# Finger engine



## Bogstandard

I was having a bit of a discussion with Wareagle about 'bling' and his great little finger engine, this led to me decide that I would give a couple to friends as christmas gifts, as a part 'payment' for all the help they have given me throughout the year, a bottle of scotch will be the other part. This doesn't leave me long to get three done (a little bit of a special one for myself).

So if anyone wants to build one I have done a sketch, not plans, just a 'roughie' with the working dimensions on it, the rest will be a 'wing it' job.

I have picked up a piccy from somewhere, but can't remember where, so if you recognise it, chirp up and you will get recognition for the basic besign.

Now to start.







I drew up some dimensions for a full sided one as in the pic, or as two seperate standards, which is the type I am doing (easier on the ali plate stock). My ali disc has been marked out to give me the rough metal for the six larger standards that are required, and I might be able to get a few of the smaller ones out of the bits I cut off.
There is a selection of bearings, both roller and oilite (decision on what is going to be used comes later) and a couple of bits of brass bar to be the axles. I have already roughed out a couple of 3" flywheels (the ones for mine are still in my head, but will be rather unusual).

So here is my working drawing, I have even kept it in imperial to help our colonial cousins if they decide to try one.






So, bling fairies dragged off my other project for the moment, and full speed ahead on these.


John


----------



## wareagle

Bog, it looks like you have a great start there. The finger engine I built wasn't draw either. I built it out of pieces of scrap I had laying around, and just made everything to "fit". It was a fun build, and I think the part of figuring out what would work here and there was a big part of the fun.

I am sure your friends will really enjoy the little engines a great deal! I am looking forward to seeing the final products!


----------



## Powder keg

That will look nice. I want to make one from castings. I think mine will be a tad bigger though?


----------



## cfellows

Here's a casting I made for a treadle engine. It's cast from Zinc / Aluminum alloy, mostly Zinc, and weighs about the same as cast iron. The base is 4.5 inches long and the vertical pieces are 2" high.


----------



## Bogstandard

Wareagle,
I just love these little projects, get a bit of metal and 'wing it' and see what comes out of it. Total relaxation from making from plans, nothing too critical.

PK,
This could easily be made a bit longer, just add a bit to the overall length and add the same figure to the conrod length. When going for 'larger', maybe you should consider who is going to be playing with it. If it is breadsnatchers, they might not have the power in their grubby little digits to turn it over. I kept mine compact because of the metal required to make them, just to keep it under control.

Chuck,
Lovely bit of casting, my atlas lathe is covered in mazak parts (including the gear train), and is nearing 70 years old, so it is very hard wearing.
But I think you may have made a slight mistake by showing it on here. Methinks you will have to get your casting boots on because you just might be inundated for people wanting one.

John


----------



## Bogstandard

I am going to continue this build but using smaller pictures otherwise it could get very boring scrolling thru it all. I will be bouncing from one machining operation to another, if you don't understand anything then just ask, and I will give you as much info as I am able.
I will be showing how I get things done with tips on how I do it, and sometimes the reasons behind why I do it that way. Your way may be different, but if we get to the same conclusion, who cares, we are here to make little engines. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I showed you last time that I had marked out the large vertical uprights, this next pic shows that I have cut them out using my little B&D upright bandsaw.






Now what I have done with these is to stick them together with double sided tape. This will allow me to machine them all to the same size. This technique works as long as there are no free blocks outside the grip of the vice jaws. This will be self explanatory over the next couple of pics.






This and the next pic are not very good, but they do show that the blocks are held together by the vice jaws, the tape stops them moving about when they are released from the jaws. This shot shows the second side being fly cut after the first side was faced and is now tapped down onto a parallel (in this case a 1-2-3 block). These faces are machined down until the correct width is reached. By having them stuck together allows you to take them out as a solid block for measurement.






On this shot I am squaring up the end of the uprights (If this was a solid block rather than laminations I would just pop it into my four jaw and face up using that, it gives a much better finish). But I only do this on one end. It is then deburred and put down in the vice onto paras, and the top face is cleaned up with a flycutter. The job is then turned over so the just flycut face is now down onto the para and the upper face is then flycut to give the correct height. There is a reason for doing this, a couple of extra minutes spent flycutting will save hours on cleaning up the edges by hand, as when faced up with an endmill the finish is never really as good as a flycut face.






Here are the six required plates, machined to size with nice mirror finished edges. It is a shame that they will have to be removed, except for the bottom, when the plate is profiled, but doing it this way will ensure all the holes are in the right places. 






What I have done is marked a corner on each plate, this is the datum corner, so when the machine is set up to drill, the plates are placed into the vice in the same position. This will ensure the side and end holes are all in the same position to each other. Here is showing using the edge finder to get the edge of the plate so I can then position the drill to put the bearing hole thru. The table is then locked up solid. You will also notice I am using a backstop. This allows me to drill a hole, replace the plate and drill a hole in the same position on the new plate. It is the only way to go if you are making multiple parts.






