Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build

[crueby]

Great to have you along!

Got the blanks for the bearing block caps all taken to overall size, and notched in for where they sit into the lower blocks.

and started drilling all the holes in the caps - four mounting bolt holes, center grease box cover hole, and four smaller holes near the mount holes for holding the cover of the side grease boxes. From the plan notations and cross sections, the caps were cast hollow, with the caps to make the inside cavities into holders for grease for the bearings. Looks like the bearing itself was made of multiple pieces dovedtailed together with rectangular gaps for the grease. For the model, it will be a typical split bearing, the dovetail/gap features are way too tiny to model in! It would mean 1/64" deep dovetails on a curved cross section. Nope!

Also took a few minutes with the rotary tool to square off the inside corners on the engine beds left from notching in the inside edges of the side rails the other day. The one on the left is before, on the right is after, shown by the blue arrows.

Also visible on the right hand one is a milling boo-boo, above and to the right of the blue arrow you can see where the z-axis lock on the mill column unlocked partway through a pass and the cutter worked its way deeper. I've sent the shop elves out for tubes of JB Weld to patch that spot. I used some of the words they taught me last year...! Fortunately its in a hard-to-see spot, and the filler and paint will make it invisible.

[cnr6400]

 

One man's boo boo is another man's intentional stress relief feature / frequency damping node. Just ask NASA.    (I think they must have shop elves too. And maybe J-B Weld, but not positive on that)   

Oh, forgot "inspection datum target feature" - very popular when explaining endmill kisses on otherwise perfect flat surfs from finding Z0 with a bit too much enthusiasm.......or from cookie sugar high......

When it comes to boo boo's, Just like Sgt Schultz on Hogan's Heroes, though, "I know no-thing! NO-THING!" 

[crueby]

One man's boo boo is another man's intentional stress relief feature / frequency damping node. Just ask NASA.    (I think they must have shop elves too. And maybe J-B Weld, but not positive on that) 

Oh, forgot "inspection datum target feature" - very popular when explaining endmill kisses on otherwise perfect flat surfs from finding Z0 with a bit too much enthusiasm.......or from cookie sugar high......

When it comes to boo boo's, Just like Sgt Schultz on Hogan's Heroes, though, "I know no-thing! NO-THING!" 

I just hope I have better results than Schultz did against Hogan!     wow, that show goes back a ways!

[crueby]

Continuing on with the bearing block caps, I dug out an arbor last used on gears/spokes, and milled a rectangle in the top to match the outline of the bottom of the blocks, so no chance of them turning. Bolted each down and ran a ring around the center hole and outlined the bosses for the mounting bolts - the bosses are tapered in at the inner ends.

Tipped up the blocks to put in the step/angle on the end sections

and a few more milling nibbles, rounding over the ends on the belt sander, and rounding the corners of the bosses gave this set of caps:

The caps will get bolted into the bearing blocks (yet to be made), and the holes for the bearings bored through. The bottom of the caps are on the centerline of the bearings, so the bulk of the caps will get arched out underneath.
As far as the stock that I ordered last week for the bearing blocks, turns out that Midwest Steel Supply still has not shipped them, their price is low but service is slow (hows that for a slogan?) so I may not see the stock till end of the week or early next week - UPS is slower going here from midwest and west coast than along the east coast usually. So, the work on the blocks and caps is stalling out till then. Work may have to skip ahead to making something else, like the rods to connect the pump plungers to the crossheads, or maybe prepping stock for the crankshaft and upper engine frames. May just take a break and get outside more, if the weather cooperates (alternating storms and sun, was near 90 for a few days, today its 60).
 

[ddmckee54]

"price is low but service is slow (hows that for a slogan?)"

It's got a nice beat, but it's hard to dance to - I don't think it'll catch on.

Don

[crueby]

"price is low but service is slow (hows that for a slogan?)"

It's got a nice beat, but it's hard to dance to - I don't think it'll catch on.

Don

    maybe make it one of those de-motivational posters!




Things are going to pick up again, I worked out a trade elsewhere for another chunk of the bar so I can get going again. That place still hasn't shipped after a week. I can understand it with a small outfit, but this is a large commercial supplier, I was hoping it was just the previous order that took weeks, but this is two in a row.


This morning I was getting the vertical pump supports trimmed to length, also been studying the Allis pump engine plans. Got really confused till I realized it has one huge difference in the pumps from the Holly. The Holly has three pumps in the center with six pump chambers, intakes at the bottom, outlets at the top. On the Allis, it has three pumps/six chambers also, but the intakes are on the left, outlets on the right. Only one set of check valves per chamber rather than two. From the outside it looked so similar I didn't notice the pipes. Very interesting to compare.

[cnr6400]

Curbside pickup last week from one of the metal suppliers rear me was a bit of a mess too. I ordered two things:

round bar 1" x 3 feet, free cutting steel
flat bar 1/2" x 3" x 6 feet hot rolled steel

When I went for the pickup the staff member brought out 1/2" x 1" flat bar 3 feet long, then ran back in and got a 6 foot piece of 3" round bar, and commented going by the truck window "man, this sh^^t is HEAVY". I said "that's because it's the wrong diameter and length."   

