Triple Orphans

[ths]

Jo, that's a really good recasting! Cheers, Hugh.

[Jo]

Having had another look at the columns that came with lucky 3 I have decided that they too can go in the scrap bag. It is easier to use the new pieces of 8mm bar that came in the unopened Stuart Casting box than to try to rehold the original parts and correct them

And I found that the set of 8 columns I had already made for Engine no 1 are to the old drawings and will need to have the lengths of the threaded parts at the end reduced  .

Jo

[Jo]

I have been trying to work out what would make an appropriate mounting for these engines. Most models seem to have been mounted on the brown stuff  Then I started considering if they should be mounted on a pair of Steel I beams 

Does anyone know how these engines were normally mounted in full sized

Jo

[steamer]

Stringer frames......probably riveted to the frames, or keel.

Achiem should have some examples........ 

Dave

[Jasonb]

I suppose a lot depends on what scale the Stuart one is, to me its based on quite a small engine so maybe 1/6th scale which would mean its not going to look right if mounted on something out of a 200ft hull, more likely to be found on a river boat or large launch.

[Jo]

The joys have started: To machine the soleplates I could not hold them in the same way that I had previously I needed to clamp at the sides to allow the bearings to be clear for machining but  the sides lined up with the tee slots for clamping 

So a flat piece of recyclable steel was found, cut in half and two clearance holes drilled in each to enable them to be clamped using the Tee slot bolts. Then I needed very short clamps so I could pass a large fly cutter over all the faces at once. Luckily I had made a set of clamps for the Cowells face plate a couple of years ago and they proved to be just right and the pointy clamps fit nicely in the small nooks and crannies around the rear of the soleplate.

2 hours later  The soleplate from Lucky 3 has been clocked in as we are ready to make swarf 

Jo

[Don1966]

That's cool Jo, I like that very intuitive.

 

Don

[Jasonb]

Looks like you could do with a mill that has a bigger table Jo

Would it not have been possible to mount the casting front to back rather than side to side, I think the Harrison should just have enough Y axis movement for machining that.

J

[Jo]

Looks like you could do with a mill that has a bigger table Jo

  I remain hopeful

Would it not have been possible to mount the casting front to back rather than side to side, I think the Harrison should just have enough Y axis movement for machining that.

I did look at it but the power feed is on the X axis and I am planning to use it to give a nice finishing cut


I am still looking at engine mountings, so a few I have found:

1, On a piece of angled brown stuff
2, An a home made "cast base"
3, On a piece of holey Channel.
4, On a home made square girder
5, An engraving of an engine on a more decorative girder
6, The original Stuart display engine

Jo

[Jo]

Which reminds me: grub screws in the side of the flywheel 


Stuart's drawing shows the flywheel mounted in place with a 2BA grub screw, drilled through at 90 degrees from the lovely polished outer rim. I had noticed that their show engine does not have this  But if you look at a few of the engines above others have done it and then felt the need to put other holes around the engine (I assume they are implying that they are baring holes on a triple expansion engine )


My temptation at the mo is to stick them on with Loctite 


Jo

[Steamer5]

Hi Jo,
 Just because I want to see how its done, I'll plug for a cross section of a hull, blinged up like Johns diorama of course !!

Now ducking for cover & glad I live a long way way! ( except it makes it expensive to come see all the fun industrial steam you have!)

Cheers Kerrin

[wagnmkr]

I would vote for one of the fancy girder mountings, like pics 3, 4, or 5. I also second the idea of a diorama since you have two of these engines. If you did a part of a hull then you could stick to metal and not have to work with much "brown stuff".

Tom

[Edward]

I've swum around a fair few big marine triples out in the channel and they are pretty much all bolted to steel frames of the ship or to a bed attached to the frames. I'd go for an arrangement of framing. Luckily for you, triples aren't common in wooden hulls:)

I've always had a hankering for a marine triple, mounted in a scale half-model of a hull complete with a nice thrust bearing box, prop shaft and prop mounted under a lovely counter stern with rudder etc. Bit beyond my skills at the moment but if I ever do, I have a lovely chunk of bearing bronze (about 10kg of it) 'recovered' from the valve gear of a wreck off the coast of Devon to make the bearing surfaces out of! Nothing like a bit of re-cycling!

[Jasonb]

Jo is there any spare metal on the fluwheel hub, if you go with a grub screw then make the hub a bit wider and drill it in at an angle. I'd put a key & keyway in myself.

If you decide to go with the brownstuff then get your order in early for delivery in a couple of weeks. Might have some metal C section Knocking about also or box that can be split. I quite like the blue one with the circular holes

[Jo]

I agree a key way would look better.

I started the evening by checking the depths of the bearing slots. Yes 0.5mm difference  Which told me what I was playing with. With that knowledge I could take a 0.6mm skim across the top.

Drilling the column holes started off with a broken drill that was then drilled out using a carbide drill. Thankfully the remained drilled ok 

Then it was time to set the height of the milling cutter with a bit of "fag paper". Take the cutter to depth and take a first pass on the zero line to full depth. As you can see the original slot was well off line  The widest gap was fag papered to find that I needed a 1.3mm offset to kiss the offender and both sides of the slot were milled with a 1.3mm centre line offset. As a result the slot is now 15.3mm instead of the original 14.3mm 

Using the same 12.7mm end mill I slid the cutter down the side of each bearing housing at a distance of 11.9mm to leave the required bearing housing widths. Thankfully all were over sized except the one that had no over hang left which at least was on dimension.

So the first sole plate is machined 

Jo