Gerry's Beam Engine Imperial Frame Drawings needed

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cheepo45

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Hello everyone,
I want to build a Gerry's Beam.
I know that I'm late to the party with this, but I like the design.
Are there any imperial dimensioned drawings for the frames?
I need point to point drawings so I can program my Prototrak Mill to cut them out.
I have been searching for a while, and the only ones I could find are metric.
I can convert them, but that involves a lot of math, and we all know what happens when machinists do math!
Thanks in advance, and I hope to see some of you at the Cabin Fever Expo show next week.
Scott
 
The originals were imperial, most of what is on the net is taken from Julius's drawings
 
I have the original drawings, but the frames are not dimensioned to be programmed on a Prototrak.
They were designed to be laser cut from a DXF file. I don't have a DXF converter available.
I need to program them point to point.
Thanks,
Scott
 
I have the full model in a Fusion360 file (non-commercial) if that helps. I didn't draw it (can't remember who did - maybe snagged of the web?) but I'm pretty confident that it is correct where it matters. The file units are inches. If its of use I can see about loading it to the downloads area.

Mike
1704408122849.png
 
I have the original drawings, but the frames are not dimensioned to be programmed on a Prototrak.
They were designed to be laser cut from a DXF file. I don't have a DXF converter available.
I need to program them point to point.
Thanks,
Scott
Maybe this can help?
CloudConvert converts your CAD files online
https://cloudconvert.com/dxf-converter
 
In fusion 360 the compete file can be "switched", I was using the files from Julius deWaal, and I think he changed dimensions in order to have more "even" numbers. Not exactly a drawing, it is the main sketch before "extruding". I just now switched it to inch, just to post it.

I am not sure if that is the exact copy of the Julius deWaal Drawing, I might have changed some dimensions (radius etc.) to machine it easier.

framesketch.jpg

conversion.jpg
In the document settings you can find the units. That can just be changed for the drawing and then all the sketch dimensions will be shown in the other unit.
So when using inch documents, I will just switch it to inch,.... copy the numbers from the drawing, then switch the document back to mm at the end.

I hope that helps.

p.s. @cheepo45: I do not see how to upload dxf. If you fancy that, I could try to e-mail?

Greetings Timo
 
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I only have them as pdf.

Even if I had a DXF, DWG or other CAD file I don't know what the point to point method is that the Protrac needs. If a CAD file exists then should just be a case of placing the dimensions where you need them, the sizes will be derived from the file so should not have errors provided the original file is correct.

Chances of finding someone else who has built it and has the same Protrac is small
 
Thanks, everyone. I really appreciate your help with this.
I will have to update my CAD skills!
Scott
 
The original was by Gerry Dykstra aka "Oldboatguy"and was called Gerry's beam engine - the plans are in the download section.

I metricated it and made some changes with Gerry's nod of approval and those drawings are also in the download section.

I'm not sure why but over time some drawings have been deleted and in other cases the chronology is shot to hell.

You can find pdf's of the original imperial on Pg. 14

my metric ACAD dwg on Pg2 and pdf on page 8

FYI

Regards, Ken I
 
Last edited:
I can't find the original plans for Gerry's beam engine in the download section. Gotta link?
 
Hello everyone,
I want to build a Gerry's Beam.
I know that I'm late to the party with this, but I like the design.
Are there any imperial dimensioned drawings for the frames?
I need point to point drawings so I can program my Prototrak Mill to cut them out.
I have been searching for a while, and the only ones I could find are metric.
I can convert them, but that involves a lot of math, and we all know what happens when machinists do math!
Thanks in advance, and I hope to see some of you at the Cabin Fever Expo show next week.
Scott
I believe I have those plans someplace, the question is where. I think mine are in imperial. Let me do some searching.
 
The john-tom site went tits-up back in 2022. Using the Wayback Machine I was able to find the original archive from that site and the Beam Engine plans (PDF) look identical to what Ken posted.

Here it is anyway for completeness sake.
 

Attachments

  • BeamEngine Gerry.zip
    4.9 MB
I have the full model in a Fusion360 file (non-commercial) if that helps. I didn't draw it (can't remember who did - maybe snagged of the web?) but I'm pretty confident that it is correct where it matters. The file units are inches. If its of use I can see about loading it to the downloads area.

Mike
View attachment 152733
 

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