Author Topic: Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build  (Read 154133 times)

Offline Don1966

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Re: Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build
« Reply #15 on: March 13, 2021, 01:57:10 AM »
Dog this is right down your ally and a great masterpiece of machinery to add to your awesome collection. I am differently following alone.....


 :popcornsmall:


 :drinking-41:
Don

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build
« Reply #16 on: March 13, 2021, 09:13:49 PM »
I've gotten a bit done on the wood parts for the base, pics on that later. I'd be farther along, but the shop elves apparently went out and did some shopping at Guinness:


Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build
« Reply #17 on: March 13, 2021, 11:46:02 PM »
Today got started cutting metal for the Holly pump - well, sorta, started by making the drill guide for the pump housing bases. There are three bases, one for each pump set. Each base has a center housing that has the plunger and its chamber. Either side of that are pairs of check valve housings for the inlet and outlet. Each housing has what I call a beehive - a domed chamber with check valve sets all over it. Lots and lots and lots of check valves! Each of the 6 chambers has 7 inlet and 7 outlet check valve cages. Each cage has 15 check valves. So, 6 * 7 * 2 * 15 give 1260 check valves!! Am I going to make 1260 check valves? Nope! But, all the housings at least need to be made, and the pump bases hold them.

Here is what the bases look like:




With all those holes to drill, and flanges to outline, the mill is going to be busy. However, the bases are too long (over 8.1" long) to swing all the way around on the rotary table to do the circles at the ends. This would make the layout and alignment really nasty and prone to error. So, the solution? A drill guide. Lay out and drill all the holes in a thin piece of steel bar stock, that can be bolted down to a few easy-to-lay-out holes in a line at either end of the stock. Then, use that to position and drill each hole. This will go lots quicker and lots more consistantly than individually aligning each plate, spotting each hole, and drilling it.
I started by sizing a piece of steel stock to the width of the bases, and long enough to reach all the holes at either end of the base. Then, used the edge finder to position at the back right corner, and zeroed the handwheels on the mill so I can use that corner as a reference for all the rest of the holes in the pattern. Engaged CNC mode (Count Number Cranks, that is) and started very carefully moving over and spotting/drilling each hole:

That took care of the rectangular patterns - then switched to holding it on the rotary table with the four-jaw chuck, and adjusted the chuck till I got the hole in the center of the circular pattern (which is NOT in the center of the plate) centered up on the rotary table, then offset and drilled the circular pattern:

The holes are a couple different sizes, depending on the size of bolts they will be tapped for. Here is the finished drill guide, sitting on top of the blanks that the bases will be made from. The blanks still need to be milled to final length and width.


Then did some playing around, to figure out how to hold the blanks for shaping them to length/width. I have a larger mill vise, but it turns out it came up about 1/8" short on the jaw opening to hold the 4" wide blanks. So, I'll clamp them to the mill table, squaring them to the table with one edge of the blank hanging off the back of the mill table to cut the first edge square.


I'll get one end trimmed on each base, then flip them around and take the other end in square and to finished length. The sides need to be taken in a little to finished width - the mill has JUST enough travel to do that with the blanks lengthwise on the table, with one edge hanging off the back of the table. Looks like a bunch of crank turning and making swarf coming up....
 :cheers:

Offline Dave Otto

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Re: Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build
« Reply #18 on: March 14, 2021, 12:10:43 AM »
Well I'm late to the parade but I will be following along, cool project!

Dave

Online Jo

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Re: Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build
« Reply #19 on: March 14, 2021, 10:50:09 AM »
Triple Corliss build 8)

I'll be following along Chris  :DrinkPint:

Jo
Enjoyment is more important than achievement.

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build
« Reply #20 on: March 14, 2021, 01:15:41 PM »
Triple Corliss build 8)

I'll be following along Chris  :DrinkPint:

Jo
Glad to have you along!
Just realized I should clarify one thing that I had said on the valves - all three cylinders have the Corliss linkages, with the HP and IP cylinders having the rotary valves on inlet and exhaust. The LP cylinder uses the rotary inlet valves, but poppet exhaust valves. There is also a condensor on the exhaust pipe, down at the outlet of the water pumps - they used the flowing water from the pumps to cool the exhaust and form a partial vacuum there to aid the LP cylinder. It looks like that condensor was not original to the engine, but was added at some point later on.

At this scale, the dashpots for the valves will most likely have to be dummies, getting the trip linkages done this small would require some swiss watchmaker help - the engine itself is enormous, but the valves are not! Dont think I mentioned - the cylinders are 32", 64" and 96" diameter on the original, with an 8.6 foot stroke.

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build
« Reply #21 on: March 14, 2021, 03:01:41 PM »
This morning saw the base plates trimmed to length, and started in on taking the first side to width (need to take off just over 1/4" total)



Offline cnr6400

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Re: Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build
« Reply #22 on: March 14, 2021, 04:22:49 PM »
 :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:
"I've cut that stock three times, and it's still too short!"

Offline Roger B

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Re: Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build
« Reply #23 on: March 14, 2021, 05:18:13 PM »
This looks to be another fine project to follow  :ThumbsUp:  :ThumbsUp:  :wine1:
Best regards

Roger

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build
« Reply #24 on: March 14, 2021, 05:55:20 PM »
As mentioned yesterday, the wood base for the aluminum base plate has been made and clear coated. The wood is a wide frame under the ali, and notched to let the plate sit down lower. They will be screwed together, screws under the three frame base plates.

