Chris's Slew-Crowd Engines

[crueby]

Thanks guys!   

[crueby]

And Mr Steamy Von Moose is now a much happier moose with his antlers on!

They are held on with a couple dowels and glue. I need to let the glue set up some more, then I can do the final tufts of fur around the base of the antlers. After that I'll take it him outside for a couple coats of lacquer sealer. The sealer controls how much the thinned paint wash soaks into the wood, giving a lot more control over the tones. I use Liquitex acrylic artists paints on the carvings, learned my techniques from the bird carving books that Floyd Scholz wrote - a master bird carver with great teachings in his books.

[Kim]

Mr Steamy Von Moose looks quite pleased with his new antlers! 

Very nice, Chris!

Kim

[crueby]

Mr Steamy Von Moose looks quite pleased with his new antlers! 

Very nice, Chris!

Kim

Thanks  Kim!  He just got his seal coat and is basking out in the sunshine to dry. That lacquer is  stinky stuff.

[Michael S.]

Very nice 

[cnr6400]

  Looking great!  Has he said anything about the reception on the antlers yet? 

[crueby]

Looking great!  Has he said anything about the reception on the antlers yet? 

Something about cartoons with a flying squirrel...

[Michael S.]

Once more regarding the paddle steamer engine:

I posed a question regarding the engine to the steamship crew in Dresden, specifically concerning the condensate and feedwater pump.
Their response:

"Hello, the *Diesbar* utilizes jet condensation. For boiler feeding, we draw directly from the river—or alternatively, take condensate from the cistern—and pump it straight back into the boiler using the engine-driven feedwater pump. The *Diesbar* does not have a water treatment system; we rely solely on the conditioning agent Fineamin. A boiler wash must be performed every 400 operating hours; this means the boiler is cleaned on the water side to remove deposits and impurities. To accomplish this, the stoker climbs inside the boiler and cleans it manually using appropriate tools—just as was done 100 years ago. There is no storage tank."

Michael

[crueby]

Once more regarding the paddle steamer engine:

I posed a question regarding the engine to the steamship crew in Dresden, specifically concerning the condensate and feedwater pump.
Their response:

"Hello, the *Diesbar* utilizes jet condensation. For boiler feeding, we draw directly from the river—or alternatively, take condensate from the cistern—and pump it straight back into the boiler using the engine-driven feedwater pump. The *Diesbar* does not have a water treatment system; we rely solely on the conditioning agent Fineamin. A boiler wash must be performed every 400 operating hours; this means the boiler is cleaned on the water side to remove deposits and impurities. To accomplish this, the stoker climbs inside the boiler and cleans it manually using appropriate tools—just as was done 100 years ago. There is no storage tank."

Michael

Excellent information Michael!  I'll add that to my notes. I was assuming that it used a water tank like ships in saltwater do, this makes sense for a ship in a freshwater river. Also I had not thought of the jet condensation method, the last couple engines I looked at had cooling tubes. The jet method is just like some of the Brunel ships I've been reading about recently. Thanks!!

[crueby]

Yesterday I got the moose clear coated and ready for paint. But, the clear added a little bit of a yellowish cast to the antlers, and deepened the brown colors on the fur/hair sections, and I really like the combination as is. Not going to do any more painting on it! So, got it hung in place in the window opening to the Engine Room that opens into the room next door - used to be an exterior window there till I added the Engine Room last year. This is Steamy Von Moose's new home! The horses you can see in the background are not my carvings. They were done years ago by the past owner of a local amusement park - he carved miniature replicas of the full size horses in their carousel and sold them.

And, yesterday and this afternoon I knocked out a new steady rest. Here it is next to the original Sherline one that came with my lathe. As you can see, the new one is MUCH larger. The original one was fine for the base lathe, could hold up to about a 1-1/4" diameter workpiece. With my lathe set up with riser blocks (Sherline accessories), I can turn much larger diameters. On my Diesbar build, and later on with the Brunel engines, I'm going to want to have a steady rest that can handle up to a 3" or so diameter. I'll be mounting the cylinders on a faceplate, but I need a way to support and guide the blanks to face the ends, without risking them coming off the chuck. So, I dug out some ball bearings, some brass flat bar chunks, and picked up a 1" thick piece of large diameter aluminum pipe from McMaster-Carr. A little milling of grooves and drilling/tapping, and its a bigger steady rest.

With that done, I'm ready to wrap up this build thread, and should be starting the Diesbar build tomorrow!   

We had a fantastic run today at the pond with the RC submarines to kick off the new summer season outdoors. Absolutely perfect weather, warm sun, light breeze, great turnout, dives equalled surfacings! The pond was really full, we had a lot of rain this spring, and another gully washer yesterday as the storm that postponed qualifying at the Indy 500 rolled its way east and past us. The owner of the property treats the pond so no Weed Monster in residence to grab onto subs/propellors, and he has big shade trees and a barn right next to the pond. Perfect plave to run.

[steam guy willy]

Hi "C". the moose is looking great and I also need to make one of those work holding devices   

Willy

[crueby]

Hi "C". the moose is looking great and I also need to make one of those work holding devices   

Willy

Thanks  Willy!  Hard to see in the picture of the  steady rest, each brass bar sits in a recess in the ring so it can't  twist. I found some bearings that have the center tube wider than the outer race, so the screw can clamp it in place while letting the outer ring spin freely. They were made as skate wheel bearings.

[Kim]

Yes! The color on Steamy Von Moose's antlers look great!  Just the right color.  Matches all the moose I've ever seen, anyway! 

The big steady rest looks great too!  It'll be fun to see you break that one in soon on your next project!

Kim

[bent]

Catching up after a long vacation trip.  Monsignor Moose looks quite happy with his new headgear, and the engines are awesome to watch.  Great job on both, Chris! 

[crueby]

Thanks guys!