Making a piston valve engine from mainly junk materials

[crash93]

Please remove

[bogstandard]

Hi Peter,
Just taking a bit of a rest for the braincells and building a little engine from a set of plans.
Don't want to go into a lot of detail because it will be going off topic.
I think I started it last thursday and hope to have it running either today or tomorrow. Its called an elbow engine, six pistons but only five moving parts. Purely decorative, but was designed to show I think what is called a Hobsons coupling.
Here are a couple of pics of the build.
The flywheel came from a lump of 1" thick ali plate.

John

[derekwarner_decoy]

Hi PD's.....our bogstandard said.......the flywheel came from a lump of 1" thick ali plate......oh yeh :?:  :?:  :?:

But   , our resident mathematician  :mrgreen: Bandit tells me a different story John..... :rant .... that you pinched your wife's best heavy duty aluminium baking tray  :music ...  but what will happen on Sunday when she goes to cook the roast dinner :lol:

[bogstandard]

Ha!, thats where you're wrong :nah
The better half doesn't cook sunday dinner. I know when my meals are ready when I hear a 'ding'
But just wait 'til she comes to turn the washing machine on.
I'm gonna cut Bandits tail off for snitching on me.
I've just caught him beating up the cat, so I whipped it off before he knew about it :twisted:

John with an axe

[bogstandard]

Hello All,
Bet you lot thought I'd run away with the lodger, chance would be a fine thing.
I haven't forgotten about you, still call in about a hundred times a day, but very few posts recently.
I said at the end of my engine build that I was preparing for displaying my engines at the Malpas Yesteryear steam rally on Sept 8th & 9th, they are going onto the stand for the model boat club I belong to,
http://creweanddistrictmodelboatclub.org.uk/index.html
That was two plugs, and nobody noticed.
Anyway I thought I would show you a couple of engines I have knocked up in the last couple of weeks for displaying at the show ( still want a few more so will have to get my thinking cap on), in fact the small one I started yesterday, and got it running this afternoon. Don't tell the wife I'm a quick worker, she'll have me decorating in two shakes of a paintbrush.
Here's the first

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZRKNlY7enM

and the second

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76_TtDfYPCo

The second one actually uses a 1 Euro coin for the base, so it has cost me a lot of money to make, maybe 2 Euros.

After all this lot is over, I will be back with a vengeance, MAYBE (still in my mind yet) with something a bit special for all you steam paddler buffs.

John

[Eddy Matthews]

Thanks John,

I still don't understand how the elbow engine works, and when you say tiny, you mean TINY!!  :respect2

We go through periods when posts drop off - But I have to admit I was wondering if everyone had become monks and had taken a vow of silence!

Your just teasing us with the potential of a paddler engine! Seriously, I cannot wait if it's anything like as good as your last project on Paddleducks!

[bogstandard]

Hi Eddy,
I've been bashing my two brain cells together for a few weeks now for a very slow revving horizontal engine, to save having a lot of big gears or pulleys to reduce the speed, but until I get the show over with I can't really get into it too deep. But if it does materialize it will be nowhere near as long as the last post because a lot of stuff was covered in that post and doesn't need to be repeated.
I need to get a bit more information about how sternwheelers work as I want to try and make two separate piston blocks so that they could be used in a normal paddler, close together, or in a sternwheeler with the cylinders extended to the outside of the boat and joined with just pipes and a coupling rod between them. Thats as far as I have got other than it will be a very long stroke engine.

John

[Dave_Sohlstrom]

John
Here are some shots of the engine room of the Steam Tug Portland. She was the last working steam sternwheeler in Portland  Oregon USA is now a musium and can still be steamed.  Engines developed 900 hp 26" bore 9 foot stroke.

Dave

[Dave_Sohlstrom]

More shots

[bogstandard]

Hi Lads,
What size lathe do you think I've got, no way am I going to make a 12" scale version, that would take at least a fortnight of my time. Thanks for the photos anyway, very interesting.
What I was really after is how they do the basic drive installations on MODEL sternwheelers.

Thanks again

John

[Dave_Sohlstrom]

John

In 1/32nd scale that makes an engine with bore of .812"  and stroke of 3.375" the hull will be a little over 6' long and 20" wide.

Dave

[bogstandard]

Thanks Dave,
I wasn't far out in my head calculations, I was looking at 3/8" bore by 1.5" stroke (4 to 1 ratio), which is about half of your calculations. But does give a bit of a funny scale for a sternwheeler but it would be a manageable size.

Many thanks

John

[crash93]

I know you like "different" engines Have you seen the Halo.  Peter


http://lineymachine.googlepages.com/

[bogstandard]

Hi Peter,
I contacted him about two months ago to see when he is releasing the plans for the Halo. He told me early August, so I am waiting for it to appear on his web site.

John

[crash93]

He has got the Kits for sale now ..But you have a BIG scrap bin...Peter

http://cgi.ebay.com/Pushrod-Operated-Radial-Air-Steam-Engine-MACHINIST-KIT_W0QQitemZ110156769244QQihZ001QQcategoryZ2594QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem