building the Frisco Standard Model

[Craig DeShong]

When you own a live steam, coal burning locomotive; even if you’ve been a bad boy and Santa leaves you a lump of coal for being on his ‘naughty list’, it isn’t really a bad thing.   Possibly one should appear under the tree this year but I figure Santa probably gives some leeway to Seniors.    

Still, in Santa’s eyes, I must have been an exceptionally good boy this year because shortly before Christmas this casting set arrived from which I can build the Frisco Standard model engine.  Poor Santa and his reindeer; having him haul around castings in his sled, he SHOULD be leaving me coal, certainly glad he didn’t though.

These castings and drawings build a 1/4 scale replica of the 16 HP Frisco Standard and are distributed by Shelf Pet Models out of Oregon.  When I first heard of the company I pondered in regard to the rather peculiar name.  Upon further reflection though it seems to fit my situation fairly well; I suspect it fits others also.  They are on a shelf, and they “sort of” are my pets, and they are models so…..


The casting set builds an exquisite twin vertical cylinder, open crankcase engine with dual side shafts and dual igniters; a photo of someone else's efforts I show you here:


I called Bob Banke of Shelf Pet Models about two weeks ago, asking if he had the model available.  He answered on the second ring and indicated that he had several ready to go and a PayPal payment or a money order in the mail would get one headed my way.  I sent prompt payment and the model arrived yesterday.  USPS had dropped the 30 LB. box about every way possible, but upon inspection, all the castings arrived unharmed. 

With the “kit” you get the castings, some cast iron material for making pistons and cylinder liners, 41 pages of CAD produced drawings and a resource page suggesting where you can get plumbing fittings, oilers, etc.
The following few photos show the “goodies” included in the “kit”.

Jo, you can see that Sirus is really on the ball as he had his “henchmen” ready to pounce on the castings as soon as I vacated the room in which I placed them last night.   They’ve already attempted to claim “fondling” rights, but they have been informed that they can have only “second dibs”.

In this photo I show the cylinder block and base; also the piston and cylinder material.


This photo shows the cylinder heads, valve covers, intake and exhaust manifolds, gears (plastic bag), name plate, and a few other brass castings I have as yet to sort out.



Last but not least these two massive brass flywheels, easily more than the weight of the other castings combined.  These finish to a seven inch diameter.


I’m thinking Christmas will be a good time to review the drawings, fondle examine the castings with respect to the drawings, and prepare to start construction early January- weather permitting.

[Jo]

Sounds like your Xmas day is sorted 

Jo

[b.lindsey]

Nice looking castings Craig. A lot better looking than a lump of coal for sure!!

Bill

[Jasonb]

Should be an interesting one to build and gives an interesting one to watch running from above with the two ignitors and their associated levers.

[steamer]

Oh  I like that!

Dave

[Fowellbox]

I don't need another project but that is so nice. I wonder what the shipping cost would be to England?
Brian

[Jasonb]

From the engines I have bought from the US and Canada you will be looking at £100-130GBP postage. Then you will get stung for import duty, post office handling and VAT on the total so probabaly close to an extra £200GBP

[Roger B]

That's a nice looking project    Certainly one to follow along with 

[Tjark]

A very nice looking engine, I will follow your build.

          Tjark.
 

[Craig DeShong]

Thanks for the above comments; I’m eagerly looking forward to building this engine.

I got a start on cutting metal on this project today.  I’ve been reviewing the drawings with various measuring devices close at hand, trying to get a feel for how to proceed.  Bob Banke, in his construction notes, warns that there isn’t  much room for error with these castings in that there isn’t much extra “meat” provided.  Being for-warned, I thought it prudent to mill the surfaces that require a close tolerance first, and let the minor surfaces till last.  With that in mind, I proceeded.

I thought I’d start with the crankcase frame.  This is the base of the engine and as good a place as any to start; also the lowered numbered drawings- indicating that maybe this is the way Bob envisioned you should start.

The base of the frame casting was fairly irregular.  After some thought, I decided to just mount the thing in my mill vice and attempt to get the top surfaces level.  This I did with a test indicator and a few shims where needed; running the table back and forth and shimming where prudent.   

