# 'Poppin' Flame Licker Engine



## NickG (Feb 2, 2010)

Hi all,

I've had a bit of a break from the workshop after the trials and tribulations of getting my Jan Ridders Internal Valve Flame Licker running. I decided towards the end of that project to make a 'Poppin' flame licker which is a more conventional design. I decided on that incase I was utterly disappointed and couldn't get the other one working, but now I intend to go through with it, mainly as I am intrigued to see how different they are to make and how differently their running characteristics are. It will also introduce some new machining / modelling techniques that I haven't used before. So I bought enough materials to do two when I had my pessemistic head on, basically so I could make anything twice to get it to work if need be! Now, the plan is to learn from previous experience and carefully make two of everything so I end up with 2 engines! I was going to try to keep this shorter and sweeter than my other build logs as I tend to ramble a bit and it takes twice as long to finish a project! Not sure whether I can do that though - lets find out!

Last night I made a start with the cylinder - no pics at the moment but it's still in the lathe so I'll get a couple of snap shots tonight. If I get things right, it shouldn't take twice as long to make two engines as I should save a bit here and there on set up times. So I'm planning on completing these in a month - knowing me and my past predictions, that could easily stretch to two!

Nick


----------



## kcmillin (Feb 2, 2010)

Nick,
 I am in the exact same position you are in. I too just completed a Jan Ridders internel valve, and it was indeed a chalenge. (however with the help of this site, I was able to get a nice runner) 

  So, Yesterday I was looking on the net for another flame licker engine to build, I found vids on the poppin engine and wanted to build one. I wake up this morning and what do I see, this thread, almost like a mirror of my . So I found some plans, but they are difficult to read, the look like they came out of a magazine. The plans are good enough to complete the project, I think.

Where did you find your plans?

Kel

PS

the plans call for an oiler to be installed on the cylinder, and asbestos chord for piston rings. Can I scrap these Ideas and make it "wet lube" free, like the jan ridders design?


----------



## NickG (Feb 2, 2010)

Kel,

Yes I saw your build log in the final stages, well done for getting a runner it was tricky but made it all the more satisfying!

Haha, what can I say, great minds think alike. It sounds like I have the same plans from live steam magazine. Mine are a poor copy too but can make out the sizes.

The plans I have do not have any piston rings but does have an oiler. Are you sure you have poppin plans or something else? I've mentioned before there are 2 schools of thought on oil, I'm in the 'with' school because that is what worked best for me.

Let me know of any progress, or are you going to do a build log too? That would be good.

Cheers,

Nick


----------



## kcmillin (Feb 2, 2010)

Nick,
Your right, there is no asbestos rings. I must have been thinking about a different one. (I seen so many). 
  I do plan on making a build log for this engine. I am also going to change the plans a bit to suit the materials I have. Mainly the frame part, I will keep the dimensions the same but my method of bracketry may differ slightly. I am going to use steel for the cylinder, and leaded steel for the piston. (this is what worked for me with the internal valve engine) the rest will be aluminum and brass. I was also toying with the idea of making walnut flywheels with brass spokes. Although I do not know it this will have enough mass. (maybee a little lead inside the wood could help) I do love the look of walnut and brass. My last engine has a walnut and maple base with brass spikes holding it together. Turned out really nice.


Do you know of any good pictures of the cam, and valve rocker arm instalation? This is the only part I cant make out looking at the vids, and pictures.

kel


----------



## NickG (Feb 3, 2010)

Made a bit more progress last night. 

This was how far I had got with the cylinder. Simple really - face end, centre drill, support with revolving centre, turn to diameter, turn grooves with parting tool (I didn't grind a special tool to width, just recalculated the number of grooves and widths I could do with my tool), drill and bore out 5 thou undersize to leave for reaming with adjustable reamer. 







Next I needed to polish it a bit and part it off. Then I thought while I had the right diameter I would part off the two cylinder covers. I had already drilled 1/4" through to that part of the bar before hand so all I had to do was countersink each one first then part off:





I then got the 2nd cylinder to the same stage as the first so this is where I am up to:





I still need to face the cylinders, ream for a nice finish in the bore and drill and tap holes on each end and for oil cup. For the cylinder covers I need to drill clearance holes for screws that fasten them on and lap both sides, one to seal with the valve nicely and the other with the end of the cylinder.

So far so good but don't think I'll make any progress tonight, Leeds vs Tottenham game is on (4th round FA cup replay)!

Nick


----------



## kcmillin (Feb 3, 2010)

Lookin good Nick. you got a good head start on me.

kel


----------



## putputman (Feb 3, 2010)

Nick, making two at a time is a good idea. If it turns out that they both make it to the end, you could make a twin cylinder engine out of them.

I noticed you used an expansion reamer to get to the final bore size. The finish looks pretty good. I have never have much luck with that type of reamer. What is your secret.


----------



## NickG (Feb 3, 2010)

True Arv, the twin cylinder thing occured to me as I was writing the last post! But then I'd need a different frame and crank, still, could be done but the current thinking is to make 2 poppins and sell one to recover the material costs of my last few projects!

Nick


----------



## NickG (Feb 7, 2010)

Hi all,

I 've been struck down with Man Flu :lol: I musn't have had a bad cold for about 2 years so forgot how bad it was! Anyway, still made a small amount of progress - 

First I put the cylinders back in the 3 jaw with some protective thin aluminium around them and faced to length before using the adjusable reamer, I had adjusted it just about spot on, made it slightly larger than I had measured it and reamed right through at about 45rpm with cutting oil - this has produced a good smooth finish and very parallel and accurately sized bores - they have actually come out at 0.625" as intended, am quite astonished!

I then made a bit of a jig from nylon which had a 5/8" spigot and a smaller 1/4" one to hold the cylinder covers concentric. Gripped that in the milling vice and let the cylinder rest against the top of the vice jaws - probably not the best practice but I marked a cross on the cylinder covers with a centre square and a set square by eye. I then found the centre of my spigot in the milling machine and wound it out to the 0.422" or whatever radius it was then put a dab of loctite on the cyl covers to hold them on whilst spotting through with a centre drill, turning it around and drilling on each of the 4 scribed lines. This has produced a decent and repeatable result, I think the 2 covers will both fit on any of the 4 cylinder ends so I may have got lucky. If not, it wouldn't have mattered, they would have just been matched. I nearly messed up drilling the bolt holes on the other end of the cylinder - they have to be in the same place at both ends which only just occured to me before drilling. This is because there has to be a gap at the bottom for the valve to pass through! I opened the holes up to 8ba tapping size on the normal drill since

I didn't take any pictures of the jig yet but it's still in the milling machine as i still need to tap the holes so will get some pics tonight. I lapped both sides of each cylinder cover too.

I was a little bored of the cylinders by this time so on Fri night I decided to do something else  thought Id try the oil cups. When I looked at the drawings the small numbers scared me but I thought they have to be done sometime so Ill try and stick to it.

So chucked some brass hex in the 3 jaw and turned the outer body dia and smaller neck dia thats threaded to go into the cylinder. This brass was rock hard  much harder to turn than stainless, I should maybe have used that. 





 I then had to drill a 0.020 hole  no way I was trying that so I used my smallest number drill instead, no. 60 0.040 ! Twice the size but still the smallest hole Ive drilled and small enough in my opinion! So the hole was drilled at the lathes max speed 720rpm, it coped surprisingly well, I had to drill about ¼ or so deep so just took it steady and didnt break the drill to my surprise.





I then cut the 8ba thread using one of my xmas pressies:





Sawed it off, turned around in the chuck, drilled out with number 13 or something which broke into the tiny hole, then faced to length.









Quite happy with the result but I then had to repeat the whole process for the other one which is starting to bore me having to do everything twice but Ive got to remember Ill have 2 engines then!

Next job is to tap all the holes in the cylinders and do the pistons and yokes before I start on the frames.

Nick


----------



## Blogwitch (Feb 7, 2010)

Getting on well there Nick. 

Now you have the experience of your first one, these should go a lot smoother, as you already now know a lot of the pitfalls with this type of engine.

If I could make a little suggestion to your machining regime.

When doing something like your oil cups, it is always preferable, if possible, to drill the holes after you have cut the thread. Putting the hole in first will weaken the metal substantially, the metal is a lot stronger without the hole when doing the screwcutting, and it isn't then liable to shear off. 


John


----------



## MikeR C (Feb 7, 2010)

Nick,
I sympathise with the "I'm getting bored of multiple parts" thing. A while back I started the "Miser" low temp stirling from Jerry Howell. Unfortunately, I decided that since it was the setup that takes the time, I would make six. What I forgot was all the hand work involved in finishing and "tweaking" that is not done by the machine but with my hands. I did change some of the cosmetics between the same parts, but, nevertheless it DOES get boring, no pun intended 
I'm working on the colums now, I haven't gotton the first one done yet and I'm already tired of it...

The best of luck on your Poppin'.
MikeR C


----------



## Omnimill (Feb 8, 2010)

Looking good Nick! What are you using for a flywheel, and how are you going to turn it?

Vic.


----------



## kcmillin (Feb 8, 2010)

Nick,
I cant wait to see your method of drilling the holes. (pictures of it that is) 
I used a rotary table for the round bits, and scratched my head on the standard. I found the easiest way was a simple x-y from the center. This made the holes directly on the top and bottom and thre sides. I am lucky I thought to turn the cylinder 45 degrees or the screw heads would be in the way of the valve. 

Another flywheel question.
How big are you making th flywheel?

kel


----------



## NickG (Feb 8, 2010)

John,

Thanks for pointing that out. I remember thinking after I had drilled the hole, why didn't I put the thread on first. I have found out to my cost in the past, I can't remember which part of the last project it was, but I sheared something off by not doing what you just mentioned. Oh yeah, it wasn't on the flame gulper it was the barb on the rocking engine. Good point.

Mike, I can't believe you are doing 6 of them! In future I'll just be doing 1 I think, depends how much I can get for the poppin - it might get a tidy sum, there are always people wanting such engines as they are a bit different to the usual steam or compressed air engines and they can be run just with some meths which is attractive. I guess that makes LTD Engines a more attractive proposition.

Vic, if I have enough, I will machine the flywheels from solid brass as per the drawings, but I don't think I do have enough so one of them will end up with steel flywheels to the same drawing - probably the one I keep as I always paint the middle red for some reason! The flywheel itself is a fairly simple turning job as the boss is separate so just a normal tool required to get into the corners.

Kel,

Unfortunately I don't have a rotary table otherwise i would have done the same. I will just use one the appropriate cylinder cover as a drilling jig for the standard I could probably use the same jig to concentre it with the hole and 'glue' in place while I spot the holes through. That's the plan anyway.

Current plans for the flywheels are as per the drawing. I usually try to cut back and make parts easier etc. One obvious way of doing that is to just have 1 flywheel per engine but to get the same moment of inertia it'd bea big flywheel unless you either double the thickness or have some 2.5" dia tungsten handy!

