Eastern and Anderson Grasshopper Beam Engine

[Jo]

I have in the past had good service from Brunell, my double tandem cross compound came from them and I have no complaints about the quality of the castings (gunmetal and Ali). But time moves one and one hears things, my advice like Jason would be order in person and pay by credit card, just in case .

Jo

[Dan Rowe]

Jo, in the photo with the gear you have a Sherline 4 jaw chuck that I can read the spindle thread of 3/4-16. Did you make an adapter for the Cowells lathe?

Dan

[NickG]

Oh, that's interesting .. thanks for the advice guys. 

[Jo]

Sorry guys my memory card crashed on my camera  and I have lost a few photo?s . A couple of bits and pieces survived:

Cladding the cylinder. I am a great believer in reuse, one of the items I like to reuse is coffee stirrers (actually I prefer that they have never been used). I don?t know what type of wood they are made of but amongst their redeeming features are: they are free, so long as you source them from the same coffee shop they seem to be consistently the same width and thickness, and did I mention they are free ? (actually you get a handful free with every cup of coffee, or in my case all my colleagues keep bringing me handfuls of them every time they go so I don?t even have the expense of the coffee ).

My trick is to cut these wooden spills over size and then stick them onto a piece of cotton material using wood glue. <sorry missing photo  > Leave it to set over night and then whilst it is still stiff to file the sheet to the appropriate length before carefully breaking the bend between the sticks to gain the curve and shaping up the two ends to match the steam chest:



Only now is it safe to stain the wood. The only way I have found that is satisfactory to make cylinder bands is to turn down the end of a brass tube to 0.5mm thick * the diameter of the cylinder and then to part the bands at the appropriate width and bend them to suit the cylinder:.



The bands are mounted using four 12BA stainless steel cheese heads that I made:



Here is the other side of the cylinder:


--------
Dan: yes I knocked up an adapter for the sherline chuck, it fits and works a treat.

Jo

[Dan Rowe]

Jo,
Thanks for the tip on the wood cladding. I am sure that will come in handy someday. Now I have to make a spindle adapter so I can use Sherline chucks on my Cowells lathe. 

Dan

[smfr]

Oooh, that's a nice-looking cylinder! What diameter did the brass tube for the bands starts as? Seems like that would be a pretty thin-walled tube for its size.

Simon

[Jo]

The brass tube started out as 41.3 mm (1 5/8") OD, 35mm (1 3/8") ID. The finished band is 39mm OD, 38mm ID.

Over the years I have picked up a few very short bits of scrap brass tube like this one which people seemed to want to throw away , all of which have found their way into my "come in handy" store  .

Jo

[metalmad]

Hi Joe
That cladding tip is a beaut
Pete

[Jo]

This is the model as it stands today:



The other side (not very interesting)



A close up of the governor:



And a view of the gears in situ:



The gears only rotate the balls, the vertical shaft ends with a point in a shallow ?dimple? to minimise friction.


I still have to find something to use as the governor drive belt. It is a flat belt, so I cannot use my usual O ring and I have not yet found a suitable black elastic band. If anyone has any other suggestions I am all ears.


Jo

[Dan Rowe]

Jo,
If you give the dimensions of the belt I or someone else might have a section of hose or rubber tube that is the correct size on the that will be handy shelf.

Nice paint job that is the part I really dread doing.

Dan

[b.lindsey]

Jo, this has been a most informative thread to follow. Looking at the most recent pics of the entire engine compared to the initial picture you posted, shows quite an amazing transformation. Nice work all the way around!!

Bill

[zeeprogrammer]

Nice model. Nice pics. Both sides!

[swilliams]

Love the wooden cladding Jo, it looks great

Steve

[Maryak]

Beautiful work Jo 

Best Regards
Bob

[steamer]

Oh Geez Jo....that's georgous!

Glad your here Jo!

Dave