Milling a Snyder's head

Terry said:
I wouldn't put my self through all that. First off, how do you know it didn't just reproduce the the highs and lows of the old surface. Actually, if you had a large piece of thick plate glass, you could have used it for a lapping plate. But, But, the lapped finish is too fine to hold a gasket. It's almost a polish. I never worked in an automotive machine shop. ( I worked in Job shops and Die shops and finally a Model Shop) So i'm not familiar with the specialized machines that are used in that trade.The only make of machine that comes close is the Blanchard grinder ( Large segmented stone against a rotary magnetic table) A large Blanchard grinder is an awesome machine! But most guys refer to something called a Van Norman broach. Van Norman built milling machines for the war (WW2) in the forties. I didn't even know they were still in business. I haven't a clue how they were configured.
Terry
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The Blanchard would be the way to go. I think they are calling a shaper, broaching. Which is all together different than milling.

Cast as you know some times have hard spots. The grinder is the best way to deal with that. Milling cutter will ride up some where the metal is hard, and so will a shaper. The Blanchard does not care if it has hard spots.
 
forever4 said:
Where do these theories come from?

Seasoning blocks for two years before machining?

Unless the head was seriously overheated in service, the dimensions don't change.

If it is warped out of the box, it is because it was improperly clamped during machining or improperly stress relieved during maching.
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Hey Vince,
May as well save your breath/time making statements that are reasoned and practical here and on this subject.

Any 'fool' knows that making something from cast iron is child's play and can and has been done by the majority commenting ! Why, it's like wood twisting and on/on !!

NOW I see why Brumfield could no longer tolerate such speculation, old wife's tales, conjecture and deriding his efforts and product..

Over 4000 views of this thread and maybe a few thought posts, like yours.

The 'sad' part is that most appear to not realize or be concerned with what damage that they are doing to businessmen who supply this hobby :(

To further such tales and other garbage, with further speculation is good for your 'posts total number' , but at what expense for the integrity of this site ?
 
Terry said:
I wouldn't put my self through all that. First off, how do you know it didn't just reproduce the the highs and lows of the old surface. Actually, if you had a large piece of thick plate glass, you could have used it for a lapping plate. But, But, the lapped finish is too fine to hold a gasket. It's almost a polish. I never worked in an automotive machine shop. ( I worked in Job shops and Die shops and finally a Model Shop) So i'm not familiar with the specialized machines that are used in that trade.The only make of machine that comes close is the Blanchard grinder ( Large segmented stone against a rotary magnetic table) A large Blanchard grinder is an awesome machine! But most guys refer to something called a Van Norman broach. Van Norman built milling machines for the war (WW2) in the forties. I didn't even know they were still in business. I haven't a clue how they were configured.
Terry
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you check it with feeler gauges and a straight edge. many things can be done by hand if you take your time and have a good straight edge. if you dont check it and dont focus on the areas that need work it would just be all the same but lower. If I took all the parts I worked on in my head gasket replacement. head, block top, block side, exhaust manifold, intake manifold, top of head and new water outlet. It would have cost me and not because of time cutting but time setting up. and all the honing and filing took an afternoon and was free other than the 12 cents in oil I used on the stones.
 
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I think I'm being told to shut up, That I don't know anything that has any value and I'm ruining our supplier's business. FWIW, I have a Snyder's 5.5 head on at least one car, maybe two with no problems. Evidently it is both an asset and liability for me to have worked in the machine trade for twenty some years. I seem to know too much! All my life I have been concerned on the what, where, how, why, and the materials used in making various things and I might have spent a little more time asking questions and learning more than I have to know to do the job. Curiosity can be a terrible thing! I apologize for any inconvenience or complications that I may have caused someone. That was not my intention.
Terry
 
Terry said:
I wouldn't put my self through all that. First off, how do you know it didn't just reproduce the the highs and lows of the old surface. Actually, if you had a large piece of thick plate glass, you could have used it for a lapping plate. But, But, the lapped finish is too fine to hold a gasket. It's almost a polish. I never worked in an automotive machine shop. ( I worked in Job shops and Die shops and finally a Model Shop) So i'm not familiar with the specialized machines that are used in that trade.The only make of machine that comes close is the Blanchard grinder ( Large segmented stone against a rotary magnetic table) A large Blanchard grinder is an awesome machine! But most guys refer to something called a Van Norman broach. Van Norman built milling machines for the war (WW2) in the forties. I didn't even know they were still in business. I haven't a clue how they were configured.
Terry
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When I worked at Cummings Engine Co. we used the Blanchard grinder with segmented stones in the remanufacturing plant to surface the block top deck and the cylinder heads on all the Diesel engines.
 
When I was growing up in Flint Mich They had a Chev engine plant there. They use to leave the 6 cylinder engine blocks out side for a long time, before they machined them. When they built the V8 engine plant I'm not sure what they did then.
 
