Single Cylinder Beam Engine

[ronkh]

Gentlemen,
As a few of you may recall, I had a slight mishap in my garage a few months ago - namely, a little fire caused by throwing some old batteries away in a plastic sack. Never, ever do this yourselves!!
It's bloody painful
Anyway, it's now about time I started to show you my results since I got back up and running by making a start on the above.

This will not be rushed as it's my first build on a steam engine but with time and a few curses, I will get there.
I'm no stranger to machining having spent the last 40 plus years as a machinist. The past 14 in a Formula 1 team so I do have some experience!
Having said that, I will take advice/tips from you people on making these things as this is my first go at them.
The two rings were turned on a CNC lathe/mill where I used to work just before Christmas from where I took voluntary redundancy. You will see in a couple of pics later on in this topic, that I re-trimmed the wheel because after I placed the larger diameter brass ring in the oven to grow to fit the aluminium inner ring, it slipped slightly. mainly because my fingers decided that they had got too hot through the leather gloves I was wearing! Thankfully. after I gently tapped it as true as I could using my small knockometer, it was only a few thou out. The first pic is pre fitting. Second after assembly.
The diameters are; brass ring 225 x 15 width. Aluminium 190 o/d, i/d 170 x 11 width. hub 37 x 18 x 10 bore and the spokes are 6m/m dia. The spokes are a tight slide fit in the ali ring and I found that once together with no glue, there was no movement. The only glue is to hold the small brass rings on the inside dia of the ali. These I turned up to try to break the plainess of the wheel up.
The weight of this little beast (the wheel) is a healthy 2Ib 3.5 ounces. or 1007 grams, so should make for an interesting run once up and running.
By the way, the plans are from the Model engineering website.
More to follow in a while if you'd like to see more.

Ron.


View attachment RES02503.JPG

View attachment RES02503.JPG

 

[ronkh]

Some more pics.
These are the wheel mounted on a mandrell and being trimmed with my butt cheeks firmly held together :big:
Taking very small cuts, maximum .025 or .001" and with no machine feed at all, it now runs within .05 or 2 " so I'm quite pleased for such a big chunk.
The third pic was checking runout before cutting the spokes to length. This was where I found out that there was no need to glue them in. Once 3 spokes are lined up, the rest just followed a natural path in the hub. The outer ring holds them in place and I also found that it was impossible to move the hub after this in any way.

Ron.

 

[ronkh]

This post shows a few turned parts ready to mount in my collets.
The material to be used on this engine will be the usual: Aluminium, brass rod and plate, copper, bronze, silver steel (or S/S), mild steel, cast iron and some wood. As the build goes I will say what if any other material is used, and what part it will be on.
These parts are ali, brass and bronze.


Ron.

Sorry. Pulled up the same pic twice.

 

[b.lindsey]

Looks good so far Ron. Can you post a picture or drawing of the full size engine so we can see where you are headed with the build? Must be a sizeable engine given the heft of that flywheel :big:

Bill