# A Stothert & Pitt beam engine.



## Tomlinson (Mar 13, 2017)

This was just a small, attractive Beam Engine.



Construction Photos.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B6QkfCSsH1D-d3duRDZYM0RtSnc?usp=sharing


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## ShopShoe (Mar 13, 2017)

That's beautiful.

I like the green paint with the well-finished metal details showing for contrast.

How small? It would be nice to put something in the picture to show scale.

--ShopShoe


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## Tomlinson (Mar 13, 2017)

Hello ShopShoe.
Thanks for the comment, the overall width of the base is 11 inches, the flywheel is 6 in.


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## rogerbh (Mar 13, 2017)

That's very nice, I am halfway through very slowly building one but your drawings seem to be slightly different.


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## Jmccrack (Aug 20, 2018)

Could you tell me where you got the drawings from


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## Tomlinson (Aug 21, 2018)

Jmccrack said:


> Could you tell me where you got the drawings from


Drawings and castings were obtained from 'Cotswold Heritage'. http://www.modelsteamenginesuk.com/acatalog/Model_Engineers_Castings_to_Machine_Kit.html


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## Rudy (Aug 21, 2018)

Thanks for sharing Tomlinson.

Very well done and very well-presented work. Impressive.
I ordered a catalog from Cotswold right now. Very good-looking machines.

Rudy


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## natalefr (Aug 21, 2018)

Beautiful !


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## SteveM (Aug 21, 2018)

Beautiful work Tomlinson, many thanks for sharing. 
I've had an identical model in the cupboard for many years (even before you started yours!) which I hope to get around to in the not too distant future.
Steve


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## Jmccrack (Aug 21, 2018)

I was wondering. Has anyone built this engine from scratch? Is it possible to buy the drw. By themselves. Maybe from someone who has built the engine already.


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## SteveM (Aug 21, 2018)

Jmccrack said:


> I was wondering. Has anyone built this engine from scratch? Is it possible to buy the drw. By themselves. Maybe from someone who has built the engine already.


I'll see if I can find the drawings. If I can I'll copy them and email them to you. Might be a day or two, I'll let you know.
Steve


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## Jmccrack (Aug 21, 2018)

Wonderfull. Thankyou so much.


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## Jasonb (Aug 22, 2018)

I have seen one built to double the size from scratch and also a smaller one about 2/3rds..

Drawings would be under copyright but there is enough info in the back issues of ME or EiM which also has the build series.


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## nel2lar (Aug 22, 2018)

Tomlinson
Thanks for sharing and that was a beautiful photo album of the build.
Very nice job, feel proud
Nelson


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## Jennifer Edwards (Sep 25, 2018)

I am not sure if any of you guys are still using this forum but here goes: i just started building one of these kits that i purchased from Cotswold Heritage. it is practically a scratch built model. they provide a few castings, but 95% of the kit is just sawn metal bits. the beauty is the highly detailed full size drawings that come with it. about 105 pages with 98 drawings.
i do not have much to show yet, but give me a month or so and i will post some picures.
have any of you built one since this thread began some years ago?

Jenny


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## Jmccrack (Sep 25, 2018)

Jenny
Please make sure you stay in touch. This is one engine I want to build but I will be building it completely from scratch.


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## Jennifer Edwards (Sep 25, 2018)

Jmccrack said:


> Jenny
> Please make sure you stay in touch. This is one engine I want to build but I will be building it completely from scratch.



Jmccrack,

I will be happy to share my experiences with you as I go along.

one thing I am changing it that i am going to machine the steam chest right into the cylinder, rather than silver solder it on to the turned cylinder. 

it will cause me a little more work machinigthe OD of it but i think in the long run will make for a nicer looking finished product. i can do thisbecause the bronze supplied with the kit is 57 mm in dia, the finished OD at the steam chest is 28mm so there is a ton of"meat on the bone" to work with. 

Jenny


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## Jasonb (Sep 25, 2018)

Yes keep us posted, maybe start a new thread with your build.

If the piece of supplied bar is cored you may not get the valve chest to fit but it would be OK if solid provided you place the cylinder bore off centre. Could certainly make the valve face as part of the cylinder to avoid soldering


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## Jmccrack (Sep 25, 2018)

Great stuff. On one of my twin horizontals I am machined the steam chest into the cylinder itself it worked well


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## bmac2 (Sep 25, 2018)

The only thing I would worry about with boring the cylinder off center and changing the valve face would be that you would/ could change the fit on the base and the alignment with all those wonderful little wobbly bits in the parallel motion that make a beam engine so hypnotic to watch.

Jenny they supplied 57mm and the finished OD is only 28? That’s not meat on the bone that’s an Easter ham! Please keep posting your build . . . . . and we like pictures . . . . lots of pictures.

