Beam engine at double scale--

[Brian Rupnow]

Ah Well---Onward and upward. My mill is down right now, and must be returned to manufacturer for repairs to the circuit board, however, the lathe is still in fine mettle. The flywheel is built exactly as per the drawing, and other than some polishing is good to go. My progress on this steam engine is going to suffer for a bit now untill I get the mill repaired, but I will still work on anything that can be turned.

 

[Bogstandard]

Brian,

Well---This is cheap Chinese stuff we are talking about here

A lot of the importers of Chinese machinery in the UK, boast that the machines have circuit boards that are made in the USA.

Is this the case with machines imported into the States?, or are you still getting the inferior Chinese offerings?

John

 

[Brian Rupnow]

John--I don't have the foggiest idea!!! The woman who runs the BusyBee store in my city would be totally at home selling brassiers or high heeled shoes, but she doesn't know squat about the machines that they sell. The machines are quite nice actually, but the only person who professes to know anything about them is the customer service fellow at their head store in Toronto---and he is an east Indian. This makes me totally crazy, but its the way it is here.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

So---I took my milling machine to Toronto this afternoon, to the BusyBee head office.--Met Amin, the head of customer service, and Nash the Slash, his right hand man. I explained the problem to them (motor doesn't run) and left it there. An hour after I returned home, I got a phone call from Amin---The motor was burned out--they have replaced it with a new motor---fully gauranteed, no charge to me, I can pick it up tomorrow. Other than the agravation of driving 80Km to Toronto, I would say that is fairly good service.---Brian

 

[Brian Rupnow]

I received email confirmation today that my four 8" diameter polishing buffs have been shipped to me from the Eastwood company in the USA. These people are a supplier to the hotrod industry, and I have an old set of buffs that I got from them many years ago, but are now completely worn out. When I bought them about 20 years ago, I also bought the 4 grades of buffing wax in stick form, white rouge, tripoli, stainless, and emery, and the instructions on what to use where. I was very satisfied with their product, and polished many shiny things over the years for various hotrods I have built. Now I hope to bling up this beam engine as I build it.---Brian

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Now this is really neat, if I can make it work on here. I put a virtual motor on the 3D cad assembly of the beam engine, then saved it as a .avi file. I hope this works---Brian

View attachment BEAM ENGINE.avi

 

[Brian Rupnow]

So---Today we have a base, machined from copper (cause thats what I had)!! Miserable friggin stuff to machine, in my opinion.---Won't use it again. (famous last words). Its a good thing this is a hobby. or else I might have to charge $10,000 for one of these things if I was going to sell it. I have about 12 hours work in this dumb base. It is definitly coming together, and I do like the size its turning out to be. I think it will look pretty fabulous when I polish all the component parts.---speaking of parts, that base was the last "big" part---all thats left now is all the "fiddly" stuff.---Brian

 

[GailInNM]

Looking good Brian!
My version from your drawings got slowed down due to a massive power surge screwing up all sorts of electronics around the shop. Power substation caught fire and things went wild. Probably caused as much delay as your machinery problems. All is well now so I can get back to building toys instead of fixing things.

When I get a little more done, I will start a separate thread so people don't get too confused looking at two different builds of more or less the same build in the same thread.

Gail in NM,USA

 

[Philjoe5]

Looking good Brian. Although you had a time with it, the copper base is a nice contrast. :bow:

Cheers,
Phil

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Not a whole lot of progress today. I did manage to whittle out this large end for the eccentric rod, exactly as per drawing. My next amazing stunt will be to make the eccentric hub, and yes, I'm a bit worried about that one. I haven't made an eccentric before. I know the theory, but now we get to see where the theory and the reality meet.

 

[Divided He ad]

Looks good to me Brian... all of it! ;D

Don't know about the eccentrics myself.. Can't be that hard to do! Loads of people make 'em!! ;D

I must make a start on my next engine... just clearing the decks of all my other projects and promises first!.... should be on the new one by September!!

Looking forward to seeing the final result




Ralph.

 

[GailInNM]

Brian,
If you haven't started the eccentric hub yet, you might want to think about making it as two parts. I just finished mine a couple of days ago. I made the eccentric part as just a plain turning and then put the shaft hole in on the mill with the shaft hole offset 3/16 inch and added two holes for 2-56 screws to screw it to the hub. This also let me put a small flange on the side of the eccentric away from the flywheel to keep the eccentric strap centered. I did this because the eccentric strap will try to walk back and forth because of the offset in the eccentric rod.
Gail in NM,USA

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Well, so far this eccentric business is working out just like the books say it should---Now if I can just do the rest of it without messing anything up---

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Sorry Gail--I guess we were both posting at the same time. I know what you mean about the eccentric strap walking back and forth, I noticed that when I did the plans. If it is a real problem, I will machine a thin brass "spacer washer" to put between the end of the hub and the inside of the bearing to keep things located.---Brian

 

[GailInNM]

Brian,
It's just that you are quicker at making parts than I am at typing. ;D
It looks good Brian.
Gail in NM,USA

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Well, that went very good,all things considered. The eccentric hub is very close to being finished, and is exactly as per drawing. I machined the 1/2" diameter for a fairly hard press fit into the flywheel, coated it with Loctite 638, and pressed it into place. I have decided that for sake of concentricity and runout, that I will drill and ream the bore in the hub after the loctite sets up for 24 hours. That way I can hold the outer diameter of the flywheel in my 3 jaw chuck, register the side of the flywheel tight against the 3 chuck jaws, and then drill and ream it. That SHOULD ensure that all is concentric and has very little or no runout.

 

[mklotz]

Three jaw chucks just aren't that accurate and even a small eccentricity will be very noticeable in a flywheel.

Since you already have all those convenient holes in your flywheel, bolt it to your faceplate and use an indicator on the rim to get it running dead true before you drill.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

For todays offering, we have a crankshaft, built exactly as per drawing. The shafts have to be trimmed to length yet, but the brass part is done and the silver soldering went well. I drilled and reamed the hole thru the eccentric hub in my 3 jaw chuck, and as far as I can tell. it runs true. I know Mklotz is correct about the 4 jaw chuck and indicator being more accurate, but the 3 jaw is a lot less hassle.

 

[NickG]

The thing is, you might notice it when it's running and it'll really annoy you, or it would me! On smaller engines you get vibration too if they are running fast but on a slow running beam engine that won't matter. You could always now turn a custom arbor in the 3 jaw, mount the flywheel on it and take a final cut to ensure concentricity.

Nick

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Not a whole lot of progress today. One connecting rod clevis, exactly as per drawing. I actually made this part twice---I was half finished the first time and the end mill grabbed and yanked it out of the vice, wrecked the part, and scared the Bejabbers out of me, but it didn't break the endmill and didn't hurt me.---Sure did an ugly number on the brass part though!!!! I'm back to work now, my vacation is over, and my real job (designing machinery) is interfering with my play job, (building steam engines)!!! Now I have to squeeze machining time into my lunch hour and evening.