Technical Building a new Winfield...

With the float tooling in the hands of the metal spinner... I started designing the fixture to finish the float bowl. Hopefully will have some finished float bowl pics by this weekend

 

Honestly, that tumbled finish has the look of a carb that has lost the factory plating.

 

I feel the pain of a dozen aluminum splinters looking at that pile of shavings!!!

 

Eventually I’m going to have to decide what to do with the carbs... the 2 that end up on my engine hopefully will be polished then copper plated. Would be pretty cool if they looked like a couple uh new pennies!!

If I make more carbs than what I need... they will probably get shipped with the tumbled finish...

The originals were copper plated, but never would have had a bright finish as the carbs were not polished prior to plating. I have a NOS carb, and the plating is in great shape... but really tarnished. When I get around to experimenting with the copper plating, I’ll give the NOS carb a vinegar bath to see how it looked when new...?

 

Well... turns out the first one was no accident! Cuz the second one came out real nice

 

I'm searching for something for an intelligent and insightful comment. The best I can come up with right now is wow!! Or fucking wow!!

Chris

Sent from my SM-T515 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

"Perfection cannot be rushed"

 

I’ve got 5 float bowl finished to this point now... but unfortunately have to return to the real world to finish up a few other small projects . Should only be a few days before I can come back to finish these into usable float bowls!

Should get the new float pieces from the metal spinner this weekend too... maybe I’ll start practicing my soldering...?

 

I couldn't make that stuff if I lived to be 150 years old.

 

That’s no reason to give up...!

 

Just because the “real world” has me distracted... doesn’t mean I have to stop thinking bout the important things in life!!!



Spent bout 5 minutes on the buffing wheel, and got to thinkin I should start collecting what I need to try out the copper plating...

 

Beautiful work. For reference, here's an original (I wasn't sure what they looked like).

 

I've had 20-25 winfields over the years and only ever had 1 with the original finish.

 

I scored a S-B at a swap meet years ago and a SR-C years before that, both were as close to NOS as one could hope for. I made a promise to myself a while back that I would stop collecting other peoples junk, but I’m a few generations removed from buying “used” car parts. Here’s a pic of my B as it sits today, the one shown above has clearly had a vinegar bath to clean it up. The copper plating doesn’t stay bright very long...



These carbs were plated as raw die castings, and are covered with texture and imperfections. They would have looked a lot like the carb shown above when new, but would have been a long way from the finish of a shiny new penny!

 

Note, the carb above is shown with one of my new billet machined choke horns installed. The original choke horns appear to have been supplied as raw die cast, as I have not seen any signs of copper plating on the straight or elbow horns, or any signs of factory polishing.

I have seen a few pics of carbs that appear to have copper plated choke horns, but the color never matches the carb bodies and I suspect that the “copper color” is actually the zinc base metal tarnishing into a light brown color. Here is one such pic...

 

The first of many real world distractions...

A 1916 Overland flywheel with a few less ring gear teeth than intended. Machine off the original integral iron teeth, to make room for a new shrink fit ring gear... DUN!

 

sick workmanship

 

Was just cruzin thru some pics and sumthin cought my eye... this is the first choke horn that I have seen that was clearly copper plated! Maybe they were in fact copper plated...?

 

The wife is at work today... so I took over her kitchen to make up the copper and nickle acetate solutions for plating... shhhhh!

I haven’t had time to finish a carb bowl yet... but do have a few finished choke horns I can test it out on...

 

Make the most of it and run some engine parts through the dishwasher.

 

A long time ago, I used the oven to cure some paint on a cold day... scarred her for life!!!

I have to be pretty incognito these days...

 

Yes?

Tod

 

After messin with the plating rig for most of the day... I was successful at plating half of the keys in my pocket, but don’t seem have enough power to plate the larger carb parts...!

I got a choke horn to cast a light copper color in just the right light. I’ll try more power... then maybe I’ll seek profess help! Some of the problem could be the aluminum, which is commonly regarded as unplateable. I’ll try some original carb parts some day to confirm if it’s a material, or power issue

 

Looking great Kevin. I have a Winfield model S prototype in aluminum.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^
Check that thing out!!!

 

Well... I musta done sumthin right!!!

 

Here we are after a few minutes up against the buffing wheel.

 

Here’s all 5, deburred, tumbled, and cleaned. Now I can plug off the fuel passage and these buggers are DUN!



Not sure bout the rest yet... but the 2 polished ones are goin on my car!

 

Kevin, I've been watching your progress here and on MTFCA- fantastic work!!!... now, on to the throttle bodies ?

 

I have the S-B throttle barrel modeled up, but am basically at the point of a bare casting. Still have to add in all the holes and the airfoil venturi section. The tricky part is modeling it accurate to the original design... yet tweaked slightly so that it can be machined with my equipment.

Today is all about the float bowl cover. I finalized the design this morning, and am ready to take the first cuts now. Will post some pics once it starts to take shape