Author Topic: What was the first engine you made from castings ?  (Read 9207 times)

Offline Gas_mantle

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What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« on: June 30, 2016, 09:25:48 PM »
Hi,

At the moment I've made a few very simple engines from bar stock but with a mill arriving very shortly I'd like to have a go at something a bit more adventurous and try something from castings (as well as Stew Harts potty grasshopper engine). I'd like something fairly easy and have thought of a Stuart 10H or 10V but have come across other kits aimed at beginners.

What did you make as your first go, were you pleased with it, what would you recommend or avoid ?

Thanks
Peter.

Offline Bluechip

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #1 on: June 30, 2016, 09:51:44 PM »
The first, and indeed only, was a Reeves Popular Oscillator.

It did run on air. I was probably pleased, can't remember, too long ago, maybe 1973-ish.

http://www.ajreeves.com/6000.html

Not a clue what happened to it ..  :headscratch:  :old:

I'm pretty sure it wasn't £45.  That would make it about 130-odd pints in those days, which would have been quite unthinkable .. :cheers:

Dave

EDIT Better Piccy

http://toysteambible.org/reeves/popular_ocsillating_engine.htm



« Last Edit: June 30, 2016, 09:55:55 PM by Bluechip »

Offline crueby

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #2 on: June 30, 2016, 10:02:14 PM »
Many moons ago, built a 10H single and a 10V double. Went well except for one base casting with hard inclusions in couple spots, they replaced it. Also did a PM research bottle engine in bronze, that was nice kit, machining the crosshead section of the tall center area tought some lessons in work holding. Then did a stuart grasshopper beam, that was nice kit.
Since then all barstock engines...

Offline Mike Bondarczuk

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #3 on: June 30, 2016, 10:34:15 PM »
Hi,

I have started the Stuart 10H as well as a PM #1 engine and both are now under the bench whilst I gain a lot more experience in turning and milling.

One issue with the Stuart engine is that the castings are just the right size or even under size which for a beginner present problems, though the PM castings are dimensionally fine and have material which can be removed.

I reverted back to the Stewart Hart Trilogy of stock material engines and have completed the horizontal and next will be the vertical cross engine and finally the beam, and after these are finished will have a go at Elmer's #50 Educational before going back to the castings.

Was lucky enough to obtain the complete set of castings for a Stothert and Pitt beam engine from Jo and expect at least a year before I start on that technical challenge, though her build log for the original larger size engine will be a great guide I am sure  :happyreader:

Mike
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Offline kvom

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #4 on: June 30, 2016, 10:46:53 PM »
For the A3 loco I used castings for the drivers and cylinders.  However, the Joy Valve engine was the first that used castings for a majority of the final weight.

At this stage I prefer bar stock construction.

Offline stevehuckss396

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #5 on: June 30, 2016, 11:16:45 PM »
My first engine with castings was Bob Shores Peewee V4









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Offline steam guy willy

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #6 on: June 30, 2016, 11:57:02 PM »
My first castings were for a 3.5" county Carlow from way back in 1970......it is still not finished though.........You could try the Perseus Mill engine ......This is coupled to a boiler and has a rev counter and a dynamo attached to give the engine something to do..

Offline zeeprogrammer

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #7 on: July 01, 2016, 12:13:37 AM »
Mine was the PMR #1. A good one for beginners because of the resources available to teach.
It was, in fact, the first engine I'd ever built. There's some that would say not to use a casting for a first model...but it worked for me.
But I'm thinking you're more than a beginner.

Steve...I like that Bob Sores Peewee V4.
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Offline b.lindsey

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #8 on: July 01, 2016, 12:20:47 AM »
My first was a Tiny Power (I forget the number but it is a copy of the Stuart 10H). They are still in business as far as I know but have changed hands and kit prices have gone up  lot last time I checked.  I would recommend the PMR #3 as a first casting project. Affordable and they are great people to work with if you mess up a casting.

Bill

Offline Dave Otto

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #9 on: July 01, 2016, 01:21:29 AM »
My first was the Paul Breisch Little Brother. Yup guilty as charged; I still need to go back and finish it.

