK are big enough to drive a Mini Cooper down ... see the 'Italian Job' film.

BTW ~ have a good holiday all you Americans, just what is it that you celibrate on the 4th July?

RR

[This message has been edited by Ragarsed Raglan (edited 07-03-2002).]

[Thrud]

Ragarsed

They celebrate getting rid of the redcoats. It should be noted that Canada is the only nation that has stood up to America and won. It was 13 Hosers with beer and pitchforks against 100 invading Americans with Brown bess' flintlocks. The end result was that they decided that it would be easier to pick on the redcoats instead. Good thing they tried to invade Ontario - Albertians would have made them stay and buy the beer too.

This "True Histry of Canada" moment brought to you by the "please invade us" movement.

Happy Fourth, my hoser brothers to the south!