Vince's version of the Monitor Steam Engine

[sshire]

Nicely done. What type of "playing around" with the frames was needed? It seems that with the outer frames screwed into position, not much is possible there. Would it have been better to line drill and ream the bearings after they were in the frames?

[vcutajar]

Yes Stan, line reaming is a distinct possibility especially if you have a big lathe.  I think that even using this method it is still possible to lose alignment of the crankshaft holes once you disassemble the frames for any reason.

In my case I was lucky in that the shaft did pass through both bearings but was stiff to turn.  This meant that only a minute adjustment was required to free up the shaft.  So what I did was that I loosened all bolts than started playing around with the frames until the shaft turned freely.  My plan B was that if I needed more sideways movement of the frames for adjustment, I would have opened up slightly the bolt clearance holes.

Vince

[vcutajar]

Stan, I just remembered.  As I made the bearings a slip fit in the frames, I could also turn the bearings in the frame and "feel" when the shaft gets free. 

Vince

[fumopuc]

Vince, do I have detected a piece of a Bavarian beer can there in the chuck ?
By the way, nice progress.

[crueby]

Coming along very nicely!      

[vcutajar]

Thanks Chris and Achim.

Yes Achim, I think you are correct.  It was made locally under licence some years ago.  If I remember correctly it was called Lowenbrau.

Vince

[zeeprogrammer]

Nicely done Vince. I was lucky and my crankshaft turns easily but then I haven't bolted the frames up yet. 

Löwenbräu
I think that was Opi's favorite. 

[vcutajar]

Trying to decide what to do next.  I would like to do the crankshaft but have not decided how to do it.  The plans show a couple of keys and keyways to hold alignment and some grub screws (set screws) to hold the parts in place.  I am not really convinced that this is the way to go.

Have been looking at Chris's crankshaft and as far as I can tell Chris did not use keys and grub screws to keep the crankshaft together.  It seems a much simpler way to go but not sure how it is all held together.

So Chris, if you are reading this, did you use push fits to assemble the crankshaft or glue?

Vince

[vcutajar]

I have decided to leave the crankshaft for now.  Have not decided how to do it.

Instead, I started on items 7 and 9.  These are the front and rear rocker shaft bearing pillar bases.  I am going to do them in aluminium.  I need an aluminium bar with a cross-section of 32 X 45mm.  Closest I could find was 50 X 50mm.  So with a combination of endmills, slitting saw and flycutter I got it to the required dimension.

Drilled all the 3mm mounting holes at the bottom.



I am going to attempt doing them as a matched pair, so with a slitting saw cut it off.



This is what remained of the original bar.  Managed to save some pieces, so the excess did not all become swarf.



Vince

[crueby]

Trying to decide what to do next.  I would like to do the crankshaft but have not decided how to do it.  The plans show a couple of keys and keyways to hold alignment and some grub screws (set screws) to hold the parts in place.  I am not really convinced that this is the way to go.

Have been looking at Chris's crankshaft and as far as I can tell Chris did not use keys and grub screws to keep the crankshaft together.  It seems a much simpler way to go but not sure how it is all held together.

So Chris, if you are reading this, did you use push fits to assemble the crankshaft or glue?

Vince

Sorry - just getting caught up and saw this post. On mine, I made the web a push fit on the shaft, drilled and cross-pinned it with a press fit pin, and then either loctited or Tix solder for good measure, forget which way I went, both work as well. The crank pin is only held on one side on the web, on the disc side it is just a sliding fit. On mine I did not use keyways on any of the shafts, used pins instead.

[zeeprogrammer]

Nice to see the progress.

Yeah there's several opportunities to do some matched matching of parts on this engine.

[sshire]

I'm a big fan of tapered pins.  Most of my built up crankshafts have used them. IIRC 4/0. The tapered reamer is quite inexpensive. Under $10 at Victornet

[vcutajar]

Carl, any progress on yours?

Thanks Stan for the suggestion.

Chris, thanks for the info.

Vince

[crueby]

I'm a big fan of tapered pins.  Most of my built up crankshafts have used them. IIRC 4/0. The tapered reamer is quite inexpensive. Under $10 at Victornet

Stan, for a tapered pin hole, do you drill the hole at the smaller size then just use the reamer to open it up, or do you need to drill in steps? Do you make your own pins?

[zeeprogrammer]

Carl, any progress on yours?

 

If all goes well I'll get some machine time in this weekend.

In the meantime I live through yours.