Recent content by AlanHaisley

Very nice family photo. :D Alan

Dave, Do you have any clue what the six vertical flanges with horizontal holes on the base are for? Alan

You will need to do more testing on the water pump. When everything is assembled and working the pump should be able to move water into the boiler while under steam. Perhaps you can use a long vertical tube or pipe to create the under steam pressure conditions and make sure the pump can move...

Hmm... Perhaps an autoloading trebushet :hDe: Alan As an Alternative to redesigning the sides to hold the marble, could the lifting block work with a slight hollow in its upper surface? It probably needs to be slight, since too much will jam the marbles.

Brian, Perhaps if the arm were reshaped like this it could hold the marble longer? Alan

Keep going, Brian. Linkages are good - besides it's going to give you something to drive with one of your engines. Hmm, could two engines be used backwards through a differential to power it if one didn't have enough oomph? Alan

Don't forget that while your boiler may fit an exemption in your home state it may not in the state where you are showing it. As an example, some rules seem to exempt boilers with an operating pressure of under 150 psi but others seem to exempt at under 100 psi. :wall: Alan

Speechless. Alan

Jan, This is a fascinating engine. One point of interest is the cycle time. I would expect this to be somehow related to the mass of the moving parts rather than their weight. It seems to me that the mass can't really be decreased since you need the weight to make the compression cycle what it...

A very lovely piece of work.

If the surfaces to be flattened are external, you could try fine wet/dry paper on a sheet of plate glass. Use wet with something like kerosine which will tend to hold the paper on the flat surface as well as float off the residue. Also be concerned when bolting the two parts together. Try to...

New plumbing is not so bad. Old plumbing though ... :wall:

Chuck, Could you elaborate: I assume that one of the numbers in the range is that of the number of teeth that should be "perfect" and that the other numbers of teeth in the range are off one way or another. For each number of cutter, do you know which number of teeth will be closest to perfect...

Gail, Happy to hear from you. Excellent scooter :) Alan

Ken, Nice problem! When I started on this, it seemed to me that - as you say - I needed at least one more piece of information. Finally, I decided to see what the answer would be if I just tried a couple of sizes of holes; I'm afraid that I was still a bit muzzy minded at the time. For...