Model Engine Maker
Engines => From Kits/Castings => Topic started by: maury on May 30, 2015, 10:13:47 PM
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It's been a few weeks since I've returned from CF & NAMES, and thingh are setteling down
a bit. So I get some shop time.This week end I started cutting iron on the Gothic Beam Steam
Engine. I have never built a beam engine before, so this should be really exciting.
The background on this engine is onterestoing, so here are a few tid bits. THe engine was
built by Novelty Iron in New York City in about 1851. The engine was used to power a lead
smelting plant in Philladelphia. Currently the engine is in the Henry Ford Museum.
When I was in Detroit between the engine shows I visited the Henry Ford Museum, and saw the
Gothic Beam Engine.It's quite an imposing sight, and the architecture is a magnificent work
of art.
So, enough chit chat, here is the start of a new project.
The first pict shows the engine partially built by an unknown builder.
I started working on the base, so the second pict shows the base castings.
The rest are picts of machining the top, bottom and face of the castings. I set up for
cutting the bottom edge first, the setup focusing on getting the pattern on the face
centered vertically. After those cuts I set up for cleaning up the faces of the 4 castings.
Last, I did another setup for cutting the top to the correct height. Also, the notch for
the top plate was cut in this same setup.
maury.
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I also saw the "real" engine at The Henry Ford. Absolutely beautiful. And big.
I'll be following this one , Maury.
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Hi Maury
Good to see you working on a new project; I was thinking about you to day and hoping that you were keeping your feet dry and not out filling sand bags.
Looks like you are off to a great start; how about a picture of the original engine at the Ford Museum.
Dave
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(https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8138/8709502821_8cb7abd12d_z.jpg)
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Stan, it was good meeting you and the MEM guys at York, hope to do it again. Thanks for tuning in
Dave, I kind of botched photographing the Gothic at Henry Ford. I never got a shot of the whole engine, even though it would have been difficult had I tried. I did get some detail shots though. I'll include some here.
KVOM, thanks for the pict of the whole engine. I wonder if you could email me a full res copy of that sometime.
maury
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looks an interesting subject Maury, I'll be following along. I see that it does not have the commonly used Watt linkage and instead uses a cross head and guides to keep the piston rod vertical.
J
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Hi Maury,
It's good to see you back in the shop again. I had a good time at York and enjoyed our meeting. I have been to the Ford Museum a number of times and not only is the Gothic Beam imposing but quite a few of the others on display. I'll be following along on your build.
gbritnell
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I just found that photo on Google. Not mine.
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Guys, thanks for tuning in. This is going to be a fun ride. I spent most of the day at the Bridgeport again today, making groves and slots. There is a lot more cutting to these parts then I thought. I might mention I am very happy with the performance of my Bridgeport since rebuilding it this past winter.
More on the base castings. One thing I did was to modify the geometry a bit. I guess have to admit I've never actually built a kit exactly per the print. The thing is, the print shows the ends being held on by countersunk SHMS. This just goes against everything that I believe in about how period engines should be built. I airainged things so the screws can attach internally, and will be invisible. I want to have the external machined surfaces polished instead of being painted, so I can't fill the countersinks.
The Pics.
maury
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Hi Maury,
Another master class coming up! :popcorn: stocked up on.
Like you idea on hidden fixing, will be much better than having the heads showing
Cheers
Kerrin
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That's a good start, Maury, and I like your approach to hide the fasteners. Will be following along!
Simon
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I'm here for the duration.
--Tim
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I'll be pulling up a chair also Maury........... :DrinkPint:
:popcorn:
Don
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I shall be watching too Maury...........contrary to opinion offered, Gothic design does have a place in modern engineering
Just digressing a little.......we used the neo-classical tear drop design as an element of strength in a forged clevis/piston rod over conventional screwed rod & clevis
The hydraulic cylinder is 360 bore x 160 rod........when the original rod sheared at the clevis interface, it caused a lost profit of just over $1,000,000 [26 hour delay] in the Hot Strip Mill of Australia's largest steel producer
FEA confirmed this one piece forging had a fatigue rating of x13 over the theoretical value conventional screwed rod clevis....[which was never attainable]....
My name is in the title block of this Drawing...................Derek
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Guys, thanks for the responses and comments
So, another day in the shop. Today I finished up the screw holes to assemble
the 4 base plates. To my amaizement they actually fit nicely and the base is
square. So on to the top plate where everything is mounted. I changed the
plans a bit again, I used 1/8 steel instead of 3/16 called out in the plans.
