Mery Explosive Engine

[Chipmaster]

Cheers Stuart,

thanks for the vote of confidence, will you start building your Mery soon after rebuilding your milling machine ?

Andy

[propforward]

I have a couple of engines ahead of it - mostly I bought the castings because Gary was at a show with them, so it saved a fair bit on shipping - and the chance to look over everything in the flesh before buying. So I’m lucky because I have your excellent thread to follow along with and help me out!

[Jasonb]

I assume it was Rowland (the other part of Morrison and Martin) who did the drawings.

[Dave Otto]

I never asked him and I'm not sure who's name is on the prints, Roland has worked with a number of guys over the years to do drawings, me included.

Dave

[Dave Otto]

As promised a while back here are some photos of my buddy's Mery.
We were also able to get it fired up and took a short video.

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW52BFZACbo" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW52BFZACbo</a>

Dave
 

[Chipmaster]

A return to working on the Mery, nothing ambitious today just cleaning up the cylinder head half of an iron casting. The other half will become the stuffing box at the opposite end of the cylinder.

I wanted to clean up and polish the domed part of the cylinder head. My ball turning tool couldn't do the job so I used a form tool to machine the radius then finished with Emery cloth and finally Peek polish....

IMG_0643 by Andy, on Flickr

Flickr video

IMG_0644 by Andy, on Flickr

IMG_0647 by Andy, on Flickr

IMG_0648 by Andy, on Flickr

Now that other commitments have been sorted out I should be able to get back into building this engine.

Andy

[Dave Otto]

Good to see progress.

Dave

[Chipmaster]

The finished cylinder head in position.

IMG_0653 by Andy, on Flickr

IMG_0654 by Andy, on Flickr

Andy

[propforward]

Fantastic work - coming along really well!

[pirmin]

Looking Good !

[Michael S.]

The cylinder head cover looks very good. 👍 Beautiful curve!

Michael

[Chipmaster]

Hello Dave, do you know what the function of this part of the Mery engine is, or perhaps would you ask your friend who built the engine? It doesn't feature on all  of the models pictured on the Internet.

I attach a couple of pictures of the part and a video of it in action copied from your YouTube video.

  Mystery part 1 by Andy, on Flickr

Mystery part 2 by Andy, on Flickr

Flickr video,

Mery part by Andy, on Flickr

Thanks

Andy

[Dave Otto]

Hi Andy

I think that is the adjustment for the fly ball governor if it had one. The governor raises and lowers the block that contacts the two bell cranks which in turn limit the lift of the intake valves. There is a description of this in the patent drawing.
https://www.gasenginemagazine.com/gas-engines/mery-explosive-engine-zm0z20aszbut/
If you go back and look at Ralph's and Bob's engines you can see the rod from the flyball governor coming under the cylinder and engaging the block. Max never built the governor but did take time to make these related parts, probably because they were on the drawings from Morrison and Martin. I don't think that it has any effect on how the engine runs but I will ask him.

Dave
 

[Dave Otto]

Not sure if you have this or not, here is the link to the actual patent.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US543157A/en?q=patent%2fUS543157A&patents=false

Dave

[Dave Otto]

I think that my understanding above was incorrect. After reading the patent this eccentric devise is used to adjust the timing?

The lever I, by which the movable electrodes at each end are alternately operated, is a rocking one, being mounted by a central hub 3 u pon a pivotal shaft J, extending cross wise under the engine. The hub i3 has a downwardly-extending crank d4, with which a rod i5 is connected, said rod being operated by a suitable eccentric upon a counter-shaft of the engine, unnecessary hereinv to show. The position of the rocking lever I and its consequent effect upon the movable electrodes at each end, both in time and amount, is varied and regulated by means of an intervening eccentric-sleeve K, mounted and adapted to oscillate upon the pivot-shaft J, the hub 3 of the lever I being mounted upon said eccentric-sleeve K. Now it will be seen that by turning the eccentric-sleeve K to diierent positions the pivotal center of the lever I will be raised or lowered and its operation varied as desired.

I will still ask Max if it has any effect on the running of the model.

Dave