Engines > From Kits/Castings

The Bolton No 5 Vertical Open Column Steam Engine

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MJM460:
So far all the engines I have built have been my own design and made from Bar stock.

A little while back, I was given a set of castings for the Bolton no 5 vertical open column steam engine, a very generous and much appreciated gift.  So this will be my next build.

It came with a booklet of construction notes, but unfortunately the plan was missing.  However, a phone call to E J Winter in NSW soon had the plan on the way.  This was pretty good service, as the castings seem to be no longer listed on the web site.

I don’t know if this engine is well known to forum members from the Northern hemisphere.  O. Burnaby Bolton started selling model engineering supplies in Australia around 1920, and continued through to his death around 1974.  The business was purchased, but the new owners sold it on to E and J Winter about 1978, who continued to operate until their retirement about 2016.  The new owner, Ben De Gabriel, continues to operate under the E and J Winter name, and still sells casting sets for some of the original Bolton designs.

The original Bolton drawing from 1951 had some construction notes in a side panel.  Ernest Winter redrew the plan in 1981, and followed up with a booklet of revised construction notes in 1995.  So that is briefly where this engine came from.

The box contained all the castings necessary to build the model, but left me to supply fasteners, and rods for piston and valve rods and columns.  Most of the material required was found in my store of supplies, so I feel that it was pretty well complete.  When I received the castings, some reference surfaces had machined, and as I am confident that these will have been done well, it was a great help to a beginner to castings to have these surfaces as a starting point.

I have learned from the experts on this forum that the first step with an engine from castings is lots of casting fondling, so that activity kept me busy in the many necessary breaks from trouble shooting that governor circuit.  The castings seemed to be good quality with enough metal for all the parts as designed. 

The plans have both metric and imperial dimensions to suit the various user groups for this model.  Older modellers apparently prefer imperial to suit their tooling if they have been at the game for a long time while schools, and people newer to the hobby, like me, often have mostly metric tooling.  I did a careful check of the metric dimensions by constructing assembly drawings so I could easily check the chains of dimensions that go over multiple parts.  This was instructive in highlighting the critical dimensions and clearances.  The process highlighted some dimensions that I chose to modify to make it easier to make with the tools and skills I have, and I chose to use metric fasteners, and mostly metric threads.  In the end, I don’t think I identified any real errors, and little changes I made were more the inevitable result of my deliberate adjustments.   I concentrated more on choosing dimensions that would work, rather than identifying discrepancies in the original dimensions.  Probably more accurate to say I have not done a detailed drawing check, as would be necessary for a precision scale model, just a rationality check that it would all fit together with the small adjustments I felt I had to make.  Somewhat tedious process, but a great introduction to the build for me, and a very necessary step.  I will touch on some of the more critical items at the appropriate point in the build.

Enough introduction, it’s time to get making chips.  I have attached a photo of the castings as received, sitting on the plan which gives an idea of the style of engine.  It is 16 mm bore and stroke, with a cantilever slide bar style cross head.  It has a slide valve, driven by a single eccentric and a marine style flywheel, with a low profile cast baseplate.

I hope you enjoy following my first venture into castings.

MJM460

propforward:
I’ve always thoroughly enjoyed your engines, and I have no doubt that this will be a superb build. I shall enjoy following along very much.

Ramon Wilson:
Hi MJM,

As I progress slowly toward the end of my current build I'd just like to wish you well on the start of your new journey. It might be a tad smaller than the Corliss but never the less 'journey' it will be so good luck for a successful outcome :ThumbsUp:

All the best

Kind Regards - Tug

iancchesney:
Hi MJM
It looks very similar to the E T Westbury Trojan engine available from AJ Reeves in th UK.
Regards
Ian

Sent from my SM-J330FN using Tapatalk

Zephyrin:
hi
it looks to be a cute model...

at a glance at the plan shown I would make the columns a tad larger as they look a bit flimsy, and without these awful adjusting nuts for height, you can turn 4 identical columns !

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