I didn't take a lot of pictures along the way, so thus no build log, but I did get my version of Jan Ridders Sterling Bas finished up today (started back in Nov, finished just in time for X-mas )
After a little mishap with the drawings, this one turned out "left-handed", like me
It runs for hours on one tea candle, though it has an interesting habit of slowing way down, then speeding back up for several minutes, then slowing down for a several minutes, then speeding back up, etc, etc.. kinda cool, but a little weird.
I got irritated making graphite pistons and breaking them at the last minute, so went back to brass cylinder and polished steel piston. This time around I chose to work as much in metric as possible, though it occasionally made my brain hurt trying to wangle the CNC into behaving . The threads and fasteners are all imperial, but that's about it (in the future I will also use imperial-sized drill-rod for the axles and rods, or go obtain some metric drill rod first). I couldn't get the specified bearings for the cranks at the local hobby store, so I used some swiped out of a high-end computer fan. Couple nice 5mm/8mm BBs in each.
Here's the few random pix from the build.
The flywheel was CNC-ed into some plate, then hacked out with the bandsaw and friction-turned round a-la Bog's "Making Flywheels From Plate" article.
Here's how to get a set of crank webs the easy way-- mill up a rod full and then part them off.
This one I posted elsewhere on cutting glass test-tubes.
And a little video (pre-bling)
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MISeGBe10AI[/ame]
After a little mishap with the drawings, this one turned out "left-handed", like me
It runs for hours on one tea candle, though it has an interesting habit of slowing way down, then speeding back up for several minutes, then slowing down for a several minutes, then speeding back up, etc, etc.. kinda cool, but a little weird.
I got irritated making graphite pistons and breaking them at the last minute, so went back to brass cylinder and polished steel piston. This time around I chose to work as much in metric as possible, though it occasionally made my brain hurt trying to wangle the CNC into behaving . The threads and fasteners are all imperial, but that's about it (in the future I will also use imperial-sized drill-rod for the axles and rods, or go obtain some metric drill rod first). I couldn't get the specified bearings for the cranks at the local hobby store, so I used some swiped out of a high-end computer fan. Couple nice 5mm/8mm BBs in each.
Here's the few random pix from the build.
The flywheel was CNC-ed into some plate, then hacked out with the bandsaw and friction-turned round a-la Bog's "Making Flywheels From Plate" article.
Here's how to get a set of crank webs the easy way-- mill up a rod full and then part them off.
This one I posted elsewhere on cutting glass test-tubes.
And a little video (pre-bling)
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MISeGBe10AI[/ame]