A simple Vertical Steam Engine.

[Admiral_dk]

Nice progress Jo and the best wishes for you and your health.

As to the amount of medicine and it's "side effect" - I'm in no position to judge this subject 

[Jo]

Thanks Per 

Yesterday the nice man who was in charge of the "bonking" machine (MRI) told me I had to make sure I drank plenty in the next 24 hours to get the contrast out of my system. When I asked him "which is better red or white " he looked at me with a funny look and said "neither and not coffee or tea either, straight water for the next 24 hours"    Time is now up.... so we are back on the original consultant Doctor's orders which was drink plenty of red wine

Jo

P.S. Did I mention the NHS over here is FREE   

[kvom]

It's not free, someone is paying.

[zeeprogrammer]

straight water for the next 24 hours

Could you at least have bread with that?

Stay well Jo.   

[Jo]

It's not free, someone is paying.

True: 12% of my earnings go on National Insurance and my Employer pays 13.8% towards it. But they also pay for State Benefits like pensions 

Jo

[Jo]

So working through the various glands: Interesting there are a lot of tapered faces in these to provide space for the packing material, meaning that they have an improved ability to compress the packing material on the rods, rather than just squashing it. It doesn't give an angle so I have left the tapers at the same angle as Mr Silky likes to have his top slide set to for thread cutting  .

The glands and their nuts themselves required a bit of thread cutting.. The outside ones are easy on a Hardinge and after it finally twigged with me  so are the inside 

I have just started looking at the nuts and deciding on the width of the slots: based on the C spanner I have found it looks like they will need to be two different widths: 4mm and 6.35mm  .

Jo

[Jasonb]

Those are some large glands that you have there Jo, I think next post you need to include a Jaffa in the shot so people can get an idea of size. Assumeing you have not scoffed the lot

[Jo]

There is a triple box sitting in the cupboard for if any one wishes to visit  .

I don't open packets of Jaffa's on my own They'd last less time than a glass of wine 

Jo

[Flyboy Jim]

There is a triple box sitting in the cupboard for if any one wishes to visit  .

I don't open packets of Jaffa's on my own They'd last less time than a glass of wine 

Jo

So Jo...........how do Jaffa cakes go WITH wine? Combine the two and they'd BOTH last longer.    

Jim

[Jo]

Yes Jaffa's do go with wine. The dark chocolate on the top makes them a winner 


The dividing head was used to mill the four slots round the valve gland nuts before parting them off and finishing the other end. I have added a pencil in the picture to give you an idea of the size of these little beasties.

Now that I have practised on those I can go and do the ones for the piston rod 

Jo

[Jo]

Before I can do the nuts for the piston rods I needed to finish the centres of the lower covers, which requires a 16 Tpi thread to be cut on the boss. However, the thread cutting tips I had were the larger ones and would not provide many threads, so I have been waiting for these smaller ones to turn up.

Mr Silky happily thread cut the outside for me  leaving the inside to be bored and have a taper turned in the bottom of the bore to take the inner part of the gland fitting.

Two more to go, then I can do the nuts which is what I had planned to do today 

Jo

[Johno]

Hi all,

With respect to tapered gland components that Jo refers to; Many years ago when I was “on the tools”, it was my experience that in full size practice that gland stuffing boxes and the associated gland followers invariably had tapered faces byway of improving the seal of the packing material around the stem/rod. I found this to be case on compressors, steam engines and valve glands.

I can’t recall the manufacturer, but I do remember a particular triple expansion steam engine (circa 1928) that employed segmented brass packing rings, the outer rings being tapered to match the taper of the stuffing box/gland follower. When tighten, he face of the gland follower (which was spring loaded caused the packing to “grip” the rod and provide a seal. The brass segments were all numbered and needed careful fitting by using engineers blue and hand scraping employing dummy rods of the precise diameter to that of the engine rods. They were then assembled into the gland for final fitting. As the various elements bedded-in the seal improved. Can any one else recall such glands?

Cheers Ian

[Jo]

The piston rod nuts are being made out of a piece of swiss cheese cast bronze bar, which is rather soft  the outside turned and the inside threaded by Mr Silky 

A quick check that the new thread mates with the cover's thread before going over to the mill and milling the four slots for the spanner. Part off and face the end.

Check it fits on the cover with all the gland components, before checking the fit  in the standard. Clearly I will not be adjusting the piston rod gland once the engine is assembled  .

Two more to go...

Jo

[Jo]

A better picture of that swiss cheese  I managed to get all three piston nuts out of it and there is still a bit for the Workshop gnome to sink his teeth into 

Finally I can start thinking about those piston rods... The engines all vary slightly and I am going to have to calculate where to adjust the length: With the taper on the end of the rods where it goes into the pistons it is not a simple case of adjusting there 

Jo

[Steamer5]

Hi Jo,
 They came out nice!
Looks like you are going to have up skill a couple of the gnomes to be able to tighten the glands!

Cheers Kerrin