Lady Stephanie Pumping Engine

[springcrocus]

A couple of years ago I lost my enthusiam for recording my projects, mainly because of the arguments and negativity that abounded on the loco site that I used to frequent. What I didn't lose was my enthusiasm for being in the workshop and a few projects have now been and gone.

Following my request for help identifying a suitable flywheel Jo kindly offered me a surplus one from her collection of castings and to acknowledge Jo's magnanimity I decided I would record my building of the Lady Stephanie pumping engine. I am using drawings from Julius De Waal and this particular model is about 30% larger than the ones that others on here have made, the base measuring 320mm x 100mm. However, rather than blindly following the drawings, I am modifying components and sizes to suit my methods of manufacture whilst retaining the general outward looks and basic dimensions of the model.



The whole of the framework will be painted and most moving parts left as polished steel or brass. The two lower front panels will have perspex windows to allow viewing of the pipework and pump, along with the governor linkages. I'm hoping to make this an actual working model so the pipework will be connected to a water source to allow proper pumping to occur.

I've kicked things off by making the baseplate and platform from 100mm x 5mm hot-rolled mild steel after removing the mill-scale by pickling in citric acid, all holes being placed using the DRO on the mill. The uprights have been made from M8 mild steel studding.



The square pillars that separate the base and the platform have been made from aluminium box-section with separate aluminium end-caps for either end. Rather than have my chuck jaws mark the work, I faced the sawn sections to length with a flycutter in the mill, holding the work between two vee-blocks to ensure squareness.



The end-caps were made from 22mm square aluminium, milled to fit inside the box-sections and drilled 8.1mm to fit the studding. The outer faces of the pillars were fluted with a 4mm dia ball-nosed slot drill, just to add a bit of decoration. The slots in the end-caps provide support for the face and end panels panels.



More to follow.

Regards, Steve

[Dave Otto]

Off to a good start Steve, thanks for deciding to share your work here.

Dave

[crueby]

Off to a great start, looking good!   

[CI]

Nice to see your work.
We appreciate good build logs on this forum very much.

.

[mikehinz]

Very interesting engine and project!  I'll be following along.  Mike

[Keith1500]

Good stuff Steve,

I’ll be pleased to follow your build and looking forward to it.

You have done what I did, you’ve include the drawing in the background of the parts/ assembly in question. Thumbs up.

Keith

[springcrocus]

Thank you, Gentlemen, for your encouragement.
Base Assembley

The panels have been cut from 3mm aluminium sheet and milled to fit exactly between the pillars. The two front panels will have windows cut through them to allow viewing of the pump, pipework and governor linkages below the platform.



The platform is located on the 8mm studding, which finishes just below the top surface, and held in place by the base caps of the columns which are tapped M5.



To make the tapered columns, I first cut six lengths of 19mm dia bar, facing them to length, then drilled & tapped each end M5. A cap screw with spacer was fitted to one end and a centered adaptor screwed into the other end. The tailstock was offset to the front by 1mm and the diameter turned to size.



The top and bottom caps were made from 22mm dia mild steel, also drilling & tapping M5.



The base caps get screwed down first, followed by the six pillars. Short lengths of M5 studding are threaded into the tops of the columns and the top caps screwed down onto them, leaving sufficient protruding to locate and secure the canopy.



Canopy next.

Regards, Steve

[Dave Otto]

Scaling it up will certainly make your life easier, I remember seeing one at a show one time and it was quite small.
Nice progress!

Dave

[springcrocus]

Today, a parcel arrived and it is, indeed, a wondrous sight. Jo has parted with one of her beloved castings    and, as many of you know, this is an almost unheard of phenomenon, maybe even as rare as ball lightning. 



I did promise to look after it and treat it gently but I think it was the whisperings of ice-cream into her shell-like that finally swung it. 

Perfect for the job. Thanks, Jo. 

Regards, Steve

[crueby]

Keep your doors and windows locked - Surus may come round and try to get the casting back for himself!   

[Kim]

That certainly does seem to be a rare occurrence!   

Looks like a nice casting, in spite of the word written across the top of it!

Kim

[Jo]

Pleased it has gone to a good home Steve. 

Surus still thinks it is damaged so, under the agreed condition he gets a full replacement set of castings, he reluctantly let it go and for once didn't savage  the Postman when he came to collect it   

Jo

[Jasonb]

Only to be expected. It was obviously an inferior casting as there is no sign of that special coating. No wonder he was glad to get rid of it

[springcrocus]

I have fabricated the canopy from a sheet of 16swg brass, a little thinner than specified on the drawing and made the six corner bosses from 19mm dia brass.I also made the underside strengtheners from rectangular-section brass bar milled down to 10mm x 5mm. To help with locating these strengtheners I milled some 5mm slots in the upper part of the bosses, mounting them on a 5mm diameter pin. The corners needed two slots at 90° to each other and this was achieved by rotating with a 5mm packer in the first slot.



The two central bosses required two slots in line, as well as a cross-slot, and these were bolted together back-to-back and held as shown in the next picture. The third slot was made as shown earlier.



After cleaning up, the parts were assembled with flux between the components and M5 cap screws to hold it all together. The whole lot was then soft-soldered together. I didn't fancy hard-soldering this because of the high risk of distorting the top-plate when the stresses in the brass sheet relaxed.



I decided to mount the assembly on a fixture and two of my universal milling aids were brought into use. These are made from 4" x 2" steel box-section, milled all round to be square and the same size. Holes can be drilled willy-nilley in these for locating, clamping, whatever I need at the time. Here, Ive clamped two in line and drilled and tapped six holes M5 to match the canopy.



The assembly was bolted down onto the fixture with six 25 mm diameter filing buttons on top to act as milling guides. Various holes were drilled, as were the corners of the cutouts, then a slot drill used to clear the middle sections. Julius has specified 2.5mm dia holes for the governor top support plate mounting point but I've drilled 2.1mm dia holes and will use M2 screws, M2.5 will be too big.



Then a 12mm diameter cutter was run round the outside, using the filing buttons as limiters



Because the canopy is symmetrical, I was able to turn it over and bolt it down again to do the holes on the underside, all still using the DRO for accurate placement, albeit mirror-image to the drawing. The corners and central bosses were finished using sanding drums in the Dremmel and a test fit of the canopy undertaken.





It seems to be coming together quite nicely, now it's time to make some of the fittings.

Regards, Steve

[Jo]

Are you going to flute the columns Steve? Lady S looks very nice with fluted columns 

Jo