Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build

[crueby]

After getting the shop elf off the chandelier down the hall, where he landed when I turned on the mill as he was sitting on the boring head, I got the other hole bored in the middle engine bed:

Then, since I didnt need the post in the alignment fixture anymore (other two beds have one hole each since the end cranks are open style) I reused the post for the marking fixture I need next - bored a hole through it to match the long 3/8" drill I have, and parted it into two sections:

so the two sections slip over the drill

and the guides slip into the engine bed holes to hold the drill centered

Now I can re-assemble the engine beds onto the vertical pump colums, the center section plus one end one at a time, and use the drill to mark where the center of the crankshaft lands on the two end ones. Should be able to either turn the drill by hand or use a slow speed hand drill, just need the mark where it lands to guide me in setting up the two other engine beds for boring. That will get the centerline very close, and my straight-edge checks show the angle alignment will be close as well. I am expecting there to be some slight binding points unless I get really lucky, but a little Timesavers compound should fix that. So far, so good!

[crueby]

Excellent solution to the boring (no, not boring, I mean the repeatable hole making) problem Chris! 

Getting bearing holes drilled/bored through wide engine beds is always a tricky thing, through seperate beds on stilts has had me very nervous!

[crueby]

And I got the parts assembled back onto the model to mark the crankshaft centerline. Here is what it looked like marking the HP engine bed end. The long drill is run through the guides in the bearing holes, and was turned by hand to make a mark on the side of the bearing block/cap. On this end, the mark was dead center on the cap/block seam horizontally and vertically.

and marking the LP bearing block. On this one, the mark was dead on vertically, but horizontally it is slightly off. Checking measurements show that somehow I goofed when notching the side rail for the bearing block - the block is off to one side a bit. Must have mis-measured something, or miscounted crank turns. Its still close enough to work though I'm glad I did this marking, to know where the centerline actually wound up. If I had not goofed something on the bearing block it would have been spot on, so I am pleasantly surprised things are stacking up so well given the number of parts involved.

So, thats a good place to break for the day, tomorrow I can start boring the last two bearing holes. After that, I can get on to shaping the outside faces of the bearing blocks - they get blended in to the side rails, and flare out near the bearing itself. One of the faces gets shaped and drilled to hold the bevel gear housing for the lay shaft, and all of them need to be drilled/tapped for brackets to hold the catwalk floors between the beds. After all that, I think it will be time to work on the crankshaft itself. Unless I remember some other parts still needing to be made first!
 

[crueby]

This morning got the LP engine bed bored for the crankshaft bearing. The drill-marking trick has worked, this one was the one where the bearing block ws a little off to the side, so if I had gone from measurements from its edge it would have bound up the bearing. With the long drill slid through the drill guides (had made four slices, one for each block) on the three bored so far, it rotates freely.      You can see the drill guides in the bearing holes - the drill is .375", the bearing holes are .828".

That just leaves the HP bearing to drill for...

[Kim]

Very interesting technique, Chris!  Seems to have worked well for you here.
Nice work 

Kim

[crueby]

Thanks Kim! Very pleased with how well it worked. Just finished boring the last bearing block hole,

and things line up for that one as well - at least as much as I can tell with this drill, dont have a length of 3/8" rod the right length handy, and I dont want to cut a longer one down just for this test. The drill is a couple inches too long to fit within the bed rails on either end.


So, with each set of three lining up very well, I'm going to call this a roaring success and move on to shaping the sides of the bearing blocks down to final profile - full width under the cap, then they swoop in and blend with the sides of the rails.Before that though, this afternoon/evening am off to my cousins place at the lake, an old tradition there to hold a lake-wide party called the Ring Of Fire the night before the Fourth of July (Independance Day here in the US). Bonfires all round the lake, fireworks in all directions, parties at all the cottages, huge fun.
 

[Don1966]

Very clever and intuitive Dog and you’re still the man………….I……………..likeeeeeeet…… 



 
Don

[crueby]

Very clever and intuitive Dog and you’re still the man………….I……………..likeeeeeeet…… 



 
Don

Thanks Don! This one has been getting a lot of thought and worry for a while, very happy that it worked!

[crueby]

Okay, I know there are some people here that have worked on commercial-sized piping and fittings, here is a question for you:

On both the Holly and the Allis engine plans, there are a number of places where they have large pipes (like in the 2 to 4 foot diameter range) coming out of chambers, all cast in one piece (these are both from the early 1900s if that matters). On all of them, they have these thick box shapes where the pipes come out of the chambers, with a bolt through them. Here is a picture showing some on the Allis pump/valve chambers:

The red arrows are pointing at the shapes I mean. They are cast into the whole structure - these pipes are not welded in later (the plans show casting cores, all that, they are showing the shapes to be molded).  They have a single stud with nuts at each end to form a bolt, going from end to end of the box shape (not shown in my picture), but there is nothing for the bolt to hold other than that boxy shape.

