Engine Accessories

[maury]

Yall, this is a little project I got attached to while waiting for castings for my Peters water pump I saw this little air compressor on Smokstak and I thought it'd be fun. The picture was labeled FBM... so with a grain of salt it may be thought to be a Fairbanks Morse product.
We seem to want to display our engines doing something, and it's a quick easy build so I figured why not.
maury

[crueby]

That looks like a great project!  Did the post on smokstak have diagrams or plans?

[CI]

 

[Jasonb]

Interesting how they completely split the "crankcase" along the bearing line, should make a nice project. Could add a different head and do a conversion into an engine

Was this the thread or are there more of them about?

https://www.smokstak.com/forum/threads/fairbanks-morse-air-compressor.84922/

Edit another thread with original catalogue

https://www.smokstak.com/forum/threads/flat-belt-air-compressor.90339/

[Jasonb]

Looks like someone had the same idea as me about making it as an engine.

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdi59Bllfa8" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdi59Bllfa8</a>

What sort of size are you going for with the model?

[Michael S.]

This exhibition in Hundeluft ( in English, dogs air ) is very close to where I live. I'll have to go again next year.

Michael

[maury]

Thanks for tuning in guys.
Boy, Y'all are a lot better at finding things on the net than I am.
I only had one picture to work from. I looked for a thread or other pictures/versions but came up empty.
I noticed the web half way up the base, my picture didn't have that.

maury

[maury]

I spent some time printing some patterns and casting them. This is rev 2 for the base, I did the wrong orientation on the core on rev 1 and it didn't work out well, Seems a lot better now. Be getting these cleaned up and then in the shop.

[Sanjay F]

Looking great already, I'm watching this one intently 

[Dave Otto]

Cool little project Maury, so just how big is it?

Does it have a built in unloader valve or will you need to create something? At one time in the past I had a good size Gardner Governor Co compressor who later became Gardner Denver. The unloader valve on it worked a little different than just dumping the excess air pressure. it was on the intake and when the pressure got to the set point it would close off the intake and compress would just pull a vacuum until the pressure on the output dropped and the valve opened back up. My brother and I rescued it from an old Idaho Power substation building in down town Boise. After kicking around my shop for many years, I donated it to Antique Power Land in Oregon hoping that they can put it to use in one of their buildings, it was in perfect operating condition.

I also have a little baby Gardner Governor Co compressor that I picked up at a yard sale, it only stands about a foot tall and the flywheel/pulley is about eight inches in diameter. Maybe some day I will make a model of it.

Dave

[maury]

Dave,the model is just under 12" tall. 15/16 bore 1 1/8 stroke.
When I did the CAD I only had the one picture I saw on Smokstak.
The design looked really simple, no extra features. I'm sure an unloader
valve could be added or incorporated into the outlet valve. I did the
outlet valve with artistic license, so changing it would not affect authenticity.

[Jasonb]

That's quite a managable size and a flywheel 8-9" is within most people's lathe capacity.

It's simple design would also make it quite an easy fabrication, bent inverted "U" shape with some webs and bearing blocks silver soldered on for the frame and the cylinder could be screwed on from below allowing it to be from CI bar. Or as the frame is quite slender even 3D metal printing may not be too costly.

Though I think I would be tempted to do the engine conversion as shown in that video

[maury]

Jason, thanks for the post.
My goal for this project is to create a realistic looking, easy to build accessory model to be run by the engines we already have. Additionally, my overall goal in building models has always been to use castings everywhere possible, and to minimize the use of bar stock. I know this is different and weird, so ...

If you want to build this model as an engine, I encourage you to do so, and please share it with the forum. If you want I can send you drawings when It's finished.

maury

[CI]

Additionally, my overall goal in building models has always been to use castings everywhere possible, and to minimize the use of bar stock.
I know this is different and weird, so ...

maury

I thought barstock builds were the only good way to build a model engine when I started in the hobby in 2009.
After some extremely laborious heavy cutting/hogging out of material for things such as flywheels and steam engines cylinders using inexpensive and lightweight asian machine tools, I decided that I would either find a better way to make models, or I would stop making models.

I dabbled around with some wood patterns and oil-based foundry sand, and really liked that this method eliminated all the heavy cutting of material that the barstock method uses.
It is far easier to do heavy cutting of material when making wood patterns, and you can easily carve the wood with a dremel or other tools.

3D modeling and then 3D printing came along, and patterns can be make quite accurately by printing them.
Bound sand gives a very accurate cast part, which is very close to be exactly round, and requires only a light skimming of the mating surfaces.

There is a bit of a learning curve to the foundry side of it, and another set of equipment in addition to the typical machine tools, but I would never consider going back to barstock methods.
I understand that barstock works well for many/most model engine builders, and I am not knocking that in any way, but there is another way to do it (make your own castings), and making your own castings really opens up a lot of possibilities, especially when combined with 3D modeling and 3D printing.

Even the "barstock king" JasonB is slowly "going-castings", which is very exciting to watch.
With a bit more effort, and some strategic heat shields, it is not that difficult to melt and pour your own gray iron castings in the backyard, and that gets really fun.

Edit:
Maury's Ball Hopper Monitor castings were the best iron castings I have ever seen, with very accurate recreation of the smallest detail, with no distortion.
.

[Jasonb]

I don't want to deviate from Maury's build but I mentioned the other methods in this thread as I hoped it may encourage others who don't have casting facilities to have a go at making the compressor as the castings are unlikely to be on sale as Maury has retired.


Even the "barstock king" JasonB is slowly "going-castings",

Is because there are some other people interested in building the engine that I am having castings done for some parts. The truth is the castings are going to cost over twice as much as I could buy the slices of iron for. My only reason for using castings is that I can pass on the patterns and then someone else can deal with the casting and selling of kits. Though I could sell CNC cut parts and make a profit I'd rather just get on with making my own engines.

If it were just for me I would have cut from solid and it would only have taken me a little longer than it took to cut the patterns. Overall time would actually be less as I would not have the casting machining to figure into the amount of work needed. And I'm still throwing away poor castings from other kits and having to make from solid.

I also don't like some of the compromiises using castings requires when a part is scaled down, these can spoil the original look for me, others may not be so worried.




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