Warrior Double acting twin cylinder steam engine from castings

[steam guy willy]

Hi Per , yes  It looked a bit daunting at first but my trusty files and finishing paper worked ok ,...especially on the pegs that were old broken drills ?!! so now the tidying up of the crank webs !!!!
"W"

[Michael S.]

The crankshaft looks good. It's always a lot of work after soldering. But you did a good job cleaning it.

Michael

[steam guy willy]

Thanks  Michael and I have now completed the crankshaft  with the two jigs .. I thought I might try to balance them but as the two cranks are 90 degrees apart that would be quite complicated , as it turned out there was very little vibration ... So , I will keep the jigs and they will go in the jig  drawer in case I make another one ?!!

Willy

[steam guy willy]

I am now making the bearing blocks  and I have had to offset the bolt holes as the webs are in the way of them underneath the casting

Willy

[steam guy willy]

I have been filing the bearing blocks to the drawing dimensions and there has been quite a lot of material to remove . When I remove the metal I mark out the dimensions and then file the edges of the casting at 45 degrees all round. Once filed the top surface is filed down to the correct depth. I am missing one of the castings for the narrower bearings so this will be made up from some spare bronze.

Willy

[crueby]

Wow, thats a lot of filing!  Watching along...   

[steam guy willy]

Hi "C". yes, but with newish files quite quickly executed !!  The bearing blocks are drilled and reamed then returned to the collet chuck and machined to width...the narrower bearings are next and I need to find some more bronze to go with the bottom parts.

Willy

[Roger B]

Coming along nicely    I'm glad you got your van back without too much damage 

I like the idea of using the spiral ends of drills to get good penetration from the silver solder 

[steam guy willy]

Hi Roger , thanks for the comment and am back in the WKSP , I am continuing with the Bearings and after lots of filing I have used the lapping technique to bring the bases to the correct levels so they sit on the base correctly. I have the thick glass slab and used 180 grit sanding paper that is a cut up section of sanding machine abrasive , the bearings are now bolted in position and the drilled holes are coming through the centre of the web. these are then tapped  and the bearings are fixed in place.

Willy

[crueby]

 Nicely done!   

[steam guy willy]

Thanks "C" and the con-rods are next on the list ..I will be using 6BA Allen screws for these as they take up less room and it is easy to fit them with the Allen key ..sometimes screws and bolts are difficult to hold and they sometimes fall off and disappear into the voids?!!

Willy

[RReid]

That's coming along very nicely, Willy! I tend to use hex heads only when I have to for appearance sake, otherwise I like to use Allens, for the reasons you state. The mix changes somewhat depending on how "vintage" the engine is, and how obvious the location of the fastener!

[steam guy willy]

Thanks Ron, and I am using them on this model as it is a kit rather than a prototype.   I have made a large mandrel to hold the con rod to turn up the bottom bolting face. this mandrel is also used to drill the holes for the fixing bolts. and it has been quite successful...    the next job is to fashion up the crosshead part ...
Willy

[Del_61]

Hi, I am enjoying the build of your Warrior, its looking good!

I built the Warrior many years ago with the integral pump as well.

One question though and the reason why I ask is I had no idea how to do it and I am interested in how you achieved it, is how did you align the centre line of the crankshaft fore and aft and port and starboard?

Obviously the bore of the cylinder and trunk guides have to align with the piston con rod and big ends on the crankshaft.

The only way I did it is to drill the trunk guides and spot through to the base at the end of the entire build when I could make the small adjustments to ensure smooth rotation and no binding.

All the best

Derek

[steam guy willy]

Hi Derek, thanks for the post... So what I do is make all the parts to the dimensions as close as possible  but then I build the parts up starting with the standards, these are bolted into position using nuts and bolts but not too closely fitting, this enables me to position them more accurately and then pinned once bolted down in their final position. As regards the bearings, they are positioned using the dimensions of the raised portions of the base plate as a guide and a centre line scribed from one end to the other in the middle of them. As the con-rods are revolving there is some latitude for error with regards to the actual position of them. Also traditionally the skill of the  "fitter" comes into play once the the parts have been manufactured. I also use my Eycrometer as well as the Micrometer ??!! I have been making models for the past 60 years so one learns how much one can get away with getting things to fit correctly !! People have been making steam engines for the last 300 years with varying amounts of success so with all our modern tooling and machinery and experience things become easier over time.

Cheers
Willy