That is a beautiful engine and I have to agree with ShopShoe on the color. If the flywheel is 6” (152mm) then the links in the parallel are what .75 ~ .8” (20mm)?


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## Jasonb (Sep 26, 2018)

I was not suggesting moving the ctrs of the engine but placing the cylinder bore off ctr of teh piece of solid rod this would keep all dimensions the same.

Cylinder flanges are 38mm dia it is the "waist" in the middle that is 28mm dia and the valve chest is a piece of rectangular stock with a 14mm radius curve cut out of it to fit over the 28mm dia. But 57 does seem rather large

Quick sketch to show how the cylinder needs to be off ctr of the stock (green circle) otherwise the corners of the valve chest won't fit.


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## Jmccrack (Sep 26, 2018)

Very nice


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## Mike_Bondarczuk (Sep 26, 2018)

Hi Jenny,

What a small world we live in and I also have a complete kit from Cotswold for the Stothert and Pitt Beam engine, which I managed to purchase from Jo, who may be on this site but is certainly on the Model Engine Maker site.

I have studied the drawings, all 99 of them and also have reprints of the Anthony Mount build log which I shall be using as a reference as well as monitoring your progress as you post your log.

I have just started to build a Clarkson Tandem Compound engine from castings via Blackgates and the drawings are really basic when compared to the Heritage drawings and a lot of calculations are required just to get the basics in order, and a log will follow s soon as I have something to report.

Looking forward to seeing more of your build,

Mike


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## rogerbh (Sep 26, 2018)

In an earlier post I said I was building one, well I still am, I've had a lot of long term distractions but will start again soon, all the materials for the next project a Farm Boy hit’n miss is on the bench making me feel guilty!
I think your idea of machining the steam chest and cylinder as one piece is a good idea but will make it a lot more complicated. I had to buy a bigger torch to silver solder them together. 
I will be following your posts with interest.


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## Jasonb (Sep 27, 2018)

You could just machine the valve face as part of the cylinder to save having to do any soldering and retain the separate valve chest. This will make it easier to mill the ports and lap the port face which is hard to do down in the bottom of a cavity. If you want to make the most of the metal then saw enough off the side to make the valve chest from first.


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## Jmccrack (Sep 27, 2018)

Here are a couple of cylinders I did for Twin Cyl horizontal I built. Machining the body radius was interesting.


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## Jasonb (Sep 28, 2018)

A lot will depend on whether you follow the AM drawings which show a much simplified cylinder or if you decide to make things closer to the original engine which will require quite a few undercuts and the exhaust stub to be dealt with. If the latter then a built up cylinder may be the better option though it is possible to do complex ones from solid depending what tooling you have available.

This is a solid one 





And this built up is probably the closest I have done to your full size engine with the valve chest mounting onto a flange rather than the simplified solid block.


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## Jennifer Edwards (Sep 28, 2018)

Mike_Bondarczuk said:


> Hi Jenny,
> 
> What a small world we live in and I also have a complete kit from Cotswold for the Stothert and Pitt Beam engine, which I managed to purchase from Jo, who may be on this site but is certainly on the Model Engine Maker site.
> 
> ...


Thanks Mike,

I ammazed by how many people have come out of the woodwork who either have built, are building, or will build one of these. A friend of mine (Vic Frances) has a piece of bronze about the same size as the one Cotswld provided, so I decided to build this one the way the plans are drawn. But I will have the spare raw material to play with carving in the steam chest. 

Today i finally started the actual work on the project. I'll ost some images when i begin to actually assemble something.

Jenny


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## lbarnett48 (Sep 29, 2018)

This is a very nice looking engine.  I built one similar from scratch a couple of years ago. 













Baby Beam Steam Engine



__ lbarnett48
__ Sep 29, 2018


















Baby Beam Steam Engine



__ lbarnett48
__ Sep 29, 2018






Thank you for the information on the source of the casting kit.  I have reached out the company for the casting kit.


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## Jennifer Edwards (Sep 30, 2018)

Tomlinson said:


> This was just a small, attractive Beam Engine.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thank you for posting your build pictures. They are helpful.


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## bobs7-62steamair (Oct 22, 2018)

Nice Job Jennifer! Especially like your machine setup pics.


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## Jennifer Edwards (Jan 13, 2019)

[










Today I finished the cylinder and valve assemblies.

So far I have completed the beam, entablature, stanchions, a working ball governor, all the “pillow blocks” (bearing housings?), and of coutse the base along with its forty some precisely located holes.

All I have left is the the eccentric, crank shaft, flywheel and all the connecting rod/ valve actuating rods and ends.

