In an earlier post I mentioned that I had a full set of unmachined castings and drawings for a Sanderson Beam Engine in 1/12th scale obtained from Great Britten 10-12 yrs. ago, One of my relatives and I want to build two of these engines but blown up by 50% to 1/8th scale, ( He's pretty good with Auttocad and is reworking all the drawings to 1/8th).
We could make patterns and then have castings poured but would prefer not to do so, What we want to do is machine all the parts from cast iron plate and rod stock.
Does anyone have any opionions on what grade/type of cast iron we should use?
As far as I know at one time cast iron engine blocks were rough machined then placed outside to go thru numerous heating, cooling cycles that took months to slowly stress releave these engine blocks and then they were re-machined to final correct dimentions. Can the same thing be done at home on a smaller scale? by useing the kitchen oven/freezer. If we rough cut the bar and plate material then place this in the oven at say 300-500 degrees F. then hold that temp for an hr. then cool slowly to room temp. then place the cast iron in the freezer for a couple of day's then repeat the heat/cool cycle 4-6 more times would this compleatly stress releave the material? These beam engines will not be cheap to build in materials and tooling so we do NOT want the parts to warp after machining, what is machined flat HAS to stay flat.With the ammount of talent and experience on this site someone has to know how to do this the easy way.
Pete
We could make patterns and then have castings poured but would prefer not to do so, What we want to do is machine all the parts from cast iron plate and rod stock.
Does anyone have any opionions on what grade/type of cast iron we should use?
As far as I know at one time cast iron engine blocks were rough machined then placed outside to go thru numerous heating, cooling cycles that took months to slowly stress releave these engine blocks and then they were re-machined to final correct dimentions. Can the same thing be done at home on a smaller scale? by useing the kitchen oven/freezer. If we rough cut the bar and plate material then place this in the oven at say 300-500 degrees F. then hold that temp for an hr. then cool slowly to room temp. then place the cast iron in the freezer for a couple of day's then repeat the heat/cool cycle 4-6 more times would this compleatly stress releave the material? These beam engines will not be cheap to build in materials and tooling so we do NOT want the parts to warp after machining, what is machined flat HAS to stay flat.With the ammount of talent and experience on this site someone has to know how to do this the easy way.
Pete