Chris's Holly Pumping Engine Complete

[ShopShoe]

Ron,

... and I loved the way that zinged that practice in "Wayne's World."

ShopShoe

[ddmckee54]

Ummmm, Chris?

I noticed that there's no room on that shelf for the Allis engine.  Where are you going to put that engine when you build it?  Are you possibly in negoiations to expand your engine storage area?

[crueby]

Ummmm, Chris?

I noticed that there's no room on that shelf for the Allis engine.  Where are you going to put that engine when you build it?  Are you possibly in negoiations to expand your engine storage area?

Ummm, no. Not planning on building the Allis engine anytime soon, so similar to the Holly. They WOULD make a really fun pair to have side by side though. So far just going to finish up the Allis CAD version sometime this year (still working on the valves and linkages), then will spend some time animating it for some cutaways/videos for the Boston Waterworks Museum. At this point Fusion doesn't have a lot of functionality combining joints with animations (pieces are there, but they dont work well together) so I've downloaded a copy of Blender, which can import the objects from Fusion and do a better animation. Big learning curve on Blender (a free animation app) so that will take a while.

Currently in the early stages of a wood carving project, something different to let the machine shop rest and wait for the shop elves to get back from their vacation up North with the relatives at the Big Guys shop, now that they are in the off season.   
Next engine build is going to be the Sabino compound engine at 1:8 scale - got access from Mystic Seaport Museum last fall to measure the engine in the ship. Been wanting to build that engine forever. After that? A number of possibles, have not decided which yet. Been wanting to do a steam hammer for a long time, might adapt the frame of an arbor press for one of those.

The teleporter prototype still doesn't work that well, and the time machine is stuck in 1:1 speed forward, wont go into reverse!   
 

[Jo]

  How did I miss this 

Well done Chris, that not only looks good but runs very nicely.

Jo

[crueby]

How did I miss this 

Well done Chris, that not only looks good but runs very nicely.

Jo

Thanks Jo!

[ddmckee54]

then will spend some time animating it for some cutaways/videos for the Boston Waterworks Museum

When you said that you were drawing the Allis, I guess I just assumed it was to be a future project.

You're doing the animations for the museum so they can show how the engine used to work?  That will be a lot simpler and cheaper than trying to make the big Allis go round and round.  Plus your animations will give the visitors a view of things on the engine that they would NEVER get in real life

[crueby]

then will spend some time animating it for some cutaways/videos for the Boston Waterworks Museum

When you said that you were drawing the Allis, I guess I just assumed it was to be a future project.

You're doing the animations for the museum so they can show how the engine used to work?  That will be a lot simpler and cheaper than trying to make the big Allis go round and round.  Plus your animations will give the visitors a view of things on the engine that they would NEVER get in real life

Exactly - the Boston museum already has some animations it shows on TV screens, done by someone else that are terrific, but kind of gloss over how the pumps themselves and the valves work, so I will be focussing on some cutaway views of those areas. When I was at the museum touring around the engines with the director, it was amazing for me to get to climb all over the engines, but was also able to pay that back by teaching him how a lot of the details worked since the last time any of thier engines ran was a generation or two ago. The force chambers especially were a mystery to them, they also had questions on the valves and compounding of the cylinders. Like other cities, Boston also had another building full of similar sized pumping engines next door that was all torn down, its great that they were able to save the Allis and the other few engines in the museum.


I'm signed up for a tour of the Cincinatti water museum in May, they have another large engine very like this one (brand of their engine escapes me at the moment), they also had another building with seven of the Holly engines in it, and they still have the giant book of blueprints from that building. Same basic design as the Buffalo ones, but a couple years earlier - will be interesting to look at those plans and see what is different. The historian there has started using my videos to show visitors how the engines looked in action, which is very neat!

I'd love to do a model of the Allis as well to go with the Holly model, but at least right now I'm a little burned out on that style engine. The Allis is basically the same era/size/type engine, but they made a lot of different design decisions than Holly did - not unusual for different manufacturers to have different designs! I may well go back and build a model of the Allis someday - maybe one step smaller in scale though to make it more manageable.

[ddmckee54]

maybe one step smaller in scale though to make it more manageable.

I dunno, then all those 2-56 threaded holes become 00-90's - or smaller.

[crueby]

maybe one step smaller in scale though to make it more manageable.

I dunno, then all those 2-56 threaded holes become 00-90's - or smaller.

Yeah, good point. A bunch were already at 1-72 and 0-80, and I just looked at the valve cranks and levers, would not want to go a lot smaller than the Holly ones without kidnapping George Britnell and giving him a Shop Elf t-shirt...!Could always make a static cutaway version model smaller, but not as much fun without it spinning round under its own power.

[ddmckee54]

One other thing about building smaller models...

The sad fact is, that as I've turned from a young man into an old fart I've found that the scale of MY models has increased.  It is SOOOO much easier to do a good job on a model when you can actually SEE the parts.  It's just that as the scale of the model gets bigger, there are so MANY flippin' details that you can now show - as you are well aware.

Don

[propforward]

[gary.a.ayres]

Wow!

The culmination of huge effort, but it would take many people a lifetime to build something so ambitious.

Absolutely magnificent.

 

[crueby]

Thanks Gary, much appreciated!

[gary.a.ayres]

 

[Stan Stocker]

I somehow missed the completion of this incredible project.  Well Done.  I'll be binge watching both Chris Rueby's (edit made, totally screwed up spelling) youtube videos, AND Gary Ayres' as well.  RC boats, forklifts, great pumping engines, and modular synths...

It's nerdvana!
Best to all,
Stan