Your build pictures were a huge help, they saved me a lot of head scratching when it came to set up strategie on more than one occasion 

THANK YOU!


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## Herbiev (Jan 13, 2019)

Looking great so far.


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## Jennifer Edwards (Jan 13, 2019)

Herbiev said:


> Looking great so far.



Thank you!

I have replaced a lot of the aluminium parts with bronze or stainless steel, just to improve it aesthetically.

Also I have been taking them all down to an 800 grit finish. When I am ready for final fitting and assembling the model I intend to give them all a good going over with my buffing wheel and a stick of jewellers rouge.

Forgive any misalignment of parts in the photos as all of the fasteners are still loose. 

Thanks again,
Jen


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## Tomlinson (Jan 14, 2019)

Hello Jenny. Nice Work, I'm sure you will be very pleased with the end result. I enjoyed building mine and was satisfied with the completed model. Wish I felt the same enthusiasm for my current project.


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## Jennifer Edwards (Jan 14, 2019)

Thank you for the kind words. My enthusiasm comes from finally being able to see the finish line. For a while I was wondering if I would ever get it done.

This is my first steam engine so I had no idea what to expect regarding the length of time it would take me. 

I think working in 1/12 scale makes everything a little more difficult. Going forward I think I will work in a larger scale.


The one thing I am really proud of is that mine will have a working ball governor instead of the nonfunctional one called for in the plans. It was tricky to make one that will work and still keep scale. I have to admit that the ball weights are a bit larger than scale to allow them enough mass to actuate the valve.

I’ll post some more when I am thru assembling the engine,

Thanks again,
Jen


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## metalmudler (Jan 15, 2019)

Hi Jennifer,

Those parts look familiar   I trust you will be ditching those screws for studs and nuts on final assembly!? 
I could not bring myself to use the supplied cast one piece 'dummy' fly ball gov that came with the kit. I used the supplied plans and made one that at least 'flys'.
It will be interesting to see how you integrate it to operate the valve.
I am enjoying the de ja voo so far... Keep the pics coming!

Paul


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## Jennifer Edwards (Jan 15, 2019)

Hi Paul,

What I did was made a governor that sits atop a needle type valve. As the arms move out the attached needle extends downward thereby restricting the steam flow.

I cannibalised the valve, pulley, and gears from a different governor, and combined them with the ball and arms from yet another. I had to investment cast an adaptor to mate the two and shortened the needle valve to fit the shorter overall length. I’ll add a pic below.

The whole assembly fits perfectly in the space under the entablature. 

The hard part will be Engineering the drive belt from where the Cotswold original pillowblock is to where my governors pulley will sit. I’ll figure it out when I get to that part of the assembly. I am pretty sure I  can just put another pulley on the inside facing end of the shaft in the pillowblock that will line up with the governors pulley. 

It will mean a bit of a deviation from the original plans, but they already are quite a departure from the actual engine in Bath that I do not think it will matter.

I will have to play with the pulley size on the engine once I get it running to find the right ratio to develop enough centrifugal force to operate the valve.

The only thing I need to do is figure out the plumbing. The steam input will come up thru the base, so no problem there. The steam outlet on the valve is about one centimetre above the base. So I will need to figure out a neat way to route it to the steam chest. 

Personally I like the cap screws on the cylinder head and most likely will keep them. I do have M2 allthread and nuts I could use but I think I will take artistic licence and not use it.




I’ll post more images when I begin final fitting and assembly

Jenny


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## nel2lar (Jan 15, 2019)

Jennifer Edwards said:


> I am not sure if any of you guys are still using this forum but here goes: i just started building one of these kits that i purchased from Cotswold Heritage. it is practically a scratch built model. they provide a few castings, but 95% of the kit is just sawn metal bits. the beauty is the highly detailed full size drawings that come with it. about 105 pages with 98 drawings.
> i do not have much to show yet, but give me a month or so and i will post some picures.
> have any of you built one since this thread began some years ago?
> 
> Jenny


How are you doing on your build of the of the Stothert and Pitt engine?
Nelson


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## Jennifer Edwards (Jan 16, 2019)

Hi Nelson,

I am about a week away from assembling the engine. For the last few months I have been busy making all of the parts. I have about a dozen of the small bits to make. Mostly linkages and fittings. At that point it will just be fitting and polishing all the parts.
So I should have a finished model by the end of February.

Jenny


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## nel2lar (Jan 16, 2019)

Jennifer
I am proud of you for all the work completed. There are many pieces and to find you at the final assembly is great. Looking forward to see the Stothert & Pitt Beam in it's finished state.
Like any job it is one part at a time until all parts are complete.
Good luck with the assembly
Nelson


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