Building the Jan Ridders Mk2 2 cylinder engine

[gerritv]

I started this engine in summer of 2014. At the time I had a Taig lathe with milling attachment, working in a spare room in a condo. 2 years later we are living in a house again and I am blessed with 2 shops, one for wood and one for metal.
I also now have a horizontal milling machine (no idea what brand) and a 1920's Cincinnatti Cutter and Tool Grinder to let me grind anything I need.

I contacted Jan who sent me the plans next day. I use my Dutch on him so I can keep in practice. He is very helpful and supportive of anyone building to his designs. Page showing both versions.

First up, the cylinders. I chose this as first because without decent glass for cylinders there was no point continuing. I had already concluded that the Taig was up to the task, even though I knew the build would require creative thinking to make some of the larger parts.
Borosilicate glass (aka Pyrex) is quite common in the glass blowing field. Lots of sizes available, the problem being that it is not perfectly round inside. To overcome this I am using a brass piston as per the Mk1 design instead of graphite. I bought the glass locally in Toronto.
A bit of jigging with a Dremel/diamond disc and dripping water resulted in 3 pieces of cut glass. This was July 2014!

[gerritv]

Next up in July 2014 was the two pistons. I turned these from hex brass, salvaged from the shop floor at a place my father worked in the 1960's! Never throw anything out, it will be useful one day :-)

I basically made these the diameter that was closest fit in both cylinders. Almost identical. A groove was cut incrementally to suit the O-rings I had to ensure a good fit without excessive friction. I am not sure how much power the engine generates, if there is blow by when running I can shim the o-ring groove.
I still haven't decided how to hook up the connecting rods, will get to that in a little while now that work is progressing again.

[gerritv]

Still in July 2014, up next was the cylinder block. Again a piece from scrap my dad collected.
The Taig milling vise is not the greatest. I had bought a 2" toolmakers vise from Shars and mounted it on the vertical slide. Major improvement in work holding.
After squaring up the block it was mounted int he 4 jaw. I center popped and used the tailstock to center the piece in the chuck. I struggled with making the bore, the boring bar I had was not ground for brass. The only place I could grind anything was 12 floors down, after hauling my bench grinder out of the locker, etc. Eventually I did make a better boring bar and finished the cylinder counter-bores in Dec 2015 after I had my workshop in the new house sort of set up.

[gerritv]

Fast forward to Aug 2016 and there is rampant progress! In the meantime every room in the house was painted, yard was defoliated and a large pond built etc. A wood shop is now operational in the garage and the basement shop is mostly functional.
With our first year goal of getting all the house work done, we can both move on to enjoying our hobbies again

The engine is built on 3 supports. The drawings call for 10mm Al plate but even though Canada is metric, you can't find metric Al at an affordable price. Because I am using 0.375 instead I expect to make changes to some dimensions on the shafts. The small support is first up, mainly to see how I manage the milling machine with various operations.
A bit of layout work, some cutting on the 4x6 bandsaw and ready for the mill. (The extra bolt showing on the vise is to steady that side, the clamp only acts on the RH side. Yes, a better vise is in the works ) To machine the decorative scallops I used my 30mm Soba boring head. I set the radius to 15mm and fed in until I touched the destination line. On the last cut the workpiece shifted a bit so there is now a small tombstone to remind me to check the vise more often.

[gerritv]

Emboldened by progress so far, without any significant whoopsies or rework, I proceeded to the 2 main supports.
Having recently bought a paper copy of Textbook of Advanced Machine Work, I had seen how planning out work was a relatively straight forward but necessary step. The book is replete with Sequence of Operations charts, mostly starting with "oil the machine"  I planned out the sequence of operations so that I didn't machine myself into a "can't get there from here" scenario.
To that end I sized and squared up the 2 main support pieces. I marked out the 3 shaft holes and drilled then using a N drill, followed by an 8mm reamer. This allows me to use some 8mm ground HSS tool steel as alignment pins.
Using the 30mm boring head I cut the decorative scallops. Using the table stops made setup simpler for the second of each scallop. Basically move the table until work pieces touches the boring bar, set that stop. Then set the infeed stop to the correct distance. Without a DRO this works for me.

Similar setup was done for the large cutout. A slot drill allowed me to plunge in and then run to the 2 stops. Two smiley pieces of aluminum are now ready for some boring stuff.

