New Member

[JV Puleo]

My name if Joe Puleo, a borderline semi-retired book designer and amateur machinist. I'm rebuilding a 1910 Mitchell automobile and probably spend half my time making tools to make the parts. I've seen this forum before but only now thought I'd join and see if I could find some new ideas or even share some of my own.

[Jon]

Hi Joe - welcome to HomemadeTools.net

The Mitchell project sounds like a blast . What kind of tools have you been building?

[DIYer]

Welcome to the forums, JV Puleo. Not familiar with that Mitchell and am quite interested in the stuff you've been making for it.

[JV Puleo]

The Mitchell was a fairly pedestrian car built in Racine Wisconsin. The company began in wagons and lasted in the auto business until the mid-20s, largely done in by a new model that was a sales disaster. I believe the factory was bought by Nash and I have heard its only recently been torn down.

Here's an example of the sort of thing I've been doing. These are valve cages. They are the engine exhaust valves and because there is no detachable cylinder head they are self contained and fit into the top of the cylinders. The first photo is the finished job. On the right is the only original cage I have along with one of the original valves (note the high-end original repair). The second photo is the tools and fixtures I made in order to make them, though I don't think everything is there. This sort of work is about 75% making fixtures and about 25% doing the actual job.





At the moment I'm pondering a way to use my lathe as a horizontal boring mill to bore the camshaft bearings on another early engine, one that threw a rod, so the case was smashed. Its been welded back together but, needless to say isn't anywhere near straight and flat and the welds go right through the camshaft journals.

Cheers,

Joe Puleo

[kbalch]

Hi Joe,

Welcome!

Great work and very impressive craftsmanship!

Please do post as many more photos as you've got; lots of us here (yours truly included!) would be really interested to follow your work.

What are you working on currently?

Ken

[JV Puleo]

This is my main project... I'm about 3 years into it and probably have 7 or 8 to go, though I'm hoping to have a recognizable engine in much less time. At the moment I'm making a dummy spindle nose for my lathe so I can make new backing plates. Lifting the 12" 4-jaw is getting tiresome and I hardly ever need that much capacity.

Here is my combined generator/distributor unit. The generator is from a Briggs & Stratton engine for a lawnmower. The distributor end is from a wrecked Bosch DU4 magneto. I want to use early electric lights on the Mitchell. There is no place for a generator and, in any case, I don't want it to be obvious.

It is a hand-cranked car so I don't need starter motor capacity. I want just enough electricity to power LED lights. They'd mostly be for the odd emergency but I've been stuck on the road with nothing by acetylene & kerosene lights before and would prefer not to do that again.