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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted -  25/11/2004  :  14:20
I've always been fascinated by the things people do in their spare time when they can do exactly what they want to do. Men and sheds are a particularly fertile field. Women tend to do their thing in the comfort of the house.



I was delighted to see Andy's picture of the clock movement he has made.







It struck me that we could perhaps start a new topic devoted to spare time skill. So Andy starts it off and my contribution is this:







It's a small steam engine made from scratch and is based on the Stuart 5A but a longer stroke. One of these will drive a 14 foot boat with steam at 250psi. By the way, we don't like to call them models, it's exactly the same construction and materials as a full size engine, just smaller. So come on out there, let's hear about what you make in your spare time. I reckon we could be in for some surprises!


Stanley Challenger Graham




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stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk
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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 17/08/2007 : 17:28
Had a day off today.......  done notjing I didn't have to do.  Normal service will be resumed.......


Stanley Challenger Graham




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pluggy
Geek


1164 Posts
Posted - 17/08/2007 : 17:50
Hangover from Doc's whiskey ?  

My reference to the beds being OK, was in reply to your post saying that taking something off the beds to cure the bearing alignment wasnt the way to go. Next thing you're taking something off the bed for the bearing alignment.....

OK, I'll shut up now



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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 18/08/2007 : 06:39
It's a misunderstanding, when I say beds I mean the box beds, what I reduced was the soleplate or foundation plate.  Funnily enough, I had a bit of an experiment last night and bearing which is actually grabbing is the outside one on the HP engine.  I just slackened each one off in turn until I got a result.  Doesn't alter the cure, a 5 thou shim under the LP soleplate.  Who knows, I ,ight change my mind but I shall not alter the relationship of the bearings to the standard and cylinder.  I have them all exactly the same and want to keep them that way.  Just to demonstrate how it went wrong in real life.....  When they built Bancroft they had to lower the whole of the engine a foot.  I think they were worried about the height of the engine above the foot valve in the dam, they were getting close to the limit for practical lift.  Jubilee engine had a different problem, over the years the left hand engine (LP) had sunk and the shaft always wore the shoulder on the pedestal bearing because the flywheel was trying to slide down that way.  At Bancroft they also made a mistake when they bored the clearance in the pedestal cap.  Newton said that what they usually did was to do a final pass through the bearing and cap with the centre raised about half an inch to give clearance under the cap.  Different bearings to mine and there was no top cap on the bronze steps so the CI cap had to have clearance.  Mine are full bushes and ideally the caps need to be dead tight.  The Whitelees had a serious fault, they had made the eduction pipe from the condenser to the cylinder too long so they raised the cylinder, a bad fault which caught me out because when I fitted the cylinder at the correct height during the rebuild it meant that the condenser was 2" too low and the bucket hit the discharge plate at the top of its stroke.  I had to raise the condenser body with a two inch packing between it and the coffin bottom.  That's the great thing about rebuilding engines and making them, you find out where all the traps are.  As Mark Twain said, the best river pilots are the ones who have hit the rocks......


Stanley Challenger Graham




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pluggy
Geek


1164 Posts
Posted - 18/08/2007 : 08:36
 Absolutely, an ounce of experience is worth a ton of theory.

You've lost me on the bucket in the condensor.  My steam plant experience is turbines on warships.  The condensor was mounted driectly under the turbines and was little more than sea water running through a load of pipes.  This mill engine stuff cooled by beck water is a bit technical.   




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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 18/08/2007 : 17:49

Most mill engines used a jet condenser because there was no need to re-use all the condensate.  The air pump dewatered the condenser and in the case of the Whitelees, being a beam engine, it was driven by a rod off the beam.  The bucket hit the delivery plate before the beam had reached the top of its stroke.  Not good.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's been a lot of handwork today, drilling holes and spotting the beds, drilling and tapping the beds and making studs.  Quiet but very time consuming....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The double engine built up.  I didn't shim it at all as it is so near the truth.  Even though the pedestal caps are nutted down dead tight, the shaft still turns if a bit stiff.  I shall leave any final adjustments until the crankshaft is installed and see how things are then. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The two single engines have been drilled and tapped and the studs made for them.  All that is needed is the studs nipping down and a bit of building up and then we have three foundations waiting for crankshafts.....  There is going to be a lot of swarf about next week!




Stanley Challenger Graham




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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 19/08/2007 : 06:17
My head is full of crankshafts.  I shall have to resist any temptations to go into displacement activity mode.....  Cshafts are things of beauty when finished but they take so long to do properly!  I can easily see myself still making swarf in ten days......  Brew up Stanley and fill your pipe.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
pluggy
Geek


1164 Posts
Posted - 19/08/2007 : 10:06
Ahhhh, with you now,  its not a pressure engine its an old vacuum beam engine.  And a bucket pump emptied the condensate.....

An exercise is how much coal could be burnt producing how little power if my theory serves me right.  Wouldn't do much for 'Carbon footprint' in this day and age.    



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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 19/08/2007 : 17:59

No, the engine worked on 40psi and 25" vacuum on the back end of the exhaust derived from the condenser.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No excuses now!  All the engines sat there asking for a crankshaft.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nowt for it, we need some serious turning.  I'm doing all three at once so the set-up remains the same.  Here's the second shaft getting a light skim to make sure it's true. The first one was an old piece of lineshaft and gave me a couple of problems because of hard shops in it.  This one was originally bright bar so I was on a goody until I got one end done and turned it round to get the centre in the other end.  The centre drill broke in the hole, the sod!  Luckily I had a couple of inches spare on this one so I just sawed the end off it and I'll finish the first skim and centering tomorrow.  At the same time I'm putting a pitch circle on the end at "2 diameter to make marking the centre for the crank easy.  I forgot to say, the first job was to clean the lathe as we are on cutting oil now and CI dust doesn't go well in it.




Stanley Challenger Graham




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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 20/08/2007 : 08:48
A word about centre holes for anyone who hasn't done any turning.  Many jobs in the lathe can be done by siply grabbing the workpiece in the chuck and getting cracking.  The smaller the lathe and the smaller the workpiece you can get away with by this method.  The Harrison is a fair sized lathe for an amateur but when you get into lumps the size of these for the crankshafts you are getting into trouble.  The cure is to put an accurate centre hole in at the tailstock end so that it can be located and supported on the centre.  The drill used is a special one invented by a bloke called Slocombe in the late 19th century, it has a small pilot drill at the end but thickens out into a bigger drill and so the effect of using it is that you finish up with a small pilot hole that acts as a useful reservoir for lubricant and a much larger conical secion that fits the centre on the tailstock exactly.  The rtick is to use the biggest centre you can get away with so as to get the most bearing surface.  Later on, when I have sqared the three billets up and get on to actually turning the shape you'll see the need for having a centre at both ends to locate the workpiece when we start to turn the crank journals which are 1" off centre.  For the time being, the aim is to get all the workpieces cleaned up, parallel and centered accurately on each end both for shaft centre and journal centre.  It'll all becaome clear when you see the pics.....


Stanley Challenger Graham




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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 20/08/2007 : 17:56

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last shaft, the one for the compound engine, getting its final roughing cut.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's the stage at close of play tonight.  All three shafts roughed out, centered and the jornal centre PCDs scribed on them.  The big one for the compound has an extra PCD near the centre, this is for the centre eccentric for the pump drive.  Some sort of progress.....




Stanley Challenger Graham




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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 21/08/2007 : 05:36
I shall mark and drill the journal and eccentris centres first thing and then decide where to start cutting.  I'm favouring starting at the tailstock ewnd and working back to the chuck.  Means changing chucks and centres more often but keeps the maximum amount of metal in the driving side.  Bit much to rely on a 3/4 shaft to turn a 3" interrupted cut.  I can't remember how I did it the last time.....


Stanley Challenger Graham




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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 21/08/2007 : 18:24
I've started......  I'll post pics early in the morning when it's easier.  A day of swarf and cutting oil......


Stanley Challenger Graham




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stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
pluggy
Geek


1164 Posts
Posted - 21/08/2007 : 21:33
Sounds interesting.... 

I thought about chewing a fair proportion of the meat around the big end journal out with a milling cutter, leaving a square in the right position to turn round on the lathe afterwards. It would save a huge intermittant cut at the start..........




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1164 Posts
Posted - 21/08/2007 : 21:39
 It probably isn't called a big end on a engine with a crosshead, but you get the drift......



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softsuvner
Regular Member


604 Posts
Posted - 22/08/2007 : 00:15

Hi Stanley

I've been away for the weekend visiting the family in the Isle of Wight and, as usual, got the feeling that I'd bought the ferry by the price that they are charging in high season!

Glad to see you are now at the heavy stage, so this week's daft question is: in this situation I'd be using my "live" centre to support the tailstock end. Is there an advantage to using a "dead" centre here? Keeping a "dead" centre lubricated always worried me. Before somebody else asks: a "dead" centre is simply a hardened point that supports the workpiece by fitting  in the hole drilled in the end. A "live" centre is a device where that point is mounted on a bearing and revolves with the workpiece.

Malcolm




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