2" Minnie Traction Engine

[packmule]

Few more pictures for you.
 After fitting the hornplates I set about the bearing blocks for the various shafts. These were all cut from solid steel milled down to size  and shaped on rotary table. Rather than have steel on steel I fitted bronze bushes to all. Just for inspiration I fitted the various gears, winding drum, brake drum and the front end. Quite pleased with the look so far.
Now its the rear wheels. Bit of a disaster in a way in that the castings are 10mm too big for the lathe so its off to the mill.
I glued 2 pieces of 12mm ply and cut a disk larger than req'd to take the rim, bolted to the rotary table and fly cut the top to make it flat. That done it was a case of bolting down the rim and centering. Lots and lots of light cuts and we are getting there but its slow going.

[Kim]

Great to see an update on your Minnie!   

The gears look great!  And your solution of using the RT on the mill for the rear wheels seems like a good solution to me.

Keep the progress coming!
Kim

[Admiral_dk]

Nice progress and parts 

I like that you found a solution that allows you to do it with what you got   

Per

[packmule]

Thanks Kim, Per for your kind comments,

One of my aims when I started to build was to try and not use any castings (or as  few as possible)  and to complete all the work myself using solid.
The thought being how much I could learn from my successes and failures. Thankfully any failures have only been small parts easy to remake. The only metalwork I had done was at school over 50 yrs ago so the amount I have learnt from forums such as this and the books i've  read has really paid off and I'm pleased with the results, not perfect but acceptable to me.

So big thanks to all contributors and the work continues.   

[packmule]

After a lot of machining first rim is done.
Had a break from all the turning on the rotary table and stated the hubs. Again done on the mill using DRO to round the ends. I originally tried to do the hubs in one piece which ended in disaster so I  decided to fabricate them as you can see in the pictures.
It was too cold yesterday to go in the workshop do spent a bit of time with the printer and made a jig for drilling the spokes which turned out perfect, nice when things go to plan.

[packmule]

Missed picture of hub soldered together

[Kim]

Hubs are looking good!  As is the spoke jig!  That's a great use of 3D printing! 

Kim

[packmule]

Finally,

After more turning of the rotary table than I would like to count the rear wheels are complete ( minus tyres ). This has taken forever and 1 mill motor which overheated and melted the insulation inside.

Rather than a lot of bashing with a hammer and snap I decided to make a squeezer for all the rivets on the spokes and the rim. It worked brilliantly and rivets were squeezed up in seconds and not a hammer in sight. I decided it was pointless making strakes and riveting them as the intension was always to fit tyres so saved a bit of time and metal there.
Once done I couldn't resist putting bits together just for pure satisfaction.

[crueby]

Wheels came out fantastic!   

[Kim]

Very nice!  And a lovely little rivet squeezer too! 

Kim

[cnr6400]

  It's lookin good. 

[packmule]

Thanks for all your kind comments.

Some of the rivets aren't perfect but I can live with that. Now I can start another part which wont take as long and it should start to come together

[packmule]

Starting to machine the cylinder block. The plans state to use gunmetal for the cylinder liner is this the best way to go or would you suggest something else ?

[crueby]

If the piston head is steel or cast iron I'd use bearing bronze (not silicon bronze, the bearing bronze is a lot easier to work). 'Gunmetal' is kind of a catchall term, depends what year and what country you are in what it really means, from what I've seen.

[Jasonb]

Rather depends on what you are doing for the cylinder and rings as the book/plans are based on using GM castings for both cylinder and liner and the use of a silicon ring.

If GM cylinder then a piece of hollow 660 leaded bronze bar would be my choice and that will work well with Viton or silicon rings.

Liner cut from grade 250 cast iron bar would be a good option particularly if it is an iron cylinder and you want to use iron rings. Fit with high temp 648 Loctite.