Does anybody out there have or operate a lapping table. I know Mazdatrix, and Racingbeat lap housings for a fee, anybody else perform this service?

I used a guy sort of local to me that has a "home made" lapping table. His name is Leuis (forgot his last name), he is an old school rotary builder from Panama that now runs a salvage yard in Gadsden, AL and builds rotary engines on the side. I used him when I rebuilt my engine. He lapped my irons, pressed in new rotor and gear bearings and polished my e-shaft journals.



When I was told he made his own lapping table I didn't believe it until I saw it with my own eyes. It looks very crude but he knows what he is doing with it and my housings turned out great.



I am sure that MPM will chime in and tell you a little more about him. He knows him personally and helps out in his shop pretty often.



I will try to attach the two photos I have of his lapping table.

DUDE!!!,



Panama?



As in Panama City, Panama? I'm actually living in Panama and there are NO rotary rebuilders except myself nowday. Let me know how to get in touch with this guy to kind of know a bit more about his past when he lived here. Things down here are kind of weird in regards of rotary respect...



Regards,



JC



m_performance@hotmail.com

Ding Dong, MPM calling. <--You get it? I've chimed in like Avon. anyway....





The table is crude looking. We don't have all the pretty guards that catch the goop that falls off the table but it works as good as any. 6 months of experimentation with different turntable speeds and plate speeds and its finally thru. We measure everything before and after cutting. We are trying to find a local shop that does nitride or plasma flame processing. To add some more life to the plates after they are cut.



Luis is originally from Panama, but lives in Alabama now. He visits there once a year. He had an R100 when he was 17 and learned to rebuild the engine in his driveway and has been playing and rebuilding them since. PM me if you want more info.



The lapping table and shop is in Gadsden, AL. There are a few customers that drive up from Pensacola, FL and a few that drive down from Chatanooga, TN for a Luis engine otherwise we do mostly local stuff. We just did my engine(ported 6-port) and will have some dyno numbers after breakin.

Man, I just love the electrical wiring !!! https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/blink.png



Looks good'n'industrial to me- the sort of thing I would do...

that actually looks a lot like racing beats table....

how the hell does that work???



I can't figure it out https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/wacko.png

andynogo - Yeah the wiring is a little ghetto. If you notice the empty junction box on the front leg. Its for the on/off switch we haven't installed yet. Right now we just plug it in when its time to turn on.



mperformance - Its hard to describe how it works. Once you've seen it run, its quiet simple to understand.



j9fd3s - I've never seen Racing Beats table. I thought they had a big one that would do multiple plates? Ours only does a single plate at a time.

rick engman of downing atlanta has one

Maybe I can do this justice with a modified picture.



A side housing is mounted to the hanging arm as shown crudely in the photo freehanded as a black blob. It just uses the weight of the side housing to press down on the lapping stone. This rotates the housing counter clockwise.



The large lapping stone (hardened steel with groves cut in it) rotates clockwise.



Oil and a cutting compound is perodically applied to the lapping stone. When the compound is first applied you can hear it cutting (scraping noise) against the iron. Once the machine gets quiet again more compound is applied.

The compound is about the consistency of liquid graphite or anti-seize compound but I am not sure what grain or name brand he uses.



It is a slow process. If I remember correctly he spent around 30 minutes on each face and only removed a few thousandths of an inch (0.001"). When done the side housing surface does not have a mirror finish. It is left with a dull grey look but feels nearly as smooth as glass.

it might be bigger, i didnt look too closely at it, but it does look a lot like yours

you can lap by hand if you dont mind getting dirty, and your forearms will be huge like mine

they all look pretty similar, it's a simple machine.... the principal is the same on the larger machines, just has multiple spots for housings to be attached for lapping more than one at a time.



they're messy machines too.

The one we have at work is about 3x's that big and is made for resurfacing rotating groups for hydraulic piston pumps. I don't run it myself but I think they just rely on it spinning and don't add any weight onto the part that gets lapped. Maybe I should try and get some pictures.

I ude a semo-local company near me, Stahli USA. All they do is lapp. They provide graet serrvice at a reasonable price.

The key to any precision-machine tool is accuracey and repeatability. LAPPING BLocks are heavy-mo-fos. they need to be in order to hold the dimensional tolerances the are expected to produce.



The lapping table pictured is undersized for lapping an iron, (Note: I am not picking on tha mans tool, just making an observation). That block is very thin (relatively) compared to the iron it is meant to lap. The lapping machine that I have seen used has a block that is ~12" thick. It needs to be thick so that it doesn't flex and it maintains dimensional stability.