The top of the main bearing surfaces were addressed first.  One was fairly level; the other was cast on a slight angle.  I brought these in true as shown with a surfacing tool.


The engine features an open crankcase with the cylinder casting mounted on pedestals, reminiscent of steam engines of the period.  The bosses for then pedestals were brought into dimension.



Next, while everything is still square, I drilled and reamed the holes for the above mentioned pedestals.



The faces of the casting where the main bearings reside were brought into dimension.



Next I drilled the frame mount holes for the engine.  I couldn’t drill these through without drilling holes in my mill vice.  I chose to drill them nearly through but finish the holes later.  With them started, I figured I could spot these holes accurately enough to finish them.



Not specifically called for in the drawings, but experience has shown that it’s advantageous to have the sides of the engine frame in alignment with the other frame dimensions.  Keeping the center measurement I figured earlier, I removed just enough material from both sides of this frame so that either side is a parallel reference and by locating the two sides and halving the distance between I can relocate the centerline (crankshaft line) on this casting.



And by performing the above operation I was able to flip the casting over and re-align the centerline to the mill table.



The drawings called for this flange surface (where the engine mounts to a carriage) to be two inches from the top surface of the main bearing surface.  Even though I removed the minimum of material to get the main bearings surfaces (1st step) true, I had barely enough mater to maintain the two inches as specified in the drawings.



The drawings called for the bottom of the engine frame to be 3/8th inch below the above flanges.  After dropping the mill table the required 3/8th inch, the surfacing tool did not touch the surface.  Since this is a non critical measurement, and since it’s advantageous to have a flat surface for the engine to rest upon (during construction) I just raised the mill table until I was able to remove some material from every part of the casting.  This really only makes the depth around .030 inch short of the 3/8th as stated in the drawings.



The pedestals upon which the cylinder casting mounts are fastened by blind nuts on the under-side of the engine.  Here I’m milling relief for the nuts.  I’m just spotting these recesses over the original holes.



Time to finish drilling the engine mount holes.



Since I milled the side of the engine base in true with the other measurements, and since the bottom of the casting has been milled flat; I can just mount the engine base to a right angle plate, measure out, drill, and tap these holes for the water pump.
   

That should about do it for today.  I’m not nearly ready to move on from this casting, still to be addressed are the cut out for the main bearings, the gears, and the bearing cap holes.  Good enough progress for today though.   

[Brian Rupnow]

Another interesting build Craig. I will be following and learning.---Brian

[b.lindsey]

That is some GREAT progress Craig. Nice look ing casting too!

Bill

[Craig DeShong]

Brian and Bill; thanks for your comments.  Thanks also for those of you silently stopping by.

Moving onward with this build.  Yesterday and today I tackled mounting the main journal caps and boring the block/caps in order to receive the main bearings and crankshaft.

In this photo I’m facing one of the journal caps.



Here I have one of the caps centered on the base and clamped in place.  There really isn’t a good way to drill the caps and base separately.  Helical gears are located under this cap and there is minimal clearance between the four mounting bolts for the gears.  The drawings provide layout measurements for these four bolts and I used them as a reference for location of the bolts.  I used a #29 drill and drilled down through the cap and into the block.



Then removed the caps and tapped the engine base with a 8-32 hand tap.




I then mounted the cap on a plate and spot drilled the cap with a #18 clearance drill.



After making the necessary studs and model nuts I attached the caps to the base, I then faced the caps to the dimension of the base.




The engine base is eight inches across the bearing blocks.  Since the quill on my mill doesn’t have eight inches of travel. I decided to use my right angle drive to drill/bore the bearing seats.  I started by drilling the “near” seat.

 

Using a long reach drill I acquired for a previous project, I drilled the “far” seat.




I don’t have an eight inch boring bar, and attempting to locate the bearing seats by drilling/boring from both ends would be folly (for me at least).  Time to make a boring bar.  Not bad, egh?




Using my new boring bar, I bored the main bearing seats.

[Dave Otto]

You are making good progress Craig, the base is coming along nicely.

Dave

[tvoght]

Looking good. Neat to see the Bridgeport right angle attachment in action.

--Tim