Engines > From Kits/Castings
1/2 Size KyKo Hot Air Engines
Dave Otto:
Hi Everyone
Well I guess I’m off onto another fill in project. I purchased two sets of ½ sized KyKo, hot air fan castings a few years back. They were obtained at different times from eBay; the second set was cheap enough I couldn’t pass it up. They came with the castings, materials and hardware. I won’t be using the hardware for two reasons, 1st I don’t have any BA taps or dies and 2nd my plan is to recreate at least some of the hardware to better match what was used on the original engines. I do have two full sized engines that I can use as a sample to go by. Also I won’t be using the materials supplied as it is easier to use my own materials than to try to deal with all the little unknown chunks of mystery metal in the kit.
There was a copy of the ME build series from 1997 so this engine kit has been around for a while.
My plan is to build both of them at the same time, one will be built as a ventilating fan and the other will be built as a stationary power source as some of originals were. Back in 2016 Andy (Chipmaster) was kind enough to supply me with photos and dimensions from some engines that a friend of his owns. Someday I would like to turn my full size incomplete engine into a stationary engine; my other KyKo is a fan. This information was very helpful in creating the model of the stationary engine.
I will also be adding some details to make my models more like the original full sized engines. This will be items like grease cups on all the bearings and cast in oil cups on the connecting rod, more on that and other changes later.
I have the stationary engine pretty much complete in Alibre with only a few small details to work out.
I have been working on this in my spare time for a while now. I will probably also model the fan parts. The basic engine is the same for both.
Here are the cylinder castings with some work complete. The flange on of them had been sawed off of the sprue and was too thin to clean up to print. The flange is not very thick at best and needs to be drilled and tapped for the A frames. I decided to face it until it cleaned up and then bonded on another piece of aluminum with JB Weld epoxy. Then it was faced to the proper thickness.
If you look close you can see the joint on the left hand one in the photo. The new plate was also over sized and milled back to proper size when set up in the mill.
An expanding mandrel was made to fit in the cored displacer bore. The cylinder was faced on both ends to the proper overall length.
The cylinder was mounted and squared up on a fixture plate. Both bores were finished using a boring head. The power cylinder flange was faced to the proper height which could not be done in the lathe. Lastly the screw holes were put in for both cylinders. I added 2 holes in the pattern for the displacer which is the way the original engines were
Then over to the UPT to tap all the holes, I really love this tool.
To machine the hole pattern on the top it needed to be indexed with the bottom. A simple fixture was made so the cylinder could be mounted in alignment with the face between the two cylinder bores. Hard to see but there is a raised portion at the rear of the fixture.
That was a lot of work to align eight holes but at least they are in the correct location. Four holes are for the A frames and the other for are used to mount the fan shroud on the stationary engine; and for the carrying handle on the fan.
More to come.
Thanks for stopping by.
Dave
vtsteam:
:ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :ThumbsUp: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:
RReid:
I'll be following your progress with interest, Dave. :popcorn: :popcorn:
Kim:
Looks like you're off to a great start, Dave!
Always love following along with your builds :ThumbsUp: :popcorn:
Kim
Jasonb:
Dave, are the two cylinders separate castings that are joined together, if so how? From the photos it looks like there is a joint line even after facing the ends.
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