Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build

[gary.a.ayres]

Reminds me of this beauty in the UK, which my daughter and I visited a couple of years ago:

http://www.kemptonsteam.org/

Our next one will be Crossness Pumping Station, as soon as things are safe again.

[cnr6400]

Hi Chris, another option re LED lights, that may make mounting and connecting LED's easier, are the battery powered strip LED lights as shown in my attached jpeg file. There are many firms offering these from China very cheap. The ones in the pic can be cut from the 1 metre strip into individual LED lights with their own resistor next to them, and wired in parallel to the supplied battery case. Wires can be connected by soldering to the bare copper tabs at the edge of each module. The strip has good quality self adhesive on the back to attach each light to a surface. For less than $10 USD delivered to your door you get a whole metre of light strip and a decent battery box. Just food for thought.

[crueby]

Hi CNR,


I have led strip lights just like those, put them under my kitchen cabinets years ago to light the countertops better. They work great. The ones I have can be cut into groups of three, and don't need any extra resistors. Still have a coil of them, could definitely use them on the model. I've ordered a bag of the tiny individual ones too, be interesting to compare them. The individual tiny ones could be fit into little scale fixtures too. Plenty of time to experiment on this project!


 

[steam guy willy]

Hi Chris , this is going to be an interesting build, and there is so much to think about all at once !!!  Do you have all the drawings for this or are you having to measure everything up yourself ??  will be watching avidly to pickup all the info and tips for when or iff i undertake a similar project.. More grease to your elbow as we say over here in Blighty !!!   

[ddmckee54]

Chris:

Looks like you've got about a GAZILLION holes to tap, maybe two or three gazillion since there will be multiple levels to this beast.  With the elves all conveniently occupied elsewhere, doing important stuff I'm sure, can you power tap at that size?  Or are you going to be hand tapping holes 24/7 for the next couple of months/years? (My finger tips are getting sore just thinking about it.)

Don

[gary.a.ayres]

Hi Chris, another option re LED lights, that may make mounting and connecting LED's easier, are the battery powered strip LED lights as shown in my attached jpeg file. There are many firms offering these from China very cheap. The ones in the pic can be cut from the 1 metre strip into individual LED lights with their own resistor next to them, and wired in parallel to the supplied battery case. Wires can be connected by soldering to the bare copper tabs at the edge of each module. The strip has good quality self adhesive on the back to attach each light to a surface. For less than $10 USD delivered to your door you get a whole metre of light strip and a decent battery box. Just food for thought.

Yes - these things are handy and very versatile.
This engine is gonna be a beauty illuminated with them!
 

[mklotz]

I'm not big on power tapping, especially on objects in which I've invested a lot of time, but for the small stuff I think an electric screwdriver with its epicyclic drive can be an option.

You can read my thoughts on the subject here...

https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/tapping-screwdriver-51506#post74544

[crueby]

Hi Chris , this is going to be an interesting build, and there is so much to think about all at once !!!  Do you have all the drawings for this or are you having to measure everything up yourself ??  will be watching avidly to pickup all the info and tips for when or iff i undertake a similar project.. More grease to your elbow as we say over here in Blighty !!!   

Hi Willy!
I got lucky, after I got a tour of the pumphouse a few years ago I asked the guy who organized the tour about getting access to take measurements. It turns out that he had found the original builders blueprints rolled up on a shelf in the back of the building several years before, and he very kindly gave me a copy of the scans he had done of every page - hundreds of pages of plans for the entire engine and building layout too. Quite a find, and very rare. I have spent the last couple years using those plans to make the 3D CAD model at full scale - then took a copy of it and scaled it down to 1:32nd scale, and am making the 2D drawings for the model from that.  Much as I would have loved to crawl all over the real engine, probably just as well that I was not hanging 60' in the air with a tape measure!

[crueby]

Gary/Marv, I have used a power drill in the past for tapping, but only on larger sizes like 1/4-20. For small stuff like 2-56 and 1-72, I would never attempt it for tapping in metal, much prefer the feel of hand tapping for the little stuff. Even with brass, all it takes is one chip to bind up and likely break a tap, and the extra length I'd be holding with the drill would tend to put that much more side torque on the tap.
These base pieces have the most holes per square inch as any parts on this model, once past them it will be more like one per corner of a part. The pipe flanges have tons of screws, but those will more likely be studs with nuts through clearance-drilled holes.

[crueby]

Today saw the last of the holes drilled in the two outer rings (another ring of holes goes in the center next). Then enlarged the two rows of holes towards the center to 3/8" diameter with an end mill - tried it first with drills, but the end mill actually went faster and gave a cleaner hole. I dont know what these particular holes are for, whether they were just a way of lightening the plate some, or if they needed access to a drain underneath. There is no way to crawl under the plates from those holes, there is a series of flanges on the bottom down to the floor. But, they are there in the original drawings so I am putting them in!

The plates so far:



I am not going to start tapping the rings of holes yet - going to wait till the gridwork is milled in on the bottom first, which will make the surface with the holes thinner. The top surface will get relief cuts around the rings and pads too. Next up, I am going to add the smaller inner ring of holes to the drill guide and the three bases.

[cnr6400]

 

[Craig DeShong]

Chris is making Chinese puzzles, ”Try to locate the place that is missing a hole”.

Like everyone else,I’m can’t wait for the next installment.



 

[crueby]

Chris is making Chinese puzzles, ”Try to locate the place that is missing a hole”.

Like everyone else,I’m can’t wait for the next installment.



 

I told the shop elves its a connect-the-dots picture of Elfvira. They've used up three pens so far!   

[zeeprogrammer]

Like everyone else,I’m can’t wait for the next installment.

wait? All I do is blink and there seems to be another page of posts. 

I sometimes think he has a shop of 20-some ghost machinists (think ghost writers) who never get credit.
Can't be the elves. The work is too good. 

[crueby]

Like everyone else,I’m can’t wait for the next installment.

wait? All I do is blink and there seems to be another page of posts. 

I sometimes think he has a shop of 20-some ghost machinists (think ghost writers) who never get credit.
Can't be the elves. The work is too good. 

Dang, Zee peeked in the window of the factory building!