Myers Model engine works Murdoch single cylinder

[55fairlane]

At last years Indiana Model Engine Show i met Mr John Jensen, he purchased Myers Model engine works & is offering the entire catalog.





I am going to build the single cylinder murdoch. This is a large engine with an 7 inch flywheel, 1¼ bore X 2½ stroke. https://myersengineworks.com/product/murdoch-vertical-oscillating/ note the 6 inch scale under the flywheel for size comparison. Same engine pictured on his business card

My initial inspection of the castings is not quite applicable as most of my kit is a "2nds". I believe the exseive casting flash is the reason for these being 2nds, none the less these will clean up nicely and should machine nicly. these castings are made off the original molds Norbert Keeley had made in 70's when he designed the engine. The kit includes base, 2 uprights, upper bearing blocks, flywheel, cylinder and cylinder heads, intake manifold , crankshaft throw & 3 pages of drawings.



A note about the drawings, these are hand done to the standard of the late 60's/early 70's . No tolerances given. No "finished surfaces called out. No reference dimensions. Study these carefully, even i a master machinist find these hard to follow at times.

[55fairlane]

Step one.....using this very sharp & corse file, start to fettle the uprights while think about how I want to tackle the base & uprights. I have a basic idea , but want a more complete thought before starting.



Please be very careful with sharp edges on your tools, my thumb was the guest of honor at a blood letting ceremony

[55fairlane]

I knew the base and uprights are "table work" , but as the world's laziest tool make it did not want you pull the vise, so I swapped the jaw to the outside position, grabbed some parallels and the tooling plate I made early in my apprenticeship.......instant table, and the vise is still on the machine....



I got the base mounted and tried up as best I could with an indicator. After I get the bottom of the casting tried up, I will use a long endmill and clean up the casting flash.


All was going splendid until the thunderstorm caused a power outage. *SIGH* oh well go inside and cuddle with the dogs

[55fairlane]

Haven't gotten a whole lot done, between the race shop (work) , the home improvement the wife found (painting a room) and the lawn (that first of the season cut & clean up. I hate lawn work.)

I 1st mounted the base casting upside down and cut it flat. After pulling the clamps, I found the base wasn't flat. After pondering "how do I cut this flat with the use of clamps? The clamps will twist the base and once I take it loose, it ain't flat anymore " I tried the woodworking trick.....I burnished painters tape on both halfs, and used super glue.....took ten thou cuts....perfectly flat. Turned the casting over and machined the bottom flat.


Hopefully tomorrow I can figure out how the clamp the base down and start to machine the features called out on the "suggestion "

[CI]

 

[Sanjay F]

That's interesting as I was looking at this model and also a similar one available in the UK supplied by AJ Reeeves, but formally Hemmingway's (see picture). I did in fact get the castings and had similar issues with the quality of some parts, but they are replacing all of the dodgy ones.

I like both these engines so will be following your build with interest 

[55fairlane]

Sanjay.....can I post a pink to that engine,  i looked and don't see it.....this is not a little engine , this should prove to be a lot of fun....

[Jasonb]

Its a bit of a case of six of one and half a dozen of the other.

The Hemmingway kit tries to better replicate the old original engravings of the Hick engine but as many have found the castings can't replicate the detail at that size.

The Myers one is considerably larger but also unfortunaley omits the finer details eg no vertical flutes at the top of the A frames

So really chose a scale an dadd any detail you feel is missing, I think there is a thread on here where that was done in teh case of the flutes a pocket was milled to remove th epoor cast detail and a new machined piece bonded in.

https://www.hemingwaykits.com/category-100

https://www.modelenginemaker.com/index.php/topic,9227.0.html

[Sanjay F]

Now that's a good idea re. the flutes, I'll have to take a look at that! Look at the difference between these 2 castings from the same kit, they are replacing the less good quality and one and the flywheel

EDIT: also looks like Jo has already bulit one, a few years ago!

https://www.modelenginemaker.com/index.php/topic,9443.0.html

[Jasonb]

Do you mean they are replacing the less good quality one and the even worse one

I know some people like castings as they want the "texture" but that flywheel is taking things a bit far.

[Sanjay F]

Hopefully I'll get a matching pair of the left hand one, but yeah I get your meaning......

They must have bought the entire Hemmingway stock and are now having to deal with people like me calling up and asking for replacement parts. They said they usually ask for the dodgy parts back for assessment, but when I sent them the pictures, they didn't question it 

I know its not a large selection, but I do like the Hemmingway steam engines

[55fairlane]

Thank you all for the build theads as I did a deap dive into to this engine and the history of it. Your engines are much more detailed them mine....time to think how to pretty it up

[55fairlane]

Finally an update....after a week of severe thunderstorms & near misses with tornadoes, we headed to Chicago to the science and industry museum, a must go! A real Zephyr train, space capsules, race cars and the gem U505! Areal U Boat!




I did manage to get the base plate drilled, I opted to drill thru, so the bolts will come from underneath and be hidden, I also drilled for dowl pins, for easy alignment.


Next up was one of the 2 bearing pillars, all was going will until I took a test to determine over all leanth, took a slim facing cut on both ends and nope not gonna clean up....and debating on cut under size or ?? I decided to build up the surface with everyone's favorite disaster in a tube....JB Weld.....let it cure as I make dinner

[Sanjay F]

That U-boat is amazing, I do like a submarine.....

Build is coming along I'm now appreciating the size of it, a lot bigger! 

[55fairlane]

That U-boat is amazing, I do like a submarine.....

Build is coming along I'm now appreciating the size of it, a lot bigger! 

The upright columns or pedestal bearing supports finish at 5⅞ tall ....yes this is a bigger engine....

I have had the privilege of touring the submarine USS Drum & battleship USS Alabama....also a must see.

[crueby]

Excellent progress!  And that sub looks great, have not gotten to Chicago yet, other than in the airport. On my list. The ships at Fall River in Massachussetts are well worth the trip too. And the Liberty Ship down in Baltimore that you can take a day cruise on (next on is this fall I think).

[55fairlane]

Finally I got around to doing more work on the one bearing stand/pillar ( I dislike lawn care, and my neighbors live to worship their lawn, mow, trim, spray for weeds, give the neighborhood busy body the finger & clean up dog poop)

So the top side needed 2 applications of epoxy and the bottom side cleaned up 100% ....that's when I noticed it was after 730pm and I haven't showered or eat since 630 this morning, so I knocked off for the evening

[55fairlane]

Progress has come to complete halt (engine room full stop.....engine room reports full stop)......I went to put this in the casting, and wanted to know how deap to make the self for the bearing (that supports one end of the cylinder) my little in my head voice (no not the one the psychiatrist warned me about) said, add the numbers up and check them to the center line of the out board bearing/cylinder support. Cylinder support 1.09 inches, stack up of bearing and pedestal mount 1.04 inches....oh crap we have a problem. Need to investigate this ......



As I was pondering that issue I noticed the cylinder support calls to be bored to 1.128 and the journal on the cylinder in 1.100 ...WTF?


And it gets better the cylinder OAL is 3.06 ..... the pivot point is in the middle of the cylinder....the drawing says it is at 1.03 ......they only missed my ½ inch!!


On the crank pin the drawing calls for a press fit, but there are threads drawn.....


The intake/ exhaust manifold.....no bottom surface to center line height, kinda important......


These things just jerk me....yes I understand mistakes are made, these drawings have been around literally as long as I have been alive, you would think some of e would have corrected the damn things by now.....I as a professional machinist (tool maker) am having a hard time figuring out these drawings, I feel for you hobby guys who may be trying to figure out, what went wrong with your build

[CI]

I think these drawings may give folks a better appreciation for one making their own drawings/engine from scratch.
3D modeling helps root out some of the problems.
I noticed on these drawings that one person did the design, and another made the drawings, and I have found that to be problematic when I use to do that (on work projects), since the 2nd person always introduces some level of error into the drawings.

Most engineers I know do their own drawings/CAD work these days, because that is much quicker than trying to discover random errors that have been introduced by someone else.