How are you going to tackle it?

Nick


----------



## kcmillin (Feb 8, 2010)

Nick,
 I am using 2 1/2 inch steel. I left the rim big enough so I could turn it down if necessary.

Kel


----------



## Omnimill (Feb 8, 2010)

Nick, forgot to mention in my earlier post. Thanks for taking the time to document with so many good pictures, it really makes a difference to us newbies - I'm collecting material to make a Jan Ridders internal valve the same as the one you made some time back!

Vic.


----------



## NickG (Feb 8, 2010)

No worries Vic, thanks for the interest. Good on you, i hoped my build on the internal valve engine didn't put people off but more provide some lessons to be learnt from my mistakes / findings! Good luck with your build, they are very satisfying engines to build and run.

Nick


----------



## NickG (Feb 9, 2010)

Quick update, not a great deal of progress but worth mentioning.

I started by taking a couple of snaps of the simple jig I made to drill the holes as promised. It's not really the best jig, all it does is fix the radius and concenter the cover and cylinder. The rest had to be done by eye on markings on the cylinder cover just by gluing the cover on and rotating the cylinder. Seems to have been effective though and worked well.











I then wondered which part to make next and pontificated on a number of methods. I had some brass large enough and enough to do 2 flywheels, also had a bit of steel to do another 2. Then I found some brass 1/2" plate which I could have used. Or, some 2" steel which would make them 1/8" under size. 

Anyway, whilst on the netti, I came to the decision to use the 2" steel as I would have little or no OD turning do do if I could drill centrally, just a bit of a polish up. I decided I wouldn't pussy foot about and would try to part off the blanks from the stock. So I went out full of enthusiasm, set the parting tool to the minimum overhang that would do the job, selected a suitable speed - very slow, back gear engaged, about 70 odd rpm, slowest cross feed to keep it nice and constant and even got ready with some suds in a syringe.

Then disaster almost struck - before I could react, this happened:






Ive moved the saddle a bit in that photo, the blade dug in shattered, and sounded like it hit all 4 walls, floor and ceiling but luckily missed me.
This was my thought process immediately after switching power off:

1.	Oh ****, ******* ********.
2.	Im ok.
3.	That could have been worse.
4.	Actually I might have mangled the chuck and caused damage to the machine.
5.	I think I might give up this hobby.
6.	Take a step back and calm down a bit.

Seriously, it scared me. Ive never parted off anything thats steel as the feeling I get and noise have always put me off. This time I went for it as I thought I was being soft in the past, I thought I was doing it correctly but obviously not. 
When I did calm down there seemed a tight spot on the chuck jaws, something has probably got bent. I took the jaws out, cleaned and reinstalled and it works, but there is a slight tight spot at some point so I must have done some sort of damage. It still grips and seems concentric though so hopefully Ive got away with it.
Here is the damage to the metal:









There are a few major safety points that should go without saying:

1.	Always wear eye protection  make sure you have eye protection you can see out of and are comfortable wearing and make sure you always wear it. I could easily be lying in a hospital bed wondering if Id ever see again rather than writing this.
2.	If in doubt, stop, I had a doubt in my mind I would be able to part this off but was trying to save time. I should have reached for the hacksaw at that point.
3.	If you have a chuck guard you should probably use it. That piece of steel very nearly came out of the chuck  at the speed it was rotating it wouldnt have been flung and Im not saying the guard would have stopped it but it could only have helped matters. Ill be using mine more in future thats for sure.

I didnt think thered be an issue with me gripping on the threads of that bar, but with hindsight it may have been part of the problem. They were probably the weak point, deforming and allowing the stock to move. I did consider turning a parallel section to grip on but then I thought, itll grip tight on the threads and they will probably let the chuck jaws dig in a bit and get better grip.

So, Ive calmed down a bit and the following hour and a half was spend with the hacksaw for punishment  aching now!:





I did face the stock between each hack saw cut so at least 1 side of each blank is faced. Got a nice finish using the suds too, very good.

I could have not mentioned this mishap but I think its worth sharing these near misses just to give people a prod and make them think about things twice.

Nick


----------



## Blogwitch (Feb 9, 2010)

Two main reasons it happened Nick.

The first is that you should have machined those fins off first, they were definitely the weak point that collapsed when you put pressure on. And the second is that you were way too far away from the chuck with the cutting tool. 

You were very lucky this time, but admitting to your mistakes and showing them is the right way to go, everyone learns.

I suppose you are out tomorrow, to buy a new pair of brown trousers. ;D

John


----------



## doc1955 (Feb 9, 2010)

Just a tip if you part off that far from the cluck you can get away with it with a tail stock center in place until you are very close to the end of the cut. I've been where you were as I'm sure most of us have been before and it does get your attention in a hurry.


----------



## rake60 (Feb 9, 2010)

I throw pieces out of my lathe at home on a regular basis.
I tend to be a bit more aggressive than my small hobby machines 
capable of handling.

I have done that at work as well on several occasions. 
My last incident there involved a 800 pound spider coming loose 
and taking flight. No damage to the part or the machine.
I not only had to change trousers, but socks as well! 

Rick


----------



## kcmillin (Feb 9, 2010)

Nick, sounds like you had a bad day. I have done that many times. Although I have used a parting tool far out from the chuck with sucess, but only on 1 1/2 inch steel. I use a verry liberal amount of tapping oil to complete the job. It makes a verry nice spirial chip. I just recently discovered doing it at a slow rpm is the best. (I have a mini lath and its really easy to get the right speed)

I think you will have no problem using 2 inch steel. Mine runs fine with one 2 1/2 inch flywheel, so you should have no problem with the two inch.(I think?)

kel


----------



## NickG (Feb 10, 2010)

Thanks for the advice and encouragement guys. Yes brown trousers were the order of the day, infact when I went in and got changed I wondered what had happened then remembered I had brown long jons on :big:

Wow Kel, didn't realise you had got yours running, hadn't got that far up the unread ones - will have a look now - congratulations :bow: 

Nick


----------



## IronHorse (Feb 10, 2010)

Just a note on making a flywheel for the poppin that is undersize. I made my flywheels out of 2" material, but I had to make the rim thinner on one side as the cam lever sits in this recess.


IronHorse


----------



## kcmillin (Feb 10, 2010)

Good point IronHorse. 

  I had to turn down the spokes on the cam flywheel so the bearing would not hit. There is verry little room for everything in there. 

  Also when it comes time to getting it running, the valve is CRITICAL, I used a .002 feeler guage, and it has to sit perfectly flat. It the plans It states you may have to bend it to get it to seat. I tried this at first and it was either not seating on the top or not seating on the bottom. I decided to use the last bit of my feeler guage to make a new valve. I bent the valve rod so that when the valve is closed the rod is perpendicular to the head face. Then I set the valve to just rest up against the head. (too much and the top curls up) Also I did not bend the valve, and I have had good luck with this. The engine will run with a bic lighter. 

 Unlike the Jan Ridders internal valve, the flame position does not seem to be to critical, it will run in many different places, This is how you can adjust the RPM. And Like the plan says the timing is verry forgiving as well. You can play with it to find a sweet spot though. 

 Also I made the cam duration longer. (about 120-130 degrees) I figure the pressure in the cylinder will force the valve open with verry little resistance. Who knows, I will have to make different cams and tinker with it a bit.

 Anyway, I hope this helps when it comes to starting them up for the first time.

Kel


----------



## NickG (Feb 10, 2010)

Yeah good point iron horse, I noticed that last night.

Excellent work Kel, thanks for your notes on the fine tuning.

Nick


----------



## kcmillin (Feb 11, 2010)

NicK, 
 You mentioned earlier that you planned on selling one of these. How are you going to find a buyer? or do you have one lined up? Also what is a fair price? And is it legal to sell something made from someone els's plans?
 I am interested in possibly doing the same. Ya know, to offset the cost of our expensive hobby. 

kel


----------



## NickG (Feb 11, 2010)

Kel,

I was thinking of ebay, or in the for sale section on another forum. I wouldn't have thought there is any reason you can't sell it, seen plenty of stuart turner engines and the like on ebay all the time. Also, ours won't be 100% to the plans anyway.

As for price, I know LTD stirling engines can be had for around £80 on ebay but these are becoming, not mass produced but quite easliy available. I think these should be at least £75 to £100. Although this is enough to easily recoup material costs, it nowhere near pays for your time so I think people would be happy to pay this. You very rarely see these for sale and I think they are desirable due to their good looks and nice running characteristics. 

Do you reckon it'd be possible to run one from a tea light? Doubt if the flame would be hot enough?

Nick


----------



## kcmillin (Feb 11, 2010)

Nick,
  I do think you can run it on a tea light. Mine will run off a butane lighter, although I think butane burns hotter, but these engines are verry forgiveable when it comes to the flame. 

  I will try a candle flame tonight and see if it works. Ill lel ya know if I get er running. (so far, about 3 hours of running time with an alchohol flame)

Kel


----------



## kcmillin (Feb 13, 2010)

Nick,
  I got the engine to run using a candle flame, however I coulkd not get a tea light to fit. Are we talking about those little 1 1/2 inch candles about 3/4 inch tall, with an aluminum cup? There is no room with the valve there, I had to tilt a birthday candle into position.

  Ya know, I would be pretty tired of the shop If the last thing I did was hacksaw 4 flywheels out of 2 inch bar. OUCH. One of those cheap chinese bandsaws 64 1/2 inch blade, works verry well. I got mine for about $230. And I got to say, it was the best money I ever spent. It cuts through my 2 1/2 inch steel in about 4 minutes. They sell these under many different brand names. All for a resonably good price.

kel


----------



## NickG (Feb 14, 2010)

Kel,

Oh yeah, forgot about there being no room for one of those! Very impressive running from a candle though, very impressive.

I've been looking at those and power hacksaws for ages to be honest just never got around to it! I think I will soon though. I was planning to sell my centec 2a horizontal miller to fund the hacksaw and a few other bits like rotary table but again, never got around to it!

Might get back in there tonight.

Cheers,

Nick


----------



## NickG (Feb 19, 2010)

Ive finally got my self back into the garage for a couple of hours and made a little progress. Things seem to keep getting in the way of this project.

I started by facing all the flywheel blanks to about 10 thou over thickness to leave a little to skim at the end.
Seeing as though I have a few of each part to do I am trying to do a sort of mini production line on this job, completing operations rather than the part. So I left the lathe saddle where it was and faced across each blank. They came out within a few thou of each other so I scribbled the sizes on so I knew how much to take off on the next operations.






I then centre drilled one of the blanks and drilled out to 5/16 hole ready to turn the recess. I thought Id be able to do this with my standard carbide tool that I now seem to be able to use for most jobs! After struggling on for about 10 mins I got a 20 thou deep recess that my 1 year old son could have chewed out better with his few teeth! The tool just didnt have the right clearances, I dont know why I thought Id get away with it, it was just rubbing far too much everywhere.

