My frist steam engine! vertical single cylinder (finished)

[FLG]

Hi to all!

I got my little steam engine half way when I register here, I have found the plans in the internet, I like this design as my first engine because first it was in metric and second its has a nice figure and can be build in a minimill, with no casting and advanced tooling (rotary table for example).

I hope to not upset anybody posting the link of my build at the moment, because it will be a tremendous work to post it here again from the beginning, I will be posting parallel in this forum and the other, at least for this build.

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/f31/its-first-steam-engine-time-14307/

I'm having a lot of fun in this! believe me

Today I cut the steam chest tap, from 5mm thick bronze sheet, and practical become a human CNC machine to cut the details I wanted:












But there is no way I could get the patience to make a 0.01mm resolution, so after finish the cuts the piece needed some filing to remove the tool marks.




Then I give a try to make a little stainless steel plate that goes inside the chest tap, but hell, SS is a hard one to work!, although I know that SS is not a very good machineable alloy, I never came to think that it will be so hard to hand-work it, I just waste 30 minutes of my life....

I think I will find me a pantographer to get the job done.


Then I made some small pieces of the steam chest:













And behold! the super stainless steel plate! cueekkk 








Then, for the pieces the plans said that they should have and hex head, and I try with one, but I really didint like the way it looked, so I will do this one again and left all the pieces rounded, I like this way better.






For now I had some troubles deciding on some material choose for some parts...

I'm planning to get it running for long periods of time in my desk, either by compress air or some hidden small electric motor, so I very concern about wearing, this carries me to some exotic materas and a lots of dudes:

The piston:

I know that bras with brass for mechanical movement is not good, also brass-aluminium.

But brass with steel or cast iron is very good, but I not going to use this combination because my cylinder is made of brass, and the steel or cast iron is more hard, and in time will wear the cylinder walls, so I came with Technyl a90, a black plastic, 
and a "durocoton" material (made of cotton layers with resin, its the circuits board material). I havent deciede yet what I should use, or the compresing metod of the piston (O-ring, Rings of metals or nothing etc...).

For all the other parts with mechanical movement  I?m using Phosphor bronze with hardened silver steel rods, I think that should be fine.



All the steam chest is made of brass also, as you can see, I also worry about the little sliding valve piece...

Any input on this I will apreciate it much!

And more will come!

Saludos

[Maryak]

I hope to not upset anybody posting the link of my build at the moment, because it will be a tremendous work to post it here again from the beginning, I will be posting parallel in this forum and the other, at least for this build.

Anko,

Don't worry, a lot of us are in the same situation and are now doing parallel posts of our builds. 

Best Regards
Bob

[steamer]

FLG,

If your going to use the engine with compressed air...A plastic piston will work fine.   For steam, a teflon piston will work assuming your under 100 psi  ( 6 bar)  and saturated steam...NOT SUPERHEATED.

Nice valve check cover work there I like that!

Dave

[FLG]

Thanks Dave and Bob! 


I have made a good progress, the valve shaoft is made from a 3mm silver steel rod, one end is turned to 2mm with help of a little brushing.







I made the sliding valve of Technyl as a experiment, it only took like 20 mins so if not work I will do another











then the eccentric, made from 1020 steel, it took me 2 tries to get it right (damm jaming parting tool) 





And for the eccentric ring, I redesign it to look more real-like, I mean, is a model anyway, so the idea is that looks like some real engine, at least to some point 











































Then I make a terrible mistake, I rounded all the way, it suposed to have the upper side flat to bolt the conection rod! but I ruined it.... 

It took almost all the day to make this piece, and not in the mood to make it again, I came with a simple solution:












And this is the engine at this time:








There is almost over! just a few pieces left! (piston, flywheel, valve..)

I?m very proud of my work so far, and I really start thinking on the next one!

Saludos

[swilliams]

It's really looking nice FLG. Glad to hear you're proud of it, and so you should be 

Steve

[b.lindsey]

Its looking great FLG and a nice save on that eccentric strap too 

Bill

[lazylathe]

Great work Anko!

