Author Topic: Ryan's Engine  (Read 44698 times)

Offline Dean W

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #60 on: August 24, 2012, 07:47:37 PM »
Thanks for the photo, Jim.  I like the looks of it a lot.  It does remind us of a different time and way of doing
things, albeit with some modern improvements.  Looking great!
Dean
In beautiful N. Idaho, U.S.A.

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Offline zeeprogrammer

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #61 on: August 24, 2012, 11:41:53 PM »
Happy to see the photo.

And shapely legs.
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Offline rleete

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #62 on: August 25, 2012, 01:06:08 AM »

Offline Bearcar1

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #63 on: August 25, 2012, 02:29:07 PM »
Zeep, you smooth talker you  :-[   :ROFL: :BareBum:  They are a great set aren't they.  :help:


Arnold and Dean, you are quite welcome. I should have posted up an overall picture sooner but it never occurred to me to do so. DOH! :facepalm:  I still have to trim down and dress the mounting studs, which are actually model bolts. The heads of which having a counter bored hole in the bottom of the base plate to accommodate them and will be silver soldered and filed flat when the time comes.


BC1
Jim
« Last Edit: August 25, 2012, 05:32:22 PM by Bearcar1 »

Offline Bearcar1

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #64 on: August 26, 2012, 03:40:46 PM »
I'm still plodding along here, and decided to tackle the moving pieces that go roundy-round, beginning with the sheave for the eccentric. As I stated before, the original drawings are a bit rudimentary and call for a rather simplistic ring that has the valve rod butted to it and secured with nothing more than a solder joint. Simple and effective I suppose, but not very mechanically sound in my opinion and so I set off to improve on that design feature. I began with a small lump of brass that was just a tiny bit wider than the outside diameter of the ring and 'tall' enough for me to accomplish my goal, that of providing some better support to the valve rod. I did some layout and placed a center pop at what would be the center of the ring and then scribed a circle indicating the outside diameter, followed with marking two lines that would act as guidelines when I got the piece in the mill. When I finally got the piece square in the mill vise, I used a ball nosed cutter to mill away the sides of the piece down until I reached the scribed circle and also until the side of the cutter was just at the two scribed lines. This probably is a bit confusing but perhaps this picture will clear things up somewhat.





Here you can see the lines I was speaking of as well as the radius left by the cutter. At this point, I am using a flat bottom cutter to rough out the outside diameter.


BC1
Jim



Offline Bearcar1

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #65 on: August 26, 2012, 05:32:01 PM »
I quickly made up a set of filing buttons and then a wee bit of quality time spent performing  some "character building",(a file and some emery cloth) I was left with this blank. I'm going to take a break here and plan out the next order of events.








Cheers  :DrinkPint:


BC1
Jim

Offline zeeprogrammer

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #66 on: August 26, 2012, 06:07:54 PM »
That looks really good Jim.
And...gives me some ideas for some of the parts I'm working on.
They're pretty small too.

What are the buttons made of? Are they hardened?

Thanks
Carl (aka Zee) Will sometimes respond to 'hey' but never 'hey you'.
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Offline Dean W

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #67 on: August 26, 2012, 08:17:16 PM »
That looks really nice, Jim.  You're going to be the most characterful person around here.  ;)
Dean
In beautiful N. Idaho, U.S.A.

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Offline b.lindsey

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #68 on: August 26, 2012, 09:32:59 PM »
Coming along nicely Jim...still following along with great interest.
Bill

Offline Bearcar1

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #69 on: August 27, 2012, 02:07:17 AM »
That looks really good Jim.
And...gives me some ideas for some of the parts I'm working on.
They're pretty small too.

What are the buttons made of? Are they hardened?

Thanks

Hi Zeep, glad some good ideas may be coming out of all of this. The filing buttons were made out of a piece of mystery metal steel bar that I had in the drawer. It is fairly tough stuff. I did not harden the buttons as I really did not see the need, that and a dull file were all I used to shape the piece.
 
That looks really nice, Jim.  You're going to be the most characterful person around here.  ;)
Dean, I'm gaining character alright  :insane:  just ask old what's-her-name, she'll fill in all of the blanks  :Jester:

Coming along nicely Jim...still following along with great interest.
Bill


Thanks for dropping in for a visit Bill, this engine has become an almost obsession for me now. At every twist and turn, I see room for improvement. Sad thing is, I don't want to stray from the original design so much that the engine loses its unique character. :zap:


For all of those that may be interested, I ran across a set of drawings for this engine that was done by Julius De Waal and after several email exchanges, he has graciously given permission to place them here on MEM in the plans section for our enjoyment. They are very detailed as compared to the originals and hopefully, some of you may even wish to build this engine from them.


