Falling out of love with Stuart castings....

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mwilkes

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Bloody great hole in my casting.... Reckon Stuarts would send me a replacement?

image-215824272.jpg
 
Yes , if you mail that picture to him , he will replaced that. Thing like that can happens. And he can not look inside the castings.
 
Thats a slag inclusion, Happens to the best of them.
 
Bloody great hole in my casting.... Reckon Stuarts would send me a replacement?

Did you ask or have you asked them?
Also, how many kits/ models have you had from Stuarts that have had this problem? Is this the first??
Contact them before you post something like this. :fan:

As aonemarine stated, it happens!
 
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Oh I didn't mean to cast negative aspersions on Stuart in particular - just castings in general. A poor choice of thread title...although as it happens I had problems with a 10V casting and some of the castings for the twin launch i'm working on look like the two halves were flung together in an awful hurry. I'll send them a message and see if they respond (and I will be most appreciative if they do).
 
Oh I didn't mean to cast negative aspersions on Stuart in particular - just castings in general. A poor choice of thread title...although as it happens I had problems with a 10V casting and some of the castings for the twin launch i'm working on look like the two halves were flung together in an awful hurry. I'll send them a message and see if they respond (and I will be most appreciative if they do).

Mark, as it has already been said the best of foundries can have a hard piece or a blow hole.
I have built many Stuart engines from castings bought from Stuart in the Channel Island and had some minute problems that were immediately replaced on contact with them and in general have found thier castings very good.
However having completed a set of Launch engine castings I must say that they were the poorest that I have ever had to machine and as they were bought on e-bay I just had to get on with it.
The eccentric casting like yours had a very hard bit in it but after machining although it left a little bit of a pit ran very true.
The Major problem was with the cylinder casting, that after machining and cleaning out the exhaust and steam ports on final assembly the engine just wouldn't run,
On further checking I discovered that the ports were not cast as per the drawing so I had to make a plate from 1/16" thk gauge plate and mill the ports to the correct dimensions as shown on the drawing and fit them between the cylinder casting and the steam chest, so double check the ports on the casting to the drawing.

Her are some pics of the eccentric casting and if you look close to the finished engine you can just see the gauge plate and a DRG of the dimensions of the ports cast in the cylinder and the dimensions in black are what they should be.

George.

Eccentric with blow  hole.jpg


cylinder ports.jpg


DSCF0100.jpg
 
That is a beautiful machine regardless of how much trouble the castings were for you. You obviously overcame any trouble. I feel like those little obstacles only sweeten the reward.
 
Update: Stuart are going to send me a replacement and a spare free of charge. Andy Meakin seems to be a very decent chap...
 
@George - thanks for the tip - I'll check the casting. Beautiful engine you have there! I notice your eccentrics don't have a ridge in the centre that the drawing suggest - having a flange on the outside looks much more sensible (and easier to machine!) - I might copy you...
 

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