Author Topic: Jesse Livingston Rocking Valve Mill Engine  (Read 21153 times)

Offline tinglett

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Jesse Livingston Rocking Valve Mill Engine
« on: January 10, 2017, 04:02:27 AM »
I've been wanting to build the Rocking Valve Mill Engine since I first saw it.  It's a bit beyond my skill, but we'll see where I end up when I'm done :).

Here's a photo of the engine from the book "The Shop Wisdom of Jesse Livingston" which can still be purchased from Village Press.


The engine has a 0.75" bore and 1.5" stroke and a flywheel slightly larger than 4".  It has a rocking valve similar to that in a Corliss engine.  And it has a spiffy governor that looks to be almost a full project on its own.  Finally, it's entirely fabricated from bar stock.

I already built a flywheel for this engine over in a Fabricating a Flywheel thread over in Engine Ancillaries:
http://www.modelenginemaker.com/index.php/topic,6600.0.html



Looking through the article, I can see I'm going to learn a little.  This will require some soft or silver soldering...so I think it's high time I learn how to silver solder (I can easily soft solder copper pipe for plumbing, if that helps).  The frame fairing is bent from brass -- another operation that'll be a bit new for me.  And who knows what else.  But it looks like a mighty fine engine, so I'm heading down this road whether it's a good idea or not!  Well, and I also got a start on it over the weekend, so I'll get that part written up asap.

Todd

Offline b.lindsey

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Re: Jesse Livingston Rocking Valve Mill Engine
« Reply #1 on: January 10, 2017, 04:07:29 AM »
Great project Todd, and your flywheel already looks terrific!! The new skills will be fun to learn too. Already looking forward to the build log.

Bill

Offline Ramon Wilson

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Re: Jesse Livingston Rocking Valve Mill Engine
« Reply #2 on: January 10, 2017, 11:57:26 AM »
Good morning Todd  :)

I will be following your thread on this lovely little engine and yes, thanks to your kind help and encouragement to do so, will be following behind with my 125% build in due course.

I note the emphasis on 'rocking' as opposed to rotary which of course it is - funny how things get stuck in ones head ::)

Good luck with your engine, you already have a good start with that flywheel - great work on how you milled those spokes BTW

Kind Regards (and again, many thanks) - Ramon

"I ain't here for the long time but I am here for a good time"
(a very apt phrase - thanks to a well meaning MEM friend)

Online steamer

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Re: Jesse Livingston Rocking Valve Mill Engine
« Reply #3 on: January 10, 2017, 01:42:52 PM »
Jump right in Todd...don't be afraid of it.

Great support group here.

Dave
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Damned ijjit!

Offline Jasonb

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Re: Jesse Livingston Rocking Valve Mill Engine
« Reply #4 on: January 10, 2017, 01:43:45 PM »
I'll look forward to following along too, a few recent e-mail between Ramon and myself has got me interested in this engine.

Who knows might add it to the 24mm bore engines I have been working on as it would be an easy 1mm = 1/32" conversion to metric.

Online sco

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Re: Jesse Livingston Rocking Valve Mill Engine
« Reply #5 on: January 10, 2017, 03:15:20 PM »
That does look an interesting engine - are the plans only available in that book?

Simon.
Ars longa, vita brevis.


Offline Ramon Wilson

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Re: Jesse Livingston Rocking Valve Mill Engine
« Reply #7 on: January 10, 2017, 03:51:13 PM »
Hi Jason, Simon

Thought this might catch your attention too :D

If you google 'shop history of jesse livingston' you will find a free download of pages. If you have difficulty let me know and I'll you send  a copy of mine

Ah - so who's going to have one for Forncett then  ;D

Regards - Ramon
"I ain't here for the long time but I am here for a good time"
(a very apt phrase - thanks to a well meaning MEM friend)

Online sco

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Re: Jesse Livingston Rocking Valve Mill Engine
« Reply #8 on: January 10, 2017, 04:08:44 PM »
Hi Ramon,

I tried a couple of those free downloads but they seemed to need you to sign-up for something so I bottled it - I'll have another go when I get home tonight.

I'm sure I will have mine built for Forncett - just not this years or next!

Simon.
Ars longa, vita brevis.

Offline Jasonb

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Re: Jesse Livingston Rocking Valve Mill Engine
« Reply #9 on: January 10, 2017, 04:16:14 PM »
I tried one and it had a virus, maybe you could PM or e-mail me the link Ramon.

I could say mine would be done by Fawncett, you would be none the wiser as I'll probably not be there ;)

J

PS Ramon should we be searching for Wisdom rather than history?

EDIT Found it :)
« Last Edit: January 10, 2017, 04:21:54 PM by Jasonb »

Offline Jo

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Re: Jesse Livingston Rocking Valve Mill Engine
« Reply #10 on: January 10, 2017, 04:35:54 PM »
Found it  :mischief:

Jo
Enjoyment is more important than achievement.

Offline tinglett

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Re: Jesse Livingston Rocking Valve Mill Engine
« Reply #11 on: January 10, 2017, 05:03:33 PM »
I like the color photo from e-bay!  I hadn't thought about how it should be painted until seeing this.  The book says the articles are from Live Steam so the story lines up.  It's cool to see interest in this little engine.  I hope some of you make one too!  I'd love to see that, and to be honest, it wouldn't hurt for me to see how some parts might be machined :).