So I decided to take a step back and think about it for a few seconds, then grind an HSS tool just for the job. This sketch shows the angles I ground it to:





This now worked an absolute tread, was very pleased with myself! Dont know why but it was satisfying to watch it cut, I could cut 30 thou at a time with no chatter or anything. So I quickly turned the recesses on a couple of the flywheels, then got a bit tired and bored and came in. It took little time to do though so not worried about that now.
Here is a pic showing 2 flywheels, 1 has a larger recess in 1 side to clear the cam and roller as Iron Horse pointed out earlier.





It is only now that I realise how light these flywheels are and probably one of the reasons poppin runs so fast. There are 4 9/16 lightening holes called for on the drawings but Im going to go for 6 smaller holes as I can use the 3 jaws of the chuck to divide those. I will probably turn up a mandrel to mount on in the milling machine and drill in the same way I did the cylinder holes. Should be really quick to spot them all with centre drill then open up that way.

I wont be getting much more done on this in the coming days  family do tomorrow, might get a bit done sun night but then away with work until thurs night when I should hopefully pick it back up.
Might go for the crankshafts for a change after these flywheels are sorted.

Nick


----------



## Deanofid (Feb 19, 2010)

Good job making the new cutter, Nick. Back to progress, then!
Flywheels look good.

Dean


----------



## kcmillin (Feb 19, 2010)

Nick,
Good job on the HSS bit. Ive been too cheap to get the indexable tool, so making my own HSS tool bits is the only thing I have to cut with on the lathe. I use an 8 inch grinder with really bad runout on the stone. It really hacks up the HSS, but I get suprisingly good results with it. the angles are just eyeballed. Although I cant cut 30 thou off a steel face cut with my mini lathe. That is mighty impressive Nick. 

Your choice to cut six holes in the flywheel will look a whole lot better than the four they show in the plans. 

kel

ps. Forget what I said about not bending the valve. This is pretty much necessary to keep the valve flat on the head through the entire stroke.


----------



## Omnimill (Feb 20, 2010)

Looking good. I agree, I reckon 6 holes in the flywheels will look much better than 4.

Vic.


----------



## Blogwitch (Feb 20, 2010)

Nick,

If you grind a cutting edge on the opposite side, you can put a hub on there as well. You can cut and face both ways.

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=844.0

John


----------



## SBWHART (Feb 21, 2010)

Nice job with the flywheels Nick.

Stew


----------



## NickG (Mar 3, 2010)

Hi guys,

John, yes I did realise that after I had done it. I will have to see if I can modify that tool for future use as a double edged one, if not make one that cuts on the other side. I considered making these flywheels in 1 piece with built in hubs as I usually do but decided against it as the nut / hub is the method of clamping the cam disc to flywheel and adjusting it so it would need a redesign.

Well I've had a couple of short sessions in the workshop since my last post. For some reason I just can't get motivated / finding it hard to find the time, then when I do I'm in by 22:00 where as before sometimes I was in the shop until 2am - that's probably not good I know, but still got more done that way!

Anyway, onto the build:

The first job was to get all of the flywheels to the same stage with the recesses turned out, remembering to do 2 flywheels with the larger dia. recess on one side to clear the cam disc.

I then blued the flywheels and marked them up for the lightening holes by using the jaws of the 3 jaw chuck to index the 6 holes.

The idea then was to set about making an arbor to hold the flywheel on  this way I could set the milling machine to the right place then simply fasten each flywheel to the arbor in turn and index around lining up by eye with the markings, tighten nut, then drill. There would still be a bit of manual adjustment but only 1 adjustment for each hole.

Threading arbour in lathe with tailstock die holder:





Here is the arbour:





So I plonked it in the milling vice, centred the quill and wound it out to the rad that the lightening holes lie on and started drilling:





I soon realized that this method was still taking a while  I had to drill 24 holes, 6 on each of 4 flywheels but opened up gradually too. As soon as I started opening the holes up it became less easy to find the centre of the hole by eye.

Luckily, I had a brainwave  I say luckily because by chance I had made the arbor from hexaganol bar  my indexing method was sat there looking me right in the face and I couldnt see it!

So with a vice depth stop in place (thanks Tim!), all I had to do was clamp the flywheel onto the arbor, slacken the vice and index around onto the 6 flats of the hex bar! This made if very quick to do.





Here are the flywheel s at similar stages:





Once I got to the larger size I was having massive problems with getting the drill to cut  It did a little then just refused, with or without cutting oil, tried regrinding etc but it was making a right mess chewing through the steel on the first flywheel I did. So I used a slot drill instead, this worked much better, quicker and cleaner.

Once all the holes were drilled I put the arbor back in the lathe and turned a parallel register on the other end. Turned it around and turned a new location diameter for the flywheels (see last pic) I then left the arbor in the chuck and clamped each flywheel on in turn to true up the OD. This should make them run true.





Here are the two pairs of flywheels, Ive left the centres as they came from the lathe so I can paint.


----------



## kcmillin (Mar 3, 2010)

Lovin the flywheels Nick. 

Your thought of indexing the holes using the hex arbor was an absolute moment of genius. I have a rotary table, and I will definatly use this method whenever I need six, or three equally spaced holes (or anything). Much easier than seting up the rotary table. 

  Here is a little motivation, You got to think of the awesomely awsome, incredibly cool, fantastic, one of a kind, engine, that runs in a verry unique way, wich you WILL end up with. Remember the great, unexplainable feeling you got when your other flame eater was running for the first time, the incredable sense of pride you felt? I do, and.........well, multiply that ten fold and that is how you will feel after you get these little beauties running.

kel

ps. I really should not talk though, I have not been millin' in about a week and a half. But I got something pretty cool brewing in the old noggin.


----------



## Deanofid (Mar 3, 2010)

They look just dandy, Nick. 
The hex bar indexing thing is good for making cutters and things like that, too. I have a set of four of them made up for holding different sized work pieces. Very handy. You made good use of it, plus, you showed another use for them!

I hope you don't mind me saying, but don't worry about the motivation thing. We all have little spells of that. Me too, at the moment, and for the last few weeks. After working on someone else's stuff all day, sometimes you just feel like relaxing in the evenings.  Just saying, you're not the only one.
(I've been pecking at the same little Jerry Howell burner for nearly three weeks, while John has got eight or nine of them nearly done in that time.)

You're doing fine, and it's coming along well. 

Dean


----------



## SBWHART (Mar 4, 2010)

Good job with the wheels Nick and a great idea using the hex as an index aid that ones files away. Don't worry about the slow pace just enjoy what your doing its amazing what you can do in small steps.

Have fun

Stew


----------



## NickG (Mar 4, 2010)

Deanofid  said:
			
		

> I hope you don't mind me saying, but don't worry about the motivation thing. We all have little spells of that. Me too, at the moment, and for the last few weeks. After working on someone else's stuff all day, sometimes you just feel like relaxing in the evenings. Just saying, you're not the only one.



This is good to know, that's exactly how I feel, but thanks Kel for your motivational words too, that is ultimately what I do it for.

I think in future my write ups may be limited to a few words about what I am about to do, then a few pics / video of the final thing and a brief description of how it went - I'm finding that taking photos in the shop distracts me, then resizing, uploading and writing up takes a lot of time that I could spend actually making things! So my projects are taking maybe twice as long I would like. Then again, it's more fun sharing what you're doing on the forum and getting praise, feedback and advice along the way too.

I like seeing a finished result quite quickly which I think is why I've never finished any larger projects. I doubt if I'll ever get my 5" gauge sweet pea locomotive done as that would take many years!

Plodding on anyway. Hopefully tonight I'll be onto something different, crankshafts I think.

Nick


----------



## Blogwitch (Mar 4, 2010)

At one time Nick, it used to take me many hours of photo conversion and writing up a medium length post.

By using this,

http://www.faststone.org/FSResizerDetail.htm

I can do all my pictures in a couple of minutes. Once you get used to it, you can resize, colour correct, even watermark in a matter of seconds, every picture chosen comes out posting ready. The main part is choosing which pictures you want to go into the post. It is totally FREE to home users and one of the best quickie manipulators I have come across.

You still have to do the write up, which can sometimes take a couple of hours, but this program has taken it from a chore to a pleasure to process my pics. Hence I put a lot of piccies in my posts.

Blogs


----------



## Omnimill (Mar 4, 2010)

Great idea for drilling the holes in the Flywheels Nick, I'll have to remember that!

Vic.


----------



## gbritnell (Mar 4, 2010)

Hi Nick, it just goes to show the importance of having a tool ground properly for the job. You couldn't use this one for a dual purpose because your top clearance would give you a negative cutting angle on the other side plus you'd be below center quite a bit. Over the years you'll end up with many different configurations of tools. Sooner of later they'll get used again.
gbritnell


----------



## NickG (Mar 4, 2010)

Thanks John, the software I am using isn't too bad but might give that one a go.

Yep, good point about the tool George. I really wish I had a QCTP with loads of holders!

I've just counted up the number of parts I have left on this build and it's 16 components / jobs to do X 2 for the two engines! I reckon it works out that there are 16 of my nights work left, so I might get this done by the end of March - I need to get it looking like an engine then I will be more motivated to get it finished as it starts coming together!

Nick


----------



## NickG (Mar 7, 2010)

A little more progress - not as much as I would of liked, but a little.

I got the crankshafts just about done.

I thought I'd be clever and try making a 'D' bit out of a bit of the silver steel that would become the crankshaft - that way I could accurately size the holes in the crank webs etc and flywheel bosses.

Here it is:







Later found out that didn't work though, think I must have milled just too much off as the D part went into the hole I had drilled too easily. So I used a number drill instead.

Milling a square end on the bar:






Milling down to correct thickness:





Setup for milling webs to length - this didn't work so had to do 1 at a time and mill across the vice at same height setting in end:





Setup for drilling holes:





Pair of cranks with loctite curing before I cut out centre section of main shaft:


----------



## mklotz (Mar 7, 2010)

You would be well advised to drill the webs for roll pins and install them before cutting away the central section. DAMHIKT.


----------



## NickG (Mar 8, 2010)

Marv,

I was wondering about that, would the sawing be enough to dislodge them - I was hoping not as loctite is strong stuff. I think the loctite would certainly be ok in normal use - there will be very little torque exerted about the joint in running, but sawing might be a different matter. Some people mill the central section out but I thought a junior hacksaw and a touch with a file after would be more gentle.

Just googled the acroynm - ok!

One question then, do you just put parallel pins in and loctite or tapered pins? The last thing I want is for these to fall to bits, I would be gutted and probably get annoyed and chuck the lot in the bin!

Thanks,

Nick


----------



## Blogwitch (Mar 8, 2010)

Nick,

I'm a bit of a cheapskate when it comes to making things like this,

A couple of small soft steel nails do a great job.