The castings have columns internal to the base, and the pedistals would be
almost completely removed using a 3/16 plate for the top plate. 1/8 gives a lot better
look. The pics show the setup for drilling the holes in the ends of the front
and back plates, the setup for the top plate and cutting it square and adding
the cutout for the crank.
maury
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More progress on the Gothic base. Having fitted the base top plate into the base assembly, it was time to bore, drill, and tap holes. Lots of them.
Then on to making the bottom plate. I was going to skip this, but realized the High Pressure pump mounts to it. Actually it adds to the model nicely because there is a lot of detail internal to the base. There is a baffle plate in the base which encloses the open area housing the HP pump and crank clearance.
This completes the base parts. Next I think I'll tackle the steam valving system. Probably after I get back from Coolspring next week.
maury
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I have that set of castings, so I'll be following this build with interest.
Do you have the "Live Steam" magazines where this build was serialized? I found a bunch of interesting tips there...
Mike
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Mike, thanks for the reply.
No, I don't have the issue of Live Steam. What issue is it? I may try to buy one.
Why don't you break out your castings and start cutting metal. They will never be an engine sitting under your bench.
maury
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Well, Folks, I've been off the grid on this project for a while. There have been a lot of things going on in my shop, including recovering from a crashed computer on my CNC. That is still in progress, but I'm at least up and running now.
I am currently working on the steam chests and valve assembly. There is a lot of work on this assembly, so I decided to tackle it after finishing the base. The steam chest castings have a lot of holes, and come angled steam passages needing special setups. So, here is the first bunch of pics.
maury
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I have been trying to post my pictures with this response, but I keep getting a server error. Is there an issue with the board?
Just tried again, 4 .jpg pictures about 200k each.
maury
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I'm late getting started on this one, but I really like beam engines and so am here for the fun.
Alan
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Hi Maury,
I don't know what the picture posting problem is but I experienced the same thing awhile back. For about a week I had to post pictures from my Photobucket account. Eventually it came back but when I posted the query on the board nobody had an answer for it.
gbritnell
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Alan, good to have you aboard.
George, I hope the .jpg errors go away, or there won't be any pictures in my posts any more.
maury
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Another try at the pics.
maury
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Maury,
Try posting them one at a time as you are doing. I can't explain the issue either, but when it has happened to me, I sometimes found that if I was posting multiple pictures it was only one of them causing the error. Not much help I know but give it a try. Then the issue becomes one of why that one picture is causing the error message.
Bill
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Bill, I hope this gets fixed, it will be painfull posting 1 at a time.
maury
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Try more now.
maury
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Try again.
maury
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Well something worked. Did you do anything different?
Bill
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Bill, no, same thing, the problem just went away.
maury
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Weird I know, but the sporadic nature of it is why the admins haven't been able to pinpoint one problem causing it, or one easy fix. Ain't the internet great!! :Lol:
Bill
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Follks, here is another batch of pictures of machining the lower steam chest. I have also completed the upper steam chest, and since it's very similar to the lower I won't bore you with repeat pictures.
I didn't mention in my earlier post that I fettled these castings and them blasted them in my blast chamber. A tip I want to pass along might help anyone having getting their blast chamber to siphon the grit. Mine has the return on the bottom with the bottom made as an inverted pyrmid. The tip is don't use too much blast powder. I bought 50# and poured it all in. Didn't work. My machinist friend told me ot get all of it out except enough to barely cover the bottom. Worked great!
I have pics od cutting the angled holes, but they are so dark I doubt they will be of much value. I'll try to recover some of them.
maury
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All those castings look great Maury and some very nice work. I guess I am not to farmiliar with this engine but from your photo it is a very elegant looking engine and all that much more appealing to model.
So I guess the CNC is back up and running now..............
Don
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Don, Thanks. The CNC is limping along on a really old computer. I'm running it,getting confidence in it as if it were a new machine. So far, so good.
The in my opinion, the Gothic is one of the most elegant of the American steam engines, I'm thrilled to be building it.
maury
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Well, it's been a while since the last update, and a fair amount of progress has been made, despite the issues I have been dealing with on my CNC mill.
