Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Build

[crueby]

Hey Chris

The barring engine, or wheel in this case, wasn't used to get the engine off dead center....They would use starting valves for that  which were live steam fed manually into the either the IP or LP cylinder when the engine was on HP TDC or BDC..      but a good engineer would never stop it there....but thats something else

The Barring engine or wheel was used to push condensate out of cylinders without starting the engine.  This would allow the condensate to exit the condensate valves slow enough to not hammer the cylinder heads and blow them off.   

We would do this to good effect on Sabino when she was started cold, and the 750 HP tug engine when we got it running.

Dave

Ah!  Great info! Will add that to my somewhat porous info bank!


A cylinder drain at the bottom of a vertical cylinder could drain that end, but I never thought about the upper end, or would it need turning to get both ends cleared? So it would be barred around at least a full turn?

I recall seeing drains on the receivers between the cylinders on the big pumping engines, lots could condense there too.

On the Lombard we would run a short time with the drains open when starting, thats on a horizontal engine.
    

[steamer]

Hey Chris

The barring engine, or wheel in this case, wasn't used to get the engine off dead center....They would use starting valves for that  which were live steam fed manually into the either the IP or LP cylinder when the engine was on HP TDC or BDC..      but a good engineer would never stop it there....but thats something else

The Barring engine or wheel was used to push condensate out of cylinders without starting the engine.  This would allow the condensate to exit the condensate valves slow enough to not hammer the cylinder heads and blow them off.   

We would do this to good effect on Sabino when she was started cold, and the 750 HP tug engine when we got it running.

Dave

Ah!  Great info! Will add that to my somewhat porous info bank!


A cylinder drain at the bottom of a vertical cylinder could drain that end, but I never thought about the upper end, or would it need turning to get both ends cleared? So it would be barred around at least a full turn?

I recall seeing drains on the receivers between the cylinders on the big pumping engines, lots could condense there too.

On the Lombard we would run a short time with the drains open when starting, thats on a horizontal engine.
    

Yes to all of the above......my little engine has top and bottom cylinder drains, and 2 receiver drains....and it needed it!

On Sabino....you bar it through 1 full turn,  ( with a crow bar specifically made for the notches in the flywheel)  then let it sit and warm up with full link, steam to the  LP from the starting valve, and the throttle cracked......let it sit  there still for 5 minutes, then throw the link into astern and do the same...... THEN!

Clear the BDC of the HP without the LP going to TDC......( Cranks are at 90 degrees)   then slowly clear the HP TDC without the LP going to TDC   Close the HP condensate drains.....now with some throttle,  The wet air pump started, and just using the link...bump the LP slowly and carefully through TDC,,,,  ( Bottom gets cleared with the wet air pump on it's own)....and once through let it run slowly, leaving the LP condensate valves open....close the receiver drain, close the starting valve...let her run in astern for 5-10 minutes.   She'll be ready to answer the astern bell to pull out of the slip.

The Tug engine was the same thing....but we used a large worm gear and a big wrench   ( 20 x 39 x 30...so big compound)....and it took a LOT longer!

Dave

[steamer]

As far as being "caught" on HP TDC....well    first of all don't stop it there....that's easy enough

However....it happens.

Traditionally, crack the starting valve, and that lets some live steam into the LP, and gets the HP off DC, and bob's your uncle

Better way

Grab the reverse lever, and quickly change from where ever you are to the other side of the link, and back  ( Full astern link to full ahead link and back or vise versa)
What that does it allow  a puff of steam to go to the LP from the receiver, and she'll come right off DC and start right up.....

I could handle that engine fast enough that the captain might as well as had a lever in the pilot house.....    ( he didn't...he only had the bell pulls)

But you know Sabino....... 

Dave

[crueby]

Great stuff Dave!!!


Back in 1982 I had built my RC Sabino model, and had the captain running it next to the real one. Next cruise out, with the model on the window seat in the engine room, the captain called me up to the pilothouse and let me take the wheel for the whole run (with him right there to tell me what signal bells to ring). It handled just like the model! You are right, the quick response reverse/forward pulling back to the dock was impressive. Still a vivid memory, and I still treasure the crew hat they gave me. Awesome experience for a college kid.

[steamer]

I've got some pics of the engine room....I mean the parts you CANT see...send me your email, and I'll send them over

Dave


On with the thread....

[crueby]

I've got some pics of the engine room....I mean the parts you CANT see...send me your email, and I'll send them over

Dave


On with the thread....

Sent!

[crueby]

Oh, and hopefully back on the thread tomorrow, my back was a bit stiff from all the time driving this weekend.


 

[MJM460]

That sounds like a wonderful long weekend and an opportunity to fill in the gaps that inevitably open up in the photos from your earlier visits.  Nothing like getting down to the design detail to reveal what was missed the first time around.

Thanks for posting the photos.

MJM460

[crueby]

Back to work on the Holly engine this morning, started shaping the K-frames that go between the pairs of engine frames. There are four of these, two on each side. Originally I was thinking that these would need to be pieced up, but once I laid out a pattern, realized that I could just cut them from some stress relieved bar stock quicker.  Started out cutting the straight sides

then moved to the rotary table and cut in the angled sides

Still need to trim in the bolt bosses and drill the ends, but had to see how the first one looks partway done:

[gunna]

Looks O'K' to me. 
Ian.

[crueby]

Looks O'K' to me. 
Ian.

[cnr6400]

Ian beat me to it! 

The bracket looks great! Not an easy shape to make a lot of. 

[sid pileski]

Hey Chris!

Thanks for vindicating my thoughts on that addition.
My tour guide was pretty adamant that, the extra gearing was to drive an auxiliary oil pump.
I tried to get him to think about it logically (just the gearing alone wouldn't make sense!) but he was not convinced.

Sid

[crueby]

Hey Chris!

Thanks for vindicating my thoughts on that addition.
My tour guide was pretty adamant that, the extra gearing was to drive an auxiliary oil pump.
I tried to get him to think about it logically (just the gearing alone wouldn't make sense!) but he was not convinced.

Sid

Yeah, hopefully the director gets the word out to the tour guides!

[crueby]

As I mentioned previously, my cousin had some boat parts that needed work - he was able to stop by today and drop them off. The main thing was the gas cap lever. Here is the full assembly:

Unlike a modern car gas cap it does not have a quarter-turn screw arrangement to compress the gasket - the lever over the top and the screw on the left side push the cap down on the gasket (which needs replacing, I will cut one from some Viton sheet). The lever over the top has a cross pin in the center, which weakens the cast lever, which had broken.

The cast metal has a huge grain structure, does not look like a very well done casting. I am going to make a new lever from stainless steel, and probably make a little bump up over that middle pin to increase the beam strength somewhat.

Another piece is the half-wing-nut-bolt-thingy that holds the windshield to the side brackets - one is missing, here is the other to use as a pattern. It has a 5/16-16 thread, probably will cut that on the lathe, and mill out the rest of the shape.

The last piece is this gauge panel. Still in good shape until some vandals broke in to the barn and kicked in the face of it. They were caught at another building at least, but meing kids they didn't get much punishment. Jay said a replacement one of these costs a fortune, so well worth attempting to fix it. At first glance it looks fine

but this is supposed to be flat (I took the insert panel out of the back panel)


After some gentle bending and tapping the pieces with blocks of wood as formers, got it all back pretty flat again:

The surface of the insert panel has this pattern 'engraved' in - some sort of fancy stamping probably

I'll put up some pictures as the lever arm gets remade - probably be silver soldered up from three pieces, the end fork, the center arm, and the end tube, and then nickel plated.