Pacific Vapor Engine from Morrison & Marvin Castings

[Dave Otto]

Roland, thanks for posting the pictures of the 4 post oilers. IJnze was an amazing model engineer and craftsman; I'm glad that I had the chance to meet him during one of his visits to the states.
At this point I don't see any way around it, my Pacific is going to need a pair of 4 post oilers to be properly complete.

Dave

[RolandMM]

Dave,

Marvin must be having cold weather because he has more shop time.  He has taken your four post oiler drawing and cut a mold.  The first picture is a graphite electrode used to make the cavity. Graphite is very abrasive and he uses a diamond coated endmill to cut it.

Most of the cavity can be machined with a small ball endmill but the corners of the hex would not be sharp.

Marvin, being a perfectionist, then machines a graphite electrode and using an EDM finishes the cavity.

The second picture shows the mold before the gates are cut in.

I will get the wax pot hot....

Roland

[Dave Otto]

Roland, thanks for sharing the pictures; looks like Marvin is making great progress!

A little history; a while back a couple 4 post oilers made their way from Benton City, WA to my shop. One is an Essex and the other an American Lubricator Co. The Essex would have been original equipment on the Kansas City Lightning engine among others. The American built oilers were used on the Union engines and proper equipment on a number of very early engines including the Pacific Vapor Engine.

The two oilers are very similar in construction; the Essex has round upper and lower plates. While the American Lubricator Co. plates have a more contoured shape; also the sight glass retainers are somewhat different between the two.


Here is the original American Lubricator Co. oiler.


The American Lubricator Co. oiler was carefully dissembled.


All the parts were cleaned; note the differences in the plates and sight glass retainers between the two oilers.


Each piece was measured and scaled to approximately ¼ then modeled in Geomagic Design.

Here are a couple shots of the completed assembly; the size will be very close to the ones in the pictures Roland posted a while back that IJnze had made.


Here is a start on the valve spindles; the large one which is the shutoff valve has a 3-48 thread. Then smaller metering valve has a 2-56 thread.

I’m looking forward to getting some more work on completed on these little guys and think that they are going to look real nice on the engine.

Thanks for checking in.
Dave

[Kim]

Wow Dave, that's pretty cool, and amazingly authentic
You're going to have top-notch oilers for this engine, that's for sure!
Kim

[Dave Otto]

Hi Everyone

Kim thanks for the nice comments!
Marvin finished the mold for the oiler bodies and sent it to Roland’s Place in WA. I think, without spraying any melted wax on the ceiling; Roland was able to create the beautiful little wax oiler bodies pictured here.

Beautiful detail in these little guys.

The next step will be to send the waxes to the foundry and have them cast in brass or bronze; not exactly sure which alloy at this time.
Hopefully in the near future I will be able to share some pictures of the castings.
Thanks for checking in.
Dave

[Don1966]

Cool Dave, those look very promising and love the rendering of the oiler...........


 

Don

[b.lindsey]

Those are sweet Dave. Can't wait to see how the castings turn out.

Bill

[fumopuc]

Hi Dave, looking great. Waiting for the castings. I like the lost form casting with wax, it gives always a smooth surface.

[RolandMM]

Dave,  Good pictures.  How do you keep your hands so clean?

Notice this wax is brown because the only green wax I have left is on the ceiling where Marvin sprayed it.  The splendid green wax is not made anymore but brown seems to be satisfactory.

Notice the finish on the oiler body compared to the gate which is smooth.  Because the sharp corner on the hex is impossible to machine in a mold,  Marvin cut a graphite so an EDM could finish the cavity and make a sharp corner.  This also left a very nice finish on the surface which is copied exactly in the wax.

The gate used for wax injection was left long so the foundry could also use it for attachment to their tree when casting.  It will be cut off after casting as it will not be required as a chucking lug.

My favorite foundry, Schuber & Sons, in City of Industry, California, has closed because of health reasons.  I have sent sample waxes to several more foundrys and perhaps will find one that will do quality work.

We need a free machining brass, like alloy 360, because this piece has many tiny, intersecting holes.  Not sure what alloy I can get because most foundries use silicon bronze which pours easily.  It is really tough and needs sharp tools to machine.  You handy at sharpening #54 drills?  I can't either.

I will get enough castings to try, you need to think of some vise soft jaws to hold them at the correct angles.

This will be easy once we figure it out....

Roland

[Tennessee Whiskey]

I don't know if this will be any help, but, there is a very old foundry in Clarksville, Tn that does a lot of work for the Civil War crowd. I've no t personally had any work done there, but, a friend of mine drives from Virginia for their service. clarksvillefoundry.com

Cletus

[RolandMM]

Cletus, Thank you for the lead on a great foundry.  They appear to do interesting, good quality work.  I contacted them and they do not do investment casting.  They may be useful for sand cast projects and they will consider short run items.

Roland

[kvom]

You could have had these  made by Shapeways  by just uploading an STL  file.  Was that a consideration?

[Dave Otto]

Thanks for all the nice comments guys,

Seems that there is always something getting in the way but we do have some nice 360 brass castings to play with. One of the foundries that Roland tried; made these castings which look wonderful. I haven’t had time to do any work on them yet; but hope to in the very near future.



There is going to be a lot of work and different operations completing these little guys.


Kirk, I hadn’t initially thought about Shapeways and that may have been an option. It is kind of funny they call the bronze parts “printed” but they are really investment castings just like these. They do print the waxes though. It would be fun to have some made to compare but from looking at the web site it seems that it would be costly to get a couple of them made. Does anybody have any experience with Shapeways, cost and small parts? It would be interesting to see if they would accept waxes and only do the casting.


Dave

[zeeprogrammer]

They look great.

The only experience I've had with Shapeways is with some sinter plastic. So I can't comment much other than I know a couple of fellows who use them and are satisfied.

[Don1966]

Those look great Dave for casting. Were they made by lost wax method? They look like some kind of valve.

Don