Ryan's Engine

[b.lindsey]

Hi Jim...Have been following along quietly from the beginning and enjoying the build muchly!!  Like many, I recall those old articles in PM, looking at them in wonder and never even imagining back then that someday it would become a hobby.  Thanks for the completed picture of the engine, though your pedestal will enhance it tremendously I think. Looking forward to the rest of the build for sure.

Bill

[Bearcar1]

Bill,
 I thank you and am glad that this build is generating some old forgotten memories from our youth. Looking at these articles that were written some fifty years ago, I am reminded of the stark contrasts in how these drawings were presented. To gaze at them is almost amusing. Today, with the advent of CAD, they take on a surreal life of their own somehow. Still, I feel very much like that young lad once again, reading and wishing, and dreaming. Hoping to build one of these engines somehow.


I've been faffing about, this past few days, turning the cylinder and drilling and reaming the valve and piston bores. Nothing out of the ordinary in terms of machining, just indicating the piece in the four jaw chuck using the DI and wiggler point as has been shown in other posts. Really the only excitement in the whole thing was I was not certain the piece of brass  round I had would clean up to be long enough for the job at hand. It was though, and I was so "on a roll  " that I forgot to take any pictures of the methods and procedures. For this I apologize to all.


BC1
Jim

[Bearcar1]

 For those that have been following, I thank you, and for those that are just now joining us, welcome, there is always room for one more and we never close. I've been busy doing "real work" and have not had a great deal of time for this engine, however, I was able to cross another milestone today and got the cylinder mounted to the uprights and the holes located and drilled into the base so I now have some pieces put together that resembles something more than just a bunch of pieces. (Yogi Berra would be proud of that quote  ) One of the things that concerned me was getting the center lines lined up both laterally as well as radially. This is what I came up with and it seemed to work a treat. Carpenters use a plumb bob, which is nothing more than a pointed weight on a string to find the exact position below an elevated point in such cases, but I obviously could not use that method. What I could do was devise a way to 'extend' the centers of both the valve and piston bores down to the base. I turned up a couple of aluminum rods that were a close sliding fit in both, and then turned a point on one end to serve as an indicator. With these two indicators pushed into the respective bores and a piece of duct tape, which I had drawn the centerline on, I was able to quickly get things lined up without any difficulty. A slight rotation of the cylinder and a very small "tweak" of the standards and things were spot on.


 









That's as far as I got but hope to get some time in the shop this weekend to get the bearing pedestal lined up and mounted. Then things will REALLY slow down for the making of the moving parts.


BC1
Jim

[Bearcar1]

 The weekend's to-do list was a bit longer than I thought so I did not get as much shop time in as I would have liked. When I finally was able to get to the shop, I was to the point that I did not want to get too involved into something that required a great deal of concentration so I settled upon something quite simple. Knowing that until this engine is completed, it would have to be taken apart and put back together several times I decided that it would probably be a good idea to make up some tools in order to make it easier to do so. Tools!    What a splendid thing for a young and inquisitive engineer to have. Not to mention, it would make things a whole lot easier on me by having them readily at hand during construction. I took the aluminum rods that were used in the alignment procedure and made them into the nut drivers that you see here. The handles were nothing fancy, merely eyeballing them to get the same general shapes. On the working ends I used over-the-counter hex head cap screws, the size of which fit over the fasteners I was using. I cheated here as well in that I did not drill and tap the ends of the rods, but merely drilled them clearance size a bit over depth and secured the screws in the holes with JB Weld. Great product that stuff. After allowing things to set up overnight, I finished turning the outside diameters to clean them up and then did a counterbore into the opening so that they could be placed over a nut that had a longer stud sticking out without fear of the tool bottoming out before engaging the nut. A cross drilled a hole near the top was added for a tommy bar to provide for some added leverage and then, for the final 'finishing touch', I stamped the number size of the tool in a recess in the head. I was going to do a bit of knurling on the handle but I got lazy and left that part off.











Overall, it was a nice, relaxing session and these tools will be of huge benefit in the future. I'm even considering the idea of making a complete set like this in sizes from #1 through #6 just to have in the tool chest, maybe even do a small wooden holder with a lid ........... ... "uhh, slow down there Bear', you've got an engine to finish so don't get distracted with these 'siders'. "    yes mastah  er, um, boss :BareBum: .


BC1
Jim

[dsquire]

Jim

Very nicely done those tools. I think a complete set in both inch and metric in a nice wood box should be placed high on your todoit list.

Cheers 

Don

[swilliams]

Nice thinking out of the square on that one Jim. I'll remember that trick

Steve

[b.lindsey]

Those nut drivers look great Jim and will come in handy I'm sure. Somewhere I used to have a list of which sized SHCS's fit particular hex cap screws from 0-80 up to 5-40 or so.  Never got around to making a set yet but still love the idea and yours look very nice. Still following along on you build progress as well!!

Bill

[Bearcar1]

Don, Steve, and Bill,


  Thanks for the kind words of support  . I have to say that those little nutdrivers were super-simple to make and I can see that a full set in all sizes from #0 thorough say #8 would be a huge boon to a model builder and the cost would not break the bank either. After the dust settles on this project, I do believe that I will make up a full set with a nice fitted case.


Now then, after working my tail pipe off this past week at 'real work', I was able to get into the shop for a little while. I  decided to make up the eccentric as I rather enjoy 4-jaw chuck work. Here is how I started, by laying out the center and offset on a piece of hard steel. Using the height gauge to find the upper and lower edges of the rod as it was held in a vee-block, and then splitting the difference in the two readings, the centerline was scribed across the end. Next, the center of the throw was scribed by adding the offset dimension to the center height figure and again the end of the rod was scribed.





After scribing the offset, I used a magnifying glass and placed a center pop at the required location, followed by the customary indicating the piece in lathe using a dial indicator and wiggler, again, a procedure that I enjoy doing. After the eccentric was drilled and reamed, I was satisfied with the results and then sawed off the piece and faced to length using a collet to keep from scarring the running surface.


 Most of you know by now, that I am not one to leave things alone as drawn, usually, and once again this affliction was in action. The drawings show the eccentric strap running without any type of lateral support and I'm sure that that may have been adequate, BUT, I felt the need to provide a means of retention to keep the valve rod centered up underneath the cylinder, so I quickly made up some 'spacer' rings out of brass that will get affixed to the eccentric in an attempt to do just that.





A bit of careful solder application followed with a jeweler's file and a single edged razor blade to remove any excess solder, left our hero with this, an almost finished crankshaft with the eccentric affixed and waiting for the eccentric sheave and crank disk to be installed.





The next thing I am thinking of tackling is the eccentric strap and valve rod assembly, again, I have plans to 'alter/bash' the original design features, we shall see.


BC1
Jim

[Dean W]

That looks good, Jim.  Nice to do some of your own work after a week or "real work". 

[Bearcar1]

That looks good, Jim.  Nice to do some of your own work after a week or "real work". 

Indeed it is Dean, indeed it is.    This evening I have been faffing around reworking the flywheel for the beast. I had started this part for somehing long forgotten but I am pretty certain I can make it work for my application.


BC1
Jim

[Pete49]

Well blow me down with a feather Once I saw the full picture I knew the engine straight away as I too have built it. It had the older bloke and the child looking at it but the boiler is a bit iffy but then oh&s didn't ruin a child's fun those days. Just don't know how we survived childhood going by the do's & don'ts we have now.
Pete

[b.lindsey]

Jim, while i know this is based on that magazine article and the picture you showed of it, your personal touches and attention to details are far exceeding the more simplistic original design. I am most anxious to see this one completed and those childhood memories magically transformed into your elegant rendition of this model.

Bill

[Bearcar1]

Well blow me down with a feather Once I saw the full picture I knew the engine straight away as I too have built it. It had the older bloke and the child looking at it but the boiler is a bit iffy but then oh&s didn't ruin a child's fun those days. Just don't know how we survived childhood going by the do's & don'ts we have now.
Pete

Thanks for watching Pete, and yes the boiler featured in the magazine article is questionable at best. Fortunately for me I won't be making one in my lifetime.

Jim, while i know this is based on that magazine article and the picture you showed of it, your personal touches and attention to details are far exceeding the more simplistic original design. I am most anxious to see this one completed and those childhood memories magically transformed into your elegant rendition of this model.

Bill

Bill, I do appreciate your kind words. While a young man's fancy    was stimulated to new heights when this article was written, mine is being driven by inspirations from that time with some new twists and tweaks added
The flywheel that I had from a long forgotten project proved to be a bit of a challenge but nothing out of the ordinary. When I mounted the unfinished part on a mandrel in the lathe, I found that there was a fair amount of runout and wobble, so I removed the part from the mandrel and chucked it up in the four jaw chuck and indicated the outer rim to run true. Then, I bored out the central hole to just under .500" and press fit a piece of brass that had a small shoulder on it into the hole until the shoulder was flush and then proceeded to center drill, drill, and ream a new hole that was true to the rim. Before turning the piece end for end, I cleaned up the inner rim surface by using a trepanning cutter. Then, I turned the part around and did the very same to the inboard side of the flywheel.


  Here can be seen the setup that I used to drill and tap the hole for a grub screw. Two pins can be seen in the the decorative holes to keep the piece level in the small vise, while it is being held at an approximate 45* angle. The drill chuck was closed on the tap just enough to allow the tap to rotate while cutting the threads.





Cheers


BC1
Jim

[Bearcar1]

 It occurred to me last evening    that I had not featured an as-built photo to show the progress    that has been made and have been asked by a few members to post a picture. Between real work and concentrating on the machining aspects of this project, I haven't been doing a very good job of documenting  such things and hope to improve on that as we get further along  . So without any further delay, I present to you Ryan's Engine built to date.





BC1
Jim

[arnoldb]

  That's coming along well Jim  - and thanks for the progress photo 

Kind regards, Arnold