The first sub assembly I have completed since the base is the main steam valve. THis sun assembly is part of the steam valve sub assembly, which is well on it's way as well. I have pics for the main steam valve today. There are actually more parts there than one would think at first glance. The main casting is from my home foundry. There are several CNC bar stock parts, the gland for the valve stem, the front & back covers for the throttle, and the hand wheel The most interesting is the hand wheel, which was 3D cut from a disc of brass. The remainder of parts were made on the lathe. The steel parts you see are 303 stainless, I have to say how nicely that steel cuts with HSS tooling.
The pics:
maury
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(http://i1154.photobucket.com/albums/p523/CaseSORoof/GothicFordDecember1962.jpg)
This is the engine in December 1962. It was on a concrete base and painted (soaked) in black.
This was down by the museum railroad. Good to see the museum realized its value. It's quite evident that the MEM community realizes its value. Very good build.
Thanks, JFLingg
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JFLingg, thanks for the picture, and the comments. I find it interesting that the picture of the erection of the engine in this picture is a mirror image of what is actually in the museum. The flywheel and the stairway are on the other side in the museum.
maury
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Moving on a bit, I'm boring out the cylinder today. I thought while the Bridgeport is doing it's thing I could use the time to post some more of my pics.
I'm posting the valve assembly. There are a lot of parts in this assembly, and everything has to be dead on or the valves will bind. There was some hand work getting everything fit in, but most of the thanks goes to the DRO I have on my Bridgeport. All the castings fit dead on right off the machine. Where I ran into trouble was trying to make the valve actuators on my CNC. Too much backlash to get a precise fit with this geometry. So I made the foot profile for those parts on the CNC and finished them on the Bridgeport.
This is the most complex part of the Gothic, the rest will be easier. It's a challenging build, but I think it's a really fun build too.
maury
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It's coming along great Maury. It will surely be a beautiful engine when finished.
gbritnell
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Hi Mary, some very interesting parts/castings.I am still following along.
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Its looking great Maury and I am still watching also. I can see where that would be a tricky assembly to get all lined up without any binding too. You must be glad its done now. Quite a lovely project overall for sure.
Bill
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Hi Maury
That valve assembly is a whole project in its self; it looks real nice! Especially the bronze valve and handle.
Dave
PS. Rumor has it that one or two heavy boxes are going to be traveling from the Rollag MN show to Boise, here in a couple of weeks. I think they may have come form Coolspring PA via Texas :lolb:
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Guys, thanks for the encouraging comments and for following along. I appreciate it. This is the first steam engine I've started in close to 10 years. I like the ornate design enough to, well, pull me away from IC engines for a spell. There is a long way to go yet, and some somewhat precarious setups for machining the Gothic frames. I like the challenge.
Thanks for following along.
maury
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Well, it's been a bit quiet on the Gothic Beam build, but there has been some action. I have the cylinder mostly done and I worked up the hold down clamps on my CNC. I decided to make the clamps out of CI, since I have a lot of durabar in my stock pile. I also have the cylinder heads done, though I don't have pictures of them. They were mostly just standard lathe work.
The cylinder casting presented a few challenges for getting the first cut. As with castings, this cut becomes the reference. Also, the print calls for a 1.5" bore, but I wanted it smaller. I was able to get a clean bore at 1.062, and I might sleeve that down a bit depending on how the engine runs. I would like to run it on steam some day.
The cylinder hold downs are simply clamps that finger around the bottom cylinder head and bolt into the base. There are 14 of them. I started by making the blank on the lathe, cutting the outer and inner profiles. Then on the CNC Im drilled the holes and cut the radial angles separating the parts. Finally, on the CNC I cut the circle separating the parts from the blank. With my dust collector I was able to protect my CNC from the CI dust.
maury
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Hi Maury
Did you have to dig through the dust collector to find those little clamps when they were cut free from the stock? :lolb:
Nice work!
Dave
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Maury it's good to see some more post on this great looking engine....... :ThumbsUp:
:popcorn:
Don
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Hi Maury, this dust collector seems to be very useful if cast iron will be machined.
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Don, thanks for the compliments.
Dave, fumppuc, the dust collector is a handy thing. I pickups the fine dust made from cutting dry flaky materials such as CI and REN. It's not that powerful, it's made from a cyclone from Woodcraft, and a blower/dist collector from Harbor Freight. It can only pick up the fine dust, not the chunks. it has a 4" pickup hose, giving good air flow to keep the cyclone working. It keeps the dust out of my shop and my lungs.
Next part of the project is the frame. There was a lot to it, and I have a few pictures, but not of everything. The side frames posed a challenge because of their geometry. THey are thin and large, and had to be machined on three sides and the back. Since CI is brittle this led to a precarious setup. Light cuts is in order. For holding the part I made a couple of jigs and bolted them to a large angle plate. Setting up the part square in the jig allowed clamping the angle plate at different angles on the machine to get to the 3 sides and keep them square. The setup tool some time, but once everything was aligned and square it was all over but the shouting.
maury
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I have been able to clean up the rest of my pictures, so here is an update showing what the build looks like so far.
maury
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I'm fighting the dreaded server AGAIN, so I'll post in pieces.
maury
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The final 2.
maury
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Well, after a bit of a family trip break, I'm back on the Gothic Beam Engine. I have been working on the beam assembly which includes the beam, the pins it uses to connect to the engine, and the pump rods.
Starting on the pump rods, there are the rods themselves with split bearings on both ends, held on buy caps. THe caps are fastened with taper pins. In all, a fairly involved structure, with 9 parts per pump rod assembly.
I am using T-303 stainless for the rod parts and brass for the split bearings.
The caps are turned to correct OD, the slotted in the mill, then returned to the lathe for profiling the end and cutoff. I am using a square collet closer to hold the work on the mill for cutting the width and slotting.
The rods are turned in the lathe held by a collet and a center on the long end. I am getting the taper by cutting .008 steps in the rod, then filing smooth. Seems to work well. After the round parts of the rod are turned, they are setup on the mill in a square collet arraingment for cutting the square ends.
I didn't get pictures of making the split bearings. What I did was to prepare stock and soft solder it together making a stick of material which was soldered at half thickness and square on the outside. I then used a square collet in a square collet closer to mill the square that fits into the rod end cap. Then reheating to separate the parts.
The first set of pictures:
maury
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Good to see you back on it again Maury. The beauty of this engine is starting to shine bud. Nice work getting to this point and I am still with you. ........... :ThumbsUp:
:popcorn:
Don
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Hi Maury
Nice to see some progress on your engine; the rods are looking good!
Dave
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Don, Dave, thanks for the kind words and for tuning in.
I have a little more progress on the beam sub assembly. I have made the cross head straps in much the same way I made the pump rods. The bearing caps were all made at the same time, though there were 2 sizes.
I made the con rod in two pieces, the rod and the yoke.
Then came the taper pins. It's been a while since I did taper pins and I was a bit reluctant because I was afraid of breaking a taper reamer in the T-303. My fears proved false, as this operation went without any problems and all pins were fitted very nicely. I used 6/0 for the pump rods, and 5/0 for the cross head straps and the con rod. Taper pins are actually a very nice way to fasten parts, and they facilitate assembly.dis-assembly nicely. Not to mention they are correct for the period.
I also machined the beam and the pins and main shaft.
maury
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Maury, I have been quietly following along and just want to take the time to say what a great job you are doing. This last set of parts are beautiful examples of handbuilt machinery. I've not tried taper pins this small, but, we used the larger version in papermills quite often on gears and couplings that required routine or often teardowns. I still have several brand new reamers, don't recall the size, but the big end is a 1/2" or so. Now, I just got to know, did you teach Otto or did Otto, teach you, that swarfless machining? 8). Great work.
Cletus
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The stainless pieces turned out great Maury. It's coming along nicely.
gbritnell
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Hi Maury, the last family shot gives an idea about all these tiny parts hidden in these rods and linkages. It's amazing.
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Hi Maury
This is engine is working up to be a masterpiece, great work.
Stew
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Cletus, George, Achim Stew, thanks so much for the kind words. I appreciate it,
and thanks for staying with the build.
Cletus, I would never compare my work with Daves, Hislevel of craftsmanship is
something I aspire to one day be close to. I give all the credit to the material
I'm using.
By the way, y'all might have noticed my NEW Kurt vise. My Enco one failed and I decided
to go all out. It is so nice I wish I'd done it many moons ago.
There will probably be a lull while I'm waiting for some new castings I'm adding to the kit.
maury
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Well Folks, after a couple of months dealing with family issues, waiting for castings, and then the holidays, I'm getting back into the saddle. Had some time to work on the Cross Head parts on the Gothic. I made new castings for the Cross Head, didn't like the design on the original kit, and I made them more like the original engine. The Cross Head has 5 castings now, and a pin for the piston rod which is slotted on the ends for the Cross Head Columns.