Mike them up, and drill a hole thru your parts as close to size as possible, if you can get a slight interferrance fit, then all the better. Very slightly countersink both ends of the hole, and pop the nails into holes (with a touch of loctite on if you want to). Cut the length until there is about 1mm protruding on one side and flush on the other end.

Now put the flush end onto a hard surface and give the protruding end a little tap with a metal hammer. That should expand the sticky out bit just a tiny bit. Now turn over and start to hit the other end of the nail. You should find that the countersink fills up with metal, again turn over and tap the top side. Eventually, after a few seconds, both countersinks will be full of metal, file the rest off flush, and rub over some W&D. You will find the joints almost invisible, and you will have a rock solid crank. You can repeat on the crankpin, and if things go slightly out of line or twisted, just clamp everything up in your milling vice and it will all be square again.

Then cut the bit of metal away.

Blogs


----------



## NickG (Mar 8, 2010)

Thanks John,

I will do that, I couldn't bare the thought of it moving! I never thought that it's more beneficial to have something soft to be able to spread it out, I was going to put some more silver steel or stainless. I have some soft iron 1/32" rivets that might do the trick.

I forgot to mention, I will be trying the 'D' bit again after reading your post from before. I need to concentrate more on getting down to size and using micrometer to check. Here I just touched on and used the quill DRO which wasn't good enough and must have taken too much off rendering the D bit useless.

Hope you're improving.

Nick


----------



## Blogwitch (Mar 8, 2010)

Nick, good idea, that couple of thou above centre is crucial to it working correctly.

Blogs


----------



## kcmillin (Mar 8, 2010)

Nick, to hold the crank together I pressed in some old neelde bearings from an outboard motor. These are hardened steel I beleive, after I hammered them in I used the sander to file them down. 

Using a soft material is a much better Idea, these needle bearings dont bend, only break.

I thought before I did this, could I just solder the parts together? Or Would the heat from the torch warp the steel? 

kel


----------



## NickG (Mar 8, 2010)

Kel,

Thanks, I've see people solder them with good results, I can never get the damn thing cleaned up properly after soldering though so I've opted for loctite. This is the first time I've made any crankshafts like this as all my others have just been a crank disc and pin sticking out of one side

I don't know how you completed yours so quick - I just keep remembering more and more parts I still need to make! Hats off to you.

I think this engine has more parts than any I have made before.

Nick


----------



## kcmillin (Mar 8, 2010)

Nick, I was only able to get it done so quick because I had a few weeks off work, due to bad weather. Also, I practicaly live alone now, so naggin is pretty much a non issue. Plus, I get really excited once I begin a project, I dont stop till its done. The status of my social life reflects this. I turn into quite a recluse when I get into something.

kel


----------



## NickG (Mar 9, 2010)

Sounds great to me Kel! 

I keep dreaming of a nice warm room in the house kitted out with small machines for little projects like this but don't think I'd ever get away with it!

Nick


----------



## Omnimill (Mar 9, 2010)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v671/lugnut/reamers.gif

From: http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=5251.0

May be of use for home made reamers Nick? Not made one myself but I favour the top one as it's easiest to make!

Vic.


----------



## NickG (Mar 9, 2010)

Thanks for those links Vic, I might try the top one too. It's strange he recommends 1 thou below centre for the type I tried.

Need to do some experimentation on this.

Nick


----------



## NickG (Mar 9, 2010)

Started on the frames tonight, or standard as the designer calls it. I bought a length of 1" x 2" aluminium for this. The idea is supposed to be to machine the profile on the end of the bar sticking out of the vice, but my vice doesn't grip when at it's maximum opening - I remembered having problems with my cylinder for the last flame gulper.

So I had to flycut the material down a bit first:




 First time Id really flycut anything and it went well, or at least I thought it had but when I measured it, the bar was about 20 thou different end to end. The milling machine is cutting on a taper  which means either the vice is not made properly, or the milling machine is not made properly  Im guessing the milling machine. When I got my machine 2 of us bought the same one to get a discount, I know the other guy had a problem with his table being tapered. Will have to check mine now.

I could now remove the jaws from the vice to get a bit better grip (faulty vice) and grip to mill end square:





Next I milled the bit off the end leaving a radius, this took a while, I was taking cuts of around 3/32  1/8:





I then decided to mark the thing up as it was a pain trying to use the graduated dials  and I know they are not that accurate, really need some sort of DRO setup:





I then started milling the other section out to leave the 2 rads, but this is as far as I got:





When I went to mill along, the metal moved in the vice again  no damage done but just no grip.
Whipped the end plate off the vice and found this:





The casting has cracked at some point leaving only half a nut for the screw to screw into  hence at wide openings if you try to get a decent tightness, there is enough play in the bearing to let the screw ride up on the threads and jump out of mesh. Dont think this will be particularly easy to fix but will have to have a look. I dont think its something thats just happened as the broken bit is nowhere to be seen. Probably always been like this, Ive just been getting away with it for small openings as the nut is engaged closer to the bearing, hence there isnt enough play to let it ride up and jump out of mesh with the screw.

So probably on the look out for a new vice now as not too hopeful of being able to repair this one  shame as it is, or at least was a good vice  Elliot.

Nick


----------



## kcmillin (Mar 9, 2010)

Nick, thats too bad about the vice.I hate buying tools twice.  Amazing it ever held while milling with half a nut. 

I noticed you have a hold down clamp set. You could clamp the bar to the table with spacers and mill it out from there. 

When I made the frame for mine I did not leave it as part of the bar. Instead I started with a block the excact size I needed. From there I drilled the holes for the cylinder and bearings, then I milled out the middle with it in the verticle, or upright position. I got round inside corners using a 1/2" ball end mill. This just seemed easier to me. But thats me.

kel


----------



## Blogwitch (Mar 9, 2010)

Nick,

Almost anything can be repaired, it all depends on how much time you are willing to spend on doing it compared to the price of a new vice. For my own repairs, I work on about &#163;10 per hour. So if it is going to take me 6 hours to repair, that would be &#163;60. In that case I would go out and buy a new one, as they are around that price anyway. I use a slightly less figure of &#163;5 for making tooling. If it costs me more in time costs to make than buying a new one, then I buy it. I find that system works very well for me as my shop time is now very precious to me.

Now regarding your milling to a line. If your layout is done accurately and with fine scribe lines, and you can 'split the line' with your cut, you should be well within 0.002" (0.05mm) of required size. At one time, that was how most machining was carried out when you couldn't get some sort of measuring instrument in there. 
For cutting a slot to a required size, say 1/2", it is always preferable to cut it with a one size down cutter first 7/16" or 15/32", using the centre line of the slot, then follow up with the correct size afterwards, otherwise you might find your slots turning out too wide if you used the 1/2" one first.

John


----------



## NickG (Mar 9, 2010)

Kel,

Yes I may need to utilise the clamp set. I did consider milling it upright but I'd have to leave square corners then as have no ball end mills. Suppose the only consolation is that I didn't buy the vice, it was a freebee.

John, yes you are probably right. It's the same reason I haven't made a quick change tool post. I've found a 4" vertex K4 from Warco for £62 incl delivery and vat which seems about the best price. Arc euro have tool makers vices for a good price, not quite as quick to open and close but they open further, have deeper jaws for a few more quid, then there are those quick release types which are about half the cost - not quite sure which to go for to be honest!

Thanks for the advice on 'splitting the line' and cutting slots. With my crappy mill the way it is, I just find it much easier to have a visual there and it will have to be the way I do things until I get some sort of DRO sorted. I've left a bit over the line to clean up on a finishing cut after I've milled away the waste, so should be ok - something I need to practice at though. In this case, it is just cosmetic anyway, the only things that are semi-critical are the location of the holes for crank and valve shaft.

I will have to get this mill bed measured up though because that's pretty annoying 20 thou difference in height over 5" or so!

Nick


----------



## Deanofid (Mar 9, 2010)

Bad luck on the vise, Nick. It's a pain when things like that happen.
Hope you're able to get a new one soon!

Dean


----------



## Omnimill (Mar 10, 2010)

NickG  said:
			
		

> I will have to get this mill bed measured up though because that's pretty annoying 20 thou difference in height over 5" or so!
> 
> Nick



What make/model Mill is it Nick?

Vic.


----------



## NickG (Mar 10, 2010)

Dean, I'm going to strip the vice tonight to see if a repair is possible. That'd save £60 a good vice and I'll be able to put that money towards a QCTP or rotary table. If it's not obviously do-able I'll just buy one though.

Vic the mill is the amadeal XJ20, same as chester century.

Nick


----------



## NickG (Mar 24, 2010)

Well, made a little progress last night, thanks to all the advice I should be able to have a better stab at screw cutting soon. 

I made myself a little tool holder 3/8" diameter from some hard octaganol steel that used to be a chisel I think. It's very stiff, was hardly flexing at all with a 0.020" cut 2" from the chuck. Should be good for boring although I guess there are other factors like getting any resonance through it - will just have to try it before I can comment on that though. Only stupid thing I did though, when I drilled the cross hole I forgot to drill it parallel to a flat    what a numpty, I'll have to mill new flats on the gripping end now! 

My plan is to use 3/16" silver steel which I can turn a taper on to get the angles accurate, face to length then mill down to half section - much the same way as a D bit. The round section should give me appropriate clearances by default apart from front and top rake which I can grind on then harden it.

The tool bit will be secured with a 5mm cap screw from the end. Will post some pics up at weekend and any trial cuts I make. I may have to change the material for my nut to something softer though as I said before. 

This will also do as a little boring bar as I've needed one for a while.

So not much progress but a little. If I can't sort the vice I may be able to get the tool room at work to help out! Then back to the engine.

Nick


----------



## Deanofid (Mar 24, 2010)

Glad to hear a progress report from you, Nick.
"A numpty"... I'll have to remember that one. Maybe paste it to my forehead.
: )

Dean


----------



## NickG (Sep 20, 2010)

Wow, had to search a long way back to find this!

Well, I've sort of made some progress - sort of not!

I've been under some serious pressure from my now 4 1/2 year old son to make the electric locomotive I stupidly mentioned a long time ago - kids never forget! I had set the milling machine up with a weird arrangement of clamps and vee-blocks to mill the flats on my boring bar that would make the part to repair the vice. I started cutting but left it again and a couple of weeks later whilst about to finish it, an idea for a quick repair came into my head...

I would make a sort of bearing cap with a half round the diameter of the major diameter of the thread in the vice then screw through the top and fasten it down - not ideal, but the bottom half would provide the screw, the top would keep it in place. I had already made the block, just needed boring out slightly larger and splitting.

So I did that, then I was faced with not much room to put the screws in so I thought, wonder if I can weld it! Hardly ever used my mig welder but I gave it a go anyway - didn't have any co2 gas so it splattered a lot, anyway it's stuck the two pieces together and appears to be pretty strong so the vice is back in action!

