Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build

[crueby]

Soldering jig looks great!   

I have just dispatched 2 of my peskiest shop gnomes in a very rusted 1961 Ford Falcon with iffy piston rings , 17 litres of oil, and 147 pounds of roasted peanuts. Rochester or bust, they said. Could mean they are looking for a strip club rather than Rochester, or will be by with your peanuts in a few days (or months, in that car) 

PS do keep the gnomes  if when they arrive........

 


Good thing you told them Rochester.  You didn't say which one, the one in Minnesota, the one in New Hampshire, New York...  Knowing gnomes, they are building up speed for the ramp in Nova Scotia aiming for the one in the UK since the beer is better there!!      


If they DO make it here, which is not IN Rochester but outside it, at least I have bags of fresh mint chocolate chip cookies to convert them to Shop Elves, and put them to work!   

[Don1966]

Very well thought out jig Dog, you never cease to amaze me……..

 
Don

[crueby]

Very well thought out jig Dog, you never cease to amaze me……..

 
Don

Thanks Don - we'll see how well it holds up to the torch!

[MJM460]

Hi Chris, a very ingenious jig for a complex part.  Do you have to use centre pop marks or something similar in the edge of the narrow strips to establish the necessary gap for the silver solder?

Looking forward to seeing how it performs.

With your upcoming visit to the full size engines, I had better hurry up and put together that post on the pulsation dampeners.  To put some pressure on myself, look for it in the next couple of days.

Amazing how time moves in lockdown.

MJM460

[crueby]

Hi Chris, a very ingenious jig for a complex part.  Do you have to use centre pop marks or something similar in the edge of the narrow strips to establish the necessary gap for the silver solder?

Looking forward to seeing how it performs.

With your upcoming visit to the full size engines, I had better hurry up and put together that post on the pulsation dampeners.  To put some pressure on myself, look for it in the next couple of days.

Amazing how time moves in lockdown.

MJM460

Hi MJM, for the joints where the edges of the raw bar stock edges butt up against another bar, milled surface or not, the raw edges have enough of a radius and are uneven enough along the length that the solder has a place to wick to. For places like the ends, a center punch mark will give the tiny gap needed, like you say. Too tight a joint wont let the solder wick in, and it just pools at the surface of the joint, better to have it flow in. The narrow strips I am using are tool steel bars, with rolled-out shapes that are not hugely precise (tiny-ly precise?) The larger flat bars are ground and the ends are milled, so they fit tight without the center marks.

Looking forward to the dampener discussion. We made miniature versions in our inkjet printers to handle the pulsations in the ink lines from the print head whizzing back and forth with a few gees of acceleration - just the ink liquid in the small feed lines was enough to give large pulsation forces on a large format printer and force ink out or air in the nozzle plates, even though the nozzles were micron sized! On the giant water pumps, scale that up to a 48" diameter water pipe with pump chambers moving hundreds of gallons every few seconds - could have been a huge water hammer effect.  I'm going to be visiting the museum in Boston again soon, going over the Allis engine/pumps with the director of the museum - he is looking forward to learning more, and I get an up-close look at the engines - great for both of us!
Chris

[crueby]

This morning I set up the torch out in the end of the garage, and so far have the first two crosshead guide frames soldered, second one is cooling. Here is the first before it started its swim in a bowl of vinegar to clean up the flux:

While parts are colling enough to pull from the jig, I have started milling the slots for those little inside-corner pieces I made several days ago. After the frames are re-assembled for good, these bits can be loctited in place.

[Kim]

Looks like your soldering jig did the trick!  I was worried about how much heat that jig would soak up, but looks like you handled it just fine!
Well done, Chris!
Kim

[cnr6400]

  (insert gif for 3 bags of peanuts here)   

Glad the soldering jig worked well. 

[crueby]

So far so good on the jig, just soldered number 5. The frame parts are a lot thinner than the jig parts so the get up to temp quick, using a medium size tip on the torch with about a 3/4" wide flame. I alternate aim side to side while working my way down the length, melting solder as I go, heating from inside the center gap through the metal. After last one is done the jig will join the frames in the pickle, its getting pretty dirty.

[crueby]

Success on the crosshead guides - got all six soldered and cleaned up:

Soaking the jig in the vinegar did it a lot of good too, the screws move freely again, the flux and soot had gummed them up pretty tight by the last one.

So, need to do a notch in the underside of the top rails for the crosshead top cap to fit into, and drill for some mounting screws to hold the guides into the frames. Also need to fit the little corner pieces and get them loctited in place, that will be some fiddly work. After all that is done, and the frames all assembled, will take the light cuts on the faces of the A's to get them to final thickness, which will get rid of the gaps caused by the rounded corners of the square bar stock, and trim the corner pieces to be flush too - right now they hang over slightly. Sounds like the rest of the week is fiddly work, wonder if the elves can dance to fiddle music!  (beat you to that one CNR!! )

[steamer]

That's cranking out some work there friend!...BIG engine, on a little mill/lathe!

Dave

[MJM460]

Hi Chris, I expect that hundreds of gallons each few seconds and micron size drops every microsecond might both involve similar accelerations.  However, accelerations due to the print head movements might look quite different to the near sinusoidal motion of the pump plunger.

I expect to post the first section of the pulsation topic later this evening.  It’s far too long for a single post.

Good result on that soldering. 

MJM460

[cnr6400]

Re 'fiddly work' - yes, I concede that my thunder has been stole.....

Great looking crosshead guide parts. 

[crueby]

Don't worry CNR, plenty more chances coming up, I am sure!   

I've gotten a good start on the fiddly bits, have 24 of the 36 inside corner pieces fettled and attached, and also the crosshead guides drilled for screws at the bottom plus milled the recesses for the top plates of the guides to fit into the frame top rails. Next up is to lay out and drill the screw holes at the top ends.

They are looking almost done, but I'm only maybe 3/4 done on the frames - Need to make the horizontal braces halfway up the crosshead guides, all the cylinder mounting holes in the top rails to go in, all the mounting plates and holes for the lay shafts and K-frames between the engine frames too, plus thinning the frames.

[Dan Rowe]

Oh man I wish my parts looked that good when they are 3/4 the way done. 

Those are really looking like the real deal.

Cheers Dan