Brian does Ridders flame eater

[NickG]

Hi Brian, I’ll be watching, I made the original ridders internal valve flame eater with a few mods of my own. It is notoriously difficult to get to run, if you think the Stirling has little power this is on a whole new level!!! Any excess friction at all and it won’t run. I’ve often thought of making a valve and piston from graphite given the success of my poppin engines but never got around to it. It’s an interesting design but not forgiving and on a bit of a knife edge! Good luck, will be an interesting build.


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[Brian Rupnow]

I like my cylinders so much better when they can stand on their own two legs----Said legs are made of cold rolled steel, and still require a fit of polishing to get a really good finish.

[Art K]

Brian,
Everything looks good. I have to admit to knowing next to nothing about flame lickers but I have seen one running at NAMES.
Art

[Brian Rupnow]

Art--I'm going to know a lot more about them by the time I'm done here. Basically, the piston sucks the flame in thru the trap door end, then the trap door closes and the flame inside the cylinder goes out. This creates a vacuum and sucks the cylinder back up, which opens the trap door. The flywheel carries the flywheel around and the piston sucks in more flame--and repeats--and repeats---and repeats--

[Brian Rupnow]

This morning I whittled out a pair of crankshaft bearing stands. Nothing too exotic, but it'll do. I don't have the bearings yet that fit into the stands. I don't know if I have material for the baseplate or not---Will have to search my odds and sods basket to see.

[Brian Rupnow]

VOILA!!! We have a base for our flame eater engine. I was supposed to go across town today to my "real job" but got a last minute reprieve by email. I hope my bearings come in today.

[Brian Rupnow]

In the above picture you can see the chatter marks made by my parting off tool when cutting the fins. Other than a narrow file, does anybody have a better way to get rid of these chatter marks?

[Perry]

Hi Brian, I've heard that one way how to get around the chatter during parting of when lathe does not have required stiffness is to mount tool upside down and to run spindle in reverse. Also reducing the rpm may hepl. Perry

[PJPickard]

Be VERY careful with working in those slots with needle files, they grab easily!!

I have ripped emory cloth(or cut strips of silicon carbide paper) into narrow widths and used that to get rid of the chatter marks.

Paul

[Brian Rupnow]

I spent the lions share of today making a crankshaft, a crank throw and con-rod big end pin. I called about my bearings but they won't be in until tomorrow. I also drilled the 1/8" hole for the valve rod full length of the cylinder---You can see a 1/8" piece of cold rolled setting in the hole.

[bent]

I bought some abrasive cord awhile back to use on o-ring grooves and similar features at work (we have a nice heavy old Rockwell lathe, but still fight chatter on s.s. with parting/grooving tools).

McMaster Carr has it too, just search on their site for "abrasive cord".

[Brian Rupnow]

I bought some abrasive cord awhile back to use on o-ring grooves and similar features at work (we have a nice heavy old Rockwell lathe, but still fight chatter on s.s. with parting/grooving tools).

McMaster Carr has it too, just search on their site for "abrasive cord".

The slots between fins are 3/32" wide (the width of my HSS parting of tool). I have a 1/16" wide file, and have worked out 90% of the chatter marks with it.

[NickG]

316 is probably not easy to machine, does it need a bit of a rake angle on the tool for that? coolant / cutting oil should also help.


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[Brian Rupnow]

No rake angle and lots of squirt on cutting oil.

[Brian Rupnow]

My three bearings came in today. They cost $23.00 total and have seals on them. I'm not going to rush to take the seals out at least until I am set up to do some comparative tests to see how easily they spin. The key issue is that they fit the crankshaft and con rod pin properly. Tomorrow I will put the counterbores in the bearing supports and maybe build a con rod. I am still a bit undecided what material to use for pistons. Jan Ridders drawings indicate that you can use graphite OR cast iron. Nobody in Barrie sells machinable graphite, and I already have some cast iron left over from other projects. I may go with cast iron and if it don't work I can switch to machinable graphite after the fact.