Poppin has had to take a back seat as I've launched full swing into the loco project ... have started a new topic here:

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=10808.msg118430;topicseen#new

After this is done poppin will be resumed.

Cheers,

Nick


----------



## NickG (Jan 7, 2011)

When I left this project I was milling the frame which is from solid alloy bar and my vice broke. A while back when I started the 7 1/4" loco I managed to do a bodge repair to the vice which seems to be holding up (touch wood). I then got about 1/2 way through the loco build and got bored, then got roj: and decided to make a tiny stirling - that didn't work, so back onto the two poppin flame lickers I started almost a year ago. 2010 proved not to be a very productive year in the workshop, lets hope 2011 can be!

I felt sure this morning that I was going to go into the workshop tonight but after a week at work I was considering having a rest and going in tomorrow - glad I forced myself to get in there. Only made a little bit of progress but better than nothing.

The frame went back into the vice to mill out the middle leaving the radii, roughed it out first:







Other side and getting through it now, I wasn't really enjoying this and contemplated handsawing most of it out - but that was taking even longer with an abrafile!






Taking the finishing cuts and climb milled with no extra cut on which gave a decent finish:






That's the profile milled out and de-burred:






Now I had to flip it in the vice so it was upright and mill to size before milling the slot for the crankshaft. I had a bit to cut off the top of the bearing supports and a bit off the over all thing so marked that out.






I hacksawed a bit off the top of the bearing supports to save me milling loads off. :doh: Nearly hacksawed on the wrong line at first, the lower one is for the bearing bore - that could have been a disaster!






Back into the milling machine but upright as I said to mill to height:






This is about where I left it tonight as am a bit tired, I've de-burred it and have it clear in my head what to do next thanks to Jim's build notes. I need to drill and tap the holes for the bearing pinch bolts, mill the slot for the crankshaft. Saw off parent stock, invert in vice and finish the cylinder face. Bore cylinder face and transfer bolt pattern from cylinder cover. Flip in vice and mill slots in bearing supports. Finally flip upside down to drill and tap some mounting holes.

I don't think I'm going to bother with the thin metal base, don't see the point really, it can go straight onto the wood.

Thus far I've made 2 of each component but now I'm deliberating whether to drop onto one engine and progress more quickly to keep me interested. Or just battle on and make another frame. hmm ....

Nick


----------



## swilliams (Jan 7, 2011)

Go Nick - looking forward to seeing more progress


----------



## kcmillin (Jan 7, 2011)

Great to see you back on this one Nick!

Glad to hear your vice fix is holding up, you removed a lot of metal from that bar.

Kel


----------



## NickG (Jan 8, 2011)

Thanks Steve and Kel,

Got a bit more done tonight. Wow, this frame is possibly the most complicated component I've made, it's not been difficult (so far - :lol: tempting fate here) but a lot of work in it and still not finished.

First job was to drill holes for pinch bolts, these are - can't remember size but my equivalent is 10ba, so drilled down with No 54 then opened top out for clearance to No 50. Haven't tapped yet, will do that by hand later:









Then start milling away the middle to leave the 2 uprights. Here I just got it some where near the right width then took some small finishing cuts after:









Finished milling - took a while, actually I had a cup of tea in between as I thought I was going to get impatient and mess it up! Also thought I'd leave the machine to cool a bit.





Back in the mill on its side to drill holes for bearings, I centre drilled, drilled through 1, then picked a sturdy ish drill to go through to the other using first as a guide. Then opened up.





That's it drilled to final size - tried the bearings they are a sliding fit so should be perfect for screw just to pinch. Marked out position of valve pivot. 





While it was on its side I drilled the hole for the valve pivot.





That is about as far as I got, just de-burred it.





Still a bit of work here!


Saw it off the parent stock
Mill flat
Bore large hole
Transfer cylinder bolt pattern
Drill valve rod hole
Mill slots for crank to pass through
Drill & Tap mounting holes
Tap Pinch bolt holes


Don't know, maybe it sounds more than it is but I'd say at least another night on it. I need to think of how I can bore it to 11/16" Don't think I've got a drill that big, have a 5/8" end mill. Might have a look at drawings to see if it's necessary to go the same size as the cylinder bore.

Nick


----------



## fcheslop (Jan 9, 2011)

Hi Nick,its starting to look like a poppin hope the build goes well for you as they are great fun and great runners.When i made mine I added 7/32 to the overall length of the barrel to allow for a spigot to locate the barrel into the frame it hasn't had any detrimental affect on performance .
best wishes Frazer


----------



## ozzie46 (Jan 9, 2011)

Really nice work there Nick.

 Ron


----------



## swilliams (Jan 10, 2011)

The frame is coming along real nice Nick.


----------



## NickG (Jan 10, 2011)

Thanks guys, hopefully I'll be back on it tonight. More people are trying to convince me to stick to making 2 of each component then I should end up with 2 engines rather than 1 engine and a box of bits!

Frazer, good idea that but unfortunately I've already made the cylinders, it isn't good practice with no locating spigot, I will have to use my jig thing that I made to transfer the holes to the cylinder as there was no spigot on the cover either. I am trying to just follow the drawing on this as never done that before but I will omit the radii on the bearing uprights and the cylinder face, I'm not very good with a file so I'd have to turn up filing buttons for those and that will just take more time I don't really have a lot of to start with! I think I'll go back on my decision to omit the flat base plate though, I've got an idea in mind for that now, it shouldn't take long and should make it stand out a bit.

Nick


----------



## NickG (Jan 10, 2011)

Been quite a long night and still a bit to go as this will take a while to write up!

Continuing with the frame for poppin..

First job was to saw the job from the parent stock.






10 minutes with the hacksaw - I did such a good job I thought I'd just touch it up with a file instead of milling.






Just checking you're awake... I thought I'd try to get it a bit flatter than that so put it in the milling machine and decided to flycut it rather than take loads of passes with a small cutter. Luckily the flycutter was still set up from when I skimmed the block originally.






Then it came back out to get marked up for all the holes. (large one for conrod to pass through, cylinder bolting holes and hole for valve rod) I decided that as the width of the standard was 1" and the cyl. cover 1" it was fairly easy for me to just position the cover and mark the holes through.






Spotting the holes.











Then starting to open the large one up:






Drills getting bigger and scarier!






I decided to finish with the closes thing I had to 11/16", a 5/8" slot drill. 






This worked really well and gave a good finish.






I was going to stop there as I would guess 5/8" would be big enough for the con rod not to foul. But then I thought, no, I better stick to the drawing as couldn't be bothered calculating stuff! So I found an old boring bar:






it happened to already have a tool in it. I just had to grind a bit away from the wrong end so it didn't interfere with me trying to measure it to get 11/16". I got as near as damn it to what would give 11/16", put it in the collet chuck and started boring!






At this point I was pretty scared as it appeared to be wobbling about like a good 'un! No idea why it would do that but I think it was to do with the shape of the tool - it was a sort of v shape but with hindsight I think I should have had a virtually straight leading edge just with some rake angle and a slight clearance. The up shot of this was that it gave a rubbish finish. I think it was partly my haste using the tool that was already there and wanting to stop the operation as I thought I was going to ruin my component.






I quit with this while I was ahead (well, while nothing was broken!) with the hole at this point. I'll need to practice this boring lark on some scrap and might re-visit it if I get good results I think, or at least I'll get it right for the next frame.

Next, another scary operation. Milling the slot through the bearing holes to enable the crank to pass through. I thought I'd try out my new slitting saw arbor and one of the saws I cunningly kept from my horizontal milling machine. The concentricity of the arbor or saw must be [email protected] as you could visibly see the run out (about a mm or so!). I decided as it wasn't moving up or down it should still be ok and turned it by hand a few times with it touching the workpiece trying to get it into what I thought was the best position. I made sure I wasn't climb milling and that when I'd wound it all the way through it'd cut the slot in one pass.

As I neared the workpiece the tinging noise nearly made me have kittens, I thought it was just going to bend the uprights but I thought with a decent speed (about 400 rpm?) and a slow feed it should be ok. I nearly made a massive booboo though. The slitting saw was 0.1" wide and the slot was to be 0.16". So I started off with the bottom edge 0.080" below the centreline of the bearing holes. Then I'd move it up 0.060 to do the second pass and widen the slot to desired width. If I'd have done that, it would probably have bent the top. Glad I remembered and started at the top first then widened at the bottom where it still had more structural integrity. Sorry, this is getting a bit waffley, anyway, it worked ...

I thought I'd tap the holes next. Another problem here, the 10ba tap is nowhere near long enough to go through the clearance hole and into the portion that should be threaded. It gave me 4 or 5 threads in there max before the shank started to foul - have no clue what to do here. I'll have to read the instructions to see if I've missed a trick.






The last thing to do was to drill the 1/4" hole for the valve rod that meets the cross hole for the valve shaft:






That went well. I cleaned the thing up a little and here is the finished standard or frame:











Actually it's not finished - I forgot to drill any mounting holes in the bottom but was too late to start, don't want to ruin anything due to being too tired!

I really don't want to make another one of these right now. I think I want a change of scenery so to speak so might crack on and make some other parts and come back to the 2nd frame!

Nick


----------



## NickG (Jan 10, 2011)

Oh, forgot to put this one in, a shot after flycutting:






 and I couldn't resist this mock up, this was earlier on before I'd (nearly) finished the frame!


----------



## Fingers (Jan 10, 2011)

Looking good nick
I hope this one runs easier then the last one what a challenge that was :bow:
Jamie


----------



## NickG (Jan 11, 2011)

Thanks Jamie, I hope so too! I might go for a graphite piston instead of cast iron this time - worth a try I reckon.

Nick


----------



## swilliams (Jan 11, 2011)

Excellent Nick, really coming along. You had me going for a second with that bit about filing after hacksawing, was thinking you must have gone a little loco th_confused0052


----------



## Fingers (Jan 11, 2011)

Sounds like a good idea Nick I think I will probably use graphite next time aswell. You can forget about rust forever keep up the good work . 
Jamie


----------



## NickG (Jan 11, 2011)

Haha, thanks Steve, just need to keep up some momentum now. Think I'm going to finish bits off that actually let me fasten things together to give me some inspiration - always better as it starts to resemble an engine for me!

Jamie, I think Rick on here tried a graphite piston and had good results so fingers crossed. Shouldn't need any more lubrication either then.

Nick


----------



## NickG (Jan 11, 2011)

Didn't get much done tonight, was basically messing around but nevertheless did a few jobs that needed doing.

I cut the shaft away from middle of crank, drilled and tapped the holes in the base, tapped the holes in cylinder to mount and for cover, drilled and tapped the hole for the oiler, cut some bolts to length and assembled some bits.

