Hello!

[metalnwood]

Hello all, it was very nice to find this forum, what a lot of information!

About 10 years ago I bought a emco compact 5 to build a steam engine and I never got around to it. Today things are a lot larger with a 16" lathe and a bridgeport style mill that I am lucky to have downstairs in my house. I have just finished a long project building a telescope for my backyard and I am relieved that this is now done.

I paced myself at the end so I wasn't burn't out and I still do feel like going in to the shop I thought I would get back to the first metalworking inspiration and build a stationary engine. With christmas coming up and a son that may enjoy the results it seems like a good fun thing to do.

I have been off work for about a year so funds are tight and stock on hand is very low with no brass at all :- I do have some bronze and a small assortment al aluminium, e.g. 32mm solid round, 100x19 bar 45x45 bar and a few other small bits.. Not sure I will be able to get by with just whats on hand at the moment.

I went around to a friends house and liked the look and movement of his half beam he had just finished, it was the slower motion that appealed to me and thats what I would like to start with, something that you can see the motion and it's not just a blur.

I just saw a video of a modified elmers factory engine. It also had a nice speed and I think is about the right size and complexity to start off with.

I am not interested in a casting at this stage, unless I do my own so it's from scratch. Any suggestions are appreciated, any plans in metric are appreciated I look forward to posting my progress, I really do think it's important to create a build log of my work to help others because I have had so much help from others on the internet myself.

Heres my last project, not steam but pretty satisfying. No thats not me in the picture

Thanks,
Jason

 

[Maryak]

Jason,

Welcome to our forum.

Best Regards
Bob

 

[zeeprogrammer]

Welcome to the forum Jason.
Look around...there's probably an engine or two whose material requirements are within reach. There's a (dare I say it?) Rocker that doesn't take too much. Looking forward to builds.

 

[vlmarshall]

Ah, man, what a beautiful telescope. :bow: Is that a Cassegrain?

Edit:
Welcome to the forum!



More photos of your observatory and 'scope mount/drive would be great, if you have them handy. ;D

 

[metalnwood]

Thanks all, I am sure I will have a lot of fun and no doubt frustration making these ;D

Vernon, I made the larger scope only and have bought the red mount. I originally thought about making the mount but when you add up the cost of the components that you can't do yourself and no guarantee that it will perform to the same degree then it made sense to buy the mount.

Yep the scope is a cassegrain, a ritchey chreitein to be exact. Still waiting to get the first light from it. The weather does not cooperate.

Heres a link to some information about the observatory http://www.mydiversions.com/Site/Observatory.html

My site needs a lot more added to it, like the build log for the scope which is currently on another forum.

I am now looking for plans for an engine like this one.. http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=6635.0

it's got the looks, sound and speed that I like..



Thanks,
Jason

 

[Tin Falcon]

MNW:
first of all welcome. I was just watching the old Doc Savage Trailer On Utube showing his geodesic dome in the Antarctic his legendary fortress of tranquility. Your scope and shop make his look pathetic, of course doc savage was 1930s vintage a A brand new 1935 south bend lathe was high tech then.
Anyway blueprints
Here are a couple of simple starter engines

first of all an oscillator
http://littlemachineshop.com/Projects/OscillatingEngine.php

and another easy one this has a cross slide valve
http://npmccabe.tripod.com/mccaberunner.htm

these both have nice motion and if built well should run on a few psi of air.
and last but not least look here the plans you want are #41 down the page a bit.
grab a hanky to dabb the drool!!
http://www.john-tom.com/html/ElmersEngines.html
These plans IIRC are all imperial sigh but a trick you can use is make either 1/16 or 1/32 = to one MM this will either scale the engine up or down a bit but eliminates the frustration of trying to make imperial plans ft metric stock
Tin

 

[John Rudd]

Wow...such talent to create a telescope of such beauty....


Welcome to the forum and good luck with whatever you build next....

 

[rake60]

Welcome to HMEM Jason.

Rick

 

[metalnwood]

Thanks all, I have done a lot of reading over the last few days. I was laid up in bed yesterday which gave me some more time. Not to mention the time spent reading machinery catalogs! It seems I can never fill up my workshop with tools and unfortunately wont be able to attempt to for a while ;D

After reading threads from other people I decided to go with teh littlemachineshop's oscillating engine. Not exactly what I had envisioned but the plans are very clear so it seems like a good starting point. Also, I have all the stock on hand!

No doubt, you will have all seen a number of build logs of this one before but I will move over to the other section and start one myself.

Thanks,
JAson

 

[cfellows]

Hi Jason, welcome to the forum.

Beautiful Telescope! Did you grind the optics yourself?

I've built some 30 telescopes over the past 10 years, everything from 80mm refractors to a 16" Newtonian. My pride and joy, and the only one that I still have, is this 7.1" MakNewt.

Here's a collective picture of some of the other's I built.

Chuck

 

[metalnwood]

Chuck, they are great looking telescopes! The only scope I built before this was a 16" dob following the Kreig and Berry book so it is very similar to the one on the left of your picture.

I didn't do the optics, the Ritchey Chretein would be much too hard for me I am afraid so I had to get them from the USA.

I am in the middle of a CNC router table build. It will give me a 1.2x1.2M bed (~4x4foot) and I should expect > .003" accuracy but I won't know exactly how good until it's finished.

I think I number of telescopes will come from that machine

thanks,
Jason