Author Topic: James Booth 1843 Rectilinear Engine - Orphan  (Read 14258 times)

Offline Jo

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James Booth 1843 Rectilinear Engine - Orphan
« on: September 22, 2021, 06:28:46 PM »
Another one   :facepalm:   I don't know how he does it but today I was allowed to take a part set of orphaned Stuart Twin Victoria castings out of the house, with the instruction to exchange them for these  :noidea: :



As you can see a fair bit of machining has been done and then someone must have mentioned about the need to "age" castings :facepalm: Before my friend is allowed near them they will need that special coating removed  ::)

The James Booth 1843 Rectilinear engine is another of Anthony Mount's designs. This is Anthony's own engine:



And of course no drawings  :disappointed: but they were in EIM three decades back...

Jo
« Last Edit: September 22, 2021, 06:32:49 PM by Jo »
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Offline Jasonb

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Re: James Booth 1843 Rectilinear Engine - Orphan
« Reply #1 on: September 22, 2021, 07:39:45 PM »
I hope those GM castings are better than the ones I had which were full of oxides and the reason mine still sits part made though a bit further along than yours. I think this was one of Anthony's first offerings and at the time he supplied the castings direct.

One of his books has the drawings too.

Offline Jo

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Re: James Booth 1843 Rectilinear Engine - Orphan
« Reply #2 on: September 22, 2021, 08:13:47 PM »
If the cylinder is gritty it can have a bronze liner added  ;)

Jo
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Offline crueby

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Re: James Booth 1843 Rectilinear Engine - Orphan
« Reply #3 on: September 22, 2021, 08:19:53 PM »
That is a great looking design, watching along!

Offline Admiral_dk

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Re: James Booth 1843 Rectilinear Engine - Orphan
« Reply #4 on: September 22, 2021, 09:14:49 PM »
Quote
The James Booth 1843 Rectilinear engine is another of Anthony Mount's designs. This is Anthony's own engine:

Is it just my imagination or might I actually have seen a full sized version in a museum somewhere on the British Isles ...?...  :noidea:

Offline Jo

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Re: James Booth 1843 Rectilinear Engine - Orphan
« Reply #5 on: September 23, 2021, 11:44:10 AM »
I can't say I have ever seen a full sized engine Per.



I started the morning by setting up the electrolysis tank:



Then started the dismantling using a few tools to help with the loose rust removal:



I think the bearing are on their last legs on my angle grinder  :Doh:



These tools were supplemented with a bit of draw filing along the edges. Clearly who ever applied the special coating needs more practise as it is coming off without any need to apply elbow grease  ::)




The tank has had each "cleaned bit added and you can see it has already started working  :ThumbsUp:




Now to test this cylinder casting  :thinking:

Jo
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Offline Jasonb

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Re: James Booth 1843 Rectilinear Engine - Orphan
« Reply #6 on: September 23, 2021, 01:02:58 PM »
Did you not get your sand blast cabinet out? would give a nice key for the paint.

Per, I think there may be a full size that uses the same principal but with just one set of guides, more like Anthony's later "cross engine" that could have also been by booth as they had the patent.

Offline Jo

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Re: James Booth 1843 Rectilinear Engine - Orphan
« Reply #7 on: September 23, 2021, 03:23:16 PM »
It is much quicker to clean it up this way than get the blaster out.


Knowing that Jason is holding his breath hoping that my cylinder is full of gritty bits like his I thought it was only fair that I machined the cylinder so he could gloat sympathise with me if mine was the same..

Anthony suggests you mount the cylinder on a face plate  :thinking: The problem there is that it has two non square ends and a bump in the middle of the valve port face. It is therefore much easier to carefully set up in a three jaw.

The gunmetal has been slightly protected by using a piece of old coke tin between the three jaws and the gun metal. I did look at holding the cylinder beyond the rim but having looked at the final target wall thickness decided against that. First square up the bottom - the side away from the crankshaft:



You can see that it is still rough and it is also over length - this end will need to be faced again. This cut is just so the casting will sit flat against the chuck:



Now I have turned it round, used a copper mallet to ensure it is firmly against the chuck and then turned the outside of the rim round (but still oversized). I then cleaned up the outer face so that the face was not too rough and supported the end of the cylinder in the fixed steady on that over diameter surface I just turned circular so now with support in place I can start boring:



Yes there is some grittiness in the bronze but I am now 0.5mm away from the diameter on the drawing - the actual measurement is not critical it can be plus or minus 1mm but watch the remaining cylinder wall thickness if you go lots over dimension ;))



Now that my Takeaway Delivered Curry has arrived for tonight's dinner I might think about doing a final bore  :thinking: Then we can discuss the cons of having pot holes in the bore of a steam cylinder and the techniques that can be used to overcome them  ;)

Jo
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Offline Jo

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Re: James Booth 1843 Rectilinear Engine - Orphan
« Reply #8 on: September 23, 2021, 04:19:50 PM »
I have just taken another cut and the bore is still 0.3mm undersized:



As you can see there are a number of holes in the casting. This is only on one side so it has probably been caused by gassing.


Does it matter? On a steam engine, that fine, with no sharp edges, probably not. During normal running they would gunge up and seal on their own.

Bigger holes or huge lumps out of the bore would: Its a bit like driving down the road big pot holes can do damage, small holes your tyres would run over them without noticing. If the holes were big or the bore had a sharp/gritty texture I would probably line the bore with a sleeve.

But I will fill these to show how you could do it for yourself. The options: Soft solder or as I am going to use JB Weld  ::) Soft solder is much better but that would require taking the cylinder down, heating it up applying the solder and then remounting it perfectly in the chuck. The cheats way to do it is to smear JB weld over the offending marks and let it slump into the holes:



I am now going to leave the JB weld for 2 days to go really hard and then do a final skim taking another 0.1mm off the bore. I do not care about the wear properties of JB Weld as it is just filling the holes like gunge would normally and I know that JB Weld is good for the sort of temperatures that this engine may be subjected to if it was run on steam. It should stick like the proverbial, if it comes out it won't do any harm before it is blown out of the exhaust  ;) .

Jo
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Offline Admiral_dk

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Re: James Booth 1843 Rectilinear Engine - Orphan
« Reply #9 on: September 23, 2021, 04:48:40 PM »
Nice that the parts cleaned up so easily from the 'coating'  :)
I'm sure that you are happy the the 'blow holes' are so small.

Will certainly follow your progress Jo  :cheers:

Jason - that could the reason I thought it looked familiar.

Offline Roger B

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Re: James Booth 1843 Rectilinear Engine - Orphan
« Reply #10 on: September 23, 2021, 05:02:20 PM »
Looks to be another fun project with an interesting looking engine  :ThumbsUp:  :ThumbsUp:  :wine1:
Best regards

Roger

Offline Jasonb

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Re: James Booth 1843 Rectilinear Engine - Orphan
« Reply #11 on: September 23, 2021, 05:05:53 PM »
I think the main problem with mine when I did it 30 odd years ago was that I only had HSS boring bars and as soon as they hit the gritty oxide it took the edge off them so the cutter stopped cutting. This meant that I could not get a consistent diameter bore rather than just having a few hols to contend with. Likely now a carbide tip may survive a full length cut.

You can see the different bands going around the cylinder where the tool cut for a while and then lost it's edge, looks like I had blued it at some time to see the low areas and I can feel the changes in dia with my finger. I think it's already overbore where I was trying to get a decent finish so sleeving would be the best option or simply make a cylinder from scratch

Offline Jo

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Re: James Booth 1843 Rectilinear Engine - Orphan
« Reply #12 on: September 23, 2021, 05:30:04 PM »
Looks to be another fun project with an interesting looking engine  :ThumbsUp:  :ThumbsUp:  :wine1:

I am hoping to be allowed to finish the Bee before doing any more than the cylinder on this one. I hate having castings/models around with the special coating as someone goes a horrible shade of reddy/brown  and I then find it everywhere :facepalm2:

Jo
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Offline Jo

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Re: James Booth 1843 Rectilinear Engine - Orphan
« Reply #13 on: September 25, 2021, 04:31:53 PM »
I've bored the cylinder for the last time:



The swarf coming out is grey JB Weld rather than shiny gunmetal. Having measured up the two ends of the cylinder I found that another 1mm needed to come off this end before I added the 2.5mm deep recess for the cover/steam gap:



the cylinder was then turned round mounted up once again in the three jaw with the fixed steady providing support and 0.9mm taken off the other end and a similar counter bore for the steam cut. the cylinder still needs more machining but I am going to leave it there for now. You can still see the JB Weld in the holes (it actually makes them stand out more  :-[ )



But if you rub your finger on those grey bits you will not notice they are there and that should be the same for the piston and its packing  :)


The now cleaned up, previously rusty, bits are now rust free and they have been sprayed with etch primer to give them a little protection. Once the paint is dry my intention is to hand this casting set over to Surus for his collection :pinkelephant: and hope that one day in the not too distant future I will be allowed to see it again, in the meantime I am back to working on the Bee

Jo
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Offline Jo

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Re: James Booth 1843 Rectilinear Engine - Orphan
« Reply #14 on: November 05, 2021, 03:01:14 PM »
 :headscratch: I thought I had been allowed the Clarkson engine castings but this is what I found when I opened the box in the workshop:



The Rectilinear castings... finishing this engine should be fairly quick and it will give me something to fiddle with when I get bored of flicking over the Bee  . Ok so I Normally start at with the base plate:



As you can see someone has already done this for me  :) Except the cylinder mounting holes are missing. The instructions say drill through from the cylinder cover  :facepalm2: Ok back in days gone by you might but I am going to use the DRO's circle bolt function. There are four sets of holes that match the cover: either end of the cylinder, the base plate and a rather nice casting that is supplied for the top cover. So that I can do all the holes at the same setting I will start on that cover.



As you can see it has a steep draft angles (the sides of the circular bits taper horribly) so first up mount it on the large bottom surface and turn something to hold this casting by:



Its running remarkably true  :ThumbsUp: so having rough turned the spigot in the middle and the larger diameter face to get rid of the casting marks time to first turn the centre to the first finished diameter - 16mm this will be the boss for the gland and our chucking piece:



It does not matter what this diameter is but I will be holding it in a collet so I am going for 16mm. I can then face the larger diameter - this is the top face of the cover so a good finish is required. You can see I am facing it in reverse to prevent any bits of swarf getting under the tool and marking  :facepalm2: the surface:



Turn it round use the 16mm diameter in a collet to hold the cover and cut the boss which goes into the cylinder and check it fits:



While it is mounted take the outside diameter to match the cylinder and sneak behind and to the top of the cover to avoid having to turn it round.



Finally drill through 4.5mm ( reamer starting size)



Can you see those horrible blow holes in the underside of the casting  :-\ No one will see them so time to put it to one side while admiring another casting:



It seems a waste to use that lovely piece of gunmetal when that scrappy piece of Aluminium will do just as well  :-X

Jo



« Last Edit: November 06, 2021, 07:34:54 AM by Jo »
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