Author Topic: Chris's Build of Steering Engine  (Read 52236 times)

Offline crueby

  • Full Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 18559
  • Rochester NY
Re: Chris's Build of Steering Engine
« Reply #30 on: September 18, 2022, 05:46:38 PM »
Hi Chris, you are making good progress.
The new cutter does a good job. I like the round corners and it really depends on where the radius should be a little smaller.
I'm very happy how fast it goes and how easy it is to see what's going to happen.
I wish I had more time for the workshop. I may not be able to retire until 10 years from now.
Today I had to replace a few meters old drinking water pipe in the basement of the house. The old galvanized steel pipe was rusted.

Michael

 :cheers:
Early retirement definitely sped things up in my shop!   The new pipe should make the water taste better, at least the only one wasn't the old lead type!

Offline crueby

  • Full Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 18559
  • Rochester NY
Re: Chris's Build of Steering Engine
« Reply #31 on: September 19, 2022, 03:31:11 PM »
The recesses for all the gussets are done on the straight sides, curved ones come later. The gussets themselves will be angled back at the top as well.

Then started in on the trays under the crankshaft. The bottoms of these areas are curved, deepest in the center along the axis of the crankshaft. Here is the center opening taken down to the level of the outer edges, and a strip down the middle down to the level there. I'll do the other two rectangular openings the same, and come back and trim the bottoms to the curves. Since I am using the Count Number Cranks version of CNC, I'll make up a table of moves to accomplish the curves, using the radius edge cutter. The CAD app will make generating that table straightforward, just need to sketch it and decide on the horizontal moves per cut and generate the vertical offset tablefrom that.



Offline Chipmaster

  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 988
Re: Chris's Build of Steering Engine
« Reply #32 on: September 19, 2022, 03:50:58 PM »
Fascinating, I'm eager to see the model working, are any working models known to exist?

Andy

Offline crueby

  • Full Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 18559
  • Rochester NY
Re: Chris's Build of Steering Engine
« Reply #33 on: September 19, 2022, 04:57:29 PM »
Fascinating, I'm eager to see the model working, are any working models known to exist?

Andy
Yes, real ones, but no models I have found. I saw one running at the antique engine show at Mystic Seaport, thats how I found out about them. Then Michael here on the forum posted pictures and videos of the one he restored, and ones on ships over in Germany. Check out the first post in this thread, it has a picture and link to the other thread with the videos.

Offline cnr6400

  • Full Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2731
Re: Chris's Build of Steering Engine
« Reply #34 on: September 19, 2022, 05:17:35 PM »
 :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

The solid gold chips are flyin!
"I've cut that stock three times, and it's still too short!"

Offline Michael S.

  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1110
  • Germany, Saxony-Anhalt, Magdeburg
Re: Chris's Build of Steering Engine
« Reply #35 on: September 19, 2022, 07:50:40 PM »
So I don't know of any model of a steering machine. I think Chris' model will be one of the first of its kind. And with the chain and rudder blade a highlight.

Chris, do you already know how to mill the square holes under the four rods of the cylinder supports in the base? There where the rectangular nuts are inserted.

Michael

Offline crueby

  • Full Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 18559
  • Rochester NY
Re: Chris's Build of Steering Engine
« Reply #36 on: September 19, 2022, 09:38:46 PM »
Michael, I will drill the holes round for those square nuts, then square up the corners with a high speed air rotary tool that takes dental burs. The pointed end tapered burs work well for that. An alternative method is to make a square end broach and drive that in.