Got the first of the frame bases milled to width - this picture shows how the drill guide matches the width, and can be lined up with the end of the base.


The angled corner on the drill guide is just where the end of the bar stock was cut at an angle, that corner is not important.
So, on to milling the other base plates to width....

Offline Kim

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Re: Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build
« Reply #25 on: March 14, 2021, 07:17:13 PM »
Most of the time people make the base last, but you made it first.  And it looks great!  :ThumbsUp:
It's great to see the first swarf for this new mega model, Chris! :popcorn: :popcorn:

Kim

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build
« Reply #26 on: March 14, 2021, 07:43:49 PM »
Most of the time people make the base last, but you made it first.  And it looks great!  :ThumbsUp:
It's great to see the first swarf for this new mega model, Chris! :popcorn: :popcorn:

Kim
By the time the rest of the model is done, it will be a LOT harder to lift to fit the base! 

Online derekwarner

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Re: Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build
« Reply #27 on: March 14, 2021, 09:18:16 PM »
Hullo Chris.......you make mention of the possibility that the condenser as shown may have been an afterthought or rework?

I find my self keeping the need to remember :facepalm: this is a steam pump and not a steam engine, so for me the critical direction of flow appears to be the accumulator  :facepalm2:

To the best of my understanding, the pressure water spools [on either side of the engine] meet in a T spool..and the water enters the base of the water hammer anti-pulsation vertical accumulator then closeby enters the cooling flange ports of the steam condenser from the LP cylinder

I do not see any evidence of the condensate discharge pipework [back to boiler feed]

Is this correct?....or am I on the wrong track?...I have never seen such a water pump....in my geographic location [Eastern seaboard of NSW], our feed water is from rainwater dams up on a plateau so the natural head of water provides up to 100 PSI in our domestic systems down much closer to sea level

Derek

PS...the colour coding  :Director: [by convention] of pipework doesn't always work here [steam = light grey..ISO 5101, water = blue ISO 5104/5].....so to see the steam, I have made it red , & the water yellow

« Last Edit: March 14, 2021, 09:45:52 PM by derekwarner »
Derek L Warner - Honorary Secretary [Retired]
Illawarra Live Steamers Co-op - Australia
www.ils.org.au

Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build
« Reply #28 on: March 14, 2021, 09:44:41 PM »
Hi Derek,
You are close - I would call this a steam pumping engine.   :shrug:    On top, it is a 3 cylinder engine with normal crankshaft/flywheel setup. Crankshaft is at the orange arrow, you can see one of the flywheels to the left. Underneath the engine, connected by shaftw from the crossheads, is a water pump. When I think of the term steam pump, I think of the boiler feedwater type without a crankshaft. That may just be my own understanding of the terms, or the terms are too non-specific!
Anyway, the red arrows you drew angling down from the top are the steam exhaust from the LP cylinder. The condenser is the drum with the yellow star on it - it has the pumped water under pressure filling the drum, and inside the drum is a set of coils full of steam, and the condensed steam water goes down through pipes near the purple arrow underneath the star. I dont think the actual condensed water pipe is visible in that photo - as I recall it comes out the far side away from the camera. Since they are right next to the lake, there is not much need to recycle the water back into the boilers, I don't know if they just dumped the condensate or sent it back - the boilers were in another building behind the one with the engines, so it would not be far to send it if they wanted to. There were dozens of boilers in that building - sadly that building is no longer there, sometime after they switched to the electric pumps there was one of the occasional major blizzards, and the roof of the boiler building collapsed under the snow load. Being next to Lake Erie, the west winds off the lake generate huge amounts of snow in storms, sometimes more than 10 feet of it in a day. All depends on when in the winter - by late winter the surface of the lake there, which is shallow, freezes over and reduces the lake effect. In north winds, the same thing happens off Lake Ontario (I live near the south side of Ontario, and am 60 miles east of Lake Erie, so we get snowstorms from both depending on which way the wind swings around).


Underneath each piston is a plunger in a housing hidden by all the other pipes and chambers in that photo (I think I have a picture of the pump works under construction, will dig that out). So, the water is drawn in through check valves in the lower half of the housings shown by the green arrows as the plunger goes up. As the plunger comes back down, those check valves close and another set in the top of those same chambers opens, letting the water flow through the pipes with the horizontal yellow arrow, towards the condenser. The upper chambers, shown by the blue arrows, are force chambers, partly full of water, with air at the top. There is a smaller horizontal pipe at the tip of the blue arrows - that comes from an air pump they could use to adjust the level of the water/air in the force chambers, to help with any water-hammering pressure waves. There is also the vertical force chamber you labeled with the vertical yellow arrows on the output - you can just see where the pipes from the far side of the pump array connects in, there are banks of the check valves down both sides of the engine. The far right yellow horizontal arrow, under the lamp posts, is the output pipe that leads to the city.
Hope that helps clear it up? There is another very similar pumping station in Cleveland, they give tours (I have not gotten there yet), and have a website with tons of diagrams:
https://cincinnatitriplesteam.org/steam_museums.htm
They have some documents and brochures on their site that have wonderful diagrams of it all.
Hope that helps, keep the questions coming!
Chris :cheers:


Offline crueby

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Re: Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build
« Reply #29 on: March 14, 2021, 09:50:35 PM »
Derek, some more pictures of the engine, first from Bufallo, next two from Cleveland. Some of the bits in the Cleveland diagram, like the reheaters, are not on the Bufallo engines.




 

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