Engines > From Plans

Elmer's Grasshopper

(1/11) > >>

RReid:
My “other” current project, or the one that is most being worked on currently,  is Elmer Verburg's “Grasshopper Engine”. The cylinder of this one is fun because it incorporates round flanges on the ends with flat surfaces in between. A good exercise for both the lathe and the new mill, and visually interesting. I'm not straying from the plans at all, except for adding some reliefs to the beam to bling it up a little, and trying Delrin rather than aluminum for the piston. Oh, and I screwed up the location of the center cross brace in the column. Should be able to work around that, I think it's mostly cosmetic anyway. Here are a few pics of the progress to date.

RReid:
Elmer's drawings show the upper end of the column and the two bearing blocks being radiused. This morning I experimented with using the lathe headstock as a simple manual rotary table. Credit for the idea goes to Keith Brooke, as posted on Nick Carter's excellent Taig-centric website. Seemed to work pretty well. Down milling is to be avoided for any but the lightest cut, but up milling is no problem, within reason. A spindle brake/lock would certainly be a help. I used the 4 jaw (with one jaw removed) for the experiment, but will probably clamp the real parts to a faceplate.

Kim:
That's a very interesting use of the headstock and the milling attachment! 

I'm a Taig owner myself.  I started with just the taig lathe about 10 years ago.  Then got the Taig mill, and a few years later got a bigger lathe, then a couple years back got a bigger mill.  I don't use my Taig setups much anymore, but still have them just in case!

Very nice work on the Grasshopper - that's going to be a nice engine too.

Kim

EricB:
Ron,

Nice work so far!

It's a common practice (with Sherline tools anyway) to use a second headstock for indexing. I would want some type of positive control of the spindle to try and cut an arc.

Be sure to place a shim under your stock so you don't crash into your chuck or faceplate.

Eric

RReid:

--- Quote ---a few years later got a bigger lathe, then a couple years back got a bigger mill.  I don't use my Taig setups much anymore,
--- End quote ---
I promise not to hold that against you Kim.  ;)

Thanks Eric.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page