Author Topic: Ryan's Engine  (Read 44699 times)

Offline Bearcar1

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #30 on: August 04, 2012, 10:54:31 PM »
Having completed the redesign, and fabrication of the main bearing pedestal, I decided to continue on to the next
piece that I see as a challenge and that is the standards that support the cylinder. They have the appearance of a tall letter "A" when viewed face on. They have a wide flange on the bottom edge that is used to secure the piece to the base and a smaller flange at the top that gets bolted up under the cylinder. The whole piece, from flange to flange sets at about a 15* (est.) angle. Since this model may or may not see some rough handling during its life, I decided to make them out of stainless steel, rather than aluminum, thinking that the former will be much less prone to getting distorted or bent, should the engine encounter any undue physical abuse.


This afternoon, I have been busy laying out the shapes on a .063" sheet of some unknown stainless. I did the two pieces side-by-side as doing it this way would allow me to make the required bends exactly the same to both pieces at the same time. I then drilled the holes in them while they were still connected together and flat. I rarely have had a reason to use my box/pan brake but man, did it work in spades for me on this project. I bent a piece of copper wire to the angle that the plans in the magazine article had and used that wire as a guide in bending and after a few minutes of squaring things up, a few "just a little mores", I had the sheet bent to the angles I wanted, or at least I was very close. The blade in my band saw was broken so I had to resort to using a cut-off wheel mounted in the Dremel to separate the pieces. Then came the session with the grinding disc and the right angle grinder to get things to "pretty close" shape.





Now, I'm going to have to do some more character building and file to the line. This is going to take a while but stay tuned.


BC1
Jim


   

Offline arnoldb

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #31 on: August 05, 2012, 11:41:37 AM »
Coming along well Jim  :ThumbsUp:

I hope it's cooler there for your character building session  :)

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 cfellows

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #32 on: August 05, 2012, 04:20:04 PM »
All the parts are looking really nice.  Is there a picture somewhere of what this engine will look like when finished   ...or did I just miss it somewhere?

Chuck
So many projects, so little time...

Offline Bearcar1

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #33 on: August 05, 2012, 05:04:07 PM »
Thanks Arnold, and yes, it is a bit cooler here now, after some showers yesterday afternoon late. I really do enjoy the character building sessions but boy do my hands ache after a while from gripping the file so hard.  :insane:


Chuck, let me apologize for my short-sightedness as well as to the rest of the members, for not posting up a picture of the finished engine sooner. My bad  :fro: . Here is an actual photo image from the magazine to give everyone an idea of what it is I am trying to accomplish. A rather simplistic looking thing but I can see that there are some interesting challenges yet to be discovered as I go along.



BC1
Jim
« Last Edit: August 07, 2012, 04:06:53 AM by Bearcar1 »

Offline Dean W

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #34 on: August 06, 2012, 01:25:56 AM »
Oh, I remember seeing one like that!  Probably in some of the old magazines that google copies, but might have
been in an original or repro I saw somewhere. 
I don't remember if you had already said, but do you know the name of the author from the article?  Rudy K. did a
number of them back in the day, before HSM mag started.
Dean
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Offline Bearcar1

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #35 on: August 06, 2012, 02:49:24 AM »
Hello Dean,


 Glad to see you're still hanging around. This article was written by a fellow by the name of Manly Banister if that helps in any way. The entire article is not written to any length of detail and I believe there is quite a bit of "wiggle room" for improvements. The dimensions for some of the pieces are in two separate places on these drawings, so it is a bit confusing at times when looking at a piece as drawn. Also, as many of the plans of the time, they are represented in fractions and not decimal measure. No big deal but just a bit arcane.  :thinking:


BC1
Jim

Offline swilliams

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #36 on: August 06, 2012, 03:15:07 AM »
Filing stainless should be good for the character Jim. Either that or catastrophic  :ROFL:

Steve

Offline rleete

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #37 on: August 06, 2012, 03:19:31 AM »
Article I have is titled "Midget Steam Engine" by Manly Banister.