I have missed a few installations of your build and am very happy to see that you are posting it here too!

Looking forward to seeing this one run soon!

Andrew

[steamer]

Looks great from here Anko!.........er ah  FLG......


Nice work!

Dave

[rleete]

Nice save on the eccentric.

[smfr]

I know that feeling where you go too far when rounding!

It's interesting that this engine has the flywheel and valve mechanism on the same side, and I guess a single crank throw? I hope that doesn't cause you problems with knocking down the road.

Simon

[FLG]

Thanks a lot guys!, I'm really getting excited looking how this project is near to and end and, with luck, a running engine 

The eccentric ring..yeah, it was a lucky save, now I made the conection rod, I like to put some contrast on all the brass color, so I choose to use steel, just scrap plate steel, but because I dont have a tinier piece, the job of flattening 10mm to 5mm was tedious, here some pics:

(the weird cut in the middle is not for appearance, is to get acces to the "oil hole" to be able to lubricate the eccentric (remember that I want it to run for long periods))



















then I start making the connection arm for the valve shaft, it was supposed to be a easy and fast making.. but I dont know why, I manage to broke my little 2mm end mill... (because acquiring it was not cheap, I really was very carefully with it) and just exploted in the middle of cutting the channel...aarghhhhh!!! 






Then, I have to come with some very improvised setup using my recently build lathe dog to finish the piece:








Then I asembly all the thing to get a look, and I have speend some good time turning the flywheel by hand to watch and hear the motion of the engine, its a lot of fun! 

Here because of the manipulation, there is oil and fingers all arround, but here is a pic of the engine at the moment:












Saludos!

[FLG]

Its me again, now I have made the crank piece, out of 1020 steel, here some pics:










Then, to make there radius cuts on the sides, first I was goin to use the boring head, but I realize that is too big for the mini-mill and the speed has to be very low in order to avoid heavy vibration caused by the off-weight of the boring head, then I choose a small flycutter to do the job. (I think that I will made me another boring head, this time smaller to fit the mini-mill)

for set the flycutter to cut the correct diameter I use a height gauge:

(the radius to be cut) - (1/2 flycutter shank diameter) + (shank height measured in a V-block) = the height that the cutting tip must be

then, by hand, I set the bit on the flycutter and I rotate it in the V-block to feel how it touched the tip of the height gauge.















Saludos

[smfr]

Nice job on the crank!

Is there any chance you could make your pictures a bit smaller? 800x600 would be a good size, that way we don't have to scroll as much

Simon

[FLG]

Hi

I have been very bussy with the university, but now I have some spare time to start machining again, Im very close now to finish the engine! after almost one year and half...

Simon: sorry about the size of the pics, now I will upload the pics with 800x600 resolution, but I have some old ones that are big that I will post now, just a few!

these are for the nut, I recently get my rotary table and I dont have any tooling for the RT yet, si I made a very improvised setup to be able to make this part:







Here is the piston, its use two ring of Technyl a90, because the cylinder is made of brass I think it will be a good idea to put this material to aboid wear in the cylinder walls
 




Now to make the flywheel, I pick some cast iron pipe or tube from the scrap yard, the plan is to put the pulley with a press fit inside the tube:



Then when the bore was close to 0.02 mm, I took the pulley, previously machined, to the refrigerator for cooling, for about 15 min. The OD went down about 0.04 mm allowing to enter nicely in the tube:







And then:





Saludos!

[Bearcar1]

FLG, saludo amigo. I remember seeing your beginnings on the other site before I bailed out and am extremely glad to see you here as well as impressed with your efforts to-date. Beautiful  I especially like your work in fabricating the trunk guide frame and the flywheel. Also, all of your pictures have made the journey a pleasure to witness. yeah baby! It won't be too much longer until the video comes out, yes? (hint, nudge, poke) 


Saludos


BC1
Jim