My First Engine - A Rotary Valve

[TaxPhd]

Well, it was almost a month ago that I found this website, and posted my introduction. I received a very warm welcome from a number of forum members, which I really appreciated. One member, georgeseal, happens to live down the road a ways from me, and very graciously offered to help me out. He invited me to his shop, and we started right in building the cover engine from the June/July '08 edition of Machinist's Workshop. I am having a great time, learning a lot, and I haven't broke anything yet. Only injury is a very small divot taken out of my finger while grinding a lathe bit. Doh!! Overall, I think the process has been a success.

Here are some pics of the engine in process (I just remembered today to bring my camera - I don't have any early pics).

This shows the brass cylinder block, and the engine block with crankshaft:

This is another view of the engine block, complete with my very first layout lines (which you can see aren't where they are supposed to be. ). I eventually got the holes properly positioned, in spite of my layout lines. The long line across the face of the block came from center punching and drilling the intake hole. There is very little clearance, and the hole is tricky to drill. I plan to clean up those marks later on:

This shows the brass cylinder block in process. When we started on this piece, George hands me a piece of cylindrical brass stock, about 2" long, and 1.5" in diameter. He said "That's your block." Silly me, I thought a block should be rectangular. He started chuckling, and told me to figure out how to do it on the lathe. Here, it is almost finished:

Due to the size of the piece, we ran out of clearance for the chuck jaws. Here is the cylinder block being finished up on the mill:

I'll have some more pics after the next time working.



Scott

 

[ksouers]

Nice start, Scott.

You need to bring the camera more often. We like progress pics.

And, of course, the obligatory video when you get it running

 

[dparker]

Scott: Nice start on the engine. I built one with a few modifications, one being a brass tube for a bearing in a longer block and the other a side feed adapter for the air supply. Mine needs a little more break in time to run smoothly, but it does run.
Have a enjoyable build-----don

 

[rake60]

Looking good Scott!

Please keep us posted on the progress.
There's nothing better than watching a first build come together!

Rick

 

[Bernd]

Nice start there Scott.

George is one heck of a nice guy. Came to my rescue when I had trouble and I live in New York. Next time you see George tell him that the gears for my mini-mill are still working fine that he sent me.

And keep up the good work. Make sure you take a video when it's running. We all want to see that first engine run.

Bernd

 

[TaxPhd]

Got to work some more on the engine this afternoon. After we squared the sides of the cylinder block, we mounted a boring bar to bore the cylinder.

After boring the cylinder, we used a reamer to to bring it to it's finished diameter (.375). A piece of 3/8" round stock lightly lubricated was a perfect fit. In fact, after inserting the round stock, and plugging the end hole with my thumb, withdrawing the round stock created enough vacuum pressure to pull the round stock back into the cylinder.

Four mounting holes were drilled and tapped, and a port was drilled in the cylinder block.

The mounting holes were a slow process. Each hole position had to be located using the DRO. Then center drilled, drilled to depth, and tapped. Changing bits/tools took some time. I fussed at George for not having CNC with an automatic tool changer. He promised to quickly remedy the problem. Honestly, I don't know how I can be expected to work in such primitive conditions. ;D

Four socket-head cap screws are trimmed to length for mounting the cylinder block to the engine block.

After mounting the cylinder block to the engine block, a fly cutter was used to clean up the faces, square the edges, and give a smooth polished finish. It is difficult to see in this picture, but we also drilled and tapped the crank for the piston pin.

That's all for now. I hope to get some more done this weekend.



Scott