The bearing holes have been drilled and deburred and are now down in the chuck jaws and I am edge finding again to find the location of the tapped and dowel holes. Again everything is locked up and the backstop used for locating the new part.






Here are the three finished pairs of uprights before profiling. I have decided to use roller bearings in them, but just plain holes will do as long as they are a nice sliding fit and not too loose, and a bit of lube is used, the choice is your own.
Now you ask, what is the dowelled hole for? I am a cheapskate, so if I can get away without using something I will. Normally you would use two screws to hold the upright to the baseplate, but in this case, even a small screw would be plenty strong enough to hold it, so what I have done is just put another hole in the bottom of the upright, and a matching one in the baseplate will have a little bit of rod put in there and this will be a location point to stop the upright moving, and the screw secures it to the baseplate.

Thats it for this post. If you are finding it boring or uninformative just let me know and I will stop. 
If not, I expect to have these engines to a running state by early next week.
The medicos got at me this morning so I just might be going a little slow for a day or two.

John


----------



## Kactiguy

It's not boring. We are just waiting for more. My son decided he wants to build one of these a few days ago. Your tutorial came at a perfect time.


----------



## Bogstandard

Hi K,
Sorry it is not a planset, but it should give you a general layout for you to make your own.
Please don't take everything I do as set in stone, the way I do things might be slightly different to how you do it. Just modify the info to suit yourself, and I hope your little one enjoys doing it.
As I get a little further along and see what is needed I will put up a sketch for baseplate measurements. Plus tomorrow I can put up a sketch for the holes in the large standard which I did today as they are not dimensioned in my first sketch.

John


----------



## wareagle

Kactiguy  said:
			
		

> It's not boring. We are just waiting for more. My son decided he wants to build one of these a few days ago. Your tutorial came at a perfect time.



That is great! Get the kids involved, and encourage them to learn the hobby. It applies to so many facets of life! And it is a very easy project (or as hard as you want) to build. One of the Home Shop Machinist issues have a finger engine in it that is a little bit different than what is shown on this thread if you would like to have a plan. If my memory serves me right, it was geared toward a high school shop student's abilities.

Enjoy the time with your son! Those memories will be golden!!


----------



## Bogstandard

Deere has informed me that this is the one I have based mine on

http://www.billreichart.com/images/thumbfunengine_lrg.jpg

Many thanks D, and to Bill Reichart for the inspiration.

The planset is from here

http://www.billreichart.com/engines.shtml#thumb

John


----------



## Bogstandard

Just a short post this time.

These were made using the same process as the large uprights, using the cut off bits from my piece of plate.







You will notice I have only put a pilot hole thru for the angled finger doo-dah, this is to allow me to decide what is required a little later. If you don't want the hole showing on the outside you will have to drill a blind hole, but in that case you would also have to make a matched pair. Also see that I haven't done any profiling on these yet, I always wait until the engine is nearly finished and profile the bits to suit the engine looks, the ones on my first sketch were just suggestions. But be mindful where the dowel hole is, you don't want to go breaking into that.






Here is the sketch for the uprights. Mainly to show the hole positions and depth.
The sizes for the holding screw and dowel holes are left to personal choice because I don't know what you have in stock. My dowel holes are 1/8" diameter, the screws don't have to be high tensile, there will be little stress forces on this engine. The holes for the mounting screws and the dowels are drilled along the centre line of the plate thickness.

The reason for this short post is that I am going to try to show how to make a low stress crank for these little engines. I will be silver soldering my three, but hopefully I will be showing how I would make a crank from bits just pinned and stuck together. So there is a fair amount of metal prep to get thru before they are ready.

If all is well, tomorrow the cranks will be done.

John

I forgot to mention, if you are making the one piece side pieces you don't need the dowel holes. But they are a bit of a waste on material.


----------



## dparker

Hello All: I really like these type of projects! I built a finger engine several years ago from HSM magazine. A couple of years ago I built a "double" finger engine so I could run it faster. I am not co-ordinated enough to run it near as fast as the single. I cheated some by building up the crankshafts and pinning them instead of turning them from a piece of solid. No "bling" but I will work on learning to start thinking in that direction in future projects. I can hook the single up to my homemade tachometer and put a little drag on it and it really changes the operation to make it more challenging but fun to watch the RPM meter.




Don


----------



## Bogstandard

Nice work there Don,
On engines of this power, one finger, or in the case of your 'double', two fingers, even with the stored up energy in the flywheel, there is really no need to go down the machining route to make your cranks (but they do tend to look more impressive).
But even a built up one can be made to 'look' solid.