Seasoning critical cast iron parts is common knowledge, Ford in Dagenham when I left in 1964 left all cylinder blocks, heads, and transmission casings stored outside in the weather for two seasons of the year.
The likes of Snyders and Brumfield would not likely do this, so it was likely that some would need fixing before use, my first 5.5 Snyders head was junk and was shipped back, (OK I'm happy that they are available), but there was no excuse that it passed an inspection, (unfit for sale).
 
Well I have to say I never seen a rotary broach. But we did make a few cutters some what like the one you showed. We used them on a mill. We called them milling cutters. Some called them fly cutters.
 
forever4 said:
Hi George,
I am pretty certain that GM did not have hundreds/thousands of acres of float holding a two year production quantity of SBC blocks while they "seasoned/aged".

I agree there might have been a float yard which balanced the processes and shifts between engine casting/receiving, and engine machining processes, and satisfied the needs of supporting any unforeseen production outages. Sometimes we call that "safety stock". It is just extra material (either WIP or completed) held in reserve in case any mainline operation goes down temporarily.

Nobody wants to shut down an entire plant and send everyone home early for the day because of a snafu in one department. The end-of-line output must be maintained!

Also a vehicle assembly plant will have a float yard outside before the pay point to contain vehicles in process which might be held up for shipment due to various needs to repair, rework, or refit parts after assembly, but before releasing to the shipper. Those floats range from a hundred to perhaps a thousand vehicles per plant at any given moment.

The other thing to think about is the throughput of a plant, whether it is casting, machining or vehicle assembly. What may look like a lot of material sitting around is usually just a daily supply at best, or WIP.

I support full size trucks Silverado and Sierra, and we have three plants each running three shifts, each making around 1200 trucks a day. That is a lot of material flow just for a single day of production.

With most parts, we only have about a 2-3 hour supply of parts on hand in the assembly plant. Forty years ago, plants used to maintain much bigger inventories and WIP like you remember.

We build more than 1.5 million full size trucks in two years. There is no yard with 1.5 million WIP blocks seasoning now for the 2018, 2019, 2020 truck model years!

Also, imagine how long it would take to get an engineering change into production at that rate!
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Vince Im sure you know and what you say makes sense. All I remember is there was a lot of engines out there. Maybe 1or2 acres, but they were rusty looking.
 
When you order a new head state it must be flat or will be immediately returned for replacement or refund. If everyone would do this with anything they buy from the suppliers things would change in everyones favor very quickly. We all should not accept poor quality from the parts suppliers. In my book having to resurface a new head is insane. You should not have to do this. If the casting has been properly heat treated and machined correctly it should be ready to use out-of-the-box.
 
Hey Vince,
This is the same surfacing machine as owned/used by a friend, who has operated a one man engine rebuilding business for decades. He does flatheads and on up to moderns/exotic engines. He does not have much room for engine storage inside, so you would see many engines sitting outside at any time(no, not seasoning them). He has all the work that he can handle and is sought after due to his expertise and quality of product.
I have had him flatten blocks and heads and never had any problems with the accuracy of his work.
 
Y-Blockhead said:
A friend has a Snyder 5.5 head that is about 1/8" shorter on both length and width. Are they all like this or is his unique? It looks kind of strange.
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My experience is the heads were not the same size as the block exposing much gasket around the edges. Also the stud hole bosses are too thick
 
forever4 said:
Hi George,

This is a very good tool for refacing blocks and heads, and providing a surface which will hold a gasket, compared to grinders and vertical mills.



VNrotarybroach1.jpg




VNrotarybroach2.jpg
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Vince, as a side-bar on this. I have, -and presently use a 570 similar to the one pictured. The two biggest issues most have with this type machine is the surface finish and the indexing. Most rotary broaches have a transverse speed that is too fast which causes the circular lines often seen in the surface finish. On a soft, pliable copper gasket, this is marginally ok however with the modern composite head gaskets, with this rough finish they tend to weep water. Fortunately with a pulley change on my unit, the IpM feed rate is slowed considerable which allows me to get a much better surface roughly in the 40RA range. Therefore I am in the market for a better surfacer that uses a CBN cutter (one cutter) that rotates at about 10,000 RPMs which can deliver a finish in the 20-30 RA range which allows the use of the modern Model-A head gasket.

The 2nd issue that comes with the 570 is ensuring the block is square with the cutter(s). On a 570, the cutter head is lowered and the block is set onto the machine's table in an inverted position onto 4 feeler gauges of the same thickness. The block is then clamped from both ends using bolster plates. With this method there is no provision to be able to use a dial indicator to indicate from end-to-end to ensure the block is indexed accurately. Therefore, suppose a block was mis-machined from a previous rebuild and they surfaced the deck .010" out of square? When it comes time to set-up for this operation on a 570, you gave nothing to reference off of. Most modern surfacers actually clamp using the pan rails as their datum to ensure the deck stays parallel. For years, the Van Norman 520s & 570s were the workhorse of many small automotive machine shops, and they definitely have their place in history however with set-up & machining time more expensive, and better technology coming available in the last decade or so, IMO there are some better options. Sure wish I owned a Rottler F79! :D

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