Here are a couple of pics of the assembly. It's only now that I get a feeling for the size. I love the look of the engine but the more I look at it the more I realise it's not particularly well made. I just really hope it's going to work! Will just have to make sure I get all the critical bits right again.












Quiz night at the pub with mates tomorrow so there won't be any progress until thurs night now, hopefully i can crack on and get some bits made now some of those fiddley jobs are out of the way.

Nick


----------



## kcmillin (Jan 11, 2011)

Great progress Nick!

When I built the Double Poppin I used graphite for the pistons. It works great, never have to lube, and the cylinder does not need frequent cleaning. 

The biggest thing to get right on this engine is the valve. I have had more problems solved by tweaking the valve than anything els. If you don't have the material for the valves yet I would suggest stainless steel. I am using regular steel shim stock, (002") and the valves tend to rust due to the moisture that gets stuck to the valve when the engine is warming up. 

I think you will find this engine much easier top get running than the internal valve Jan Ridders design. 

Kel


----------



## NickG (Jan 12, 2011)

Kel, thanks for the reply.

I'm a bit annoyed with some of it. My bolt ring didn't line up because I didn't use a robust enough method to position the holes so had to mess on filing holes etc. As it is, think you can just see in the pic, the threaded holes in cylinder aren't straight. Where the drill breaks through into the groove it must have pushed them out of line.

I will try the piston from graphite then if the bit I have is thick enough. Did you do it to drawing from graphite or modify it? I was thinking of just having a solid piston of graphite with a slot milled in it and a cross hole instead of bothering with the yoke, but when I tried that in cast iron on the Internal Valve one it didn't work - but that may have been because the fit wasn't good enough or the weight was too much. Graphite is lighter anyway.

For the valve I was going to cut the end off a feeler gauge as that's all I have so not sure if that is stainless. What I was thinking though, is putting a button of graphite on the shim so that is the valve - do you think that'd work? might have to extend the rod by thickness of button. The Bruce Engineering flame gulper has a graphite valve but it's pulled onto the face by springs.

Nick


----------



## kcmillin (Jan 12, 2011)

Nick, I have attached a drawing of the graphite piston assembly.

There is three parts to make.

1. The piston. It must be made a little shorter than the plan to leave room for the washer on the top. Threads dont work that great in graphite. This design sandwiches the piston between the yolk and a washer on top with a screw through it.

2. The yolk, I made a flange on the end to create more surface area for the sandwich affect.

3. The washer. Smaller than the piston diameter, and thin enough to clear the cylinder head. 







I am not sure a wrist pin hole would hold up, built into the graphite, but I have no experience with that, so I really can't say.

Kel


----------



## fcheslop (Jan 12, 2011)

Hi Nick,I also used the end of an old feeler gauge worked no problems
best wishes Frazer


----------



## kustomkb (Jan 12, 2011)

Nice work and documentation Nick!

Won't be long now eh?


----------



## NickG (Jan 12, 2011)

Thanks Kel and Frazer, that will be a great help when I get that far!

Am going to leave the piston until last as I think there's a fair chance I will need to make more than 1, also you can get a better feel for the friction when you have the rest of the components done and can actually spin it over.

Thanks, hopefully not too long now KustomKB, still planning for next tuesday finish so that's bound to fail!

Nick


----------



## NickG (Jan 14, 2011)

Got done what I planned tonight. Made the flywheel bosses, nuts and washer. Started off really slowly, didn't have material to hand, had to find right sized drills, swapping tools around etc! I did start taking pics of machining operations but then realised they were all straight forward, nothing people haven't seen 1 million times before so stopped to get on with it.

Here are the finished components:






and assembled onto the engine:






The crank is very free running, those two flywheels combined are actually quite heavy. 1 of the flywheels is spot on but the other has a very slight wobble for some reason! :doh: Nothing too bad though. 

Still lots of parts to make yet, wish I'd never started making two of them! I think I've said before I won't make 2 of anything again! 

Nick


----------



## NickG (Jan 17, 2011)

I decided I'd be a good husband and stay in with the wife on Friday night - actually I was knackered but she doesn't need to know that! :lol:

Started making the valve rod. This was just a bit of 1/16" stainless rod with a thread on each end. The thread, unfortunately had to be 10ba (bit small for my liking). 1/16" is too small for my lathe chuck to grip so I had a cunning plan, or at least I thought I did... hold it in the pin chuck:






but this didn't really get a good enough grip. The collet was just too big so it slipped. So put the drill chuck in the headstock:






Worked this time. My new Soba 10ba die from the set I got for christmas didn't seem to be working very well though so used an old presto one and that worked!

Using 10ba also meant that I didn't have any nuts. I found one then had to drill another out that was even smaller!






Tapped in vice as couldn't feel what was happening in lathe:






The next thing to make was the valve rocker shaft. This was from 1/8" silver steel. First had to turn ends down for 8ba:






Then cut the threads:






Then had to think of a novel way to clamp in the vice level - this is the heath robinson way I came up with, rested on a parallel and used a bit of packing in the jaw to grip. Here I am centre drilling:






Seemed to work reasonably well, drilled out to tapping size and started tapping:






I was just thinking, this tapping lark in the milling machine is ok as long as use a low speed and oil and keep winding in and out... then ping!!!






I don't really know what I was thinking, 10ba in silver steel under power? Really?! I started it off with the taper ok so I should have taken it out at that point to finish by hand but no, I had counted my chickens so to speak!

Luckily I managed to punch the tap out with a bit I ground off the end of the tapping drill. I thought I had a pic but can't find it. I had actually drilled it a size smaller to attempt to get a tighter fit so that won't of helped, but it helped save it. It had only tapped a couple of threads so I opened it up to the proper size and tapped again, I hasten to add in the vice this time!






This was before de-burring:






Assembled with rod and nuts:






I then made the spring as was running out of time, that was nice and easy:






There's the assembly with the spring:






Forgot to mention that this was during the day on Saturday afternoon, I was allowed into the workshop for staying in the night before! The intention was to go back in later that night after watching a bit of silly sat night TV but I was too tired and only managed a bit. Did the valve shaft bushes.

Drilling the rod. Think it's phosphur bronze but not sure, it came off a set of old scientific scales I think. It's sort of coppery and seems soft to turn? Anyway, it's the same stuff I used for my bushes on the ridders flame gulper.






Reaming 1/8" with my other christmas pressie:






Turning down to size. I wanted a light press fit, if too heavy it would crush due to thin wall and my 1/8" dia would be no more!






Finally parting off:






I thought the parting off was going badly as it kept leaving a pip (even though it was dead on centre) but luckily the pip just crumbled away and it was ok after a couple of twists by had with a countersink:






Then I tried the shaft in it and it was too tight! Then I remembered what Bogs told me about hand reamers having a longer tapered section, but I had reamed it blind so put it back in the lathe and reamed right through:






Another thing I noticed was that despite me being careful and using the graduated dial on top slide to make sure I parted off the right amount, it was coming out over size. I wasn't too concerned about this but when I started looking at the drawing, it was critical, the shoulder had to be 0.025" so that the shaft would protrude slightly at each end so I had to skim this down. Here is the finished bush:






Once I'd done the same for the other one, I'd had enough and quit while I was ahead. I just pressed the bushes in with a dab of loctite.

On Sunday I was allowed in the workshop during the day again ... what's going on? :scratch: !

So I set about making the cam(s). These are 1" diameter and 0.047" thick. I decided the best way would be to turn a bar to 1", drill, ream and part off. I had a little short length of cast iron I thought would be good as I know it's easy to part!

Facing off:






Turning to size:






Centre drilling:






opening up:






by the way, what do you leave on there to ream? Some people say make the reamer work, some people say just a smidgin ... I drilled 7.5mm for the 5/15" reamer I think and it seemed about right?

Reaming:






Then i set my parting tool up, looking from this angle I quickly realised you don't need to have much sticking out:






Parting off, used the centre as I wasn't gripping on much so remembered the advice from last time:






Here are the two blanks. One turned out 0.049" and the other 0.045" - oh well, think it'll do though!






The radii on the bottom of the cam was 0.300" so I set about making 2 filing buttons of 0.600" diameter with a 5/16" hole through the same. I took photos but just realised the entire operation was exactly the same as the cams, just from steel and a bit thicker! The only thing new was that it was the first time I've sucessfully parted steel :ddb:






I should have mentioned that I luckily remembered about the arbor I'd made for the flywheels which was the right diameter to hold it. With a bit of foresight, the od of this could have been made the same thereby incorporating filing buttons, but I had made mine from hex bar to index for the flywheel holes.

Here are the blanks mounted on the arbor with filing buttons and marked:






I thought, that looks wrong some how, and another look at the drawing confirmed that it was. The 110 degrees duration is shown in a funny way, so I interpreted what it meant and re-marked. You probably can't see it very well.






I thought I had a couple more photos but I can't find them. Anyway, I just hacksawed most of it away with junior hacksaw and filed the rest. The filing buttons didn't really work as they were just steel and not hardened but were there as a visual guide I suppose! I fear I may have taken a bit too much off so not sure whether the valve will be open long enough. Will see.






Sorry, it's a long post this ... need to update more frequently in future in bite sized chunks!

Next was the roller, pin and arm in that order.

The roller was from a bit of stainless steel:

Facing:






Turning to size:






Drilling:






I decided I'd have to grind a drill flat to square out the counter bore for the pin as didn't have a slot drill or end mill small enough:






Drilled with right sized drill first:






Then flat drill before parting off:






I tried to be clever when parting to give it the 1/64" step which sort of worked but I did my calcs wrong and it ended up too long anyway. Hadn't read drawing properly and added 1/64" to overall length. To that had to come off. Needed to ream it through anyway though:






Here are a couple of pics of the finished roller:











Parting the stainless was worse than the mild steel - tended to chatter a bit, prob had speed or feed wrong.

Onto the pin, simple turning job but had to be the right dimensions again.

Facing:






Turning bearing surface:






Turning pin:






Parting:






Finished:






Assembled into roller:






Now the arm, which would complete the whole valve assembly. I was going to use some 1/4" square bar, drill the holes and try to split it giving me 2 components but I decided that was destined to fail and I was making hard work of this. So I routed around and found some rusty steel sheet just the right thickness. Had a bit of straightening to do then cut a bit off.

Squared up in milling machine:






Here it is:






Marked it up:






Cut off and squared it up again:






Then had to re-mark it:






Drilled holes:






Then, by eye put at an angle in vice to mill angled sides. I didn't just do it willy nilly but thought I'd align the centre of the big hole and the bottom of little hole with the top of the vice jaw which would give the required offset.






After a bit of filing, it worked pretty well:






Then assembled the pin and roller onto it:






The idea was to peen over the pin, but without a ball pein hammer or rivet snap I had to use a nail punch, which worked well enough. I was really impressed with the roller, it spins over almost like a ball race but a bit looser. Probably due to the relatively hard metals it's made of.