The way I do my 'bling', is get to the running and finished stage as yours are, then take off a piece, 'bling' it and stick it back on. Do it at your own pace rather than all at once. But sometimes it has to be done as the build progresses as it is difficult to disassemble.

John


----------



## wareagle

Don, those are impresive little engines. There are a million different ways of doing a build on one of these things, and it is great to see the different ideas. As far as lack of bling goes, I have a very crude finger engine on my desk at work. It was one I made a while back that I didn't take the time to round corners, smooth surfaces, or anything of that nature. I would be embarrassed to post a picture of it as it is really ugly, but I still am pround of how well it came out mechanically. It "runs" great, and I find myself making it turn all of the time. Guess it is a nervous habid of some sort.

Thanks for sharing your engines!


----------



## Bogstandard

And just another little bit, didn't manage to get them finished but did get to a good stopping point.
I have shown a soldering tip on this one, so will be a bit of a long post.







I have done this pic just to explain about what is used for making built up cranks.

I am going to be making my cranks and shafts out of brass, so I will be silver soldering mine, but if you want to build them up without hard soldering you will require a few extra bits.
If you are making a high stress crank you will really need to pin it together with what we call in the UK, roll pins, I don't know what the American equivalent is. But what they are is a high tensile spring steel tube with a split up the side, they are just knocked thru the cross holes (more of that on next post) to lock everything together.
Because I will be making a low stress crank, I will be using a softened brass rod put through the cross holes, and expanding it to make a nice tight joint and when dressed and polished you shouldn't be able to tell it is there. If making a steel crank you could use a soft iron welding rod for the pins.
The pic shows the 1/4" plate that I will cut the eight crank webs out of. Some 3/16" brass rod for the crankshaft and a bit of brass rod for the pins.
Also shown is my silver solder flux, premixed with a drop of water and a spot of washing up liquid and on top of the little flux tub is a packet of 0.5mm silver solder wire.
At the left hand end is a tub of soft solder flux and a reel of lead free solder. The end of the solder has been flattened out with a hammer on a clean surface to the thickness of printing paper. This is being used on the next pic.






The rough crank webs have been cut out of the plate and the faces cleaned up on a bit of emery paper to allow the solder to stick. The little block on the right shows some fingernail clipping size of the lead free flattened soft solder. The more you put on the more it takes to clean it off. So just to explain the technique. Lay a block down, spread a very thin layer of flux on the exposed face and put a piece of the solder on top, butter up the next block on both sides with flux and make up a sandwich with the first block, then just build up with solder, flux and blocks. I made two sets of four.
It is then just a matter of applying heat (not a lot required) until the solder flows. On no account drop these into water to cool down, place them onto a large metal plate or block and let them cool down naturally. The reason for this is that if you drop them into water, some of the water might be drawn into the joints thru capillary action, and when compressed in the vice will hydraulic in the joint and tend to split it apart. Not a thing you want to happen on the last machining operation.






This pic shows my two laminated blocks cooling down on a large thick plate.
When they are cool enough to handle, I will put them in my milling vice and put a lot of compression pressure onto the joints. This will deform the very thin solder layer and all plates should end up parallel to each other (or close enough that it doesn't matter).
The blocks are then machined to size and reheated and split apart. I don't like drilling thru soldered joints like this because they have a tendency to split the joint apart and so causing trouble trying to get everything into alignment again, so I clean the blocks up, and using my back stop, drill them individually.






This pic shows just how accurate back stop drilling can be, they are all a good fit onto the rod. I reckon they are all within 0.001".
The three sets on the left are my ones that will be silver soldered, the ones on the right are going to be used for the demo on pinning a crank together, plus also shown are the brass pins that will be put thru the joints.
The green circled holes are for grub screws and the red ones are guide holes for drilling for the rods.

I have guests coming tomorrow but I will try to sneak into the shop to finish this part about the cranks off.

John


----------



## shred

Amazingly enough, they're 'roll pins' over here too. Thanks for the writeup.


----------



## Bogstandard

Thanks for that Shred. 
It is so difficult trying to do a post like this and trying not to mention items that might not be recognised. So I just tend to stick to generic names.
Another problem is that I am actually using all metric sizes, but changing them to equivalent imperial sizes as I write the post.

John


----------



## wareagle

Bog, you are doing a great job! And making the conversion is a nice added bonus!


----------



## cfellows

John,

I've always known them as roll pins, as well, but I have also heard them referred to a tension pins. Great information in the post.

Chuck


----------



## Bogstandard

While you were all still asleep I managed to sneak into the shop before the unwanted get here, and managed to get the demo of the pinned crank done.
The pics aren't great, but you should, by squinting, be able to see what I did.