There is a little hitch still carried over from the original kit which I need to address. The bases of the Columns bolt into the top of the cylinder, but the hole pattern is too small for the screw heads. So I had to notch out a bit of the base of the columns.
Over all it looks good, and it works fine. Have a look.
maury
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Good to see you back at it Maury, I think the last few months have been a busy time for many of us!!
Bill
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Wow! A few months and a whole lot of progress. She's shaping up nicely and I love the look so far. Nice work Maury and will be waiting for more progress................. :Love:
Don
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just seen this build, lovely looking engine and interesting construction ,good work going on here. :ThumbsUp:
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Guys, thanks for the supportive comments and staying tuned in.
I have a little more progress made in the last couple of days. It seems steam engines are mostly made of flanges and bolt circles. A lot of drilling and tapping here.
These are the low pressure pump and steam condenser.
maury
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W had a few relatively warm days this week, so I was able to spend some time in the wood shop on the Structure for the Gothic.
One thing you might notice in the first pic is the brass inserts. I'm sure I'm not the first to come up with this idea, but here goes. I made some knurled plugs. 1/2" long out of 1/4 brass rod and tapped the ends. they were then glued into the structure with JB Weld. I can now mount my engine with studs instead of ugly wood screws. It seems to work quite well so far, We'll see how long they last.
THe remainder if the pics show the structure made of Red Mahogany and some plywood for the flywheel well. I covered the appropriate parts with some stone I found in the wall covering section at Home Depot.
I used the CNC to releave the patterns on the sides of the base, these were sketches I already made for modeling the engine in Solidworks. They add a nice touch.
maury
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Fantastic work! Thank you very much for sharing.
What are you using for the stone? Is it even stone? or something else? It looks great!
yogi
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Hi Maury
Good to see progress on the Gothic Beam Engine; it sure looks nice!
I was also wondering about the stone work on your base; what is the material and are you planning to grout it?
Dave
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Lovely work. Are they the stone material you can buy to do a back splash with?
Tom
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I like that Maury, a classic look to go with a classic engine.
Bill
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Like Bill said...classic.
I was wondering about the stone too. Looks great!
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Guys, thanks for the supportive comments and staying tuned in.
I have a little more progress made in the last couple of days. It seems steam engines are mostly made of flanges and bolt circles. A lot of drilling and tapping here.
These are the low pressure pump and steam condenser.
maury
Hi, Can i ask if this will be run on steam with a working condenser as the Beenleigh mill engine has a similar arrangement. There do not seem to many engines built like this and i am making this engine with only the outside of the castings to look at. It would be interesting to view any of the porting arrangements if this is designed to be a working engine. Also is there a jet condenser operating lever used when starting the engine ? Thanks for any info,
regards
Willy
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Cool look Maury............. 8)
Don
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Guys, thanks for all the nice compliments, I appreciate it.
Steam GUY: Initially I wanted to run this build on steam. After a lot of issues last fall and having
too many projects in the works I decided building a boiler was not in the cards.I'm still open to buying
one if I can find one I can trust.
I bought this design from Historic Model Design, and the way he designed it, the LP pump, Condenser, and
HP pump are all nonfunctional. If I were to run it on steam I would redesign this and make it all working.
So, it seems there is some onterest in the stonework.Initially, I thought of making modle size bricks out
of ceramic. This would have required me to setup molds, a slip station, and, some kind of glaze setup,
and finally finding someone to fire the ceramic. I'm sure they would have looked authentic, but seemed
like a lot of work.The arguement for it would have been, be amount of work is too much to make a model
look great.
So, I was at Home Depot one day and thought og the Gothic while shopping.I went to the Aisle with the
floor and wall tile, and found a few possibilities, then ran across these sheets of minature stones.
I bought some! THey are about .34" square and ramdom lengths. THere are 4 or 5 different kinds/colors
of stone in a random pattern, just perfect.
I removed them from the sheets, and found the backs needed to be sanded to remove the hot glue. I was
able to just use wood glue to attach the stone to the wood background, since the stone is porus it sticks
well.