Dave

Offline gbritnell

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #10 on: July 01, 2016, 01:25:36 AM »
My first engine from castings was a Stuart 10V. From there I made several other Stuarts. I generally had good luck with them. I had a few hard spots in the valve chest covers because of the thin section.
gbritnell
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Offline jeff l

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #11 on: July 01, 2016, 01:37:30 AM »
A Stuart 10-V was my first engine I still display it at the local steam show in Portersville .

Offline Art K

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #12 on: July 01, 2016, 02:34:36 AM »
Peter,
I have to admit that I have a box of castings & prints. When it is done it will be a 1/6 scale Galloway. I sold a dividing head I took to the 2015 NAMES show and turned around and bought the kit from Minicastings. The prints were done by George Britnell so I trust them. I have two barstock engines. A Hamilton Upshur based vertical single, and a Brain Fairey based VAL, still in process. I want to build a multi cylinder so I don't know which will be built next?
Dave, I like your reference to how many pints the engine would have cost. :DrinkPint: Make mine a Theakstons Old Peculiar.
Art
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Offline Flyboy Jim

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #13 on: July 01, 2016, 04:07:51 AM »
Peter, Like you I haven't built anything from castings yet. However, I've selected the PMR #2 as my first engine to build from castings. I've got it here in the shop already, so I can get it out and bond with it occasionally. It's a wobbler, which I've built two of, so understand how they work. Now I just need to learn how to deal with castings.

Jim
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Offline pgp001

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #14 on: July 01, 2016, 07:33:09 AM »
Mine strictly speaking was not built from castings although it was.

My dad gave me some patterns many years ago that had been given to him by an old chap when he was a young apprentice engineer. Dad had never done anything with them and years later I decided to try and use them.
I had no drawings or other information, but I got a set of castings made from the patterns and measured them up, and armed with that information I designed my first engine from scratch.

I called it the "MHW" engine after the company name where he worked at the time of getting the patterns.
Here it is standing roughly 6" tall:-





I never did get round to making the governors for it though.



So Peter, if you want to borrow the patterns and drawings, you are welcome to get some castings done and have a go.

Or if you feel adventurous, I have a spare set of castings for the Clarkson Beam engine I might be prepared to part with, I cannot see me building two of them.

Phil
« Last Edit: July 01, 2016, 08:34:04 AM by pgp001 »

Offline Jasonb

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #15 on: July 01, 2016, 07:52:22 AM »
My first was a Stuart 10V made on a Unimat3 which was a bit of a challenge

[youtube1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHUTsC2eknA[/youtube1]

Other engines you could think about are the small Clarkson vertival and horizontal that Blackgates now do, about the same size as the Stuart 10s but priced a bit below them, reeves have Perseus, Trojan and Unicorn which are all fairly basic engines and Forrest Classics have the PMR engines mentioned above.

Offline Zephyrin

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #16 on: July 01, 2016, 09:05:34 AM »
Mine was the "Vulcan" beam engine, a large and beautiful model from bronze castings.
Not that difficult, in spite of some errors in the drawings, but the flywheel was much too large for my lathe, I did it on a setup on a wood lathe that i'm not proud of. the flywheel is still wobbling alas, and no metal left to fix it.
I was very happy with the machining of these parts, many years ago, something like being a model engineer at last...

[youtube1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDjY2zIFZfE[/youtube1]

Offline Gas_mantle

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #17 on: July 01, 2016, 10:55:30 AM »
Thanks for all the helpful replies, although the Stuart 10's are a popular beginners choice the suggestions have given me other options to look at.

Later when I've had chance to get used to using a mill and also bought some other better tooling I'd really like to make the Anthony Mount Benson engine but at the moment I think that's beyond my capabilities and would prefer to start with something simpler.

Phil - thanks for the offer about borrowing patterns it's something I may be interested in doing perhaps as a second project.

Jason - I wasn't aware that Blackgates sold casting kits for stationary engines as they aren't mentioned on their website but that also is something else to look into.

Many thanks
Peter.

Offline Jasonb

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #18 on: July 01, 2016, 11:28:39 AM »
They mention the Clarkson engines in their catalogue which can be downloaded, I had a quick look to see if I could find a photo of the smaller engines but google just shows the larger ones. Don't think they are at Guildford this year otherwise I would take a photo for you. Maybe Jo has a picture somewhere?

Benson can be done without castings

Offline Gas_mantle

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #19 on: July 01, 2016, 11:51:27 AM »
Thanks Jason, I'm downloading the Blackgates catalogue at the moment although it's painfully slow for some reason.

I looked for Clarkson engine photos but the only horizontal I could find was this one :-

http://www.steam-engines-for-sale.com/Item-Clarkson%20horizontal%20live%20steam%20engine%20-000003079.html

Is that the one you mean ?  I do like that engine though it is larger than the sort of thing I've been considering.

As for the Clarkson vertical the only thing I can find is videos on youtube showing a large one something similar to the Stuart no1.

Offline Jasonb

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #20 on: July 01, 2016, 12:09:36 PM »
From what I remember its not the same as the one in your link.

Blackgates cat is slow if you are using IE, I always look at it with Chrome

The large vertical crops up more often and slightly less so teh compound version. There is also a large horz which uses some of the same parts. As you say a bit big at 2" bore x 2" stroke. The smaller ones are around the same size as the Stuart 10 series. This is quite a nice example of teh large vertical except for the brass (sorry Don)

[youtube1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EOEjnqdexs[/youtube1]


Offline Ian S C

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #21 on: July 01, 2016, 01:07:50 PM »
My only venture into the world of castings was the rebuild of a Stuart Turner S9, most of the work had been done on the engine, but a lot of rectification of mistakes was required, and a bit of cleaning up of the castings, and fabricating some missing parts, including a new crankshaft.  Unfortunately its owner(the bloke I did the rebuild for), took it to a steam engine public display, and someone nicked it.  So there is a quite nice looking S9 somewhere around the country.  Ian S C

Offline pgp001

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #22 on: July 01, 2016, 01:20:59 PM »
Peter

I have just realised that in my hurry this morning, I did not describe the spare beam engine castings I have correctly.
They are not for a Clarkson beam engine, but for a Sanderson beam engine, the castings were originally supplied by Clarksons, and now available from Blackgates.

Here is a typical finished model.
http://www.stationroadsteam.com/stock%20pages/3781/pages/3781-p.htm

Phil

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Dont forget its the Bradford club meeting next Wednesday night.

Offline Gas_mantle

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #23 on: July 01, 2016, 01:35:34 PM »
I really like that beam engine Phil but realistically that is way beyond my skills and tooling - it's the kind of thing I'd maybe consider a few years down the line but for now I need to look at the sort of smaller Stuarts or Clarkson that Jason has mentioned. As you know I'm a very much a make it up as I go along hobbyist working on the kitchen table !

Then intention is to build another of Stewarts Potty engines and make a simple engine from castings at the same time.

Offline DTR

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #24 on: July 01, 2016, 01:38:11 PM »

Thanks for all the helpful replies, although the Stuart 10's are a popular beginners choice the suggestions have given me other options to look at.

And a thank you from me too! I haven't built my first engine yet either
Dave

Offline Jasonb

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #25 on: July 01, 2016, 01:48:36 PM »
If you prefer to work in metric then one of the European suppliers may still be willing to deal with us ;) Someone liek TS have some nice casting sets, second page has some Stuart style "A" frame verticals.

http://www.ts-modelldampfmaschinen.de/produktuebersicht/6-dampfmaschinen--steam-engine.html?limit=20&limitstart=0

I'm also working on a small Entablature engine that I will do drawings for like I did for the Jowitt which should not be too difficult to build, that will also be proper metric drawings :LittleDevil:

Offline Gas_mantle

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #26 on: July 01, 2016, 02:11:17 PM »
Some great looking kits there that I hadn't seen before Jason. I'm glad I asked the original question as it's thrown up loads of kits worth looking into.

I quite like the look of this one :-

http://www.ts-modelldampfmaschinen.de/produktuebersicht/6-dampfmaschinen--steam-engine/116-paul.html

It's a bit more expensive than the beginner Stuart engines but looks to compare in size to the Stuart 8. With a bit of care I'd like to think it's an achievable build. According to the English translation it is also equipped with a Gleitbahnfühung !  I'd really like an engine with a Gleitbahnfühung whatever one of those is  ;)

Peter.

Offline Jasonb

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #27 on: July 01, 2016, 02:15:17 PM »
Gleit is sliding so could be refering to slide valve rather than piston valve.

Edit. more likely the type of cross head guide

Offline sshire

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #28 on: July 01, 2016, 02:25:15 PM »
The Rider-Ericsson ¼ scale.
Beautiful castings. No problems. Unlike bar stock engines, you can't just go to the bin for another piece of metal and remake a part you've screwed up.
Best,
Stan

Offline crueby

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #29 on: July 01, 2016, 03:40:31 PM »
Some great looking kits there that I hadn't seen before Jason. I'm glad I asked the original question as it's thrown up loads of kits worth looking into.

I quite like the look of this one :-

http://www.ts-modelldampfmaschinen.de/produktuebersicht/6-dampfmaschinen--steam-engine/116-paul.html

It's a bit more expensive than the beginner Stuart engines but looks to compare in size to the Stuart 8. With a bit of care I'd like to think it's an achievable build. According to the English translation it is also equipped with a Gleitbahnfühung !  I'd really like an engine with a Gleitbahnfühung whatever one of those is  ;)

Peter.

This steam saw is very interesting too...

http://www.ts-modelldampfmaschinen.de/produktuebersicht/6-dampfmaschinen--steam-engine/432-dampfsaege.html

Offline Mosey

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #30 on: July 01, 2016, 03:49:16 PM »
Mine is a Bob Shores Silver Bullet, which I started 10 years ago, mostly finished, and completed last year except for a tiny detail...it doesn't run (Yet).

The casting set was perfect.

Mosey

Offline Gas_mantle

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #31 on: July 01, 2016, 04:14:48 PM »

This steam saw is very interesting too...

http://www.ts-modelldampfmaschinen.de/produktuebersicht/6-dampfmaschinen--steam-engine/432-dampfsaege.html


It looks to be quite an interesting site, they seem to have a few things I've not seen elsewhere, their boilers seem reasonably priced unless I'm overlooking something.

I'm not sure if you noticed but there is a video of the saw on this page :-

http://www.ts-modelldampfmaschinen.de/videosoben.html

Offline Florian Eberhard

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #32 on: July 01, 2016, 04:29:00 PM »
Hi

TS-Modelldampfmaschinen is owned by Thorsten Schür. His Castings seem to be quite good quality (as far as I had seen it in some german forums) after some problems in the early time (some parts were a little too small - due to shrinkage and there were also some hard spots)
Also the prices are quite moderate and there are in fact a few interesting models on his shop.

Florian

Offline crueby

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #33 on: July 01, 2016, 05:15:03 PM »

This steam saw is very interesting too...

http://www.ts-modelldampfmaschinen.de/produktuebersicht/6-dampfmaschinen--steam-engine/432-dampfsaege.html


It looks to be quite an interesting site, they seem to have a few things I've not seen elsewhere, their boilers seem reasonably priced unless I'm overlooking something.

I'm not sure if you noticed but there is a video of the saw on this page :-

http://www.ts-modelldampfmaschinen.de/videosoben.html

Had not found the video - very cool. Looks like the valving is actuated by the saw travel back to through a lever to the air intake at the base. Interesting!

Thanks for the link!

Additional question: Anyone know if they have a distributor in the US? Looks like they only ship within Europe.
« Last Edit: July 01, 2016, 05:20:54 PM by crueby »

Offline Bobsmodels

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #34 on: July 01, 2016, 07:43:22 PM »
Hi

This was my first gas engine from castings, finished in 2004.  It is a freelance engine called "The May".  It was designed by a modeler Jim May.  It was sold by Blackberry Models when it was still in business along with four other models from Jim May.

Bob

Offline Woodguy

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Re: What was the first engine you made from castings ?
« Reply #35 on: July 02, 2016, 12:38:45 AM »
Mine was this one: http://www.myersengines.com/engines/creators_vertical.htm

It was simple, cheap, and large(ish) with no tiny parts to make and then lose. Setups worked out well on my 10 x 18 lathe and SX3 (converted to CNC) mill.  I gained a lot of valuable experience building it.

Downside: Entirely cast in Aluminum.

 

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