Offline Dean W

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #38 on: August 06, 2012, 07:15:38 AM »
Yes, that's a name I remember too, Jim.  I can think of four or five articles in PM by him that had steam engines
in them.  I recall one that showed him and a boy both smiling, looking down on a small engine and boiler.  I think
the boiler was made of black pipe.  The articles were mostly pictorials with notes on the drawings, and a few
sparsely worded construction paragraphs.
Rudy K. also had a few articles in PM that showed the typical PM way of doing things.  One of his I remember is
a beam engine made from sheet metal, brass stock, and a largish high pitch (small teeth) gear for the flywheel.
We could probably find all of those old workshop engines if we had time to look through the google copies of the mag.

I'm enjoying your re-living one of these old PM construction articles, with your improved (and much more attractive)
parts building along the way.  This is a fun thread, for me.
Dean
In beautiful N. Idaho, U.S.A.

Shop Projects:
http://www.deansphotographica.com/machining/projects/projects.html

Offline tvoght

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #39 on: August 06, 2012, 03:33:46 PM »
The Rudy K. Beam engine Dean speaks of is in the August, 1969 Popular Mechanics. Unfortunately, the drawings appear to be a fold-out page and the google scans only show the first page of the folded section. It looks like a pretty neat engine and has a Watt linkage, which so many of these simple beam engine models leave out for simplicity. It would be great if someone had that copy of the magazine and could scan the complete drawings.

--Tim

Offline Bearcar1

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #40 on: August 06, 2012, 03:53:48 PM »
Filing stainless should be good for the character Jim. Either that or catastrophic  :ROFL:

Steve

Well Steve, I don't know about *ahem* good character  :ShakeHead:  or not, but it sure as heck makes my hands sore. I used a method of clamping each piece up in a set of vice-grips (mole grip) using some small pieces of aluminum to prevent scratching. This was OK but I soon found that I needed something a bit more stable and resorted to the same process only this time I put everything into the bench vise and that seemed to alleviate the majority of my troubles. When I got down really close to the line, I brought out a small, brand new, flat bastard file and proceeded to use the draw method for final finishing. This took me the better portion of the afternoon to complete all four of the sides and get the flanges relatively square. Here they are as finished. I had to make a small roundish cutout in the upper flanges for piston and valve clearance using a mounted stone in the Dremel. (handy little buggers aren't they?)




Article I have is titled "Midget Steam Engine" by Manly Banister.

RL, that is the same article that I am working from, it happens to be available on the John-Toms site on page three of there 'engines' listings.
 
  Dean, yeah, it has been a 'blast-from-the-past' in terms of remembering some of the very same feelings of trepidation regarding how to go about building one of these engines, but now that I have the ways and means, it doesn't seem to be nearly as formidable of a challenge that a young lad once had.


BC1
Jim
« Last Edit: August 07, 2012, 04:05:44 AM by Bearcar1 »

Offline swilliams

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #41 on: August 07, 2012, 07:32:26 AM »
Legs look great Jim. Who needs character with legs like those  :o

Steve

Offline Bearcar1

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #42 on: August 07, 2012, 05:04:31 PM »
Now that's just sick Stevo,  :toilet_claw:  sick I tell you. But I like it   :cheers: Hey maybe if I borrowed a tutu from one of our members whom will go un-named at this time (*snookie Z*) I might be able to complete the look. :naughty:


BC1
Jim



« Last Edit: August 07, 2012, 05:07:32 PM by Bearcar1 »

Offline zeeprogrammer

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #43 on: August 07, 2012, 10:22:06 PM »
Hey maybe if I borrowed a tutu from one of our members whom will go un-named at this time (*snookie Z*) I might be able to complete the look. :naughty:
BC1
Jim

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Offline swilliams

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #44 on: August 08, 2012, 02:39:56 AM »
Zee - you didn't account for how lightning fast Jim is. Too late, you'll have to be more vigilant with your stuff   :stir:

Steve

 

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