Chris's Build of a Stanley 735 Engine

[cnr6400]

 

[Craig DeShong]

Looks great Chris.

 

[crueby]

Well, I think a polite way to put this would be 'Gnome Exhaust!'.   

Getting things bolted up and all the current parts in place to double check the measurements for the crosshead guides on the plans to the model, and things are not lining up. The holes in the ends of the crossmembers should be down the centerline of the piston rods and crossheads, and they are not - they are about 40 thou too far outwards each end from the center line. That would make the arcs in the guides not seat on the crossheads, and torque everything to the side.


Apparently I mis-counted or mis-read something when making the crossmembers, and they are too wide. The inner sections are fine, but the tabs and holes on the ends are off. So, two options: silver solder plugs into the holes, remill the end tabs farther in, and redrill the holes, or remake the crossmembers from scratch.

 

Not sure which would be best - plugging 8 holes successfully, may take a re-solder pass on some, with all the cleanup, then redoing the ends, and hope the drill does not get drawn off by a seam, or just make a new set. I'm leaning rowards making a new set correctly, they did not take that long, and I've got the center sections of the first set as a guide to double-check all the setups, since they line up very nicely with the rest of the parts.

I had worked from the end of the stock, moving in by calculated distances to lay out the features, and must have swarfed up a bit of math along the way. Not that big a deal, at least it was not on the cylinders! Fifty steps forward and one back is a good average.

Ah well, go watch a movie with the elves and come back at it tomorrow!   

[Brian Rupnow]

Chris--I just ran across this video while prowling thru Youtube. If you haven't seen it, I think you will find it quite enjoyable.---Brian
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpFqJguz8Vw" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpFqJguz8Vw</a>

[crueby]

Brian, that is a terrific video!! I love that truck, need to go look up that design, would be a great model. And the shovel, with a cable drive to the boom rather than chain, was remarkably quiet. Thanks so much for the link!!   


EDIT: Anyone know where that video was taken?

[Art K]

Here and all I was going to say was that it was a great way to kill 7 minutes.
Art

[Flyboy Jim]

Great video Brian. It's hard to imagine that these were state of the art machines back in the day and how much work they got done compared to hand carts!

Jim

[kvom]

Almost sad to see dirt dumped on that pristine truck.

[steamboatmodel]

you know this rate of progress is really making some of us look bad,, but I am learning and planning things from it all

No worries, you are back in that silly universe with only 24 hours in a day...!   

I think somewhere along the line I have slipped into one with only 18 Hour days!
Gerald.

[crueby]

Was out most of the day, but got a start on remaking the crossmembers this afternoon. Started by going back to the 3D model/plans, and coming up with a drawing page with the crossmembers and the holes in them as sets of chain dimensions as well as dimensions all from one end of the bars. This got rid of any chance that I had mis-added a dimension the first time around, and matched the way I drilled them this time. After trimming all the bars to identical length, I marked one end of all of them so that I could put them in the mill vise the same way round each time, and have one end lined up with the same end of the vise fixed jaw. That way, I was always indexing from the same place that the plans indexed from. Zeroed the handwheels at the end, and proceeded to drill all the holes in all the bars, rather than doing them piecemeal the way I did the first time (had intermixed drilling holes and shaping the bars the first time).

So, end result:

Two pairs of crossmember bars with the correct hole spacings - tested them on the model, and all looks good this time!      Next time will start shaping down the profiles, which are not critical dimensions like the holes are. Should have them all shaped tomorrow.
 

[crueby]

Oh, and the bar in the back does not appear to have the left hand hole - it is really there, drilled from the underside - the top edge at the end there gets milled off so it does not matter if that one comes through all the way.

[cnr6400]

Nice recovery Chris! 

[Kim]

While it's never any fun to redo a part, it can feel a lot better to just get started. You've made good progress!  And if the holes are in the right place, that's a bonus!
Kim

[crueby]

Thanks guys! While I could have reworked the first parts and gotten them to work, they would never have been as good as I wanted, and it would have bugged me every time I looked at it. Well worth the day or two to redo them.

[crueby]

With the holes for all the rods/bolts done, which are the critical locations, started to assembly-line the shaping of the profiles, starting with chain drilling and milling the long faces:

Then hacksawed the excess off and trimmed the tabs on the ends

Next will set up the rotary table to trim off the rounded corners...