Jesse Livingston Rocking Valve Mill Engine

[tinglett]

I haven't been able to spend much time in the shop this past week, but I managed to sneak in a little time each evening to make a little forward progress.  Here's an update.

I filled little gaps left from silver soldering with JB Weld (I plan to paint the engine), so now was the time to do some cleanup.  Using files and sandpaper I cleaned up the rear half of the assembly and then did a very light facing cut as shown here to  straighten it out.



I did the same for the crosshead trunk (front) part of the assembly, but instead of trying to square it up in the mill, I put the mandrel back through it and faced on the lathe.  I thought it would be pretty difficult to get a non-square cut result this way .



Then I did another round of JB Weld to fill any remaining rough spots.  If you look at the previous photo you'll see a little gap between the lug (foot) at the bottom and the front plate.  I filled in that space.  There were a couple other touch-ups in the rear part of the assembly as well.

Meanwhile, I machined the basic shape of the outboard bearing while the JB Weld cured.  This was pretty straightforward as shown in the next couple of photos.  I scribed the angle and set it in the vise by eye against a parallel.  These aren't critical by any means, though I didn't want them to look awkwardly wrong either.





I drilled/tapped a bottom plate so I could screw down the front part of the assembly with cap screws, and then glued on the back part with JB Weld.  The back part also gets drilled/tapped after the JB Weld cures up.  Really, I doubt JB Weld was needed here, but what the heck.  I used a mini quick-grip clamp to keep the back against the bottom plate while I used the mill head as a bit of a clamp to push it down and keep it all aligned overnight.

You'll note the parts are magically looking much cleaner as we go.  Lots of filing and such to clean them up.  That silver solder flux is godawful stuff.



The next day I was able to drill for the back two screws.  You'll note the bottom plate is a teensy bit over size, but I trimmed that back shortly after this photo.



And here's a couple photos of where it is today.  I'll be replacing the cap screws with studs and nuts at some point.





The outboard bearing I made earlier matches up with the frame back that is easy to see in that last photo.  Now that I'm looking at these photos I'm wondering why the outboard bearing frame doesn't have swoopy curves to match.

I'll need to study the article a bit more to see where to go next.  I certainly need to make the top caps for the bearings and drill for the shaft, but there might be something else to do ahead of that.

Todd

[tvoght]

You're doing a good job on an appealing engine, Todd. I'm watching.

--Tim

[Jasonb]

Its comming along.

If you are going to be doing more silver soldering then it will be worth getting hold of some acid to pickle the parts in, this will remove all the scale, discolouration and old flux. This can range from fairly mild citric acid to something quite a bit stronger like sulphuric and even hydrocloric.

Straight after soldering


1/2 hour in the pickle and a light scrub with an old tooth brush



J

[zeeprogrammer]

That came out swell Todd.

[tinglett]

Finishing the Bearings


Another day of slow progress.  It's time for the bearing caps.  There aren't really bearings other than the bore and the cap, and I'll finish them a bit undersized for now so I can ream better later to fit the shaft.

There are two bearing caps, one on the frame just behind the fairing, and the other will be on the outrigger support that will live on the other side of the flywheel.  They are identical at 1 inch wide and have a nice little curve on the top.  I decided to make them both together, slit them apart, and then do the finishing touches, including drilling/tapping to attach to the engine.

I started by drilling a 1/4" hole in the middle of a 1 inch wide chunk of brass that's the same thickness of the bearing supports.  This will sit on the RT so I can mill out the curved bits.



And here's how the machining went on the RT.  It maybe would have been just as easy to rough machine it and use filing buttons, but I happened to have a 1/4" plug for my RT that would hold it on center nicely.



I machined it more-or-less by eye, knowing that a little filing was going to be needed anyway to touch up the curved to flat bits.  Here I'm slitting it in half.  In the end it's supposed to be 1/8" thick, but really this isn't important at all.  I was just hoping to make it look pretty good .



Next I flipped it over and touched each cap off so it was flat.  The slitting saw was close, but I sawed it in two operations so it wasn't close enough.  I think my endmill is getting dull...that finish is awful.