As far as the grouting goes, I decided that would be too messy for this small stone. I've groutes stone
before and found it difficult to get clean edges between the stone and grout. I just glued the stone as
close as I could.
maury
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HI, Maury, Thanks for the info, This is good accurate work so it would not need much to bring it into steam, However model boilers are quite varied and need to be fully functioning of course.I have made a few that are electrically heated with 'Cartridge heaters" ,fortunately i had an electronics friend to design a fully functioning and reliable circuit with safety devices to make them work safely. Keep up the good work, it will be a fine miniature when completed,
Willy.
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Folks, here's an update on the Gothic.
The engine is apart for painting, it's about 80% done. so while I was waiting for some of the parts to dry/cure, I thought I'd work on the final parts for the Governor.
I had some of the parts, but was waiting for the gears. So I made the pulleys and machined the bottom of the Gov main body to fit the gears. I used 1-72 set screws, those were a bit of a challenge. The plans called for 3/8 balls, but the closest I had were 5/16. I'll see if they work since I don't want to buy a bag of 50.
maury
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Lovely, just lovely Maury........ Did you make the gears.....?
Don
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Don, thanks for the compilment.
No, I didn't make the gears. I make my spur and helicals, but proper mitre gears require a gear shaper which I don't have.
The 3 cut method on a milling machine isn't worth it for the price unless you can't find commercially available ones.
maury
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The governor looks nice Maury; looking forward to seeing this one come together.
McMaster Carr has brass balls in quantities of 25 for 3/8" $10.28 That doesn't seem too bad.
Dave
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Dave, thanks for the compliment. and, thanks for the tip on the balls. I may need some other sizes soon, so I'll get 'em all at the same time.
maury
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Hi Maury, a very nice governor. I am not a big fan of this gothic style industrial era, so I have been more quiet but always watching. Your craftmanship is imressive as usual, specially if I have tried to imagine the one and other set up you must have done to machine some specific parts.
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Well, folks, it's been a while since I posted. Guess I just slowed down a bit. Also, it's spring and the yard and garden have demanded a lot of my attention.
That being said, I have more or less completed the Gothic. I still need to decide how I will rout the inlet for the air to run the engine. I'd liks to find some kind of small quick disconnect that is mostly flush, so I can mount it in the base.
Attached are some photos. I painted the engine in 2 shades of grey, it seems the lighter shade almost looks white to the camera, and it unfortuatly is too light for the for some of the detail to show up.
Enjoy,
maury
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Ok, hope y'all liked that. Here are a few more.
maury
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It looks very, very good, Maury. I assume we'll see it at NAMES?
--Tim
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Its a beaut!
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8) Very nice Maury.
Would you have a can of drink that you could put alongside it so we can get an idea of its size :)
Jo
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Jo, thanks for the compliment. The cylinder casting is about the size of a can of Budweiser. I'll try to get a picture with one.
maury
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Maury that is just down right beautiful. I just love the color contrast, well done bud well done...... :NotWorthy:
Don
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Very nice engine.
Reminds me of a cathedral,made of ivory.
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Nice! I love the detail.
That shot with the stairs is great.
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Excellent result. Love the colors.
Cheers
Tom
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I like the model more than the prototype. Great work. :cheers:
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Beautiful Maury!
I love the colors; will I get to see it a NAMES this year?
Dave
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Y'all, I'm overwhelmed by all the compliments and kind words. Thank you so much, I really appreciate it.
Yes, I will be at NAMES in next month, and yes the Gothic will be with me. I look forward to seeing you all there. Hope the MEM table has a lot of your new goodies on display. Maybe we can all get together for dinner Friday or Sat. nite.
This was a fun kit to build. I have always wanted to build a beam engine, and so here it is. Guess I'll be getting back to IC engines next. I have a lot of unbuilt kits under my bench.
maury
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Love that engine !!
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Beautiful, Maury!
Can you tell us about your painting process, and the paint used? I'm having a terrible time with spray-enamel on my Muncaster engine, to the point where I need to strip it and just try again, and it's really hard to find brush-on enamels in appropriate colors here in the US.
Simon
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Can't add much more to what's been said, but it sure looks nice!
Thanks for sharing your pictures!
Kim
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Stunning Maury....love the colors and contrast. What a beautiful engine!!! Hope we will get to see a video of her running soon.
Bill
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Guys, thanks again for the praise. I appreciate it.