I made the first part this past weekend...so here goes some build logging... :)

The Crosshead Trunk

The print calls for the crosshead trunk is machined from 1.375" high x 1.5" x 2.625" brass.  I didn't have that on hand, and I coughed a bit when seeing how much brass would cost, so I took some 1" x 1.25" bar of 1018 steel to start.  I suppose it would help with understanding how this could possibly work if I posted the drawing.   The crosshead trunk is actually only 1" wide, but has feet that spread it out to 1.5".  The book suggests these could be fabricated as bars soldered into grooves at front/back of the trunk.  I took it one step further and decided the whole "base" of the trunk could be made of 0.25 x 1.5 steel and I'd solder the trunk on top of that.  Hopefully, this will make sense when I actually make that part and show it in this build.  But I thought I should point this out immediately for anyone who has the article in hand and is going "huh?" :)

I squared up this block on the mill, and bored 0.75 for the crosshead.  I got to use my spiffy new boring bar.  When I dialed it in in the 4-jaw, I made sure the three sides indicated the same.


As the article suggested, I drilled/tapped two holes on the underside (the thick offset side) for grub screws.  These will allow it to be attached to a 0.75" mandrel.


Now I need to round over the top of the trunk, so here's my setup.  The article suggests an indexer, which I don't have, but I do have an RT that can run vertical with a tailstock.  But just for giggles, I decided to try a setup with V blocks instead.   You'll note the crosshead trunk has the mandrel installed with the set screws and this is sandwiched between V blocks so it can't shift along the X axis.  I had an ah-ha moment and dropped a rod in the t-track to help with alignment of the V blocks.  The rod wasn't quite big enough, but I pushed on the V blocks (in Y) when I did the final tightening of the clamps holding the blocks to the table.  I was a bit shocked that when I dialed in with the DTI, it was already perfectly aligned!  It's cool when things work out like that.


Now it was just a matter of rotating the trunk, tightening down the clamps onto the mandrel, and taking a pass on the mill.  This was a bit tedious, but I set the mill's depth stop to be close (but not all the way) to the final depth.  It was just a matter of going around and making sure I don't go too far where it should be flat on the sides.


When I got to the sides I'd use a square like this to set a starting point, and then (by hand) would rotate it slightly away from square in the right direction to make those last passes.  You can see it's already pretty round over the top in this photo.


I took it to this point with the idea that I could file off the facets to finish it off.


Next, it was time to cut out the side opening.  I decided to go with the book's idea to cut into the mandrel.  In hindsight, I really don't think the rotation helped at all.  The cut along the top is at such a small angle that I believe anyone making this engine could simply place this part in a vice and mill out a rectangle instead.  But I followed the book.  So I ran the end mill off the edge to touch it down to the mandrel and set the depth stop, and then went at it.


I undersized the cut slightly in X so I could clean it up later.  My setup didn't allow me to rotate the part during a cut, so my plan was to do the final cleanup while the part's XY plane was parallel to the table.   Here's where it ended up before this final cut.  About at this point I was realizing the end mill was cutting rather difficult (and rough) and was dull.


Here it's mostly done.  Just a little filing remains.


And now I have this part.


And finally I needed to turn the ends in for 0.125".  I did this between centers just because I could, and it also meant I could take out the part for inspection or to flip it end-to-end without additional setup.  Note my poor man's "DRO."  I just purchased a magnet for the base of that DI and it worked incredibly well, though on that side of the carriage it was reading backwards.  But 0.125 was only a full rotation and a quarter of the DI so this wasn't confusing.


And there's the main part of the crosshead trunk.  I've done a little filing for this photo, but a bit more needs to be cleaned up.


Next I think I'll make the "base" part of the crosshead trunk, and then I'll make the front/back heads for it.

Todd

Online sco

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Re: Jesse Livingston Rocking Valve Mill Engine
« Reply #12 on: January 10, 2017, 05:05:57 PM »
Nice work Todd - you are setting the standard for the rest of us ;-)

Simon.
Ars longa, vita brevis.

Online steamer

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Re: Jesse Livingston Rocking Valve Mill Engine
« Reply #13 on: January 10, 2017, 05:41:27 PM »
Nicely written up as well!   Sweet!
"Mister M'Andrew, don't you think steam spoils romance at sea?"
Damned ijjit!

Offline Flyboy Jim

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Re: Jesse Livingston Rocking Valve Mill Engine
« Reply #14 on: January 10, 2017, 03:43:09 PM »
Excellent documentation of the machining process for this part, Todd. That was an interesting set up that worked quite well.

I just finished watching a series of 3 videos on YouTube where Stephan Gotteswinter makes a sine vise. He rounds it over with a shaper, similar to what you did with your mill. He did an interesting thing, in that after a pass, he would coat it with layout dye. Then it was easy for him to make another pass and take off material in between the previous pass..............if that makes sense.

Jim
Sherline 4400 Lathe
Sherline 5400 Mill
"You can do small things on big machines, but you can do small things on small machines".

 

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