Chris's Slew-Crowd Engines

[cnr6400]

  Fingers crossed here!

[Kim]

Great pictures showing the effects of lapping on the valves.  Very interesting!   

Kim

[crueby]

Thanks guys! 

Got some playtime in the shop this afternoon, and got the Thew engine buttoned up and spent about an hour getting the timing tweaked to make it run well in both directions. A few eccentric angle changes, and one cylinder needed the centering adjusted by one turn. It was pretty close on first try, but had a lope in one direction. Here is a video of it running, as the shop apprenticelf checks it off his list:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im8eqCCLV-c" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im8eqCCLV-c</a>
       

That nearly completes this build - still want to make up a set of cylinder drain valves that look better than the hex head screws that are plugging the holes now! They work, but don't look very appropriate. Also need to touch up some paint in a couple places. Then I'll set up an air hose to go to the whole line of engines at once, and see if the compressor can drive them all together. Should work since the radial engine I did a while back had about the same total displacement as these engines. Could do that now, but I want to have all the parts complete for the grand run! One more day should do it. Thanks for following along so far!
 

[cnr6400]

  The Thew engine's a runner too! Very smooth. 

I see the supervisor showed up after all the work was done! Never saw that before... much.... 

[crueby]

The Thew engine's a runner too! Very smooth. 

I see the supervisor showed up after all the work was done! Never saw that before... much.... 

Check your spelling - its "stupervisor"!   

[crueby]

And we are there! Got the drain valves made, just a small turned globe-valve shape with a length of screw loctited in, too small to be practical so they are just dummy valves. Painted them, touched up a few scrapes here and there, and got them plumbed up with a common air line. I can run them on my compressor all at once for a little under a minute before the pressure drops too much. The compressor cannot keep up with refilling the tank with all four going, and I had to take the needle valve out of the air line since even wide open it was restricting the flow too much.
First some videos of them all running:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE1n4puVqiE" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE1n4puVqiE</a>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPA-_UWsC4k" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPA-_UWsC4k</a>
And pictures of them all:

Marion:

Erie:

Bucyrus:

And the Thew:

That completes this build. Been a really fun one! I need to decide where they will go on the display cabinets. Either in front or above the Marion steam shovel in the shop, or somewhere in the Engine Room. Not sure yet.

And I know a question would be coming soon: what's next? Well, one that I've been wanting to do for a long time is the oscillating engine from the Diesbar paddle steamer. Michael helped me a LOT with details and pictures of the real thing, which runs on the river near him in Germany. A very interesting engine, uses the Penn valve gear with a slip eccentric for reversing. Here is a CAD drawing of what I've come up with:

I also have the paddlewheels themselves drawn up, would like to model at least one of those to go with the model. They would take up a lot of space to have both on the engine, they are a much larger diameter, but interesting since they have the paddle feathering mechanism on them.
Thanks to all who followed along!    Chris

[cnr6400]

   

[mklotz]

I follow the HomemadeTools.net forum closely and so get update emails almost daily.  So I was surprised to see a note today about material in its new offshoot, BuildThreads.com...

https://buildthreads.com/thread/11918?utm_source=hmtemail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mailing3&utm_content=84469#84469

Apparently, their bot is monitoring your excellent documentation of this latest project.  Just thought you ought to know.

The engines are simply spectacular.  Lots to learn from your descriptions, especially about the techniques and economies of making several similar models at the same time.

I'm really looking forward to the paddle wheel project.

[Admiral_dk]

Fascinating Journey Chris 

Thank you for sharing it all 

Per 

[Oberst Oswald]

Appreciate witnessing your amazing talent and will be following the paddle steamer engine build closely.

[Dave Otto]

Lots of nice work represented there Chris!
Congrats on all four of them running!

Dave

[crueby]

Thanks  very much guys!


Marv, thats an interesting  summary site of different  build threads, had not seen it had.  For the paddlewheel  on the Diesbar, I'll  include pics of the wheel design when I  start that thread.




 

[Michael S.]

Hi Chris,

All the motors turned out absolutely excellently. And it’s great to see how everything moves and works.

Your next project can begin.

Michael

[crueby]

Thanks Michael!  Been looking forward to the Diesbar build!  I've been trading some emails with CNR about ways to do the cylinders, I think we have a good method worked out. Should be starting that thread in a couple days, I have some things to re-arrange in the workshops, and need to study the plans again. 

[Kim]

Beautiful job on all the engines, Chris!  Well done! 

It's interesting to me that the Bucyrus seems to jump around quite a bit more than the others, even though they are all so similar.


Looking forward to the Diesbar paddle wheel build!

Kim