Then I flipped them over and machined off the flat bits.  I did one final pass to make them all the same thickness.



Then over to the vise for some TLC.  I made those soft jaws a few weeks ago (referencing ideas on this board) and honestly don't know how I lived without them!



Then I came up with this crazy setup to drill the cap to fit the frame.  I had to jack it up so my C-clamp would fit.  I really need more small clamps.



Then another crazy setup for the outboard bearing frame.  Sorry it's a little obscured back there.   The 1-2-3 block made a dandy jig.  I forget every other hole is threaded.



Here's the outboard assembly.  I'll change out the screws later for studs.



Now it's time to drill out the bearings.  I was very concerned with them being one-half drilled, so I used a very short screw machine drill.  If it flexed, it didn't flex much.



I reamed it under to make sure it was good and clean.  I'll have to touch it up to match the shaft later, so I thought reaming under was the best plan for now.  I probably could have left it as is, but my screw drill was a #1 and a little small for fitting the shaft.



I drilled and reamed the outboard bearing the same way.  I kept Y locked so they'd be at identical heights.



And here's the family shot.



Next is the base plate which I've already started.  I'll finish that up and then can screw these parts down so they won't get lost.

Thanks for looking!

Todd

[sco]

It's coming along really nicely Todd.

Simon.

[Kim]

Yes, you're making a lot of progress, and its looking great!
Kim

[tinglett]

The Mandrel's Last Stand Setup

In this installment I make the base and mount the engine bits to it.

I had one last job for the trusty mandrel I've been using for the crosshead trunk.  Here the mandrel is secured (as you will see in later photos) and I'm drilling to use it as a setup guide.  The idea is that this hole is perpendicular and can guide the shaft for placing the outboard bearing on the base.  This should be clear by the end of this post (I hope) and the idea comes directly from the Jesse Livingston article.



For the base, I squared up 1/4" aluminum to 7.5" x 4.25" and then machined out a flywheel opening in the "floor" as called out by the plan.  Before doing this, I double checked the cutout will work with the flywheel I already made.   And it does.



Before locating the engine on the plate, I decided to flip the base over and drill and tap six blind holes so the engine can be secured to a larger base.  I made these 10-32 as I've done on other engines I have built.  I've found it a bit nerve-racking that I'll drill all the way through, but this time I set the depth stop by touching the drill bit to the thickness of my ruler and I drilled them all before going on to tapping.  It worked much better than trying to measure depth on each one.



I penciled some lines to help me line things up a little.  A temporary shaft and some parallels will get things straight, but I did want it to land reasonably centered on the opening for the flywheel.  The article gives measurements for one of the screws on the crosshead trunk, and this was close but as I thought I was already off by 1/16th inch.  Of course that would have been ok, but may as well align a little better, and these pencil marks helped with that.



Here's roughly what I'm doing to line it up.  The parallels along the long edge place the works 1/8 inch from the edge, and my pencil lines effectively set the position front-to-back.



Then it was just a matter of moving to the mill to drill/tap my way around.  Now everything is locked down, and the shaft is lined up.



The mandrel just went into my metal bits drawer for another day's work.  It served the project well.  Here's the current family shot.



Todd

[steamer]

That's looking good Todd!!!

Dave

[90LX_Notch]

I don't know how I've missed this thread; but, some really nice work Todd.

-Bob

[tinglett]

The Cylinder

I know it's been ages since I've checked in, but I have indeed been plugging away at this engine when I have a little free time.  I managed to finish the cylinder, which for my previous engines is where I always started.  I really enjoyed working with brass for some of the cross slide parts, so I pulled out the wallet and ponied up some cash so I could machine the cylinder from brass as well.   In hindsight, I think it was well worth the investment.

I dialed in a 1.5 inch long piece of 1.5 diameter brass (turned down from 1.625) and drilled/reamed a 0.375 inch hole down the middle



Rather than boring out the cylinder right away, I thought it might be easier to work on the rotary table if I made it match one of the centering plugs I have.  I had to make a little spacer disk to pull the cylinder away from the RT table.  Here I have the RT in its vertical setup so I can create steam passages.



This is the first time I've used my RT this way, and I learned real quick that a 6 inch RT is huge for my mill.  The little spacer helped, but for these cuts the mill head needs to get down in there.   I found the solution by facing the RT away from me, as you'll see in upcoming photos.  This was a pain for seeing what I was doing, but it did work.

I did a little measuring and marking on the bench, and then dialed it in on the mill as you can see here.  I was triple checking things so I wouldn't waste a nice hunk of brass.   Here you can maybe guess I'll be making three cuts.   The outer lines represent the steam inlet passages, and the middle line is the exhaust passage which wraps down the side of the cylinder.  The cylinder isn't yet finished to length so you can see a mark near the RT reminding me to finish it to length somewhere along the way.



Here's my first cut which I did in a few passes with a 1/8 inch end mill.  This is the exhaust passage that goes from 30 degrees on the back side to 75 degrees down onto the front side of the cylinder (relative to the top scribed line).  The left side of the cylinder in this photo is the back of the cylinder.  The rocking valve assembly will sit on top, and an exhaust port piece will be attached on the side over this passage.  The parts will be soldered.



Perhaps this orientation on the other side of the RT makes more sense.  The front side of the cylinder is toward the RT.   You can see the exhaust passage is done, and I've just finished running through the back steam inlet passage.  I took all these cuts in a few passes.  Note that while the exhaust passage was cut via rotation of the RT, these steam inlet passages are cut straight across.



And there's the front inlet passage in the next photo...



Now the RT is switched to horizontal and I drilled/tapped the five mounting holes on the back side of the cylinder.  The print called these out as #4-40 threads, but I realized that the hole size specified for the cross slide mount was for #3.  Rather than drill the cross slide mount holes bigger, I made these mounting holes #3-48.  I'm thinking the smaller bolts will make the engine look bigger .



Next I drilled steam inlet passages that extended down to the first steam inlet passage I machined a while back.  These are along the top edge of the cylinder which is at the left.  Two pairs of holes form the passages, and dang they are close to the edge!  The hole between these two pairs of passages is the top threaded mounting hole from the previous picture.



Next was the job of machining out passages into the cylinder bore.  Of course I haven't yet bored the cylinder, so these just extended "enough" toward the center.  I went 0.200 which was an easy four cranks of the dials (I don't have DROs).  After this photo, I machined out the second pocket identical to the first.



Then I actually remembered to machine the cylinder to length before drilling/threading the six bolt hole circle on the front side of the cylinder.   I made these #3-48 threads to match the other side.



Then the steam inlet pockets were created on this side in the same manner as the other side.



And finally, back to the lathe where I clocked it into the 4-jaw, drilled, and bored it to a 1 inch bore.







And here's my shiny new cylinder!   I love brass.



And the family shot so far.  It doesn't really assemble quite like this as there are front and back cylinder heads...the back one sneaking between the cylinder and cross head assembly, of course.  But I couldn't resist putting it together with a single bolt like that.



Perhaps that was too many photos for most of you, but I had to make it look like there was lots to do to make the cylinder .  And for me, that was a lot of steps!

Next time will probably be the front/rear heads for the cylinder.   Thanks for checking in!

Todd

[crueby]

Interesting setup for the passages, that came out great!

[gerritv]

That was an intricate set of steps. I am sure you pondered the sequence for a while?

Lovely shiny result. I like brass as well, except for the cost. I might take to brass plating for effect to save the wallet :-)

Gerrit

[zeeprogrammer]

Great looking cylinder! Well done! 

[Jim Nic]

This engine was coming along nicely and the build log was very informative. 

Todd, have you finished it or stopped work on the engine or just on the log?  (I appreciate a build log takes a lot of time and effort so could well understand if it's the latter.)

Has anyone else had a stab at it?

 I have the downloaded pages from Jesse Livingston's book and am giving it a serious thinking about for my next project.  My main concern is that I like to work in metric dimensions and the original has all sorts of imperial measurements (fractions and decimal inches on the same drawing and number drills for instance), but not insurmountable.

Jim