Author Topic: Little and large - building 2 vertical steam engines.  (Read 29072 times)

Offline Gas_mantle

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Little and large - building 2 vertical steam engines.
« on: April 17, 2018, 04:08:49 PM »
Hi all

With my last project pretty much completed I thought I'd lay the groundwork for my next build. My intention is to try and build hybrid replicas of the Stuart no4 and 10v engines. As far as possible I'd like them to look like the real thing using a mix of castings and barstock.

The idea of this thread came about largely by accident, last year a forum member gave me a 10v trunk guide casting and another member then added a  flywheel and a few bits of barstock meaning I had pretty much everything I needed to build the engine.

A couple of weeks ago I was at my local engineering clubs auction night where it's often possible to pick up a piece of junk high quality tooling or barstock at a give away price. As it turned out I came away with a matching trunk guide for a Stuart no4 this time, it is actually a fabricated one but looks well made and only cost £1.40  :)

Fast forward a week or 2 and I managed to buy a no4 cylinder / valve chest casting set at a good price - with a flywheel casting I already have, I now have most of the materials for the no4 also.

The raw materials so far look a bit mismatched but with a bit of imagination I think it is possible to see 2 engines lurking in there somewhere.



I've never built from castings before (other than a small Crosskill engine I tried that was a disaster) so this is something new to me. If other members want to follow along and offer their advice etc I'd be very grateful.

Anyway enough of the preamble, I'll start posting more once the swarf starts curling.

Cheers
Peter.



Offline Gas_mantle

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Re: Little and large - building 2 vertical steam engines.
« Reply #1 on: April 20, 2018, 05:36:24 PM »
Well, I've made a start on the 10v. I wasn't really sure where to begin but settled on the soleplate.

This part is made from cast iron barstock, it isn't a complicated part but does involve quite a few operations and needs to be reasonably accurate to accommodate the bearings nicely and look right cosmetically.

I'm building metric versions of these engines and do have an all metric drawing of this part but I'm not sure how to upload it so here is a photo taken from a book showing what I'm trying to achieve.



Firstly the cast iron block is squared of and milled to the overall size. I'm not sure what grade of cast iron this is but it machines nicely  :)



I've chosen to drill the holes first, then mill the top surface followed by the large centre hole and finally a gentle taper around the outer faces to give a cast appearance. I'm not sure if this is the best way but it seems to me to be the easiest. I'll drill and mill using the handwheels on my mill (I don't have DRO) but marked out the centres that the holes will fall on, these will just form a rough guide that should alert me if I miscount the handwheels etc.



I bought one of these edge finders for a few quid and it seems to be an improvement on the wiggler set I was using  :)



Things look to be in the correct place



An 8mm deep 10mm wide slot is milled to take the bearings later. I did consider making rounded bottoms to the slot but chose to keep it simple, so flat it is.



That takes me to this.



With a bit of luck I'll get the rest of it finished tomorrow :-)








Offline crueby

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Re: Little and large - building 2 vertical steam engines.
« Reply #2 on: April 20, 2018, 05:40:50 PM »
Off to a good start!

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Offline Tennessee Whiskey

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Re: Little and large - building 2 vertical steam engines.
« Reply #3 on: April 20, 2018, 07:32:17 PM »
Slots and holes all accurately placed is always something to be happy about  :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp:. The more you use the edge finder, the more you will like it. Just don’t forget the half diameter offset  :facepalm: Ask me how I know  :lolb:

Cletus

Offline Gas_mantle

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Re: Little and large - building 2 vertical steam engines.
« Reply #4 on: April 20, 2018, 07:44:51 PM »
Thanks guys,

I'm not a fan of those ball type wigglers so I bought the parallel sided one, it's a far better and has a point on the other end for centering holes etc.

Offline Jasonb

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Re: Little and large - building 2 vertical steam engines.
« Reply #5 on: April 20, 2018, 08:20:28 PM »
Off to a good start with getting all the critical bits done on the first sitting, the rest is really just cosmetic to get it to look like a "casting"

Attached base drawing and another pdf showing it with the barstock bearings and caps

Offline b.lindsey

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Re: Little and large - building 2 vertical steam engines.
« Reply #6 on: April 20, 2018, 09:51:40 PM »
Off to a good start Peter. Should be a nice build :)

Bill

Offline john mills

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Re: Little and large - building 2 vertical steam engines.
« Reply #7 on: April 20, 2018, 10:27:04 PM »
the ball wiggler is for flat sides   the strait cylinder is for setting to curved sides such as round bar. the farster you can spin it the more responsive it will be.

Offline b.lindsey

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Re: Little and large - building 2 vertical steam engines.
« Reply #8 on: April 21, 2018, 12:43:51 PM »
The cylindrical edge finder works equally well on both flat edges as well as round bar. Its all I have ever used and don't even own a "wiggler"

Bill

Offline Gas_mantle

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Re: Little and large - building 2 vertical steam engines.
« Reply #9 on: April 21, 2018, 02:03:31 PM »
The reason I bought the cylindrical edge finder was mainly just for the convenience of it being metric, the ball wiggler I have is 1/4" dia and I just found it a bit of a chore having to allow 3.17mm radius into the setting up. The cylinder is 4mm dia so it is less prone to error adding 2mm than 3.17mm.

As it happens I do now prefer the cylinder version but the wiggler works well when using the point to locate a centre mark when using the 4 jaw in the lathe. (Admittedly its a 3 jaw in the photo but you get the idea  :)  )






Offline Gas_mantle

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Re: Little and large - building 2 vertical steam engines.
« Reply #10 on: April 21, 2018, 06:31:14 PM »
I'd hoped to get the soleplate for the 10v finished today but things didn't quite go to plan although I did make some progress.

Originally I had planned to mill the steps in the top surface but after a rethink I decided on milling out the centre next. Unfortunately my 4mm slot drill proved too short to go right through. It can be seen here that the wider non cutting part of the mill is starting to foul, I'm not concerned about the fouling mark as that is later to be milled down but the cutter isn't going to go through  :(



I decided then on using a 4mm drill to drill through on the 4 corners.



Somehow I had it in mind that the drill would get round the problem but really I'm no further forward, I need to use a cutter no larger than 4mm dia in order to preserve the radiussed corners but every other cutter I have still can't cut the depth I need.

So it's back to the 4mm milling cutter



The idea now is to go as deep as I can then flip the part over to cut the remainder. It's not Ideal but I have a vice stop in place and I'm working from the dials so I'm hoping I can just about get the cuts to meet up.



Well that's reassuring, with the part hard against the stop the first hole lines up perfectly  :)



Join the dots



It's a little bit out but a bit of emery or the Dremmel will correct the small mismatch.



Peter  :)












Offline zeeprogrammer

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Re: Little and large - building 2 vertical steam engines.
« Reply #11 on: April 21, 2018, 07:17:21 PM »
Well done.  :ThumbsUp:

I wouldn't have had a chance to get it that close.
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Offline Gas_mantle

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Re: Little and large - building 2 vertical steam engines.
« Reply #12 on: April 22, 2018, 05:02:30 PM »
Continuing on with the 10v soleplate the next task is to machine away the 4 corners to a depth of 5.5mm, I'm wanting to try an create a cast appearance so I thought I try and create rounded internal corners. I don't have a ball end mill long enough to reach (I've settled on 2mm dia) so I gave it a try drilling from the sides with a 2mm drill.



Then start milling away the waste.



Some corners are better than others  :(



I think a bit of filing and polishing will lose the error



The final job is to cut a shallow taper on the 4 sides, I wasn't really sure of the best way but thought using the swivel base on my mill vice could be worth a try. I've had it 18mths and it's never been used so today is it's first outing. The graduations are a bit small but I'm not interested in achieving a specific angle, I just want all 4 sides the same and realistic in appearance.



It's just about visible here that the vice is angled for a test cut on a piece of scrap



That looks about right



The hold in the vice isn't great but the cuts are small





My largest milling cutter has just about enough depth



A bit of light filing and emery takes me to the finished part.





It has got a few dwell marks and scrapes but I'm happy it has lost the 'Lego block' look and does at least look a bit like a casting  :)

Peter.








Offline crueby

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Re: Little and large - building 2 vertical steam engines.
« Reply #13 on: April 22, 2018, 05:25:46 PM »
Looks great!

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Offline zeeprogrammer

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Re: Little and large - building 2 vertical steam engines.
« Reply #14 on: April 22, 2018, 05:55:42 PM »
Took me a while to figure out what you did.
You basically used your swivel base as a rotary table, no? Pretty neat.
I hadn't seen that before.

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