Another Stuart Major Beam Engine ( some comments and photos)

[Chipswitheverything]

Have been passing a wet and cold day here rummaging around in my photo files for what I may have as a record of the building of my Major beam engine.
The castings were bought back in 1989, and are from the original Stuart Turner foundry as far as I know.  The quality of them was not as good as the castings that I had had in 1979 for making the No 1 engine.
  As with my vertical engine featured here, a lot of the machining has been done before the digital age, and set ups have gone unrecorded. The photos that I do have of the later stages and components have only been taken as record shots with no thought of making them public, so please bear with some rather poor photography done with an ancient digital camera!
  I have enjoyed a good look at the build log that Andy ( Chipmaster) has been writing up, and his good work on the castings covers most of what I might have attempted to illustrate on that anyway.  Alan ( Steamhead) has indicated a lot of the drawing errors that Stuart has strewn in the path of builders.  I've got a couple more...

  As Alan himself has said, when the rather long job of building this beam engine is already mostly done, where do you begin in trying to do a write up?

Well, what might be as good as anything may be to bung in a few photos to get things under way, and add more pictures and remarks over a period of time.
 If there are aspects of the build or individual components that members are interested in particularly, do bring them up and I'll see if I have photos concerning those items.  Otherwise, I'll just chunter on......!
 
 Presently the whole engine is dismantled and the castings have been masked off and mostly sprayed with filler primer, - so they are not really accessible for extra photography.
 Before the model came to bits before Christmas, I grabbed a few shots of the unpainted engine assembled  - more or less - on it's simple plywood box that made a base to build the thing up on. These are the first couple of photos.

I'd made the parallel motion links way back when I first got the castings:   though I was doing other model engineering projects I just couldn't wait to see how they'd look!  For ages, that was the only bits of this engine that I had done, kept them propped up on a shelf to remind me to make the rest of it!

The governor has been made fairly recently, got some pics of that.  An interesting sub- assembly as one might say ( through gritted teeth...)  I haven't modified the height overall, as although it might thereby miss the flywheel, it seemed to me that it was still going to clobber the forked end of the con-rod with little extra travel gained.  To be honest, I'm not entirely convinced that it will effectively govern the speed anyway, but others may be able to answer that one...

The stop valve and lubricator...   quite fun to make!

More later on, cheers, Dave

[Chipswitheverything]

Whoops, didn't put the stop valve picture up.....    sorry!

[zeeprogrammer]

Nice stuff!

I don't even know where to begin...the governor, that handwheel, and a bunch of stuff I don't know the names of.

 

[jeff l]

great job

[10KPete]

Beautiful engine, Dave! Great detail and attention to fit and finish. I could stare at that for hours just soaking up the little
'engineering' things like the way the bearings adjust on the two short drop arms; a strap with the wedge at one end. Cool!

Pete

[fumopuc]

Hi Dave, this engine looks very well done. Nice details are shown.

[Chipmaster]

Hello Dave, another Stuart Major, this is like buses - you wait ages then along come a stream of them together!
It is both reassuring and an inspiration to see your excellent model. I am sure craftsmanship like that pictured on the MEM website has a benchmarking effect. You bought the castings in 1989 and I bought mine in 2013 it seems Stuart Major builders don't rush things. May I ask what machine tools you have?
Andy

[Chipswitheverything]

Many thanks for your interest and generous comments guys.
  Andy, I'll put up some workshop photos in the Workshop thread, that might be the best way to feature the machines.  Any members who are already familiar with the Yahoo forum for Tom Senior mills can skip looking at the pictures, they will already be bored with having seen them before!  For any member with a Tom Senior mill who hasn't found that particular forum, it's a very handy resource, a lot of helpful people and info...

Cheers, Dave

[Don1966]

Nicely done engine Dave and great attention to details. Lovely work...........

Don

[Dave Otto]

Beautiful engine Dave!

The governor is spectacular and your attention to detail on all the parts really shows.
It is going to be a stunning model when finished.

Dve

[scc]

It's already all been said,   an outstanding engine and an inspiration to a  lot of us.   Very well done.          Terry

[cwelkie]

Simply gorgeous!  I'm glad we got to see it before (and hopefully) after paint.

[Chipswitheverything]

Hi Guys, I've taken a few more photos of dismantled bits of the beam engine.   Here are a few shots of the steamchest which will illustrate a snag that I met up with.
  Made the valve rod with its cap like end to the drawing, rod seems to be the right length, but Houdini wouldn't get it in to the steamchest without bending it with pliers!  ( I'm using 1980's drawings, by the way, just a chance that later issues have dealt with some of my points...? )
 So, I drilled and threaded a fine pitch screwed hole in the bottom of the casting, 3/8" dia. I think, and have made a bronze plug that will go in when the engine is finally assembled.  Won't really be visible when all is done.

 I didn't have the almost illegible "errata" sheet that has been mentioned, but luckily I twigged that something was wrong with the length of the long fish-bellied eccentric rod that runs most of the length along the engine to meet up with the hand-lever.
 Like Alan did when he met up with the problem, I did a lash-up to get a measurement from the engine itself.  Made up a couple of wooden laths that fitted the eccentric strap and the pin on the lever, and mucked about with the bits of wood clamped with a couple of little toolmakers clamps until I was happy that the lever swung equally about the vertical position, and the links also moved on equal arcs about the horizontal and didn't clobber anything.  Just measured off from the wooden bits then, of course.  That long fish-bellied rod isn't an easy component, you'd really have something to moan about if you made it the wrong length thanks to the dwgs!

The valve links were drilled off and pinned with the taper pins after their positions along the rod that sits in the little bronze bearings was taken from the engine itself, with the rest of the valve gear rigged up.  Working from the hole positions given by Stuart could result in binding - they are not necessarily wrong, but you do need to see how the assembly sets up on your own engine.   I used my Finger Plate to the George Thomas / Hemingway design to do a holding set up to drill for the taper pins, as shown.

I think that the Stuart drawings are in error when it comes to the pinned longitudinal position of the hand lever at the end of this valve link shaft.  Having cut the small keyway, I did drill and pin the lever where they had indicated, and later found that the pin on the lever was well out of line with my eccentric rod, - had to move the lever inboard and re-drill.  So leave that job until you have the rod and lifting "gab"  ( and the eccentric on the crankshaft! ) to do the alignment with.

Need for coffee calls, I think!,  laters....

[smfr]

Very interesting, I haven't seen that kind of valve rod/valve setup before. The plug seems like a fine solution to the problem!

I wish we had one place where we could keep track of errors in plans. I keep having vague memories of reading about errors in Stuart plans, but can never find them again. Perhaps we could have a curated section here on MEM?

Simon

[Chipswitheverything]

Here is another view of the drilling on the Finger Plate, which might make it clearer.   Dave