The next three pics show how I mounted the webs up into my little vice. You could do the same by mounting into your milling vice.
You need a couple of offcuts of the material you are going to make the conrod out of, mine is going to be made from the same material as what the side plates were cut out of. Assemble the bits like shown in the pics. I always leave the main crankrods overlength, and cut them down when all is done and dusted, to allow for flywheel width etc. Tap everything down until the rods are nice and snug onto the top of the jaws.
The blocks were not drilled all the way thru, just into the centre holes. The grub screw hole was tapped and a screw fitted. It is recommended that you put a small flat onto the crankpin where the screw sits, and also grind the sharp point off the end of the grub screw, so you end up with it flat faced, it does less damage that way.


















Then it is just a matter of drilling all the way thru the guide holes with a drill the same size as the softened rods are.







Now pop your pins into the holes. If you were building it with roll pins you would have to support it underneath while you tapped them thru. If the softened metal pins are slightly loose, don't worry, just belt them on their sides so that they hold in while you assemble the crank, it won't be a big deal because we are going to expand the pins like rivets to make everything nice and snug.







Remove the crank from your vice and get a nice smooth lump of metal to bang down onto. I have a small anvil that I use for this, but the back of your bench vice will do just as good. DO NOT use any surfaces on your machinery, if you do, I will send the gremlins to come get ya!.
 Trim the ends of your pins down, I made mine about 3/32". Because the metal is soft just put one end of the pin onto the block and tap the other end, what you want to do is form like a flat rivet head on each side, once you have got the heads formed just keep tapping away until the heads are about 1/32" thick. What you have just done is expanded the metal into the hole, and it should be nearly as strong as a solid joint. You should end up with something looking like this on top of my anvil (but without the pen marks). I put the marks on to show what you have to remove to finish the crank, just cut it with a hacksaw or dremel, fairly close to the webs. You do not trim the end of the crankpin near the grub screw yet. After you have fitted your conrod and allowed for a small amount of side play (maybe 4 or 5 thou) then you dress it to length.







After half an hour with a file and some abrasive paper this is what you should end up with, a nice useable low stress crank. This method can be used to build higher stress cranks, but the thru pins have to be a lot stronger, either roll pins or silver steel (unhardened of course). Just another point, as a belt and braces measure, you could use a bit of loctite engineering adhesive as you are assembling it all before forming the pins.






Because this crank is not going to be used, but recycled, I did not do any profiling to the webs, normally I would do this before I started this operation.
I do apologise for the quality of the pics but as I don't really like using flash the pics have picked up a colour cast from my lighting and my software can't get rid of it from some of the pics.

John

I will put a sketch up of my dimensions on my next post.


----------



## Sprocket

Just for comparison, here is another version. This one was in HSM, but I think they handed out the plans at NAMES one year.










they do make great desk toys.

Doug


----------



## Bogstandard

Unwanted gone, managed to get back in the shop to finish off these damned cranks.

As I said, I am silver soldering mine, mainly because I love silver soldering, and if you can master it, the world of little engines gets a lot easier. Rather than having to pin or screw something together, you can make a much neater job by soldering.






This is the start of getting the job done. The flux (Tenacity 4A) is mixed with water and a drop of washing up liquid to a consistency of pouring cream. If kept in a little sealed container it will last for months in this state.
I am using Easyflo solder, but in the form of thin wire (0.5mm). This is wrapped around the crankrod to form a spiral, just like a spring, then it is cut along the edge to give me a load of little rings.
Cleanliness is paramount to getting a good join. Degrease first then clean it with either carpenters wire wool (no protective oil) or a scotchbrite pad and handle the parts as little as possible.
The way I assemble is to paint a bit of flux into the holes and then push the rods thru, then paint a bit more flux either side of the holes. Then just pop a silver solder ring onto the outside joint where the rod enters the web. This will allow the solder thru capillary action to fill up the joints.






This shot shows the assemblies mounted onto a makeshift hearth made from a couple of firebricks. Only three small rings of solder have been used on each assembly.
I will solder each one in turn. This is really only possible because of the flux that I use, it is designed for mainly stainless but the main property is that it can withstand extended heating without breaking down. With borax you would be lucky to get one done.
I started by playing the flame onto the front left one, between the two main webs, this allowed the heat to go into the blocks and travel along the shafts. About twenty seconds later the solder melted and was sucked into the joint, during this operation the rear set was being warmed up. I then did the front right using the same method then quickly dropped onto the back one which was almost up to temperature and only took a few seconds to complete.
They were allowed to cool down for about a minute then dropped into quench water, which knocked off about 90% of the flux. The flux I use is very aggressive, and if left for too long on non ferrous parts it will eat into them (I am talking about hours, not minutes).
Because most of the flux was removed I decided not to put them into a citric acid pickle bath.