The short threaded part just locks the pin in place.
You can still press fit it, but perhaps use more of an interference fit instead of a hard press fit, so that there is less chance of deforming the crank arm when it is pressed.

.

[55fairlane]

Unfortunately I am CAD CAM challenged......I am spoiled I have a design engineer at the shop who turns my napkin sketches into 3D files.....

These drawings have been offered to the public for more them 50 years & no one (until now) has found & fixed these issues.....I find this hard to believe........

The crank pin is an easy redo.....I'm for certain I'll use a section of ¼ drill rod held in place with 648 loc tite......

I might just toss the drawings on my engineer desk and have him redraw them.....

[CI]

I started studying one of my dad's engines after his death, with the intent of making drawings for it, and perhaps building a copy of it.
Unfortunately dad did not document any of his methods/techniques, etc.
He initially made geometric sketches on paper with pencil and ink, to get the mechanics to function.

I decided to take one of dad's engines apart, and measure each piece.
Then I drew each part in CAD.
In my ignorance, I just measured things with micrometers and such, and used dimensions such as 1.25532".

I created some nice drawings, and then as I started to attempt to build an engine, I discovered that the drawings were total garbage.
There were no standard hole sized, no drill size or clearance hole sizes, no bolt hole circles maintained, no alignment of holes between mating parts, etc.
It was a Chernobyl of a drawing set.
I did learn how NOT to draw a model engine though, so it was not a total loss.

There is a method to designing and drawing model engines, or rather there should be a very methodical method used.
I like to start on the inside and work outwards.
I learned the term "datum point", and how critical it is to establish one or more of these in the beginning.

I drew some of my dad's other engines in 2D CAD, and it was very difficult to get every dimension in every view exact, and difficult to propagate changes made to one part all the way through all the other related parts.
It was so frustrating that it drove me to learn 3D modeling.
I would never go back to using 2D CAD for anything other than sketching, and final drawings; for model engine work.

Some folks make the leap completely into 3D modeling, and work entirely within one program, but I find that difficult to do, so I straddel two programs.
I don't really consider it two programs (although it is two).
It is more like the sketch part of the 3D program, and the extrusion (3D) part of the program that I toggle between; all very transparent.
Autocad has a much better sketch program than any of the 3D modeling programs I have seen, although I am sure some would disgree with that (that is my opinion, and I stick with it).

Good luck.
If you get bold, dive into 3D modeling.
Many have made the leap, and the benefits to model engine design are enormous.
3D modeling has gone a long way to eliminate the problem-ridden model engine drawings of the past, since it uses a parametric approach, where things are theoretically connected and associated automatically (assuming someone flies the program correctly).
.

[Jasonb]

I might just toss the drawings on my engineer desk and have him redraw them.....

You had better toss the castings onto his desk as well. When I redraw something that I have the castings for I will make sure I can get the part out of the drawings. Your engineer will have to flip a coin to decide which one of those dimensions where two are shown to use, he could easily choose one that won't work with the castings. Or in the case of the standards it would have been an option to adjust the O/A height so filler was not needed.

It also depends how you work, I would aim to make the bore a nominal size eg 1.125" and make the piston to fit which would be slightly smaller than 1.125" done by feel not built to numbers.

Also some of those clearances look quite large, the crank bearing is shown as 0.503" and the shaft as 0.500" Yes a steam engine is fairly forgivng but that seems excessive and likely to knock. Again I would use ground stock for the shaft and bore the bearings to fit again going by feel. Less than 6mm I tend to ream which would be H7 for bearing type surfaces. An H7 fit on a 1/2" shaft would be 0.5008" so a lot less than what is on those drawings.

For that size and style of crankpin I would go with a push fit and use a locknut on the thread to hold it all together. The crankshaft to crank arm joint would be a light press fit with Loctite.

I also wonder if these were originally cast in iron, that may explain the standards being undersize?

[55fairlane]

I might just toss the drawings on my engineer desk and have him redraw them.....

You had better toss the castings onto his desk as well. When I redraw something that I have the castings for I will make sure I can get the part out of the drawings. Your engineer will have to flip a coin to decide which one of those dimensions where two are shown to use, he could easily choose one that won't work with the castings. Or in the case of the standards it would have been an option to adjust the O/A height so filler was not needed.

It also depends how you work, I would aim to make the bore a nominal size eg 1.125" and make the piston to fit which would be slightly smaller than 1.125" done by feel not built to numbers.

Also some of those clearances look quite large, the crank bearing is shown as 0.503" and the shaft as 0.500" Yes a steam engine is fairly forgivng but that seems excessive and likely to knock. Again I would use ground stock for the shaft and bore the bearings to fit again going by feel. Less than 6mm I tend to ream which would be H7 for bearing type surfaces. An H7 fit on a 1/2" shaft would be 0.5008" so a lot less than what is on those drawings.

For that size and style of crankpin I would go with a push fit and use a locknut on the thread to hold it all together. The crankshaft to crank arm joint would be a light press fit with Loctite.

I also wonder if these were originally cast in iron, that may explain the standards being undersize?

I had already decided that most of the bearing clearances are way to big . And yes I'm using either drill rod or TG&P for all shafting & similar like crank pins & piston rod.
The crank pin i have my own idea of how to do it, I was simply adding that detail to the dumpster fire these drawings are.
The assembly drawing shows features & details not called out on the drawings.  I'm wondering if these drawings were made under the influence?  From now on the drawings will be referred to AS THE SUGGESTION

Quite a bit of the suggestion is up to interpretation,  luckily a gent in club has built this same engine, recently so tomorrow night I will pick his brain

[propforward]

My mobile phone is banned from this forum so I haven't checked in for a while. Of course I've seen your progress via text so I haven't missed out. Top work sir, always a pleasure to see how a professional approaches an engine kit.

Have to admit, I am tempted by the larger Myers engines. Then again I was also tempted by the Reeves beam engine and haven't done anything on that in a year.

Will enjoy following the build and seeing what else you uncover from the, er, plans.

[CI]

We could fix the drawings, but it appears they are copyrighted, and so they can't be distributed.

.

[Jasonb]

You could always fix them and then allow Myers to use the new version. I have done that in the past giving my set of revise drawings to the casting supplier for them to do what they like with them. Or permission to make the revised drawings available on the net could be sourt from Myers, they may be happy with that as it could encourage sales but there is the chance of scratch builders just using the drawings. Everyone seems happy to complain about old poor drawings but few do anything about it.

As I said earler it would really need the person doing the revisions to have access to the castings, for example a slight reduction in height of the  standards could be made and associated parts altered to allow them to be cut from the undersize castings.

Some experience of engine building would almost certtainly be essential so that sizes/fits and suitable materials could be included by knowing what works and what does not. Ideally the person drawing would build the engine as a true test making any revisions to their drawings as they go along and not detailing things that can't be machined as we see on other redrawn versions of many old designs.

Then it is a question of how far do you go with revised drawings. I'd redraw the flywheel to something more in keeping. The use of the same casting from the Cretors engine with it's curly spokes just looks out of place to me and for the engines size a lot of the detail throughout is a bit "soft" or lacking.

[CI]

I could work through the drawings and rework/redraw/correct them fairly quickly, but they are not my drawings.
Do I understand correctly that someone bought the Myers designs/patterns ? or is Myers still involved ?

I think the logical approach would be to correct the drawings to match the original design intent.
Then the person who is selling the casting kits could correct the patterns in areas that are not correct.
It may mean that some castings would have to be discarded, but to approach it otherwise seems like opening a pandora's box.
The castings need to be made correctly; there is no excuse to do otherwise in my opinion.
If the castings are not right, then you are back to a lot of barstock building.

You an wrap tape and such around surfaces that need to be a bit larger.
There are some pretty simple methods to correct pattern dimensions.

I would draw the engine just as it was originally designed, and if someone wants to customize the design, then let them go purchase another flywheel, or whatever.
There are too many personal preferences to start trying to change the original design drawing, in my opinion, although I agree with the sentiment.

If the owner of the drawings (Myers or whoever) gives me the ok, I will redraw the drawings, with no guarantees; users assume all risks.
I know I could get it straightened out though.
I would do it for the benefit of the hobby.


.

[Jasonb]

original design intent

This is an interesting one.

To me it looks like all the castings are aluminium (correct me if I am wrong)

For a display model that may only get a bit of running you can get away with steel shafts running in aluminium, or a dissimilar metal against aluminium. But for an engine that someone may want to have running all day at a show it would be better to have more suitable running pairs.

Now if back in the 70s the original intent was to cast in iron and bronze then the original intent is OK but the undersize casting and running pairs suggest a change to aluminium so you have shafts in aluminium bearing pedestals and ali to ali on the port face which is not good. That is a practical issue that affects running. Ali is OK for things like the bed plate and standards but not so good for the bearing pedestals unless you bore them out and sit bronze bearings. Or things like the cylinder end covers and crank arm which are usually left unpainted and ali will not look ideal

Altering patterns particularly if theu are on a match board with other parts could be quite costly, adjusting teh drawings to better suit the current castings would not involve the supplier in additional costs. As we have said before there is not a lot of money to be made suppling casting sets so any additinal expense is unlikely to go down well.

I'll leave out my other feelings about the overall design and detailing. Unless Fairlane wants to hear them and possibly take some onboard.

[CI]

Sounds like a bit of a mess, if all of that is true.
Not worth trying to fix the drawings if that is the case, in my opinion.
.

[propforward]

A note about the drawings, these are hand done to the standard of the late 60's/early 70's . No tolerances given. No "finished surfaces called out. No reference dimensions. Study these carefully, even i a master machinist find these hard to follow at times.

Pretty typical model engine plans - haven’t yet seen a set of plans that could really be referred to as drawings.

Happily you have the smarts to figure it out though.
Hey my phone is letting me on the site again!

EDIT: Blast no it isn't.

Looking forward to the next installment. It's a beastie! Love it.

[Jasonb]

I think one needs to bear in mind a few things.

Many of these kits are quite old and date from a time when the average hobby machinist had just a steel rule and firm leg calliper which was set from the rule to do their measuring with. Not much point in giving them tolerances to 1/10ths when all they can really go by is feel. I would not mind betting that Keeley originally built that to fractional sizes rather than to the many two decimal place dimensions shown on the drawing.

Even today what people have in their home shops varies. Again why give an internal bore to 1/10ths tolerance when all they may have is a digital calliper that is not going to be able to measure as well as an internal bore mic that many won't have. Same with external diameters, the digi calliper is a bit better on external but will only read to 0.0005". Not everyone has a set of 10ths reading micrometers, I only have external micrometers thet go upto 1" and no internal ones but I get on and make engines.

The engines are built by one person, no need for part A and part B to fit if made in separate workshops or for spare parts to fit in the future so the old art of "fitting" is used. Spotting through holes from one part to another was common so no need to detail the positions on more than one part. This is becoming less common with more workshops having mills and DROs

Many kits started as a personal project, possibly someone had a full size engine and took measurements off that to make a model for themselves, may have done some form of drawings or could just be scribbled notes and fag packet sketches. Later someone sees the model and wants to build one so asks for a set of castings. Original builder may try to do better drawings or may leave it to a third party to come up with somethng. I have had several kits which came to me as just castings and there were never any drawings and maybe only one or two other completed models. They have built up into good working engines but someone who has not built a model before would find it difficult. So some drawings however poor are better than none at all.

I mentioned a few posts back about costs. There is not much money to be made from supplying model kits. What would be the cost of producing a commercial quality set of drawings all fully toleranced, etc? A fully working model (from current castings) would need to be disassembled, measured, fits worked out and then drawings produced. What payback period should the supplier aim to get their costs back, spread it over the next 5 casting sets or the next 20 but that could take 10 years or more. Even then would that address things like shafts running in aluminium? However it would not hurt to hand amend master drawings if errors were reported or include an A4 or Letter size sheet listing errors.

[Chipswitheverything]

That seems like an excellent summary of the situation that may reveal itself when working on older designs of models : as you say, very many of the designs have been around for ages, and have been bounced around between different suppliers and different foundries .  Probably no one has been making much profit out of a lot of it as sales trickle in.

 A good many sets of castings and drawings never make it to completion, may just sit on a shelf under a bench for years, so feedback on problems could be patchy. An experienced worker will perhaps just spot a mistake or snag and get on with their own solution, thinking that most will do some similar work-around.  Or a builder may have their own limitations over and above snags with the drawings and supplied components, vide the rather sad ST triple that was rescued by Jo, where all sorts of things had gone wrong despite undoubted high hopes of the optimistic first builder. There could be a few more of these stories out there than one tends to think, kits of all varieties appear to have a very high tendency to not reach completion ... 

Looking through various model build series of articles in , say 1950's or sixties Model Engineer magazines , bears out entirely what Jason is saying about measurement and fitting, and limitations of the workshop equipment in most home 'shops of the time. A lot of the model engineers would have been familiar with fitting skills and hand work from their training back in the day.  Being able to use a "tenth" reading DRO in their wooden shed garden workshop would have left them slightly mind-blown!  Dave

[CI]

Until AutoCad and similar programs, the manual drawings were totally non-associated in every way.
With AutoCad, you could at least draw a shape to some given size, and then copy that to some mating equipment or feature, so associative in that if you got the dimensions correct on the first use of an item, and copied the item, the copies were also correct.

We kept the highlighter people in business for many years.
We would mark up a blueline print using red fine-tipped pens.
When the redline came back from the drafting person, we used a highlighter to check every line.
The drafting people often used their own colored highlighter, different from the color the engineers used.

The system we adopted was I think one used by the Navy, which as I recall was called the "Redi-Check program".
The redi-check system made logical comparisions across multiple disciplines, to find conflicts, errors, etc.
One started with a single discipline, and checked values, such as fuse and breaker sizes against wire sizes, conduit sizes, bus sized, equipment sizes, etc.
Then one overlayed other diciplines to find out if ductwork, piping, and various equipment clashed.
Again, lots of highlighting as one went through projects.
The Navy paid us to redi-check other people's projects, and it was very cost effective to have an unfamiliar set of eyes take an objective and unattached look at a project.  Change orders during construction are generally very expensive.

I have to guess the designer for Murdoch engine sketched things out with a marking pen, and the drafting person translated that to drawings.
What did not seem to happen is the highlighting process, where either the drafting person made errors that the designer did not catch, or the designer made errors, and did not self-error-check.
Sometimes one can get so familiar with one's own drawings that it can be difficult to spot errors; the forest all starts to look like a bunch of trees.
There is a methodical process you can use to check engine drawings though, using highlighters.
If the designer created engine designs on a casual basis, then he may not have been familiar with adhering to normal engineering rigors.

2D CAD can be helpful as mentioned above, but even then, the drawings will only be as good as the person designing/drawing/checking them.


.

[55fairlane]

The engine will go on a brief holiday, a friend is going to try and clean up the drawings a bit....while this happens I am going to re design the upper breaking blocks....they aren't visually pleasing. 

Lots of things I still can do to the engine.  

I did finish up the one bearing pillar,  not sure I'm happy how it turned out, but I'm going have to live with it.

Pictures of finishing one side, I don't use my deapth mic often anymore.  Purchased a very nice brown and sharpe set in my apprenticeship....don't use them much anymore. 

Picture of the pillar sitting on the base, pictured with my 0-1, 1-2 & 2-3 mics for scale....

[55fairlane]

I think one needs to bear in mind a few things.

Many of these kits are quite old and date from a time when the average hobby machinist had just a steel rule and firm leg calliper which was set from the rule to do their measuring with. Not much point in giving them tolerances to 1/10ths when all they can really go by is feel. I would not mind betting that Keeley originally built that to fractional sizes rather than to the many two decimal place dimensions shown on the drawing.

Even today what people have in their home shops varies. Again why give an internal bore to 1/10ths tolerance when all they may have is a digital calliper that is not going to be able to measure as well as an internal bore mic that many won't have. Same with external diameters, the digi calliper is a bit better on external but will only read to 0.0005". Not everyone has a set of 10ths reading micrometers, I only have external micrometers thet go upto 1" and no internal ones but I get on and make engines.

These are both valid and interesting points.....and that makes much sense........however I will say this.....with many missing dimensions & combined dimensions not adding up to the mating part, it makes this a very difficult undertaking......as a professional machinist i guess I expect much higher standards

And just for you, I did a picture of my engine with my 0-1 , 1-2 & 2-3 mics......🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

[Jasonb]

It must be nice to have those larger clamps mics Though they look mor elike 5-6" to me

Ah the bearing pedestals, they were one of the items that I felt were rather chunky. I think the castings could still be used if you wanted to do so. Just reduce the overall size so the foot is smaller and then step in again to further reduce the upper body. Easier if the protruding round bosses are done away with and preferably changed to flanged split bronze bushes but you could stick with the aluminium and use a rotary table or similar when reducing the thickness to leave a boss standing proud. Radius corner mill will leave a nice fillet for that cast look.

It is very likely that the model was inspired by the B Hick & Sons engine, if you click the image in this link it comes up a lot larger and you can see the much less bulky bearing pedestalls

https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/File:Im1851Cat287b.jpg

I would also make the smaller cylinder pivot bearing pedestal a bit nicer, a smaller version of the main one at the front.

[Jasonb]

Something like this looks more like the engraving. The green represents the top of the standard so you can see the "foot" has been reduced and also the further reduction of the main body. You could arch the top if you wanted to make it match the bearing ones but I have gone for similar to the engraving but put 4 external fixings rather than having to use the cap retaining studs right through.

Would need slight work to the crank arm and crank shaft so that the shaft can be located without moving axially but quite simple to do unless you want excessively thick flanges on the bronze bearing.

[55fairlane]

It must be nice to have those larger clamps mics Though they look mor elike 5-6" to me

Ah the bearing pedestals, they were one of the items that I felt were rather chunky. I think the castings could still be used if you wanted to do so. Just reduce the overall size so the foot is smaller and then step in again to further reduce the upper body. Easier if the protruding round bosses are done away with and preferably changed to flanged split bronze bushes but you could stick with the aluminium and use a rotary table or similar when reducing the thickness to leave a boss standing proud. Radius corner mill will leave a nice fillet for that cast look.

It is very likely that the model was inspired by the B Hick & Sons engine, if you click the image in this link it comes up a lot larger and you can see the much less bulky bearing pedestalls

https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/File:Im1851Cat287b.jpg

I would also make the smaller cylinder pivot bearing pedestal a bit nicer, a smaller version of the main one at the front.

Thank you for the picture....any pics of actual engine?

Those mics are 4-5 , 5-6  & 6-7 .....

[55fairlane]

Something like this looks more like the engraving. The green represents the top of the standard so you can see the "foot" has been reduced and also the further reduction of the main body. You could arch the top if you wanted to make it match the bearing ones but I have gone for similar to the engraving but put 4 external fixings rather than having to use the cap retaining studs right through.

Would need slight work to the crank arm and crank shaft so that the shaft can be located without moving axially but quite simple to do unless you want excessively thick flanges on the bronze bearing.

I'm thinking very similar to you....on the splits (that retain  the bearing) I may bring the screws in from the bottom just to hide them.....I have a bunch of square cast iron & leaded bronze I may make square bearing blocks.....I'm gonna need to do something to keep the crank/flywheel from moving, at present the upper bearing blocks give it .100 or so of float and the cylinder retains the entire reciprocal assembly......

[Jasonb]

I don't know of an existing engine.

Many engines of this time would have had a reduced diameter where they ran in the bearings and that would give axial location. You can do it by turning the smaller diameters or a simpler way would be to use 0.500" ground material and then turn up some sleeves that could just be slipped on or held with Loctite., though they could be left loose. I would probably make the boss longer on the crank arm so it bears against the bearing and then use the sleeves between bearings and possibly one on the far end. Similar to the attached which I did on one of my engines. I tend to fully retain crankshafts and if some float is needed have the crank pin longer than the big end bearing that way you do not get side loads on the piston& rod, The loose sleeves can be adjusted for length at final assembly to get the required "fit"

Regarding how to fit the bearing caps. You have to be a bit careful with old engraving sas they often leave bits off or use artistic license for others. If you think how the engine would have been erected back in the day it is very unlikely they would have had fixings coming up from below, even sharing studs to hold the bearing pedestal and cap is not the common. More likely the pedestalls were held on studs and their positions adjusted and separate studs for the cap as you don't want to muck up the alignment of the pedestals if you just want to make adjustments to the bearings. The exception would be where the pedestalls were part of the upright standard casting in which case hidden screws could be used join the separate castings together and a bead of filler to form a fillet so it looks like a single casting

Same applies to that inlet/exhaust block, one single fixing from below is very unlikely both for the practicality of fitting it on a full size engine and not the best to keep things lined up as it could swivel on the single screw. There are other things that could do with altering on that block too.

[Sanjay F]

Not sure if this is a help or a hinderance but these drawings are great for the details https://www.modelengineeringwebsite.com/Hick_oscillator.html

[Jasonb]

They are basically an enlarged version of the King design that Hemminingway  and now Reeves sell. The King one was a lot closer to the engraving and better detailed than the  Keeley, and as the keeley is bigger the lack of detail and chunky parts is even more obvious

[55fairlane]

Sorry I have responded to anything as of the hour, my Friday was dealing with the insurance company of the kid who rear ended my wife's car & my yesterday was spent at a rifle match.....I faired well at the match, until 16 year old Jenna showed up....she is really good.... my 581-27X (600 point max) wasn't good enough, but still fun!

Lots to respond to.....when I started this engine I honestly had no idea it modeled on a past design.....I am going to be taking some "artistic license " as I build an engine that works and has the basic look of the Hicks unit......

The crank shaft design is very interesting....after i get the upper bearing blocks sorted out (at least on paper)  brain power is needed for the crank....lots to think about....

As far as the screws (fixings, to you tea drinkers) , all items such as bearing pillars, bearing blocks, ect will be located with a dowl pin and screws, I'm not after a perfectly correct model of an engine, just a good runner

Thank you all for the historic information,  as I think about all the things that need sorted out.

Lots to digest

[55fairlane]

Got back on the engine, Sunday I pulled the vise, cleaned the table, clamped the work down & squared it up.....Monday I did some math......tonight I cut bottom, both sides (top & bottom) to finish, and cleaned up the top surface ( .025 still on it for finish) actual machine time, 31 mins start to finish....one more feature to do, it can wait until tomorrow. Or the next day
My plan is to drill/tap the bottoms, install the pillars on the base, true up the tops while installed on the base....this should keep things very true, flat & square

[propforward]

Great progress, and top attention to detail as usual.

[55fairlane]

Great progress, and top attention to detail as usual.

Thank you my friend!

[55fairlane]

Got a little more done....this pillars the one closest to the cylinder, has the little shelf for a bronze bearing to live on....I'm using a parallel to span the feet to get a good dimension



Stood upright and drilled & tapped



Managed to put a couple "holes" on my hand on a sharp edge on the control cabinet, after 2 years of this, you'd think i would have fixed this by now

[rstreift]

55Fairlane,  Reading that you met "Mr. John Jensen", do you know if he is the John Jensen in this excerpt at https://www.jensensteamengines.com/museum.htm ?

Tom Jensen enjoyed life for 92 years, spending the last 61 years of his life working in his little Jeannette Steam Shop, inventing, creating, crafting and perfecting the highly specialized tooling and dies used in the manufacture of his Jensen Steam Engines. In 1992, President George Bush wrote to Mr. Jensen, thanking him for his "...unique contribution to America". Mrs. Jensen, who recently passed away, had this treasured letter on display for all to see. Tom left a legacy of not just his tooling and the all important blueprint drawings for each and every part, but also a son, Tom, Jr. and a grandson, John, both of whom are also Mechanical Engineers, to carry on this unique family tradition.

I talked to Brent Myers about 3 years ago when buying a single cylinder casting from Myers Engine Works.  Maybe the old scale models kits from Breisch, Keeley, and other will continue to survive for another generation.

- Reed