Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build

[gary.a.ayres]

Smaug should be sitting on top of this lot. Where is he?

Great progress ongoing with the build!

[crueby]

Smaug should be sitting on top of this lot. Where is he?

Great progress ongoing with the build!

Smaug is in the living room, was watching TV but fell asleep...

[gary.a.ayres]

I thought he'd be around somewhere.

I hope you took advantage of the situation and managed to get your hands on the brass gold while the dragon slumbered...

[crueby]

This morning I took the Tee fittings and the hex flanges outside to silver solder them together. Redid the first couple after realizing that I had forgotten to line up the flats on the hex the way they needed to be.    Then got them a soak in the pickle solution and a little wire brushing, before starting to shape the flanges down.


On the back right, is one as silver soldered. The one in the mill vise has had the excess pipe sticking through the hex milled off, and the face of the hex section skimmed off too. The one on the back left has had the points of the hex milled off, making the whole thing narrow enough to fit through the 3D printed pipes and housings to where they will mate up with the check valve assemblies. So, 1-1/2 of them done, 10-1/2 more to go! (there are two of these per check valve, 2 sets per pump, so 12 in all).

[cnr6400]

 

[crueby]

Getting close to finishing up the check valve side of things. The last of the metal fabrication was to drill/tap all the holes in the Tee flanges and the top/bottom connector blocks, then cut a batch of threaded rod for the long studs to hold all the parts together.

So, here are the metal parts that make up one of the six check valve assemblies:

Still need to cut out a batch of gaskets for all the mating surfaces - I have a sheet of .030 thick viton rubber for that. Here is one of the check valves as assembled (no gaskets yet)


The lowest pipe is the water inlet. Above that is a shallow dish that distributes the water to the inlet check valve chamber, with four ball bearing check openings. That is bolted to the end of one of the pipes leading into the central pump chamber (there will be one of these assemblies either side of the pump chamber). Above the inlet chamber is the outlet check valve chamber, with four more ball bearings/holes. That has a cap with the outlet pipe. Note that the outlet pipe is on the outside of the assembly - they did this since the legs of the lower frame are at an angle, and the legs go between the pipes.
And here is a view of one set of parts for one of the three pumps, including the 3D printed housings that go around the check valve assemblies. The layout of those housings determined the layout of the check valve parts, and how they bolt together, so that things could be assembled into the housings - took a lot of playing around in the 3D CAD app to figure all that out.


The housings are in two pieces, top and bottom, with the flanges made so that the upper piece will just sit down on top of the lower piece - the top flange for the lower piece is separate, and already bolted to the top piece, and has a notch that mates with the top of the lower piece. This saves trying to bolt up the housings when assembled to the rest of the parts on the model, which would have been a real bear. The tee fittings will get short sections of copper pipe inserted and loctited in, and the pipe/tee sections will (just) slide through the pipe openings in the housings, then can be (just) screwed to the connector blocks. The sections of the valves are held together by three long threaded rods, which screw into the top plates and get nuts at the bottom. The entire pump assembly, all three pump chambers and all six check valves, plus all the housings, will be assembled together, then put onto the model base plate in one unit. The legs of the frame will have to come off to do that, and be re-installed afterwards. Going to be a lot of fiddly work for all that, with the shop elves teaching me new swear words as screws/nuts get dropped along the way!


 

[cnr6400]

 

[Steam Haulage]

Off topic i have spent some time not in the best of health but am hoping to catch up soon. I remember you began using Fusion 360 when you designed the steam powered skating timber logging tractor with great success. Can I ask - are you still using that package? I am considering looking at it again.

Great to see you are maintaining your quality!!!

Jerry

[Kim]

This is really neat, Chris!  Thanks for the detailed info on how it all fits together.  It is starting to make more sense to me now   Great work, as always!   

Kim

[Dreeves]

Chiris, Great looking so far. 1 question will the brass parts be inside the 3d printed parts?

I look forward to the new posts everyday

Dave

[crueby]

Off topic i have spent some time not in the best of health but am hoping to catch up soon. I remember you began using Fusion 360 when you designed the steam powered skating timber logging tractor with great success. Can I ask - are you still using that package? I am considering looking at it again.

Great to see you are maintaining your quality!!!

Jerry

Hi Jerry,


Yes, I am still using Fusion 360, recently bought the full license when they started restricting some of the import and export features on the free version, I need them for both my builds and for all the magazine articles I have been doing, well worth it for my uses. Very comfortable with it, though it has a lot of capabilities I don't need.


I used it for the Marion  Steam Shovel and Stanley engine builds, lots of RC submarine stuff too. Works well with my new 3d printer too.


Chris

[crueby]

Chiris, Great looking so far. 1 question will the brass parts be inside the 3d printed parts?

I look forward to the new posts everyday

Dave

Hi Dave,


Yes, the brass check valves will fit inside the printed housings, so won't be seen but will function like the check valves cast into the housings on the real engine. At least thats the plan! Will know for sure soon.


Chris

[Steam Haulage]

Crueby wrote:
Yes, I am still using Fusion 360, recently bought the full license when they started restricting some of the import and export features on the free version, I need them for both my builds and for all the magazine articles I have been doing, well worth it for my uses. Very comfortable with it, though it has a lot of capabilities I don't need.

Thanks Chris, especially the note about using the paid version. I have every confidence in Autodesk software having been an Inventor user for some years. Now I am fully retired the annual subs for that is way out of my reach, I tried Fusion 360 when it first launched just to see how it performed and was, even in those relative ly simple days, impressed but didn't want to learn a new approach. The Full subs works out about £500 including the tax so is just about doable, hopefully the learning curve is as well.

I have tried to keep up with your really admirable projects and envy is just about in check.

Best regards
Jerry

[crueby]

Yesterday was our first full pond day with the RC submarines for the season, had perfect weather for it, great time out. No shop time, though one of the other guys and I are plotting out our next submarine builds - I'm doing the CAD work for the 3D printed fins/cockpit/etc, he is making up the ballast systems and radio compartments. It is going to be based on the shark-shaped sub from an old TinTin cartoon that he found. Pics on that as it comes together - thinking that it may be sized right for the shop elves to ride in!

Been plugging away at making all the gaskets for the pump/checkvalve assemblies. Got them all done, and cut down the lengths of copper pipe that will go between the check valves. Rather than solder, I am using some thick Loctite to join the pipes and tee fittings, they will not be under much pressure and just cold water, no steam or heat, and the Loctite makes a quick way to join them. I'm just attaching the pipes on one end of the tees for now, I need to have things partially assembled on the main base plate to space things out properly to make the lengths of pipes/tees in one piece. That will probably happen tomorrow, letting the loctite cure up plus its nice out and the front yard is calling.... Pictures of the assemblies tomorrow probably.
 

[crueby]

This morning got the pump pieces all test assembled on the base, looks like the fit is good so I'll take the pipe sections off one at a time and loctite the joints. After that has set, take it apart one more time, add the gaskets, and assemble them with the housings around them. They will go into the housings in a particular order that allows access to the screws, will take pictures as I go.

The first picture shows it from the HP cylinder end, which is where the lake water enters through the lower set of pipes - still need to make the barbed fittings for the ends to take some large bore flexible tube that will be fed through the Y-shaped pipe that will come off the end. On the up stroke of each pump cylinder, it draws water through the lower check valve chambers on either side and into the pump cylinder at the center. On the downstroke, the pump forces the water back out to through the upper check valve chambers at the top, and out the upper pair of pipes to the far (LP cylinder) end, and to the city. Below is a side view. The vertical frames were removed for all this work, they will go back on after the housings are on. Going to be a lot of screws to place and tighten down!