Here they are straight out of the quench, nice clean fillets and good penetration thru the joint. Cut out the unwanted bits and onto the lathe for dressing up.






One finished, two to go.
You need to be aware that a built up crank like this, with a grub screw to allow assembly of the conrod is in fact unstable, and might need a bit of resetting of the grub screw and webs to get it running true, but usually no problems are encountered. I usually hang the conrod down into the vice jaws, push the two webs down onto the tops of the jaws and tweak up the screw.







This is a quickie sketch of the dimensions of my crank webs.

That is the hard part done. Just the conrod and finger doo-dah and then it will be baseplate and assembly time.

BTW, now that I am over half way thru I will tell you why I have done this posting.
I am looking to do a build of an engine like my poppet valve one, only a little more simple, and a lot more machining techniques explained. I have been following this post to see what people have to say and how many questions are asked, plus how many 'spoiler' posts are put in here.

It has been very enlightening. Very few questions asked (just as though everyone knows what I am on about), a few little spoilers and a few comments. Not what I was expecting at all. Will have to see when it is finished in a few days time.

John


----------



## dparker

Hello All: Well, all this talk and Bog's write up about finger engines made me get mine out today. I hooked it up to my homebuilt tach (from Popular Science plans) and had the wife take a picture. She started laughing so much she couldn't keep it running in the same direction long enough to get her picture running it and show the needle off the peg. I can only get it running about 50+ RPM before I get my finger twitchy and reverse it or stall it. I did build it with ball bearings so it run easily (and reverses easily). I did grind up a tool for making the indentation cuts on flywheels from Bo'gs posts and will be trying it out on the flywheel of the "Miser" I am starting. Such small parts! Yikes!




As you can see (I hope) it is running about 30 RPM.
Don


----------



## Powder keg

Fun, Fun, Fun:O)!


----------



## Bogstandard

All my bits working again, so lets get on with it.






These are the basic dimensions of the conrod, and needs to be made like this first. That is if you want to make it out of the solid, there is nothing stopping you from from building it up, but if you go that way you must look at the dimensions on the sketch for the finished rod, coupled with the hole centres on this one. 






This is the rough cut plate, about 3/16" over dimensions to allow for machining.






Brought to size and drilled. A real classy looking conrod, about as acceptable as a cowpat in the middle of your lawn.






This pic shows that a same sized rod in each hole and resting on the vice jaw tops gives a nice taper to the rod. Just machine down to the depth you want, flip over and down to the same depth on the other side.






This is my pair of rods, brought to the dimensions of the following sketch, just need a good flatting down and a polish.






This shows the dimensions you need to end up with for the blocks on the ends of the conrod, what is between them is up to your imagination. In fact they don't need to be square, the only critical dimensions are the widths of the blocks. I will be basing all my further dimensions on these figures.

John


----------



## Powder keg

I like how this is turning out. Where did all the pictures go? 

Wes


----------



## deere_x475guy

I think Bogstandards pic host is down.


----------



## deere_x475guy

deere_x475guy  said:
			
		

> I think Bogstandards pic host is down.



Actually I just checked and he is using Photobucket...this album is showing empty...????

_*"There is no content in this album."*_


----------



## deere_x475guy

I just checked the board and it shows he hasn't posted anything in 3 days.  Which seems pretty odd for him. Maybe he is on vacation.....still doesn't explain the empty Photobucket folder though.


----------



## Cedge

Bogster PM'd me in a panic late last night. He's managed to screw up his photobucket account and is more than a little worried everyone is going to be upset with him. John is taking a break to deal with some important real world issues. Once he's done, I think we'll probably see his ugly mug again. 

I've got a plate full of real world stuff myself and won't be on the board as often either, at least for a while. I'll be lurking and reading, but that's about all that time is going to allow for a while. With the level of talent present on the board these days, I'm sure no questions will suffer for a lack of a proper response.

Steve


----------



## shred

Upset? He could go delete everything he's written and the net benefit would still be more than the annoyance to me (not that I am suggesting such a thing, of course. Skipping the 'annoyance' part is a good thing.. )


----------



## Cedge

Shred
I couldn't have said it any better. John has been a wealth of information and many have benefited greatly from his timely tips and techniques. Myself included.

Steve


----------



## Bogstandard

Now that I am a bit more mobile again, and have managed to get the piccies back for this post (I checked in my camera and they were still there, plus I had the sketches I did).
There is one error on the first sketch I did, the height of the angle should be 1 7/16" rather than 1 9/16".

Once I am under full control again, I will carry on with this post if the interest is still there.