That's about as far as I've got. Still on track, just the piston, rod & big end, burner and wooden base to complete. I've decided against the metal base (again!). I was going to make a brass one and machine turn it but I decided you can only see 3/16" all around so it's not worth it and it's pointless to boot!

Here are a few snaps of the assembled engine so far. What a fiddly job that was :lol: shame it's got to come back to bits! :doh:




































Getting nearer to the elusive finishing line!

Nick


----------



## kcmillin (Jan 17, 2011)

Wow Nick, you made a lot of progress!! :bow:

Well Done Thm:

Wont be long now, eh? Only a couple parts left by my counting, x2 of course. 

Kel


----------



## NickG (Jan 18, 2011)

Thanks Kel,

Sorry that was a bit of a long post, I seemed to find myself taking pics of the same thing over and over just with different bits of metal in the chuck! I think in future I'll just take pics of anything significant that could either help others or if I need some advice. Any regular sort of basic machining I won't bother but will just take a pic of the finished component. It doesn't help with me waffling so much either!

Yep, you're right, just the piston, con rod & big end to get to the point of a finished engine. As I said, not bothering with the metal base but will need a wooden base. I thought that glass burner from my chemistry set when I was a teenager might work but it's the wrong shape - damn thing, I will find a project I can use that on one day! So I'll need to make a burner.

I'm only making 1-off of most parts at the moment as it was taking too long. If it works, I then need to make some parts for a gear linkage for a friend who's doing a honda vtec conversion on his Lotus Elise. Then I'll have a month break from the workshop and then I'll have a month to finish the other at slow pace before my dad's Birthday. I'd feel rather have the two engines working before giving one away - even if it is to my dad!!

Nick


----------



## joe d (Jan 18, 2011)

NickG  said:
			
		

> Thanks Kel,
> 
> Sorry that was a bit of a long post, I seemed to find myself taking pics of the same thing over and over just with different bits of metal in the chuck! I think in future I'll just take pics of anything significant that could either help others or if I need some advice.
> 
> Nick



Nick:

Looking good, and I 'm looking forward to more... I really haven't wrapped my head around how these work, so 
you are teaching me as you go. As to posting pictures of set-ups, bear in mind that sometimes what seems entirely
basic to you will be an "A-ha!" moment for somebody else. There are many things I now do as a matter of course that
I would never have thought of had I not seen it elsewhere....

Just my 2 cents worth ;D

Joe


----------



## NickG (Jan 19, 2011)

Joe, thanks for that and good point made.

I think some people get the wrong end of the stick as to how they work and the term vacuum engine doesn't help, really it should be atmospheric engine. I have been confused in the past too, but when thought about logically, the way I understand they work is (in a non scientific way!) as follows: 

The piston travels down the bore towards bottom dead centre with the valve open and draws it very hot gas. That gas, at the high temperature occupies the swept volume of the engine, then just as it nears bottom dead centre the valve closes, so you now have a closed vessle with the gas at high temperature at the swept volume and atmospheric pressure. But the gas is rapidly cooling, so this lowers the pressure to below atmospheric pressure, hence there is a larger pressure on the other side of the piston pushing it back. At the same time however, now the piston is travelling back and the volume is decreasing so there is a point where the rate at which the gas is cooling is less than the rate at which the volume is decreasing, therefor the pressure starts to rise and gets to atmospheric - at this point there is no power left in the stroke (nothing pushing the piston back) so ideally the valve should now open, otherwise you're just losing momentum trying to compress the gas. Some engines incorporate a relief type exhaust valve to achieve this, in poppin's case, the valve is just held against the port face by its inherant springiness so once the pressure inside gets above atmospheric, it simply lifts the valve off its face - giving it the distinctive popping noise!

Well, that's the idea anyway, just hope mine will run!

Hope that helps.

Nick


----------



## NickG (Jan 19, 2011)

I got a bit more done last night and today but the last few bits are taking a lot longer than I expected so slightly behind schedule. Going to cinema tonight so won't be making any further progress tonight!

I started work on the piston with the graphite kindly donated by a member of another forum.

I sawed a chunk off and just gripped it in the 3 jaw - would have been better in the 4 jaw but as long as it held, the cutting forces are very low so I was able to turn myself a new datum to work from.

Faced the end:






Then turned a length any old diameter to grip on:






Flipped it around, faced:






Then started turning down to size:






Now taking the tiniest finishing cuts, something like 1/4 of a thou but easy to do with this material:






Across into the milling machine to mill the slot for the con-rod. When I was turning the datum, it dawned on me to stop short and it would give me something to rest on and keep square in the milling vice. I just cut to the full depth using a 1/8" end mill. I widened the slot slightly though by a few thou as I'm using 1/8" silver steel for the con rod.






Flipped on its side to drill hole for gudgeon pin. I've drilled it for a push fit in there so it stays in place and the con rod will have the clearance hole. I wasn't sure whether the graphite would wear, probably not but anyway, that's what I've done.






Back into the lathe to part off:






Because it's quite brittle it snapped with about a 3/16" pip so I had to put it back into the chuck to face off with some aluminium to protect it:






There's the finished piston with the gudgeon pin:






Next was the conrod big end. This is made up from a couple of bits of brass fastened together then drilled so it can split and be fastened to the crank. The problem was, I didn't have any 3/16" square brass, so I would have to turn some 3/8" down (smallest my 4 jaw can cope with) and then mill the square down to 3/16". This is what took much longer than it should have given the right material.

Facing the 3/8" brass:






Drilling for the 1/8" rod:






Turning down to size:






Over to the mill to whittle down to 3/16"






And the other side:






Centre drilling for pin:






and drilling through:






Sawing off the parent stock:






facing to length:






It was supposed to have a 1/16" rivet in it but as I said before, I didn't have a rivet snap so I just filed it off flush, made a bit of a mess but it's ok I guess:






The other part of the big end has a slot milled into it and fits snugly over the last bit like a clasp (think that's the word!) So this is 3/16" wide to fit between the crank webs and 5/15" deep.

Squaring up the brass:






Milling down to 5/16":






and 3/16" in the other plane:






Squaring the other end so I can stand upright to mill the slot:






Marked up and ready to mill and drill:






Drilling for the pinch bolt - notice my mistake here, I'd already centre drilled it.






Milling the slot - I nearly made a booboo here, I used the graduations on the handwheel to get the width - which didn't work but luckily I had a small cut on and I noticed soon enough. So I just went to my markings my eye then measured each side and the bit it slots over and took appropriate amounts off. 











This is what I probably should have done before, don't know why I didn't drill it in one sitting. I had to re-position and pick up the original hole:






Opening up the top prong for 8ba clearance:






and tapping the bottom prong:






At this point I thought I'd finished, but I still need to drill the holes for the crank journal and gudgeon pin and cut the rod to length - just minor points!! I was worried before about getting those two holes parallel but of course because I haven't done either it will be easy, just do it at the same setting.






After that, the engine is technically complete, I just need a base and a burner - which begs the question, do I try it by lashing it together before I have made those, hold the camera with my teeth, burner in one hand and other hand to flip the flywheel! :lol:

Nick


----------



## b.lindsey (Jan 19, 2011)

Wow Nick....that is a lot of progress, and it all looks so good too! Lots of fiddly little bits and pieces there at the end too. Can't wait to see this one running. Great pictures of the build throughout also!!

Bill


----------



## kcmillin (Jan 19, 2011)

COngrats on getting all the engines bits done. You really shifted in to high gear this last week.

Cant wait to hear that pop pop poppin!!

Kel


----------



## NickG (Jan 19, 2011)

Thanks Bill, I thought when I started it looked good, but then seeing all the great stuff on here it's probably average at best! It is the most fiddly thing I've built without a doubt. Cheers Kel, it's not too far off now but I've dropped down to one of each part after the frame took its toll on my patience! I won't be doing anything tonight but hopefully by friday night I'll be ready to try it! Can't wait either - might get the camera set up the first time I try it so you can either hear the disappointment or elation in my voice!

Nick


----------



## dreeves (Jan 19, 2011)

Where can I get a set of plans for the poppin engine?

Dave


----------



## Groomengineering (Jan 19, 2011)

Hi Dave, the plans are by Dr. J.R. Senft and were published in Live Steam Nov. 1980.

It's also fairly high on my to-build-list.... ;D

Nick, great work! Add me to the list of can't wait... Thm:

Cheers

Jeff


----------



## Omnimill (Jan 19, 2011)

Coming on well Nick. There seem to be quite a few more parts to this than the last Flame eater we both built so I think I'll give this one a miss.  Can't wait to see it running though!

Vic.


----------



## fcheslop (Jan 19, 2011)

The plans are on the john-tom site as a free download.
Looking good not long before she will be popping.
best wishes frazer


----------



## NickG (Jan 19, 2011)

Dave, plans are here about half way down:
http://www.john-tom.com/html/SteamPlans3.html

Thanks Jeff, really want to get out tonight and keep going but I've agreed to go to pub for a few cokes, quiz and Leeds vs Arsenal game (come on Leeds!)

Vic, there seem to be a lot more parts and fiddly ones at that but if it runs, it will have been enjoyable! The main reason I did it was to compare the two.

Thanks Frazer, hope so!

Nick


----------



## joe d (Jan 19, 2011)

Nick

Thanks for the explanation, much clearer now.

Might as well stay home and get some work done in the shop, since
The Gunners are goings to win...... ;D

Cheers, Joe


----------



## swilliams (Jan 20, 2011)

Wow Nick, somehow I got busy with this and that and missed all this great progress you're making. Great explanation about how the atmospheric engine works too.

I'll be sure to tune in when you get this up and running any minute now 

Cheers
Steve


----------



## NickG (Jan 20, 2011)

Booooooo!!! Good game though!

Not far off Steve, hopefully tomorrow night is the night. Really I want to finish the base and burner then try running it! Will try to resist temptation to try it out as soon as the con rod is on!

Nick


----------



## b.lindsey (Jan 20, 2011)

Anxioiusly awaiting news of a successful run Thm:

Bill


----------



## NickG (Jan 20, 2011)

Hi all, I've made progress tonight but it's been a long night, sometimes things just seem to take a lot longer than you'd think.

First job was to put the conrod assembly in the vice and drill the hole in the big end for the crank journal. 

I picked up the middle pretty much by eye and centre drilled lightly as didn't want to force the two bits apart. (I don't think it would have though as the vice had quite a tight grip squeezing it all together)












I opened it up to suit the journal. I didn't have a 5/32" reamer so just used a number drill the next size bigger which happened to be no.21. You need a nice loose fit anyway, don't want excessive friction.

Then I cut the big end strap from parent stock:






and tried to face it to length in the lathe. Luckily I took a very light cut as it moved:






So back across to mill to length instead!






Another picture seems to have gone missing but I basically set it up as follows, you can just see a bit of 5/32" rod in the pic which I put through the bearing and made it square with the table so I knew I was drilling the hole for the gudgeon pin parallel to the big end. Centre drilled






and drilled through. Again, next number drill size above the pin.