BC1
Jim

Offline swilliams

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #70 on: August 27, 2012, 04:44:59 AM »
Looks like I blinked and missed all the action. Nice progress Jim, and to a high standard of finish

Steve

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #71 on: August 27, 2012, 10:47:51 AM »
Hey Jim,  That is coming along beautifully!   Well done!    I think I'm going to have to change my name! :ROFL:
I want pictures of the presentation....man is he going to be suprised!
Dave
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Damned ijjit!

Offline Bearcar1

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #72 on: August 28, 2012, 02:13:37 PM »
Steve and Dave, I thank you. :NotWorthy:  Things have progressed a little bit the past couple of days. Hemming and hawing about how to best finish this part has been interesting at best :noidea: . The chances that there could possibly be a major stuff-up was factored in, hence the overall length of the piece was left extra long from the get go. That and it is much easier to see and grip a larger piece also figured in that department.  :old: :shrug:  What I ended up doing was using a slug of brass that was found rolling around in the bottom of the seconds drawer to make up a 'fixture' to hold the piece while cutting the slots required as well as boring out the ring to fit over the eccentric. On this fixture, I turned down one end to fit the largest collet I owned and left a small shoulder on it to assist in keeping things square. -Through the center of the piece I drilled a .125" hole, the same size that is currently in the sheave blank. Into this was placed a short length of aluminum rod and over that, I slid the blank, which was then very carefully soft soldered to the fixture. After it had cooled, I did some lay out work to find the center of the part as well as where the slots were to be cut. The valve rod, which is really not a rod at all but a .062" piece of flat brass will be fitted into this slot and being as how I did not have a slitting saw of that size, I decided to use my trusty Dremel cut-off wheel instead. It measured out to be slightly undersized but close enough. As luck would have it  :LittleAngel: , I had an aluminum plate that featured a hole in it that was a nice sliding fit to the fixture and I used that on the drill table to work the part into the cutoff wheel. A bit of a crude setup i admit, but it worked a treat and I was successful in cutting two slots into the sheave blank without incident. (remember now, I am making two parts, "just in case", but only require one)





The next step in the journey was to bore out the piece to a nice fit on the eccentric. Here is the fixture in the lathe as I am drilling the excess material out. Notice the small ring I mentioned earlier flush against the face of the collet. Following the drill, I used a small boring bar to bring the hole to size, taking cuts of .0005" and using the eccentric as a plug gauge to arrive at the final, slightly-tight, fit.





thats as far as I got this time, more to come so stay tuned.


BC1
Jim
« Last Edit: August 28, 2012, 02:56:31 PM by Bearcar1 »

Offline Bearcar1

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #73 on: August 29, 2012, 04:07:38 PM »
 Well, I got things pretty much finished making the eccentric sheave and I must say that it wasn't so bad as I had first thought it would be. Picking up where I left off, I used a jeweler's saw to separate the pieces and faced the part that remained on the fixture. Jeweler's saws are fantastic for making very accurate cuts such as this. They leave behind a very narrow kerf which is nice in a situation where there is not a great deal of material to begin with. Then I removed the fixture from the lathe and applied a bit of heat, the solder let go, and then all I had to do was remove the small amount of excess and I was done with that part. I then remounted the fixture in the lathe and took a skim cut just to clean up its surface and then soldered the already faced side of the first cut-off sheave to it and proceeded to face it down to the desired thickness. Repeating the steps on removal and clean up I found I now possessed not one, but two perfectly sized sheaves.  :pinkelephant:





 After a sigh of relief and a short session of patting myself on the back, I turned my attentions to making the 'rod' portion of the piece. This flat bar will get soldered into the slot in the sheave when it is all said and done. TALLYHO!  :toilet_claw:


BC1
Jim





Offline zeeprogrammer

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Re: Ryan's Engine
« Reply #74 on: August 29, 2012, 11:44:24 PM »
Nice job!

You're going to have to consider another project to use the spare one.  ;D
Carl (aka Zee) Will sometimes respond to 'hey' but never 'hey you'.
"To work. To work."
Zee-Another Thread Trasher.

 

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