John


----------



## Brass_Machine

Bogstandard  said:
			
		

> Now that I am a bit more mobile again, and have managed to get the piccies back for this post (I checked in my camera and they were still there, plus I had the sketches I did).
> There is one error on the first sketch I did, the height of the angle should be 1 7/16" rather than 1 9/16".
> 
> Once I am under full control again, I will carry on with this post if the interest is still there.
> 
> John



John,

Glad to hear you are mobile again. But never you worry, there is plenty of interest in the finger engines. I am thinking of making one of these for my boy (7 yrs old) when he comes to visit me in 2 weeks.

Eric


----------



## Powder keg

Hey John,
Glad your doing better:O) I'd like to see how it turns out. 

Wes


----------



## Bogstandard

Got the motor started and just hope I don't run out of gas before we get there.
What I am going to do, which will be the best way for me, is get the engine built and finished, then do all the measurements and sketches, rather than guessing.

I've been busy the last couple of days and really got on well. I am not going to show you how to profile the bits (except for the baseplates) because you might not like the shape I have made, that is why I am only giving fixed dimensions. You then make them whatever shape you want.

Here is what I made the fingery thingery out of, a lump of drawn ali angle out of an old commercial printer. It was black anodized, just what I always wanted, not. I cut the extra just in case the anodizing removal technique didn't work.






This one shows a couple of stressful hours later, sash weight skin isn't a patch on this stuff. I only had a few thou extra to work with, so by using a flycutter and an endmill for the internal radius I managed to get thru it, and also brought it to size and general shape.







I have already done a bit of profiling on some of the other bits, plus a bit of polishing. So I thought I would make the baseplates. Because this engine is only one fingerpower, I decided a chunky baseplate wasn't needed, so I went for 1/4" thickness, but two of them (for two engines).
This bit should be in the tips section but what the hell.
I stuck the two plates back to back with double sided tape, and machined them to size.
When I profile the edge of plate I love using a 1/4" ball mill, it might be me, but I just like the effect it produces, but not the rag tag surface finish that you usually get with this type of cutter. This is where my tip comes in. When you usually buy a round file it is tapered along it's length, this is to allow you to make all sizes of radii with it, I want one that is parallel along its whole length. So I buy chain saw files in the diameter I require to match the ball cutter size, and cut the tang off (so you don't hurt yourself, or the job), it is then placed in the groove and rubbed along the groove using a bit of lube as well. You will find that within a couple of minutes you will have a nice uniform recess ready for polishing with a bit of wire wool.







This next shot shows the plates unstuck with edges polished and over four hours of engine turning later. It would have been less if I hadn't made a mistake on one about 2/3rds thru. The dog learned a few new words and the cat learned to fly, with a boot up its a**e. 
It's starting to look like what I envisioned, classy, with a bit of street bling.







This is as far as I have got by this evening, most bits polished and ready for assembly.
Please note that I am building these engines for a couple of very good friends, so I want them hopefully to be passed onto their children and beyond. So I have lined the bearing holes with brass tubing to give a longer lasting bearing surface, you don't need to do this, but it will make the engine a lot smoother running and longer lasting.







Just the flywheels to get looking something like and a few special bearing pins to make, then cut up the bit of wood underneath (no idea what it is, wood isn't my speciality) to make a couple of plinths and we will be cooking with gas.

John


----------



## Kactiguy

John, this is looking fantastic. It just keeps getting better and better. Can't wait to build one too (if my skills are up to the challenge). Really glad you are back.


----------



## Powder keg

That is looking great!!! I like how you profiled the treadel.

Wes


----------



## wareagle

Bog, as always, supurb craftsmanship! I love the engine turned bases. Very classy!

Your post had me laughing with the bit about the animals learning to speak in tongues! Been there myself a few times.


----------



## defarijf

I love the look of the base plate, I cant wait to se it finished. I might see if can bulit it myself 

Joe


----------



## cfellows

John, I admire your ability to get out in the shop and get things done. Seems like I spend too much time thinking about engines and too little time actually making chips!

Chuck


----------



## Bogstandard

Thanks for the compliments lads, Chuck, just to answer your comment. I get out there and do it when I can, I just might not feel up to it tomorrow.

Anyway, managed to get a bit done on the flywheels.

You can see on the first pic that I have marked them out to roughly what I want to achieve. There is a reason in my madness for choosing such diverse designs. The one on the left is being given to my friend who is the size of a gorilla, so I thought a nice heavyweight flywheel. The right hand one will have children playing with it, so I thought a much lighter flywheel, with no big places to stick fingers in, and if they did get their little digits in the engine somehow, it wouldn't hurt so much.








Three hours later, the basic flywheels are done, ready for boring and polishing.
When I talk about how long it takes me to do something, it isn't boasting, it is trying to show that these sort of things do take a fair amount of time to get done, even by someone with my experience. If you rush things like this, you get something that looks like it has been rushed. Take your time and things turn out a lot better. Do your planning beforehand and you won't be in for any surprises.
They have turned out just how I wanted, the left hand one looks definitely 50'/60's retro, and 'beefy' looking. The other has had an extra set of holes put in from my original concept. It also looks like a large version of a Meccano pulley, so the kids hopefully will relate to it.