[gerritv]

I am now proficient at boring! Both to size and to depth, without a DRO. There are 6 bearings to counter bore for and a hole to prep for tapping M12x1.5.
The general sequence for each hole was to align the workpiece to the collet/spindle using an 8mm HSS ground tool rod. The table height was fixed after the first alignment process. Once the work could move on the rod easily, I switched out to the boring head. I found a 0.7mm depth of cut was my limit for stressing the head and its small 6mm bar. After lots of setting changes to get to the correct diameter, it was on to the next hole.
Last step I cut the adjustment slots for the belt tensioning rollers. Not having metric mills I used a 0.25 slotting drill followed by a 0.3125 end mill to cut out the slot per the drawing. I will adjust the idler shafts to suit the changed dimensions.

The result is 3 supports with counter-bores for the bearings. They are a close fit without need to force them in. Likely I will Loctite them in during final assembly.

[Steamer5]

Hi Gerritv,
 Looking good! Lots of progress in a short time!

Cheers Kerrin

[b.lindsey]

Quite an interesting engine gerrit!  I was going to ask how the glass cylinders would be attached to the central metal piece, but looking at Jan's write up I see he used Loctite successfully for that. Great work so far, and I will be following along on this one. We used to have a transparent single cylinder engine here at the university that was run for one of the thermodynamics labs. It was always  hit with the students, because although we all know what happens inside the cylinder, its quite another thing to be able to see it happening. You could even tell slight changes in the fuel mixture as the combustion flame would change from yellowish back to bluish as the fuel/air mix went from rich to more lean. This will make a incredible model !!

Bill

[gerritv]

Hi Gerritv,
 Looking good! Lots of progress in a short time!

Cheers Kerrin

We had a visitor from NZ for a week so while SWMBO was busy I had full time in the shop. First time in a while, with this much visible progress I am being encouraged to do more.

[gerritv]

Bill, one of my all time favourite books is power Plants for Aircraft by Joseph Liston. Tempted to find a copy again. That book got me into programming (Fortran) to design a constant flow fuel injection system for my brothers 1961 Mini Cooper. That was high school in 1966, he was working for Univac and had free system time on the night shift. My interest in engines goes way back and the thought of seeing the combustion process was irresistible.

[Roger B]

Very good, if somewhat interrupted progress    I eagerly await the first live combustion videos  Long ago I used to use Gunsons Colourtune sparkplugs with a glass insert for adjusting my carburettors 

[Brian Rupnow]

I will follow your build with interest.---Brian

[gerritv]

Finally a bit of progress. I have been distracted by the arrival of a King KC1022ML (G0602), building a bench for same and cleaning it up, moving machinery around in the shop, making progress on my Cincinnati Universal Grinder refurb and finishing the half of the basement that isn't my shop.

The bottom plate is up next. I need to mount the bearing/shaft supports so that I can measure dimension changes needed for the shafts. The material is Imperial, the drawings metric. Without redrawing everything I think this is my best approach to arriving at parts that fit together.
I bought a full set of ER32 collets so that I can use the horizontal mill for drilling as well as milling. I used a 5/16 end mill to counter-bore the holes, I really wanted to make some metric counter-bores, but need to use the tool grinder to finish those. The end mill worked out ok but not great. Thankfully I am the only one who will see the 2 bores that are out of center :-)

The plate was cut to size by removing the vise from the band saw and clamping the plate directly to the base. Metal Supermarkets pricing is lower when you buy stock sizes.

[b.lindsey]

Glad to see an update on this unique engine. Sounds like you have been busy with other things...I can relate to that 

Bill

[gerritv]

Very good, if somewhat interrupted progress    I eagerly await the first live combustion videos  Long ago I used to use Gunsons Colourtune sparkplugs with a glass insert for adjusting my carburettors 

I recall those from my brother's 1961 Cooper S, heavily modified. Once we added a 45DCOE it was tuning time for a few weekends. I thought of them again when I had my 1976 308GT4 but with 8 cylinders and 4 2 barrel 32DCNF's it was too many plug changes :-(

Gerrit

[gerritv]

Some more progress:

After drilling the base plate, the next item was to drill the supports to the same pattern. This was a bit nerve wracking as there is not much wiggle room for 'adjustments'.
To align the holes in middle of the supports I used a .375 rod in the mill arbor, and a parallel to make it align with the top surface of the support. The spindle was then in the middle, the vertical was then locked into place. The other position was aligned each time with a spotting drill and then drilled 4.2 for the m5 SHCS. A very sophisticated depth stop was rigged up to not drill too far into the supports.

To do the tapping I digressed into making a tapping block, just a lump with appropriate clearance holes for the various metric taps. I cut a block for Imperial ones as well, will get to that when it is needed.

