Recent content by clemley

Thank you for these comments. I have noticed that various components of the engine (eg. the valves) rust very quickly. I assumed it was the methanol rather than the nitro but nitro makes sense. It's ferocious how quickly rust forms. Anyway, next project is going to be a single cylinder...

Thank you. The compression is certainly high enough: you can really feel it when you are trying to turn the engine over. I reckon it is the recess of the plug. Building a glow plug engine has been a real learning curve. Very interesting indeed.

Thanks for the reply. I might try that. I forgot to mention, in my earlier post, that the engine runs fine while the glow plugs are powered up but, as soon as I switch them off, it stops. I thought glow plug engines only needed the glow plugs powered up for starting. Could this be because...

I was going to post a video of it running but it looks like we can't post videos on here. Have I understood that correctly?

It's been a while! I've finally got the thing running, both as single cylinder engines (I tried each cylinder separately) and, now, today, as the opposed twin it is supposed to be. There were a few things but the main one was the presence of holes in the second ring grooves of both pistons (see...

Thank you all for your very, very helpful replies. I am now focussing on running it as a single cylinder engine until I can get it running. I gave the engine a good going over today, checking dimensions, static compression ratios and valve timings etc. and I have added a couple of spreadsheets...

Thank you very much for your replies. I shall get some photographs to post on here. When I compression checked it, I got a figure of 25psi (spinning the engine with an electric drill). That would be low for a car engine but I don't know if it is low for a model, glow plug engine. The fuel...

Hello, I hope somebody here can help me. I am new to model engines (although my day job is developing car engines) and particularly glow plug engines. A few years ago, I bought some plans for a 4-stroke, opposed-twin, glow-plug engine from VTH in Germany (see attached picture). Earlier this...

Thanks, Edi. I think that may well be, as you said, easier than trying to make a dog. I'll get onto eBay and see if I can get one of these bearings. I've got to make an engine stand for the little two-stroke engine first as the cheap, MDF one I knocked up the other day is not up to the...

Yes, I think you could be right. I've bought a cheap dovetail cutter so I reckon it's going to be a matter of trial and error. If that's no good, I'll try one of the other approaches. Thanks for your help. Clem.

Thank you again for all your help. I've been thinking, recently, that, as it's only going to be small, I might mount the rotary table vertically, clamp the workpiece in a three-jaw chuck on the rotary table and cut the form using a dovetail cutter coming in from the side (see pictures; not...

Hello Chuck, Thank you very much. That's cleared it all up. I shall have a go at that and let you know how I get on. Thank you, all, for your replies. Clem.

Thank you very much for your replies, gents. I think I must be having brain failure (too much sitting around eating turkey over Christmas) because I can't picture how to actually set up the piece and the cutter on the mill to get the form shown in Jim's picture. Is it a two step process? Do I...

Hello All, I'm a newbie to model engine making so please forgive me if my questions seem silly. I'm currently making an Upshur vertical single engine but received a little two-stroke engine from my brother for Christmas. I'd like to make a starter dog for this and, when it is finished, my...