Offline crueby

  • Full Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 18559
  • Rochester NY
Re: Chris's Build of Steering Engine
« Reply #37 on: September 19, 2022, 09:40:48 PM »
:ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

The solid gold chips are flyin!
So are the walnut chips, been doing some work on the Baker stock, getting the parts inset. I bought a machine shaped stock blank that has everything roughed in, but needs fine fitting on all the metal parts

Offline crueby

  • Full Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 18559
  • Rochester NY
Re: Chris's Build of Steering Engine
« Reply #38 on: September 19, 2022, 11:14:00 PM »
This afternoon got the rest of the openigs along the crankshaft roughed in:

and spent a little time in the CAD application working out the movements for milling the curved tray bottoms underneath the crankshaft. I copied the up/over movements of the mill onto a very high-tech piece of paper:

and started cutting the first side of the first opening. The green arrow is pointing at the curved bottom surface. Slight steps, they can be filled in with some epoxy to smooth them out, getting in there to sand the steps off would be tricky.

Next time will do the same to the other side of that opening, and move on to the next one. I can mill the three center ones, the two at the extreme ends will wait till the curved ends are cut.

Offline crueby

  • Full Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 18559
  • Rochester NY
Re: Chris's Build of Steering Engine
« Reply #39 on: September 20, 2022, 04:32:39 PM »
All three of the center trays are now shaped...

Next steps will be to open up the space between the vertical walls on the back half. Then will cut in the recesses for the bearing blocks up front.

Online Kim

  • Global Moderator
  • Full Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7863
  • Portland, Oregon, USA
Re: Chris's Build of Steering Engine
« Reply #40 on: September 20, 2022, 05:25:39 PM »
your steering engine base is really shaping up, Chris.  It looks great!  :popcorn: :popcorn:

Lots of Etch A Sketch work!  Who needs CNC when you can do it all by hand, eh? But it sure takes a lot of focused concentration!

Kim 

Offline crueby

  • Full Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 18559
  • Rochester NY
Re: Chris's Build of Steering Engine
« Reply #41 on: September 20, 2022, 05:36:12 PM »
A lot like gear cutting, can do it in short sessions, with breaks.

Offline Michael S.

  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1110
  • Germany, Saxony-Anhalt, Magdeburg
Re: Chris's Build of Steering Engine
« Reply #42 on: September 20, 2022, 07:36:45 PM »
Hello Chris, I'm just thinking about whether it makes sense to blast the whole base with glass beads or sand after processing. That would remove the marks from milling and the color would hold better.

Michael

Offline crueby

  • Full Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 18559
  • Rochester NY
Re: Chris's Build of Steering Engine
« Reply #43 on: September 20, 2022, 08:04:39 PM »
Hello Chris, I'm just thinking about whether it makes sense to blast the whole base with glass beads or sand after processing. That would remove the marks from milling and the color would hold better.

Michael
I've done that on  a couple other engines with good results. I have one of those air-brush sized sand blaster things, my compressor won't output enough volume for the bigger blasters. For painted models it didn't make as big a difference, depending on how thick the paint was, but for ones left bare metal it looked much better, got rid of all the tool marks.

Offline crueby

  • Full Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 18559
  • Rochester NY
Re: Chris's Build of Steering Engine
« Reply #44 on: September 21, 2022, 03:39:26 PM »
I went around the perimeter of the opening between the vertical walls, cutting down the sides walls and in to leave a flange at the bottom. Since that freed up the block in the center, extra clamps were added around the edges.


Block out of the center...

Then did last step in this setup, milled down the centers of the crank webs. The bearing blocks need to come up a lot higher than the thickness of the block I started with, so they will be bolted in to these slots.

With the last of the square cuts done, the block was removed from the tooling plate. Good evidence of why I wanted the playwood there, its pretty chewed up with all the perimeter cuts and the drilling.

Next steps are to round the front corners. The part was clamped down on the rotary table, over a wood block, with the center of the arc centered on the rotary table. Then rounded off the outside corners back to where the bottom flange and gussets will end.

and then rounded off the inside of the rounded wall, down to the depth of the tray at the bottom. The same sequence used for the other three trays will be used again to shape that bottom surface. While its centered up on the rotary table, I'll cut in the mounting flange and gussets. That will be a lot of nibbling with the rotary table!   Once this first end is done, it will all be done again on the other end.



 

SimplePortal 2.3.5 © 2008-2012, SimplePortal