The holes were tapped, the machinist clamp is my Grade 9 project (1962), it has aged better than I have :-)

Final result is the 3 supports square and vertical. Next up is some measuring to adapt the shaft dimensions to the .375 plate (instead of 10mm per the drawings)

[gerritv]

Catching up with posting, this is from early Jan.
The main shaft has several features. A long flat to provide a place to lock the flywheel onto and 3 flats for the main drive pulley.
I made a holder for the shaft from some hex rod so that I could index the 3 flats. And a slitting saw arbor (using Stefan Gotteswinter design) to cut the groove in end of the shaft, this will key with the rotating exhaust valve.

Nothing too complex this time but a satisfying result. This is the first rotating part!

[gerritv]

Up next from late Jan are the crank webs and pins.
The webs gave me some bother as they are to be only 6mm wide when finished. I faced the end of some stock, drilled and reamed to 6mm to a depth past the combined width. On cutting off, the end of the drop was convex! So into the chuck, aligned with a 6mm rod in the tailstock chuck. I didn't gets this aligned quite right so the result was a wobble after facing off the convex end :-( So, made new ones, having realized that the end of my cutoff tool was not ground square.
The second pair were much improved. I should probably have made a pot chuck to do the finish facing work on these.
A bit of straightforward lathe work to make the 2 pins, starting with drill rod. These are a press fit into the crank webs, hoping to avoid silver soldering for this first engine.

The crank webs were centered in the mill using my usual trick of a rod in the spindle to centre it. The pins are offset 7mm from the centre. I really need to buy some DRO scales, the mill has 0.1mm graduations on very small hubs so not very convenient at all.

I also made the rotating exhaust valve, again just a piece of drill rod with a hole in it.

[gerritv]

Next up, the exhaust valve housing and mounting the cylinder block.
I turned the housing from some brass, I was hoping for bronze but none to be had when I was ready for it. This piece threads into the support plate, it will need some thread locker on assembly to keep it in place. The cylinder block, which I made on my Taig in fall of 2014, was marked up for holes on 3 sides. 2 are tapped for the spark plug and carburetor, the other is the exhaust port.
To align the exhaust port with the exhaust housing I turned down the end of a piece of 8mm rod to fit in the housing and the 4mm hole in the cylinder block. I squared this up on the marked up support plate, then clamped.
The mounting holes were tapped m3. And then test assembled to view something that is now resembling an engine.

[gerritv]

The last rotating parts to make before the pulleys and flywheel are belt tensioners.
A bit of turning and a bit of milling on these. One noticeable skill improvement is turning to a specific diameter using the graduations. For a while I wasn't trusting myself on getting that right. But with practice comes confidence. A calculator to determine the number of 0.025mm graduations helps avoid brain fog. Upping the spindle rpms also improved the surface finish so no polishing was needed.

The 2 nuts were also made from drill rod. After milling them square the required rounded corners remained. My previous learning on the cutoff tool meant that now the cut end is almost good enough to use as is.

Pulleys were turned from stainless. I used the cutoff tool as a groover. The flanges are 1mm wide. Holes were drilled and reamed for a smooth rotating fit.

I think these were the last of the easy parts for now. I am planning the making of pulleys and flywheel but for those I need to make some more tools. Both the mill and the tool grinder will get some new attachments in the next week.

[gerritv]

Its time for some heavy metal.
I had a lump of 4.25" steel that came as part of about 700lbs of metal. You can never have too much stock to work with :-) I knew at the time that there was a flywheel hiding in there.

There were several attempts made by previous owner to cut this up, so I was left with 1 end to work with. Into my recently obtained BSA 4 jaw, it was centred as best as possible. After much cutting half a flywheel popped out.
It was rigged in the 4x6 bandsaw and cut off. Spending time aligning the saw pays off, in this case it was out by 0.5mm over 100mm. Spray cutting oil meant that the cut was fairly smooth as well. 40 minutes to cut but can't imagine any other way, certainly no a hacksaw!
After re-centering in the 4 jaw I finished the machining. Drilled and reamed the shaft hole and off to the engine for a test fit. Thankfully no discernable wobble. I still need to drill 5 large holes but will defer that for now. I have some DRO scales on order for the milling machine for easier locating of holes.

Learnings from this process: Need to grind up a better selection of cutting tools. I prefer HSS so at Names I think I will be visiting the Arthur Warner booth. In the meantime off to make some adapters for my ancient Tool & Cutter grinder.

[gerritv]

When we left off many moons ago, I was at the stage of making the timing pulleys. While I could have bought the 2 small pulleys, the large one was not available in the required width. This resulted in a detour to make the Eureka Relieving Device to make the T2.5 format cutter. (You can buy gear cutters but apparently not timing pulley cutters.)

This post shows the cutter, the setup and the result. One thing I learned much later on is that the outside diameter of timing pulleys must be spot on. Too large or too small and the belt with ride up on the teeth. Thankfully I only had one that was off and a slight trim fixed that problem.