Simon, I use Kelly More "Kelguard" oil base paint. I have been using it for about 10 years now and have collected a nice assortment of colors. They will make any color you want, but you have to buy quarts. You can mix your own colors as well. The process I use is I fettle the castings with files before machining them to get the rough spots off. This will vary depending on the finish look you want. On one engine I used a air die grinder with those little 1.25 dia sanding disks.
After the engine is running I mark the spots where the castings mate and need a better fit. I go over those spots with files again, and any others I may have missed.
The painting process begins with cleaning with paint thinner to get the oil and metal particles off. Then I add the primer coat. I use artist brushes only. This is a slow process, but it gives me a chance to look at every square inch of every part for ugly places. After the primer dries for a day, I do the paint coat, again with artist brushes. Sometimes it takes 2 coats depending on the color and how much thinner I add. When the paint is new, I don't use thinner.
This process will not give the slick shiny look like a newly painted car, but then, that is NOT what I'm after. It works well on iron castings and iron and steel parts. The paint is very durable and stands up to years of oil and gas and sunshine.
If you have made an engine from aluminum and want to use Kelguard oil base paint, I suggest an acetone cleaning, followed by acid cleaning, then immediately an application of zinc chromate primer. That is the only primer that works on aluminum, period! Unfortunately, it is a very nasty carcinigen. Use it with EXTREEM care and follow the instructions. It is available at marine supply places in spray cans.
Hope this helps
maury
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Bill, thanks for the compliment.
Will you be at NAMES? If so, I will let you help me make a video. This is the part of model building where I always stumble. I just don't have a good way of doing a video, and when I finally get it, I have trouble posting it on YouTube. I really botched the video of my Forest engine posting it, I never did figure out what happened.
Hope to see you at NAMES.
maury
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Maury,
It's great to see an update on the engine. What an absolute beauty! Can't wait to see it in person. As has been stated, the color combination really sets it off.
gbritnell
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Maury, unfortunately I won't be at NAMES. Both Cabin Fever and NAMES are likely going to have to wait until retirement, but hopefully that won't be that far away. Your beam engine is sure to be a hit though!!!
Bill
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Hi Maury, a very pleasant colour combination.
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Zinc Chromate is due to be withdrawn from use (H&S), but there is no indication that the alternative will be withdrawn, that is Strontium Chromate, this is the favoured primer in the aviation, and aluminium boat industries.
Ian S C
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Thank you for the paint information, Maury. I'll look at the Kelly-Moore products. :ThumbsUp:
Simon
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Ian, thanks for the tip. I don't use aluminum much, but when I do I would like a good paint job. I'll try the Strontium Chromate next time.
Simon, I think you'll like the KelGuard paint. You can also spray it, but you will have to thin it. Also, it finishes the curing faster if you let it cure in the sun a few days. Let me know how it turns out. Is anyone else using KelGuard?
maury
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Thank you Maury for taking the time to record your build. Projects like yours give us beginners something to aspire to.
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I thought I would throw in my two cents. That is one beautiful engine. Any chance of seeing a video of it running?
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Beautiful :praise2: :praise2: :wine1:
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I didn't really appreciate the size of the original engine until I saw the pictures with the long stairs. What a beast!
Alan
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I was interested in building a Gothic Beam Steam Engine. Who sells a kit contains drawings, castings etc.
I'm getting close to finishing my Corliss model and looking for the next project.
Bill
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Hi Bill,
Would you like to make an introductory post about yourself in the introduction section and you may find one of the members will tell you.
Jo
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Bill, send me an email at maury@ecpi.com and I can give you the details.
maury
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Hi Bill , I'm new the owner of Historic Models and Reproductions the Gothic Beam engine is currently available , thank you.Jeff
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Hi Jeff
I interested in building a Gothic Vertical steam engine. I would like to purchase a complete set of castings and a full set of drawings. I live in Westlake Village, California.
I saw this model several months ago that was made by a metal shop teacher who lives about one hour from me. He helped me dial in the valve timing on the Corliss engine I built.
Ever since then, I half to build this awesome model.
I hope you can help me.
Donleybill@hotmail.com
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Bill, there are two Gothic beam engine designs. Both scaled from the original in the Henry Ford museum. The one featured in this build post is the small one. The large one is somewhat larger. Which one were you interested in?
maury
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Wow - what an amazing engine!
Those pale greys work to great effect on the Gothic forms.
:LittleAngel: