A small steam engine

[firebird]

Hi

After cleaning up the vertical connector is silver soldered on. Sorry no photo of this, must have forgot ??? ??? ??? Then a good clean up and polish. The spindle has a 10BA thread put on. 10BA goes nicely onto 1/16 rod. Finally I made a little hand wheel. I've used this method before and was successful with it so I have adopted the same method here.

Center drill a bit of 5/16 brass round and drill tapping size for 10BA.



Then tap 10BA



Move to the mill and rotary table in the vertical position and cut 6 flutes with a small cutter.





Turn the rotary table to the horizontal position and centre drill 6 positions.



Then drill with a small drill. Drill as deep as the drill will allow.



Back in the lathe part off.



I managed to get 4 hand wheels out of it. 3 will go in stock for the future.



The hand wheel is screwed on with a bit of lock tite and a 10BA nut.



Cheers

Rich

 

[arnoldb]

Rich, thank you for showing and well done :bow:
I've got pretty much the same kind of work coming up in the near future, and you showing this is an inspiration!
Kind regards, Arnold

 

[firebird]

Hi

Thanks Arnold.

Last but not least a bit of video.



Cheers

Rich

 

[cobra428]

firebird,
Very Nice, I can't wait for the steam run!

Tony

 

[firebird]

Hi Tony

We already had the steam run a while back. This was a mod to let it run on air.

Cheers

Rich

 

[zeeprogrammer]

Nice Rich. Excellent thread to help me learn how to make small hand wheels.

I notice you had some sunlight in the room. I miss seeing the outside. ;D

 

[1Kenny]

Rich,

I like the way you did that valve. Thanks for showing it and the video.

Kenny

 

[cobra428]

Firebird,
Sorry I missed it, going back in thread till I find it. Don't know how I missed it, I've been following with great interest. Give this bloody yank a kick in the pants.

Cheers
Tony

 

[doubletop]

I missed this in real time as I only started building things this Feb. So just to add my thanks for this and the "a small boiler" thread. They are invaluable to somebody like me, who compared to your standards, makes my version of the Eric-Jan Stroetinger wobbler look like a Lada. (great double acting engine, and the plans are on the downloads page as WobblerEJS.pdf)

Mine is here

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUPQqlBvEVk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUPQqlBvEVk[/ame]

I have now started on SandyC's 3" vertical boiler, so every bit of both your threads are relevant to what I am up to. It was looking for tips on end plates that bought me here. I've just got through all 47 pages of the threads and every page was a gem. I kept thinking "there's a book in here". I would hope with the relevant acknowledgments to sources, Sandy etc they'd give you the OK to do it. I'd buy a copy.

Thanks again

(now to find what you've been up to in 2010, have you started that beam engine yet to go with your "hedgehog" boiler?)

 

[firebird]

Hi Doubletop

Thats a nice looking engine, runs well too. I'm glad you found my posts useful. I had a lot of help from the guys here on HMEM. Without their help I would never have been able to do it. While your building your boiler start a thread and post your progress, you will get all the help you need and at the same time show the rest of us how to do it.

As for a book I'm not sure but I have been asked by a magazine to right an article for them. As always time is the main problem.

As for the beam engine, I have had a box of bits under the bench for a long while now, hopefully it will come out soon and be worked on.

Cheers

Rich

 

[firebird]

Hi

I have been playing with my steam engine today, any excuse to fire it up will do. Actually I have made a new burner for it. This one uses the solid fuel tablets like the Mamod engines. It makes life a little easier to fire it up than using the meths burner. It wasn't difficult to make, it follows the lines of the meths burner and the method of construction was pretty much the same. I had a small piece of the brass tube left and then cut a piece of brass sheet into a rough circle.



After filing roughly to size the brass circle was annealed and then formed over a steel former. The former then held in the lathe chuck and the brass plate held onto the former with pressure from the tail stock onto a brass off cut using a revolving centre. The plate was then turned to size.



Here's the finished plate.



And then pushed inside the brass tube.



I made a handle from 1/16 brass in the same way as the meths burner and silver soldered the plate in the tube and the handle onto the tube.



Here's the new one beside the old one.



With a solid fuel tablet.



Here it is alight, you can just see the flame.



It takes around 7 minutes from cold to reach steam. The engine will run for around 3 minutes before the tablet runs out. With another tablet lit on the tray steam is reached in 2 or 3 minutes and the engine then runs for around another 5 minutes.

Here's a video of the engine running on the solid fuel tablets.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkVb4sKAGBQ[/ame]

Cheers

Rich

 

[doubletop]

Love it; You can't beat getting these things running on steam. They can only sit looking pretty on the bookcase for so long.

Pete

 

[steamer]

Hi Firebird,

Marv is correct about compressed air, it should be fine at less than max boiler pressure. And of course we don't hydro a boiler with compressed air, because it is a compressable gas and stores energy unlike water which is not compressable.

However I can commend you for the modification. One thing to watch out for with compressors, is the supply can be at a very high pressure ( compared to model boilers for instance) and you only need to wrong once and you can do damage to the boiler or worse. I have a safety valve, you say? Well that's fine too as long as your safety valve has relieving capacity large enough to relieve your air compressor tank, otherwise, it may not be able to keep up and you will overpressure the boiler. There's a lot of "ifs" there...pro and con.....sounds ugly doesn't it?

Your unlikely to have any of these issues with the modification you have performed as the best solution to a problem is to eliminate the source of the problem all together!........so not a bad idea.

Dave

 

[firebird]

Hi Pete

That's right, running on steam has a magic all of it's own. I can't wait to get my beam engine running on steam as well.

Hi Dave

The little home made compressor I am using (made from an old fridge compressor) to run the engine on only has a small reservoir and can only get to 40 psi. I start the compressor up from empty and at about 10 psi the engine will run. The compressor produces just enough air to maintain 10 psi and keep the engine running. Also the small rubber tube I have used is just a push fit on the connector on the valve and will blow off if the pressure is allowed to get to around 20 psi and the small reservoir quickly empties.

Cheers

Rich

 

[steamer]

Oh I am sure we have the same air compressor! :big:


Ya know your right....the problem is...the next poor SOB reading this will have a 20 HP compressor with a 80 gallon tank running at 180 psi..... :

And He'll be showing us pictures of his "Ballooned" boiler! :

It is the "Web" after all.

Dave

 

[firebird]

Hi

You're probably right Dave, there will always be somebody that will do something, well shall we say, not what us sensible people would do : : :

Cheers

Rich

 

[steamer]

Well , we all just need to be careful and "Think before we Do".

Dave

 

[Blogwitch]

Sorry to offtopic and sidetrack a bit Rich, but earlier on in the post, Bob asked for a whistle.

This isn't one for a boiler, but one that you can use with your compressor.

I suppose you could scale bits down and make a small whistle out of it, or parts of.

Great build BTW.

John

View attachment 4 Chime Whistle.pdf

 

[firebird]

Hi John

That's very interesting. Are you sure you're not psychic??? I was going to raise the subject of whistles as I intend to build one for the portable engine that is going to be my project after the beam engine is finished. I'll start a new post a little nearer the time.

Cheers

Rich

 

[boxcarmj]

Hi! Is there a way to replace the pictures and then make this permenant, so we can all benefit from it.
Thank-you Mike.