Marine Twin Cylinder Build (Steamech)

[Kim]

Thanks for the nice comments guys!

I am going to try and maintain focus and polish up this engine before I start the next.  Though I've already got my next victim lined up and have started doing a little planning and materials procurement!   I'm going to build Rudy Kouhoupt's "Radial Five".  That seems like a pretty fun engine, not too hard, but just a little different challenge.  Five cylinders, for one thing.  And a rotary valve instead of a sliding valve.  And it looks cool!

Anyway - "Stay on target, stay on target..."  I've already got a year into it, what's a few more weeks, right? I'll keep plugging away at my twin till I get'er done!

Thanks!
Kim

[Kim]

Did a little more work on my plumbing parts today.

Finished up the flanged plumbing brackets by spotting & drilling the mounting holes (#43 - close fit for #2).


Next, I cut 4 little pieces of some 1/4"x1/4" brass bar stock, squared them up to make 1/4" cubes, then used a end mill to drill a 1/8" diameter hole, 1/16" deep - this is to make a little ledge for the 1/8" tubing to sit on.


I drilled 2 holes on 90 degree faces on two of the parts, and drilled 3 holes on the other two for the T's.  Atually, the T-connectors were just drilled 1/8" all the way through. Then I used a 3/32" drill to go about half way through the block on the rest of the holes to connect things together.


Here's all four of them, with the flange brackets too.


And this is how I plan to hook it all up on the engine soon.


Any suggestions on connecting it all together? I'd originally thought I'd just soft solder it. But looking at the size of those pieces, and the itty bitty holes I will so likely plug up (not to mention the big mess I'll make of it), I'm kind-a thinking of using Loctite.  Would that work?  Will it give me an air tight enough seal to keep my plumbing from leaking?

Thanks,
Kim

[NickG]

Reckon it'd be a doddle to soft solder up Kim, the annoying bit would be cleaning it up afterwards and not bending anything. still it shouldn't require too much heat as the parts are small so some pickle and cared I cleaning with wire wool should do it. There will be a loctite out there that will do it but which one I'm not sure!

[Tennessee Whiskey]

Great looking piping job Kim. If it's only gonna breathe air, soft solder it. I did it on my RV-2 on sizes about the same. It was easy-Peasy . A quick hit with a brass brush and it will shine. 

Whiskey

[fcheslop]

Just my preference, I would silver solder the joint (hard solder).Just use some 0.5mm formed into rings.The joint will be as strong as the tubing and wont suffer from cracking .Im not keen on soft solder and find you can make a neater joint.
If you decide on soft solder either use solder paste or again form the solder into rings and use either Tipex of rub round with a pencil to make a resist.
cheers

[Kim]

It's been a long week with not much time for the shop.  But with our bad weather we've been having (lots of snow for us anyway) I couldn't go anywhere today, so I had to say in and play!

I out started by drilling the mounting holes for my plumbing flanges.  This picture shows one of the cylinders being drilled for a #2-56 mounting screws. Did the same to the steam chests, but didn't get a picture of that. 


Then I set about to assemble my ductwork.
Based on everyone's comments, (thanks Nick, Eric, and Frazer!) I decided against Loctite and went for solder.   I'm sure hard solder would have been a better choice, but soldering intimidates me in general (unless its components on a circuit board! ), so I decided to go with what I thought would be easier.  And seems like the consensus was it would be plenty good for an air-only operated engien.  So, soft solder it was.

Here's my parts all prepped, with solder past around the joints, clamped together on the little jig I made to keep the spacing correct.


And here's the after shot.  It went surprisingly fast - granted, maybe I used too big of a torch, but just a few seconds and everything just flowed into place.  I got a little dripping on the bottom of the upper joint, but a little filing cleaned that up.  This is probably why you recommended some kind of resist, Frazer.  That would have been a good idea, I'm just not sure what to use for that.


Here's the part with just a smidge of clean-up work.  It definitely needs more.


Then I opened up the hole in the T-joint and blew in the tube to check that it wasn't blocked, and that it didn't leak.   It seemed fine.  So I dropped it onto the cylinders to make sure it fit. I think it'll do


For the inlet side I'm going to have to make a little mod to my plan.  I realized before I soldered everything together that if I brought the air in from the front or back, it would interfere with the reversing handles.  So I decided to bring it out in the middle.  This means I'll need to make one more elbow block.  So that'll be up next.

Thanks,
Kim

[Don1966]

Nice going Kim those tubes came out great. Like Frazer I would of hard soldered it, just my preference. Your getting closure to completion and anxious to have it running I bet. I like.............


Don

[smfr]

Congratulations on the successful soldering, Kim  It gets easier the more you do it, and it's easy to practice on little bits of brass scrap.

Simon

[NickG]

Kim, well done. For tiny items like this I prefer to get the joints really clean, flux then heat somewhere not directly on the joint and feed in the solder by hand with electrical type solder - very easy to control where it goes
And how much that way. It's always cleaning up after that is a pain and puts me off doing it too though!

[fumopuc]

Hi Kim, I would say a successful job is done. As already mentioned by the others, some experimental soldering could be very helpfull. Very important is, that all surfaces are clean, no oil or grease, also not from your fingers, is involved.

[ozzie46]

 Nice job Kim. As for a resist to keep solder off where it shouldn't be, I've heard that "White Out" ( typing correction fluid ) works.

  Ron

[Kim]

Thanks for all the helpful hints and encouraging comments everyone!

I soldered up the intake side last night and will post pictures in a bit.  It went even better than the first!.

Once  I get the plumbing done, then I'm making another 40 or so studs (OK, fake all-thread studs).  I have around 60 total for the engine and about 1/3 of them done already.

Thanks,
Kim

[Kim]

Last night, I finished up the air inlet manifold (or whatever it might actually be called).

As I mentioned before, I decided to move the air input to the middle of the engine.  To do this I had to make another 90 degree elbow, and a 3/16" inlet connector to attach the air delivery tube to.  I didn't take any pictures of the elbow, that's exactly the same as earlier.  But here's a picture of the air inlet being cut off.  The 1/8" nubbin on the end is to fit into the opening on the T-connector.


Here's it is, all assembled together on my little spacing jig, ready to apply the heat.


And here's after the soldering process.  This one went even better than the first.  It didn't take very long to heat the joint and then, just like magic, 'poof' the solder melts and flows around the joint.  It happens very fast!  Makes me want to do more of this!


This morning, I finished off these parts.
After pickling, filing, and buffing, here's what I have left to show.  I think it came out pretty good for a first attempt!  Maybe next time I will try some hard solder.


The rest of  my morning has been cutting, filing and fitting studs for the cylinders.  I did 32 studs so far today.  Not bad for me anyway.


Only another 12 studs to go (for the bearings).  I did an exact count and I'll have 64 studs in all for this engine.  I feel for you on your double tandem compound engine Jo! 

Thanks,
Kim

[Dave Otto]

That's a lot of studs!

Nice work Kim.


Dave

[Jo]

Only another 12 studs to go (for the bearings).  I did an exact count and I'll have 64 studs in all for this engine.  I feel for you on your double tandem compound engine Jo! 

  Those are threaded rods. How are you holding them to round off the ends without damaging the threads  .

64 should be easy peasy, the engine I am avoiding is C3 which requires 294 studs on the basic engine and I have not looked at the requirements for the air pump yet  .

Jo