Author Topic: Hodgson 9 cycl radial  (Read 106612 times)

Offline Ramon Wilson

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #15 on: February 25, 2013, 02:05:23 PM »
H Steve - yes will be watching along too.  It's not the nine of everything thats so much the problem it's when you get into the multiples ;) . As someone 'failing' at the moment on a 9cyl engine hang on in there though - it's a great project.

Regards - Ramon
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Offline Pete49

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #16 on: February 26, 2013, 02:14:50 AM »
I'll be watching avidly. Love the sound of radial engines. A mechanic I know has a full size one he runs at the odd show ....what a sound (not too close though :Lol:)
Pete
« Last Edit: February 26, 2013, 02:26:04 AM by Pete49 »
I used to have a friend.....but the rope broke and he ran away :(....Good news everybody I have another friend...I used chain this time :)

Offline swilliams

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #17 on: February 26, 2013, 09:10:14 AM »
Thanks Pete Ramon and Pete, nice to have you guys aboard.

Ramon - I'm sure this will get pretty tough at some point. Hope your 9 picks up from here. I'd sure be interested to hear more about your build.

Pete - a full size radial running must be very impressive. I get the idea that even the models are something to see when they're running.

 :cheers:
Steve

Online steamer

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #18 on: February 26, 2013, 11:58:44 AM »
Hey Steve!

There's a T6 Texan that flys over my house nearly Daily during the summer months....My kids know that sound!   Pratt and Whitney 1340!

Dave
« Last Edit: February 26, 2013, 05:34:51 PM by steamer »
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Offline b.lindsey

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #19 on: February 26, 2013, 01:06:49 PM »
Steve, with no intent to intrude into your thread, I thought some here may not have seen one of these things running. This video is of Doug Kelley's 9 cyl. radial from Hodgson's plans built probably 9-10 years ago. He had brought it to our Cotton Ginning Days festival in Oct. of 2011 and i took this video with my phone. It sounds even better in person and is rather intimidating when revved up with that 3 blade prop


http://s257.beta.photobucket.com/user/wlindiii/media/VIDEO0003_zps72ed2504.mp4.html

Bill
« Last Edit: February 26, 2013, 05:02:54 PM by b.lindsey »

Offline arnoldb

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #20 on: February 26, 2013, 04:59:00 PM »
That's a nice and challenging project you picked now Steve.

Good going so far; keep at it.  There's definitely a multi-cylinder radial in my future as well, but not IC - just air powered.

Kind regards, Arnold
Building an engine takes Patience, Planning, Preparation and Machining.
Procrastination is nearly the same, but it precludes machining.
Thus, an engine will only be built once the procrastination stops and the machining begins!

Offline Ramon Wilson

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #21 on: February 26, 2013, 11:13:51 PM »
Ramon - I'm sure this will get pretty tough at some point. Hope your 9 picks up from here. I'd sure be interested to hear more about your build.

Hi Steve - Hmmm not quite so sure about the latter - could cause some serious soul searching :D

This is most of it out for an irregular corrosion check and oil up around last fall. I took the pic for someone on the ME site whose own model had suffered severe corrosion of the crankcase. All these parts live in these boxes wrapped in VPI paper and oiled with  a paraffin and oil mixture.  I made the crankcase first - in 1992 ::) - It's not a radial BTW but parts for a Bentley rotary engine


What you don't see of course is all that tooling that you have to make too ;)

Good luck with your build - I will follow along with great interest

Regards - Ramon
"I ain't here for the long time but I am here for a good time"
(a very apt phrase - thanks to a well meaning MEM friend)

Offline Mike R

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #22 on: February 27, 2013, 04:02:21 AM »
Steve,


I will be following along with great interest as I have been bitten by the radial engine bug several times and I am truly infected!  I have a 1/6th scale P&W Wasp Jr I'm very slowly working on and a 1/4 scale Wright Whirlwind set of castings tucked under my bench for later (like retirement in ~25 years!).


I feel your pain in making the fins - my next attempt at the fins on the Wasp Jr.will either be using a slitting saw stationary on a tool holder in the lathe or doing as you suggest and milling them on the rotary table - they are a bit thinner than the Hodgson at ~0.012" for the fin and 0.024" for the groove.


Please continue on - hopefully you will show me the way!




Mike

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #23 on: February 27, 2013, 11:24:57 AM »
Ramon - I'm sure this will get pretty tough at some point. Hope your 9 picks up from here. I'd sure be interested to hear more about your build.

Hi Steve - Hmmm not quite so sure about the latter - could cause some serious soul searching :D

This is most of it out for an irregular corrosion check and oil up around last fall. I took the pic for someone on the ME site whose own model had suffered severe corrosion of the crankcase. All these parts live in these boxes wrapped in VPI paper and oiled with  a paraffin and oil mixture.  I made the crankcase first - in 1992 ::) - It's not a radial BTW but parts for a Bentley rotary engine


What you don't see of course is all that tooling that you have to make too ;)

Good luck with your build - I will follow along with great interest

Regards - Ramon

A fellow club member, Rollie Gaucher....( Rollies Dad's method of lathe alignment...Rollie)  has built one of the Bentleys....and it has run for a good number of years now....though at this years show...he didn't run it..he was tired of being covered in oil...

Nice engine!....bit of a beast!

Dave
"Mister M'Andrew, don't you think steam spoils romance at sea?"
Damned ijjit!

Offline swilliams

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #24 on: February 27, 2013, 01:37:57 PM »
Hi Guys, lots of cool posts here. I had a busy day today and finished it off in the shop. Started by instantly destroying another cylinder, then got in the necessary zen type of mood needed for successful finning and got 3 right. So I'm now on four correctly finned and two in arrears.

Dave - that sounds pretty cool about the Texan T6. Bet the kids love it.
Bill - the movie is cool. Thanks for posting it.

Arnold - thanks for stopping by. I'm sure you've got the energy to build a radial, I'm always impressed with the rate you turn good work out at.

Ramon - Wow looks great and you've done so much. What's the main thing that's holding you back now? At least the crank case is well aged  :)  BTW I have the book for building the Bentley, sure is an interesting project.

Mike - I'm definitely going to keep going. I'm making steady progress now. I think the slitting saw in the mill would be much easier. You could set the stop on the x axis and run the slitting saw in tangentially (full depth in one go), then spin the rotary table around once and the groove would be done. I'm enjoying hearing about your radial exploits.

Cheers
Steve

 

Offline Ramon Wilson

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #25 on: February 27, 2013, 02:34:15 PM »
Hi Steve - sorry to hear of yet another 'loss' as I know just how you feel - I made three camboxes on this one ::)

I'm afraid time, and to a high degree, motivation, is the culprit at the moment. Last time I did anything was after someone new to ME came over and was asking for advice as to prevent 'prevarication'. At the time I was showing him these parts. "Try to do something, no matter how small, each day" was my response and after he left began to pack the parts all away again. Catching myself I thought it might be a good idea if I actually practiced what I preached and at least make a start on the topside of the cylinder heads which had been languishing for far too long. Three /four weeks later they were all finished ready for the valves but that was it - only found time to keep it oiled since ::)


In case you are wondering these are made from En1a leaded steel.

Like I say definitely not at the moment but I'm sure you are going to be the catalyst for a restart at some stage ;)

All the best now

Regards - Ramon
"I ain't here for the long time but I am here for a good time"
(a very apt phrase - thanks to a well meaning MEM friend)

Offline swilliams

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #26 on: February 28, 2013, 08:11:23 AM »
The heads look awesome Ramon. I'd love to help rekindle your enthusiasm. Maybe when I hit the wall you can take up the slack   :naughty:

What are you going to do about the induction pipe elbows that Lew Blackmore die cast? Are you going to follow his method or go some other way?

Anyway I'm off to cut some more fins and inhale some more cutting oil  :insane:

Steve

Offline Mayhugh1

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #27 on: March 02, 2013, 05:16:09 AM »
Steve,
          I, too, am building the H9 engine. I've finished all the machining and have just now started the final assembly. Many of the sub-assemblies are already tested and so I hope there aren't any ugly surprises on the horizon. It took me about 17 months to get to this point (I'm retired and so this has been my full time job), and my biggest heartbreak was ruining my first crankcase during its very last machining step and having to start over. (Ruining the crankcase seems to happen with every IC engine I build). I actually started my engine with the crankcase because it looked like the most difficult part to build. As it turned out, the heads were considerably more involved. In case you haven't yet found them, there are two websites that you might want to visit that deal with the construction of the H9. The first is Tom Blough's site. He has completed many of the difficult parts and documented his work with lots of photos and comments. I found his site invaluable when building the heads because I was having a lot of difficulty visualizing them from the single drawing that Ageless supplies.  His website is

http://thebloughs.net/hobbies/metalworking/hodgson9/

This second site takes the engine to completion in a courageous, persistent, and  heartbreaking saga that is well documented with photos and comments (some in broken English). As the author admits after finally getting the engine running, many of his troubles were due to changes that he made to the original design but is well worth studying if you're into this engine.  I think his plan se may have been from an earlier version of the engine. The location of this site is:

http://homepage2.nifty.com/modelicengine/h9index.htm

Of course, there is also 5bears website:

http://www.5bears.com/curproj.htm

but his engine was definitely an early version and before many significant changes were made to the design by Hodgson and not as interesting as the otherbtwo sites. If your planset is more than 3 or 4 years old you might want to check with Hodson to get the most recent updates. I found many minor errors in mine and a few that were not so minor ,but Lee was also prompt about answering my e-mails.

There is a cute You-tube video:

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acHAGNUbOxs" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acHAGNUbOxs</a>

showing highlights of another builder's machining steps on what looks like a Smithy as well as his engine running in front of a fullsize radial in a hanger.
I made many of my own changes to the design especially with respect to the crankshaft which I turned from one solid piece to avoid piecing so many parts together. It also avoids the complex assembly fixture that is required for the stock process. I also made my own miniature gear cutter to cut the integral cam gear without chewing up the front bearing. I designed nicer rocker arm brackets to improve the looks of the heads whose plain stock dual towers I never have liked. Mine are more like a rocker arm box. I don't want to hi-jack your thread with my own photos. I plan to post some detail assembly photos in my own thread when I get the thing running. - Terry

Offline swilliams

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #28 on: March 03, 2013, 12:23:45 AM »
Hi Terry

Thanks for posting all that. Some useful info in there and good to hear from someone who's been there already. I know exactly what you mean about the head drawing - seems to me that half the essential information is in the machining description, not the drawing. I'd love to see some pics of your heads, you are very welcome to post them here. I might make the heads next, they look like one of the harder jobs to me too.

I've made more progress on the cylinders. I've got seven up to the stage in the pic below. I'm going to try and catch the outstanding two up to this point now. As said earlier - I started with 10 but lost 3 along the way.

 :cheers:
Steve




Offline Don1966

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Re: Hodgson 9 cycl radial
« Reply #29 on: March 03, 2013, 12:36:39 AM »
Hi Steve,  just catching up on your latest post, those heads came out great. Pity you lost three, I would of probably lost half. To much there for me to even get close to. I see you have the fins done like you want to now. Are they rounded on the ends I can't really tell?

Don

 

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