Chris's Slew-Crowd Engines

[crueby]

Since its so stinking cold, a good afternoon to stay next to a nice warm milling machine!

If only mine were in the house..... I've reverted to basically just working on the computer for now until this latest snap let's go. Your crossheads and piston assemblies look great! 

Thanks Steve!
That big yellow ball thing, the 'sun' I think it was called, came out a little while ago and got the temperature way up to 1 degree F for a while. 

[Kim]

Wow!  Practically a tropical heat wave!

Hope you guys survive the deep freeze!

The crosshead/piston assembly palm trees will love this warm weather! 

Kim

[crueby]

Wow!  Practically a tropical heat wave!

Hope you guys survive the deep freeze!

The crosshead/piston assembly palm trees will love this warm weather! 

Kim

Thanks  Kim!  Just looked at the latest weather foreguess, should be above freezing for about 2 hours Tuesday  afternoon.  Woohoo! Get out the hammock!

[Charles Lamont]

The BBC reported yesterday that a weather station about 3 miles from us has recorded rain every day so far this year.

[crueby]

The BBC reported yesterday that a weather station about 3 miles from us has recorded rain every day so far this year.

Thats a lot!  Hopefully  it isn't  just due to the automatic  lawn sprinklers going off by the water gauge...

[crueby]

I didn't make it up to the museum in Maine for this one, but got some pictures from them. This past weekend they held a winter event where they got the steam-powered Lombard, some of the gas powered Lombards, and a Ford Model T on tracks out for a playtime in the snow!
Only one video posted so far, will post more as they come out:
https://youtube.com/shorts/n-CSPeBUofg?si=9lZiiZ-noSbYo_6f

And some pictures:

[crueby]

Yesterday I worked out what bar stock to use for what engine, and rough cut some of the pieces for the main frames. I am going to start shaping with the Thew engine, and get the base plate and engine supports done on that one before moving on to the next engine since all the engines have such different frames that there is no point in the mass production methods. The Thew frame is unique among this set in that the crosshead guides themselves make up a larger part, with the tubes connected in to the base plate - on the original, they were likely cast as part of the base. So, I need a pair of blocks with circular recesses to hold the tubes. I got out the same steel plates that I used earlier in the build to turn the recesses:

After turning, the sides/ends of the blocks were trimmed to final size, note how one side next to the recess is milled away. That will be the outside edge, the center between the blocks will get more pieces.

Here is how the crosshead gudies sit in them...

Next laid out the base plate on some brass plate left from a clock project. This is C353 brass, the good stuff!

Here is how it will be arranged - there will be blocks holding the crankshaft on the narrow section on the left:

The piece was rough sawn from the sheet, and is ready for milling the profile:

[cnr6400]

 

[crueby]

This afternoon, with the shop elves back from their faux-tropical vacation, we got more done on the Thew frame baseplate. With the blank squared up on the fixture plate and clamped in place, milling started on the outer edges. Here the right end and the near-left end have been trimmed to size from the rough-sawn cuts, then did the opening on the left center, and cut the two slots in the middle to start removing the two corners.

Then, with the front/right clamp moved into the middle, that corner was trimmed out:

then removed the back/right clamp to do that corner as well. Keeping the plate clamped in place during all this ensured that all the edges are perpendicular to each other.

Here is the base plate set in place under the other engine parts:

Then some planning time. You can see two vertical lines drawn on the crosshead guide support block at the lower center in the previous picture. Those lines represent the distance in from the sides that I can drill/tap for some screws to hold the block to the guide tube, while staying outside of the path of the crosshead itself. The tube is pretty thin, so drilling partway through and tapping the shallow holes would only give a thread or two at most, not enough since this joint will be supporting all the forces on the pistons/cylinders. So, moving them outboard of the crosshead will let me drill through from underneath, and tap the full thickness of the tube, and trim off the end of the screw inside the tube.

That brings up the next challenge - holding the blocks to the tubes, in proper alignment, to drill the screw holes. Went back and forth with the elves on that one, and settled on this approach. I clamped the blocks to the tubes from the outside with a large pair of welding clamps that have V grooves in the jaw faces to grip on the top of the tube. They were clamped with the base plate underneath to align the bottom faces of the blocks to each other, but the clamps were not on the base plate itself.

With the large clamps holding things, I then put on a pair of smaller clamps on each tube, with a brass flat bar inside the tube to prevent the clamps from marring the surface that the guide slides on. The larger clamps were removed.

A view showing the flat bar inside the tube:

And yet another check of the alignment of the blocks with a straightedge:

So, all ready to drill/tap for the screws. First, I put a drop of wicking grade locktite on the joints between the blocks and the tubes, just to ensure nothing moves from the pressure of the drilling. This is a key alignment to the engine, so better to take the extra time to 'glue' the parts together. I'll let that set up overnight before drilling.  After these parts are screwed together, I can clamp the whole assembly to the base plate and drill for screws to hold the blocks to the baseplate.
 

[wagnmkr]

I needed a nap after reading that sequence!!!! Do you lay awake at night thinking about all this stuff??

 

Tom

[crueby]

I needed a nap after reading that sequence!!!! Do you lay awake at night thinking about all this stuff??

 

Tom

Sometimes!   

[crueby]

Another video to go with the post this morning - shots of the Lombard log hauler and trucks playing in the snow. The steamer is not great on steering without the iced ruts that the loggers would put down with a trail grooming wagon that Lombard devised as well.
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--h2w52IjHk" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--h2w52IjHk</a>

[bent]

Catching up again - great progress, Chris! 

What a hoot it must be to see all that steam in the cold weather! 

I wish we could get some snow, at least up in the mountains.  I paid money for a cross-country ski pass again this year, but the snow is still quite thin, enough that we might be in trouble (water rationing) come summer - a lot of our summer water supply comes from snowpack. 

[crueby]

Catching up again - great progress, Chris! 

What a hoot it must be to see all that steam in the cold weather! 

I wish we could get some snow, at least up in the mountains.  I paid money for a cross-country ski pass again this year, but the snow is still quite thin, enough that we might be in trouble (water rationing) come summer - a lot of our summer water supply comes from snowpack.

Road trip! Plenty of snow here in the northeast. Feel free to take some back home...

[crueby]

Got the holes drilled/counterbored/tapped in the crosshead guide base blocks:

Here they are ready to reassemble back on the cylinders so I can lay out the holes to hold the blocks to the base plate:

But first, I got the cylinder assembly sealed up with some jb weld on the center block edges and all bolted back together. I'll let that cure overnight before putting the guides back on. Close to the point where I can put in the pistons and seal up the cylinders for good!