All the work on these wheels was done on a RT with just one cutter, a 4.5mm three flute slot drill, and a notepad to write down the settings as I went from stage to stage, so each section is exactly the same. Also you need a big sign on the door of your shop with the words 'Do Not Disturb', it only takes one lapse of concentration and you will be doing an on the run redesign.

John


----------



## Powder keg

Looks good John:O)


----------



## deere_x475guy

Beautiful John....just a really great job. How do you debur those spokes and holes? I am still not happy with some of my deburing jobs.....


----------



## Powder keg

Those will probably go like mad with bearings on the crank like that:O)

Wes


----------



## Bogstandard

For the one with all the holes in, because I used a milling cutter for drilling there was no burring to talk about, just a wipe over with a scotchbrite pad and it was smooth. Final buffing will round out the hole edges, so no sharp spots at all.
Normally for round holes below 1/2" I have a very shallow rake countersink mounted with a handle that I use for deburring, above that size, depending on the material, I use either one of the cranked deburring tools, or a scotchbrite pad formed into a ball.
For most other deburring I use a scraper, very rarely do I use a file. I have a fairly old Olfa laminate cutter.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000BNLIKW/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

It uses cheap solid tungsten blades that seem to last forever, they break because I have put too much pressure on rather than going blunt, and I just scrape all tooling marks and burrs away. It can also be used for cutting laminates, thin ali and plastic sheet. For heavy scraping I use the flat area closest to the handle.

Wes, 
I lashed one up the other day with a way out of balance flywheel, got it up to speed and let it run by itself, must have lasted about a minute.

John


----------



## BobWarfield

John, I really liked the curved deburring tools and the Olfa is cheap, so I ordered one after seeing your note. Another deburring gizmo I like are the Keo Zero Flutes from Enco. Pop one in a hand drill (or if you're feeling spendy and have air all the time an air drill) and it puts a nice subtle chamfer on any hole you like.

Best,

BW

PS Love the blingey flywheels. I haven't even got an engine in sight to build yet and I almost went down to the shop to try to make one! LOL


----------



## Bogstandard

Bob,
These flywheels could most probably be made by the CNC lads in a few minutes, but I just like making them, I suppose one day I will figure out how to make the curved spoked ones.

John


----------



## BobWarfield

Bogstandard, curved spokes are covered by one of the Duclos articles. You can probably track it down. Clever arrangement. I was just looking over it the other day, but don't have it handy to pass on more info. It's in one of the Shop Wisdom books by Village Press.

Best,

BW


----------



## Bogstandard

Only managed to get a couple of hours in today but did get to a stage to show how I am fitting the bearing pins for everthing to swing on.
What I have done is to make the pins to go thru the bearing blocks and loctited into position, and when mounted onto the bedplate the ends nearly touch, at the same time the spacers are loctited onto the pins. Doing it this way will allow replacement and assembly very easy. The same method will be used for mounting the conrod into the fork on the top.
In the background are the two flywheels after boring and first polish. I am leaving the centres as brushed aluminium, nice contrast, plus it will take hours to manually polish, so they are staying as is.






Very nearly there.


John


----------



## wareagle

Awesome work as usual! Bog, you make this stuff look easy!


----------



## Bogstandard

Actually WE it isn't, but I am a firm believer in that if you are going to do something, do it to the best of your abilities, nothing else is accepted. 
There is nothing I am doing that couldn't be done by anyone on this site (with a little bit of effort). Of course you have to have the right equipment, but again, I don't have all the latest all singing and dancing machinery, but what I do have I can use with my eyes closed. When making the flywheels, just turning the handles the wrong way can cause disaster, it has to be instinctive without even thinking about it.
I am also lucky in that I can just walk in and out of my shop anytime I want, even very late at night if I can't sleep. In an average week about 30 to 40 hours, so I am really at an advantage because I am using my machinery almost all of the time, and this site only sees about a quarter of what I get up to.

John


----------



## Bogstandard

You've seen the bits coming along a lot slower than normal, so now here are the finished pair of gift engines, excluding the bases, they are drying in the shop. Just where I normally take my piccies, so came inside to give a different view of things. 
Of course something had to go wrong, a different colour cast on the photos than I normally get, so I have made them look a bit better, but not perfect.
On my next post about these little engines I will be giving the final dimensions, so if you want to make one or ten, it will give you a starter base to begin with.
All made from ali or brass except for the under mounting screws, the bearings and one grubscrew in the crank.

























