Chris's Marion 91 Steam Shovel

[sco]

Leaks there may be but that's just fine tuning to sort - they seem pretty fine to me!  :-)

Simon.

[crueby]

Leaks there may be but that's just fine tuning to sort - they seem pretty fine to me!  :-)

Simon.

Oh yes, I am VERY pleased with how they are doing, several months of wondering if the design was right are past. I think 'chuffed' is one of the terms our friends across the puddle would use?    Hope thats right. Remaking the piston heads is simple, and I need to pull the cylinders off anyway I do the fix, might as well do a proper job of it.

 

I had held off making the steering engine at the same time, wanting to know if the design would hold up before committing to the smaller size - I have decided to make a couple of tweaks on that one to keep the crank and eccentric widths up to 1/8" for ease of construction. It will just require slightly changing a couple proportions on the crankshaft and the crosshead block, wont be noticeable but will help a lot since I can then use stock thicknesses and the same fastener sizes as on these first ones. Otherwise I'd have to go down to 0-80's for the end caps, which is just too small, now I can stick with the 1-72's.

[kvom]

I'd have to go down to 0-80's for the end caps, which is just too small

That's where the elf assembly team gets put to work.   

[crueby]

I'd have to go down to 0-80's for the end caps, which is just too small

That's where the elf assembly team gets put to work.   

[Craig DeShong]

Been away a few days with family related "life" problems.  Fantastic progress !!!!! 

[crueby]

Welcome back Craig!




Not really wanting to pull the cylinders off again(too many tight spots around the studs that are hard to get at) I did some rummaging in the tool chest and found a small open end wrench that would JUST fit in the side of the crosshead slot and break the grip of the loctite blue holding the piston rod nut to the crosshead.     Much easier to undo the cylinder top cap and pull the piston out than to pull the whole cylinder off. Did some measurements, and the o ring slots are just a thou or so too deep on the third engine. Guess I was moving too fast by then and didn't properly check fit and compression. Easy job to redo them at least!  Maybe this will finally get me to make a set of small open end wrenches with narrow jaws and ends, with proper hardening. The ones I have bought are either too soft or too thick, should be easy to make from O1 steel. One of those three year and one hour jobs!

[derekwarner]

Chris......special purpose spanners  are the rule rather than a norm

I constructed a gas regulator support with 3 equally spaced vertical legs 0.125" diameter and on a 0.67" equal spaced PCD .....angular face 

The regulator has a 1/4" x 40 nut & cone connection to the bottom port of the regulator ie., in the centre axis of the support

All was fine until I attempted to tighten the nut with a 0.275" AF spanner  ......the standard 15 degree spanner off set was not sufficient to gain the second engagement with the thickness of the jaw body

The only solution was a 5/32" clearance ground slot  cut into the ring of a 7MM x 12 point ring spanner 

Derek

[crueby]

Chris......special purpose spanners  are the rule rather than a norm

I constructed a gas regulator support with 3 equally spaced vertical legs 0.125" diameter and on a 0.67" equal spaced PCD

The regulator has a 1/4" x 40 nut & cone connection to the bottom port of the regulator ie., in the centre axis of the support

All was fine until I attempted to tighten the nut with a 0.275" AF spanner  ......the standard 15 degree spanner off set was not sufficient to gain the second engagement with the thickness of the jaw body

The only solution was a 5/32" clearance ground slot  cut into the ring of a 7MM x 12 point ring spanner 

Derek

The slot let you swing the spanner slightly farther to one side? Slick. 


Companies like Wiha make great nut drivers and sockets, wish they would put same techniques to thin walled spanners!

[Kim]

The throttle works great, Chris!  You deserve to be chuffed!
Kim

[Steamer5]

Hi Chris,
 On tightening your nuts ( ) my Dads trick is to use a length of plastic tubing that’s a tight fit. Range of sizes of tubes to suit the nuts you use, & also a range of lengths.
Had some 8 or 10 BA  it’s recently to remove & replace & was starting to get grumpy with failing to get them on, the tubing made it easy


Cheers Kerrin

[crueby]

This morning Ron Ginger stopped in on his way to NAMES show for a visit and a tour of the shops, great to see him again! He was the one I learned of Lombard Haulers from, so you could blame that fun build on him! 




This afternoon I got the piston heads remade for the first engine, which had really bad leaks around the rings. Letting the loctite set up on the connection to the piston rod, then will reinstall them. They are the same shape as before, just several thou shallower grooves for the rings. I will see how they run, then do the others too based on those results.

[Tennessee Whiskey]

Well I was gonna tell you how great the engine ran, but, AT&T  has scheduled a service appointment between the hours of 10:00am and 6:00 pm and a responsible adult must be present, so I have to leave home    Don’t you hate those kinda things  . . Anyhoo, still a great little “runnah”

Cletus

[90LX_Notch]

I haven't checked in in bit Chris, wow.  Fantastic work.

Tiny endmills can be used to make tiny open end wrenches.

 Also,  Allen head screws can be used to make your own small nut drivers.  Simply drill and tap a rod for the screw.  Cross drill it and pin it.  Turn the knurl off of the screw to the desired wall thickness for the nut driver.

-Bob

[RonGinger]

It was really great to see Chris all his shops-almost every room in his house is some kind of shop, or almost a museum with his carvings, and ship models.

I took this photo of him behind the model to show just how large this thing is.

[crueby]

Ron, if you email me the full image I can get it resized and posted.




Edit:  you got it!