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Stuart S50

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samc88:
New project incoming, recently acquired a Stuart s50 kit from a friend, and since I'm in the process of upgrading my small mill with a DRO this seems a nice thing to make to get used to it. As a side note this is the Stuart engine I've always wanted to make but lack of a mill before meant I went for the 10V instead. This obviously means my loco project is on hold for a little while but its not abandoned. This should keep certain stationary engine casting fans happy too

I have a plan to make it more scale looking by removing the cast in bolts with real ones and instead of using bolts for the engine fasteners I'll use studs with one size smaller BA nuts (since I have a packet of them already and they look really good). If it goes well Id also like to have a go at some rope grooves too in the flywheel (I've got a spare flywheel if it doesn't go to plan).

Got some steel coming to finish the DRO on Thursday and a couple of bits for this engine coming this week so hopefully be able to make a start over the weekend.

propforward:
Very nice, look forward to seeing that progress. Do you have any posts on your DRO install? I remember you mentioning you were going to add that feature - it's a game changer, love the DRO on my mill. I always enjoy seeing peoples solutions to those kinds of installs - I am going to put one on my lathe soon.

samc88:

--- Quote from: propforward on December 06, 2021, 11:18:35 PM ---Very nice, look forward to seeing that progress. Do you have any posts on your DRO install? I always enjoy seeing peoples solutions to those kinds of installs - I am going to put one on my lathe soon.

--- End quote ---
I'll take a few pictures once I'm done, I've managed to do it without tapping anything on the machine which I'm happy with, taken a bit of head scratching as everything came with no instructions being a bit of an ebay special all the way from China. Looks good value for money though

jeff l:
I built the S-50 many years ago I also milled off the cast in bolt heads and replaced them with the correct size bolts , the model looks much better with this modification .

samc88:
As promised, I made a start this weekend.

The base was first tidied up with a selection of files before pressing the granite chopping board/ surface plate into action with some wet and dry to flatten the bottom. Only took about an hour to take the rock out and get full contact all the way around. When done the relevant heights were all marked out with the height gauge.

After watching Ades workshop on youtube build his S50 I bought a piece of aluminium to act as a build plate for my engine, this was mounted on the mill and clamped down after being clocked in true. Once this was done the engine base was clamped to the plate, truing it up using a DTI on the crosshead rails to get an average being a casting.

Machining wise, the first thing to be done was to drill and tap for the mounting screws which was done to 4BA. Once that was done, I spot faced each mount one at a time and bolted the base down.

Next up was machining the cylinder bolting face, the quill DRO was excellent for this, touched the 8mm milling cutter onto the aluminium and set the DRO to 0, then machined it down until it read 1.5". Came out bang on when checked with my depth gauge so its reassuring my cheap DRO works properly. Similarly the crosshead rails were then machined to the correct height before machining the sides slightly to give me a reference surface if i have to clock it in again for some reason.

Finally i took off the false bolt heads in preparation for drilling and tapping for real studs and nuts which should look much nicer

 

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