The one with the beefy three spoke flywheel is definitely easier to start and keep running, all because of the extra weight. But with this design it is dead easy to pop another flywheel on the other side as well.

The grandson kept the skinny flywheel one going last night for about fifteen minutes before his finger run out of gas.

John


----------



## 1Kenny

Good looking engines, John.

I like the engine work on the base and the finger indent is very cool.

Kenny


----------



## cfellows

Those are beauties, John. Lot of good attention to detail and finish!

Chuck


----------



## Bogstandard

There is one major thing wrong with them, no inlet and exhaust port.

Wouldn't like to make many more, too much time for so little result. I've got mine to finish off yet.

John


----------



## gilessim

They look fantastic John, as they always do!, I wonder what obscure windows keycode they're pressing on your laptop though!


----------



## ChooChooMike

Bogstandard  said:
			
		

> There is one major thing wrong with them, no inlet and exhaust port.


That's not _quite_ true ... human powered, so there's is an inlet and and a ....... uhmmmm, outlet, if you will ...... ;D

And ditto on the finish work - beautiful - especially on the base/bed plate ! How was that accomplished ?

Nice !!

Mike


----------



## Bogstandard

ChooChoo,
The exhaust just might be all the hot air coming from me.
The baseplate is just standard fishscale effect engine turning. There should be a post about how to do it on the site somewhere, just search for 'engine turning'.

Giles,
This laptop was given to me a couple of days ago, it is sooooo slow compared to my tower system, I don't know whether to strip it down for bits, or just make it into a games machine for the grandson to carry around the house with him.

John


----------



## Oldmechthings

I see so many finger treadle engines on this site and every time I see one gives me a little thrill. Nearly 20 years ago I stopped in Idaho Falls to visit a old model builder friend, Mark Sutton, and he had a finger treadle setting on his workbench that he had built for a grand child. I fell in love with it on sight, and built one myself some time later. Mark has since passed away. It seemed like such a fun project that I sent a construction article to Village Press who published it in Projects In Metal in 1991. Since that time numerous examples have been built. I'm certainly not the inventor, and I'm not sure that Mark was, but I'm glad that I was able to pass on something that has been an interesting and fun project for so many.
Now if I can just learn how to post pictures, perhaps I can spread some more "wild seeds" in the country side. Birk


----------



## Bogstandard

Birk,
I know exactly how you feel, I love passing stuff on, it is the only way the new generations will get to try something different. 
A finger engine in my opinion should be one of the first engines built by a newcomer. It gives such a good insight into working metal, without being critical on tolerances.
But I must admit, these are the first I have ever built, and I have been at it for more years than I care to remember.
Every time we have had a visitor today, they have noticed these on the dining table and they haven't been able to put them down after getting the hang of it. They now require another good polish, but at least I now know they will stand up to continued punishment.
You will eventually get the knack of posting pictures, and you will be able to amaze us with your productivity.

John


----------



## dparker

Birk: I built my first finger engine from those plans in HSM and did so because Mark Sutton was the one that introduced me to model engineering. He took me over to his friend's house and showed me a beautiful Corliss engine from Cole's Power Models. We rode the site bus for 5 years out to the test reactor site west of Idaho Falls in the late 60s and early 70s. I built the engine because I was pretty sure that he was the same fellow I knew back then. Good fellow and I will be ever thankful to him.
Don Parker


----------



## Powder keg

Hey Guys, John got his finger engines finished. Here is a quick picture:O)


----------



## BobWarfield

Very nice pieces. I can see them being an ideal introduction to model engine building. I also see them being entertaining executive desk ornaments.

The bogster sure had a way with bling, didn't he?

After looking at all the pretty engines and tooling on this site I found myself suddenly under a strange compulsion. Almost without conscious control my fingers had ordered up a 1.5HP buffer and pedestal stand off the Interent. I'm also building a 12" disc sander and shortly a nice belt sander. Not one of those three machines will contribute all that much to my building much new (except perhaps a knife or two), but they'll sure kick the bling up a notch or two!

Cheers,

BW


----------



## Bogstandard

Running


[youtube=425,350]ezOawsPXMns[/youtube]


----------



## Brass_Machine

Very cool!

Eric


----------



## Bernd

Very nice Bogs. Is that aluminum or stainless steel that they were made out of? I like the engine turning on the plates they are mounted to. Nice polish job.

Bernd


----------



## Bogstandard

As usual, they are made from scrap ali and brass.
The larger flywheeled one has four ballraces, the smaller, only three.
One grubscrew, four screws and a bit of 1/8" m/s rod for the dowel pins.
Shame about the grotty woodwork, but my speciality is metal.

People go on about 'bling'. It is in fact a by-product of removing all evidence of machining, and I don't consider an engine truly finished until all machine marks have been either eradicated or covered up so they are not seen.

John


----------