We did get it straightened out after 25 minutes of the staff member arguing about not having the order sheet before I showed up and how the mistake wasn't his fault, could I not just buy the first stock he brought out AND the correct order? Uh, no. After seeing him with the wrong stock I did give him my copy of the order that I luckily had brought along. He did insist that I pay an extra two cutting charges for the replacement order, and a restock fee of 15% for the first two pieces of incorrect stock. Overall, it was a silly waste of time, I got hosed on the extra cut charges and restock fee, and cost was about double what I paid pre-pandemic for same order. 

[Don1966]

Dog you carve that metal just a good as you do wood…….



 
Don

[Kim]

We did get it straightened out after 25 minutes of the staff member arguing about not having the order sheet before I showed up and how the mistake wasn't his fault, could I not just buy the first stock he brought out AND the correct order? Uh, no. After seeing him with the wrong stock I did give him my copy of the order that I luckily had brought along. He did insist that I pay an extra two cutting charges for the replacement order, and a restock fee of 15% for the first two pieces of incorrect stock. Overall, it was a silly waste of time, I got hosed on the extra cut charges and restock fee, and cost was about double what I paid pre-pandemic for same order. 

Wow, this seems wrong.  It's not YOUR responsibility to make up for the mistakes of the guy filling your order.  If you ordered the wrong thing, then sure, I could see his point.  But if he cut your order without having the order sheet, that is HIS responsibility.  You should not have had to pay a restock fee or extra cutting fees.  You should send the company a complaint and see what they do about it.  You could always take them to small claims court, but it's probably not worth it. But it's the principle of the thing!
 
They didn't give you the shaft, they sold it to you! 

Kim

[cnr6400]

Hi Kim, unfortunately the metal supply firm's head office could not care less about incidents like this, and has had a revolving door of staff members over the years. I have contacted them several times about various fraud-like incidents, and only once did I get a fair response. I don't think they pay well or know how to hire good people, so periodically you get these incidents. It was not so bad before Covid when you could go in and pick exactly what you needed, but with curbside service there is more room for mistakes. The overcharging / extra fees aspect has happened before several times different ways with various staff members who have come and gone. I don't know if they were putting the proceeds from these enterprising thefts in the company till or had found a way to skim them for themselves. In any case, I learned very early there to pay by credit card only so there was no potential for easy theft. I would not choose to buy anything here if I had a lot of choice in metal dealers near me, but I don't. I have hoped for years that a good reputable metal dealer (without a $200 minimum order, and who would sell to the public) would set up shop here, but it has not happened. There are MUCH better metal dealers in London Ontario or Mississauga Ontario that I do occasionally go to, but they are an hour's drive away and non essential travel here is still prohibited under the current provincial Covid lockdown rules anyway. So, I was stuck with going to the dealer nearby where the incident I mentioned happened. Just part of life's rich tapestry here in paradise.   

PS I do occasionally shell out and buy from McMaster Carr, who have great service and a HUGE range of metal and fasteners and tooling, but with dollar exchange and credit card fees I end up paying almost double the US dollar list prices, so shopping sprees are infrequent with them! 

[Kim]

CNR, I see your point, but it's still frustrating.

Do you have an equivalent to OnLine Metals, or Speedy Metals in CA?  Those are the places I get most of my metal.  Some from Amazon or eBay, but mainly those other two?  It takes a few days to get your metal, but even including shipping, they are WAY cheaper than the one local metal supplier that will sell to little guys like us - Metal Supermarket, who tends to be quite pricy!  I've only purchased from them a couple of times.

Anyway, glad you can get your hands on some metal, even if it comes with the risk.

Chris - sorry to derail your thread here.  we can get back to your Holly Pumping engine now that we've settled other world problems!

Kim

[cnr6400]

Yes sorry Chris, I did ramble on way too much in the middle of your build thread. Kim - to answer re Speedy / OnLine Metal equivalents here, no. On with the Holly engine topic Chris! 

[crueby]

No problem guys! Always fun to trade supplier/shipping nightmares, and good to learn who is good and not to deal with. I got the alternate-sourced chunk of brass today - the Midwest place sent an email saying the original one was shipped, but it will be interesting to see from the tracking when it is actually given to UPS, its common for them to claim its shipped when all they did was print a label from the UPS website! My guess is that one will be here in another week. I've gotten spoiled by McMaster, who has a big distribution hub just up the road in Syracuse, if I order from them before midafternoon I have it in hand the next day around lunchtime.  Amazon is building a monster warehouse/hub 4 miles from here on some of the old Kodak land, should be good for orders but awful for local traffic over there, its right on my back-road shortcut to the expressway.

Anyway, as you say, back to the Holly engine! I have the brass bar in the oven getting stress relieved, that would be done by now but tonight was Pistol League night, which was a lot of fun, my stresses are relieved!   

[crueby]

This morning was able to start in on the bearing blocks. They fit over the side rails on the engine bed - did it this way since the bearing blocks have protrusions out around the bearings, one has a mounting flange for the gearbox that drives the lay shaft. Making the bearing blocks as an integral part of the original engine bed plates would have meant starting with much larger blocks and milling away a lot more material. So, I got a start on milling out the slot in the first block - they were all stress relieved last night.

Next step is to trim it to length and get it to slide into place on the side rail. Then, repeat for the other three blocks...

[cnr6400]