The assembled engine turns over nicely.

[Don1966]

Nice set of gears Gerrit!   


 
Don

[b.lindsey]

Those timing pulleys turned out very nice!! Good to see an update too.

Bill

[bent]

Slow but steady progress, keep it up Gerrit!  I like the idea of building Jan's glass tube models, seeing the internal workings is a pleasure.  I keep looking for cheap and good high-speed video cameras, aiming one at a running IC glass engine would be interesting...

[gerritv]

Bent, the engine is essentially complete, I am actually at the stage of building the ignition. I will catch up on all the progress here this week.

Lots of in-betweens: lathe tool height gage, single wheel cut knurler to create coining, ball turner, added TouchDRO module to lathe and mill, converted lathe to DC variable speed, got a 7" Ammco shaper in shape enough to use (more work this winter), built a deck, finally started restoring a 6' RC model of HMCS Athabaskan that my dad built in late 70's, etc :-)

Part of my absence here was also due to needing to re-learn how to focus, the internet is too much of a diversion at times. I dropped participation/viewing of several sites as a result. Model Engine Maker is now the only one that I will actively participate in as well as a ship model one.

[gerritv]

  I keep looking for cheap and good high-speed video cameras, aiming one at a running IC glass engine would be interesting...

Kdenlive is supposed to have a speed modification feature to slow motion down. Only tried it as a slide show builder so far, waiting on a remote for my camera before doing videos of my machining efforts.

[Chester]

Following with interest, can’t wait to see this one run. Looking good so far

[Gas_mantle]

Hi Gerrit, I guess I'm a bit late to the party but did you finish your engine ?

I'd be interested to see how it turned out 

[zeeprogrammer]

Fast forward to Aug 2016 and there is rampant progress!

 

Sorry. Couldn't help myself. 

Not that I have any place to talk.

[gerritv]

Fast forward to Aug 2016 and there is rampant progress!

 

Sorry. Couldn't help myself. 

Not that I have any place to talk.

Be careful what you ask for, I am ready to catch up on my posting now :-) 

[gerritv]

Time for some brass work now. I have a horizontal mill so thinking about the setup to do the connecting rods took a while. Since there are 2, I mostly worked on them together, using the 2 holes to keep the pieces aligned. Drill rod is your friend for this :-)
In the process I learned also that I need better clamps for my rotary table, yet-another-tool-to-make added to the list. Laying out the outline was a bit fiddly, a sharp scriber is very necessary to keep the layout blue from chipping.
The pieces were finished off on my ancient scroll saw that converts to a die filer.
Milled slots in the pistons and drilled for wrist pins, then assembled.

[gerritv]

Hot off the success with the con rods, up are the ends of the gas tank. These pieces have bosses to fit inside the glass tube that servers as the gas tank. More fiddly layout, this time the 2 pieces are kept side-side to hopefully make it easier to grip.
Given that the bosses are circles I thought this was a job for the 4-jaw chuck. Lining up to the centre punch marks went smoothly enough. Some turning, then shift the part and some more turning. Of course in the process I didn't notice that the cutting tool was too wide and took a bit off the one circle but thankfully not enough to require making a new piece. The Boo-boo will be nicely hidden on assembly :-) (But I will add it to Jo's recent thread for posterity)

We are now at March 2018!

[gerritv]

Lots of garden work intervened but in June 2018 there is progress again.

During the intermission I started restoring a 1:72 scale model of HMCS Athabaskan (G07) that my father built for himself. He had in 1974/5 built a 1:48 model for the Canadian War Museum. the 1:72 one was badly damaged in 1982 and has sat in a crate since then :-( While doing research etc. I came across http://www.scratchbuildwithjohn.com/ an incredible resource. One of his workshop items is this work stand, it conveniently raises your work to eye level (if sitting at the work bench) or at a great height (if standing at the work bench). Just some wood scraps glued and nailed together with a sacrificial top.

Also during this time I bought at auction a UPT built from castings. This solved a huge problem for me, drilling holes and tapping accurately. My drill press is not great and the horizontal mill precludes most drilling operations. I finally could drill and tap the set screw hole in the flywheel, yippee.

[gerritv]

It is now Sept 2018 and time to finish the gas tank. There is an air bleed valve on one end, and a decorative air inlet at the other. I milled some brass to size and made up the various pieces. Nothing too challenging except the knurl.
To do the coining I built a cut knurling tool using Guy Lautard's design. (I will post that build elsewhere soon). I am very pleased with the end result!

[bent]

Getting close Gerrit, nice progress!