So, the end question - WHY do they put those box shapes on there?? It doesnt make sense for a place to pull the pipes together - in this example the bolt flanges would be in the way for that, and in other cases there is just a man-hole cap, no pipe to pull in. And, at first I thought it was a place to lift it, but its way off center, and they have them on all pipes coming out, no matter the positions they are at.

Is it for strength, across the arc of the chamber? These are pressure holding chambers, so maybe?

Some of you guys that make (or made before retirement) large boilers/pipes/reactors should know this - free box of shop elves to the first to answer (with a valid answer anyway) !
 

[john mills]

this is an interesting project   i have been following
I think about how they made  and machined these parts  did they have big machines  horizontal borers   and lathes  big enough. would they have used those boses to mount a device to finish the flange face .or just a fixture for holding for machining .i gets there was a lot of hand fitting  to get final  alignment and suitable fits.
   John.
           

[derekwarner]

The Book  says......'Good Designers are the Machinist's best friend' 

Courtesy of Google, as I cannot find my 130 year old copy of Foundry Practice 

But John [as first past the post] wins the Prize of Elves + Cookies....

Yes, these holes provide substantial alignment and rigidity during the initial or primary machining of the smaller flange face exiting the main spool....after this is completed, the main spool body would be tipped 90 degrees and supported on that [now flat] face, so to machine both of the outer fange faces, all achieved on the Horizontal Borer

NB.....there are very few detailed Texts on Patternmaking of Olde......these Blokes were 'Journeyman of Patternmaking' and training in the late 1800's, who later taught Patternmaking to appentrices by word of mouth about shrinkage & the like......[long before Schools of Technical Works]

Derek 

[cnr6400]

I certainly don't know for sure what the bosses and studs were for, exactly, but a few thoughts below on possibilities:

1. The large cylindrical chambers presumably have to be aligned fairly accurately between centres, to align with the pump chamber bolted flange joints. The real question is how the bolted flange joint between chambers was sealed and tightened while keeping the centre to centre alignment with the pump chambers. Were the chambers aligned, then lead or babbit poured in the joint groove to seal it, wherever the flanges ended up? If so, maybe the holes / studs held a mould in place while the joint was poured. (a rubber gasket in a groove in the face may have been used to seal the joint too, but that might allow misalignment, which was what made me think of a leaded joint as used on some steam traction engine cyl to boiler joints.)
2. The holes might have been needed as tooling holes to establish datums or holddowns for flange cutting / bolt hole drilling operations.
3. Were the studs maybe used as anchor points / holding method for strainer grilles or maybe additional check valve grids inside the chamber / passage?
4. The holes and some temporary use longer studs may have been used with 4 turnbuckle type devices to pull the flanges together on a rubber seal for bolting, if chamber alignment was not so important or accomplished another way.

Points to ponder.   

(if I should win the bucket of elves by some crazy accident of fate, I hereby defer the win and suggest you send them to Eagle Mountain Brewery to help with slushing out the mash tuns) 

Engine progress looks great!   

Happy July 4th to all forum members in the USA!

[crueby]

Going through the plans some more, and those square boxes and bolts are only on the pipe sections under internal pressure, not on any under internal suction. The plans do show gaskets, don't say what kind. All the faces, high pressure or not, are machined flat, and have many bolts on thier flanges to draw them up. Even the pipes that are manholes with covers have the boxes. All run horizontal on vertical chambers, which makes me wonder about adding strength where the pipe section comes out perpendicular to the chamber.

[crueby]

Coming down to the last few steps, well, maybe a dozen steps, on the bearing blocks and engine beds. This morning got started taking the sides of the bearing blocks down to final profile. Here is what they are looking like before this step:


The sides of the bearing blocks are just that - blocks, sticking out from the side rails. With the engine bed squared up to the mill table and clamped down, the sides were taken down at the ends to be flush with the side rails. Started with the top half - tried a longer end mill to do it all at once, but the finish was not smooth so I went back to a standard length cutter.


Did the cuts on the inside and outside rail edges, then flipped the part over to do the bottom halves of all four corners

Will do the same on the other two engine beds, then move on to doing the top ends, to get them shaped to the top of the side rails. One of the bearing block faces, the one on the IP cylinder facing the HP cylinder side, gets a different shape than this, to form the mount for the lay shaft drive gear. That will be done last, as will rounding the bottom edges of the bearing blocks.

[cnr6400]