Here's the finished rod. You can see in a couple of pics that it's not spot on but once assembled you won't be able to see and I don't think it'll affect anything, it's neglibible.






So that was the last real component for the engine. Still got the burner and base to do but I decided to assemble the engine so it'll be ready to try a run tomorrow if I get the burner and base done.

I stripped the engine down into little bits, here they are:






Lapped the end of the cylinder and both sides of the cover again. I want to give it the best chance when I try to run it and there is no gasket so these surfaces have to be flat to seal well.

Assembled the engine back together with things placed more precisely. I found the build up of tolerances on the cylinder bolt holes, holes on the standard, piston and rod have meant the rod is slightly ofset to the left when looking down the bore at the piston. So I've put a washer in on the right side of the crank which keeps it just in the right place.

The assembly was very fiddly indeed! :bang:, I wouldn't recommend this engine for a beginner because of things like I mentioned, the build up of tolerances - there isn't much room for manoeuvre, everything is planned down to a tee, all the clearances are built in so you have to make everything to as near to drawing as possible.

Here are a few snaps of the engine assembled, ready for the base and burner tomorrow:
















Looking quite good now I think, should look good when on its base. The question is, do I stick to my red flywheel scheme?! I deliberately left the centres of the flywheels rough so I could paint them.

Flicked it over a few times to get a feel for any tight spots, & whether everything seemed to work. It sounds promising, I can hear some suction and in fact it sounds just like Rick's from HMEM! Can't wait until tomorrow ...................

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gkViVZm4WQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gkViVZm4WQ[/ame]

Yeah right!!! :big: ... I've had you going long enough - I admit, I couldn't resist trying it to see if it would run!

Here are a few attempts. I missed the first one, I put the camera on but then didn't have enough hands so it just ended up pointing at the wall! I should have made the fixture for putting it on the mag base as Bogs suggested - will still do that soon.

I should point out that these are warts and all videos and unfortunately I've realised I waffle just as much in real life as I do in these posts. I seem to be mumbling quite a bit and probably not even making sense so apologies for that but anyway, you'll get the picture!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkMiXoXjBYI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkMiXoXjBYI[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlhpRWZ5OyM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlhpRWZ5OyM[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4TQvSpKZMA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4TQvSpKZMA[/ame]


 ;D ;D ;D


----------



## kcmillin (Jan 20, 2011)

woohoo1


Well Done Nick!!! 

Before I got to the end of your post I thought "How could he resist putting a flame to it" I am glad you did.

She really runs great, great sound too.

I had the same problem with the valve arm coming loose. A bit of lock tite and no problems since. As long as the valve does not get kinked, it is a pretty reliable runner. 

Kel

ps. thanks for posting all the vids of the first runnings. Most people don't get to see the "Fiddly" side to model engineering.


----------



## joe d (Jan 20, 2011)

Nick

Congrats! th_wav 

I've enjoyed following along, and now comprehend how these
ones work... Thanks!

Cheers, Joe


----------



## swilliams (Jan 20, 2011)

woohoo1 woohoo1

Nice stuff, I think the 'Poppin' may have just made it onto my build list

Congrats on the great runner
Steve


----------



## Gedeon Spilett (Jan 21, 2011)

Hi Nick
Pretty well done!
So satisfying to see them running!
Looking at the picture of the dissembled engine, I wonder how come you ended with so many little parts; this will not help for maintenance.
I also agree that the valve stem is the weak point of this design, a first class one anyway.
Congratulations

Zephyrin


----------



## NickG (Jan 21, 2011)

Thanks Kel, yeah think I'll put a dab on the valve rod that goes into the arm too - as that swings loose. It shouldn't really need to come out hopefully. Maybe I could just use super glue or something a bit less permanent.

I think I'll tweak the extreme corners of the valve up as think it moved, warped and went into the port hole once!

I couldn't resist lashing it up to try it, I wanted to take vids straight away seeing as people had showed the interest.

Cheers Joe, hopefully you've done us a favour knocking us out of the cup too! Don't want a repeat bad run like last year after man u!

Thanks Steve, I'd definitely recommend it, I have always loved the way these run, similar to stirling in that it's simple, all you need is a flame but by contrast the noise is more like an i.c! I'll be continuing to watch your excellend plunket build.

Zephyrin, many thanks. They are really satisfying and you gave me help and advice way back when this was just a distant dream for me! There are lots of little fiddly parts to this, that's why I took that picture to show that. It's definitely the most complex thing I've made so far. Good design though.

Thanks to everybody for supporting me and for the advice. I hope to make a decent job of the base and burner now, maybe add some paint and will repost a new photo and video soon.

Nick


----------



## Omnimill (Jan 21, 2011)

Well done Nick, nice build. Thm:

Vic.


----------



## NickG (Jan 21, 2011)

Cheers Vic, just can't wait to finish it properly no so I can sit back and watch it run rather than having to hold the burner and keep it from wobbling off the table!


----------



## b.lindsey (Jan 21, 2011)

Very nice Nick. I know you have some tweaking to do yet but it is most definitely a runner!! Thanks for taking the time to post the videos even though the hour was late. Well done!! :bow: :bow:

Bill


----------



## NickG (Jan 21, 2011)

Cheers Bill, yep just got to tweak it and neaten it up on its base etc. Should make up for the duff christmas present I gave my dad - think he'll be happier with this one!


----------



## b.lindsey (Jan 21, 2011)

I am sure your Dad will love it Nick. I have done the same for my Dad over the years and he loves them all.

Bill


----------



## MikeR C (Jan 21, 2011)

Nick,
Congratulations, it came out great! I am interested in hearing how the graphite performs over time.
I don't know if you are aware of an article in Live Steam where someone sent in an additional head that traps the valve so it doesn't fly around so much like so:







Side view:






Doing this caused two problems, the first is that the timing is a bit more critical as when the piston comes up it is harder for the over pressure to get out. But, it makes way more noise as the valve slaps back and forth. (I like the extra noise  )
The second problem is that the valves don't last all that long. I think the slapping is hard on them. If you are interested I can get the info on the altered heads to you.

Again, Congrats on the fine build, I applaud you!
MikeR C


----------



## winklmj (Jan 21, 2011)

I can't help but smile everytime I see one of them run. Nice job!  :bow:


----------



## fcheslop (Jan 21, 2011)

Congratulations its nice to see another poppin running 
Best wishes Frazer


----------



## 90LX_Notch (Jan 21, 2011)

Nick,

Great job!! That's awsome!!! :bow: :bow:

I am currently (slowly) building this engine.

Bob


----------



## doc1955 (Jan 21, 2011)

Good job Nick Nice little engine!


----------



## Groomengineering (Jan 22, 2011)

Great job Nick! I think it just moved a little higher on my build list...  Thm:

Cheers

Jeff


----------



## NickG (Jan 23, 2011)

Thanks very much guys, your comments and support mean a lot. :bow: Am pretty chuffed with the way it has turned out but I think that's largely down to it being a robust design more than anything!

Mike, I remember you showing me your version, which is superb whilst I was building the Jan Ridders Flame Gulper. It was yourself and Marv that convinced me to try oil, which was the only remedy for that particular engine. The graphite piston seems to have worked so well on this I am tempted to make a graphite piston and valve for the Ridders one to see how it fairs on that. Not sure about long term though yet obviously! I remember seeing your valve arrangement and thinking about it when I was making mine - i thought the timing must be more critical since the original simply gets pushed away when the pressure equalises. Yours definitely does look better though than it flying around. I was going to try to put a graphite button onto the spring steel but thought I'd try it without first and it seems to be working ok so think I'll leave it. The fist issue I had with it was the rod turning loose but I've put a drop of loctite on that and nipped it a bit tighter between the nuts, that seems to have sorted it. Then I had too much overlap which would, at really high speed be thrown too far up and jam - sort of valve bounce! I've just got a tiny bit of overlap now as suggested in the words and that seems to have cured that one. I could make the spring tension higher but I wanted it to be a bit more docile and be able to run at slow speeds.

Bob, will be looking out for yours, be sure to post some pics / vid when finished. It's been a fiddly but enjoyable build, lots of learning points for me too.

Nick


----------



## NickG (Jan 23, 2011)

Hi all,

Final post on this project - I gave things a miss on Friday night as I was pretty tired after lots of late nights. I was allowed to go into the garage on Sat during the day to try and get things finished off.

Time to get some (as Bogs would call it) brown stuff out. This is the point where all my hard work is spoilt by not being able to make things out of wood! I spend about 0.1 seconds searching for the right bit and found this lovely bit of, well, wood.  ???

Hacked it into roughly a rectangular shape:










The saw just wouldn't cut it so to speak so transferred to a proper tool - yep, it's getting milled!

Flycutting to get it square:






Then rotated around to do the end:






At this point I realised that if I went one way with the flycutter it splintered one side, the other way it splintered the other! Problem was, I'd splintered alternate sides when flipped it over! 






Anyway, i'll live with it!

At this point I drew on some newly found knowledge (kind of) from Bogs' Scott Vacuum Engine post. Working with wood is a bit like castings at first, except it's easy to grip and machine- but nothing is square! I couldn't fit this bit in my vice and didn't want to move the vice so I screwed a batton on underneath to grip it with:






Cleaned up the top - I thought it was a bit thick anyway and this would at least get rid of the splinters on the top surface:






Started my masterpiece, a stepped edge no less! 






Starting to take shape doing other sides:






It looks a mess but these burrs come off with a few rubs of sandpaper by hand:






Looks not too bad for me!

Marked up for engine mounting holes and drilled:






The beauty of this is, you don't need to clamp, just position by eye and because the cutting force is low and the bit of wood relatively large you can just hang onto it and quickly drill through.

Turned over to counterbore the holes as the 6ba screws aren't long enough to go right through.






That's the base nearly finished. Now onto the burner.

I found a bit of (I think) stainless tube that I got given at work:

Cut to length after facing, then other end was faced:






Then found some brass hex just right size for lid and base:

Facing off:






Turning down to size - I overestimated how much needed to come off so had to go again!











Parting off for the base, this was to fit inside the tube and be soldered:






Ready to solder in, I would just soft solder this as it shouldn't get hot enough to melt and doesn't need any massive strength, just be leak proof. I use this soft solder paste as flux that I found in my grandad's garage for soft soldering. Seems to work well, only thing is, it gets solder wherever you put the paste. Doesn't need to be too neat this though as underneath:






Heated up and a bid more soft solder fed in:






This didn't work. It's stuck to the brass but hasn't taken to the tube whatsoever. So all this had to be cleaned off.  ??? :-\

I decided to continue and make the cap while I had a thought how to stick it together:

This just needed a slightly smaller dia than the base for a sliding rather than push fit:

Still in the lather from before so it was faced and skimmed down to size:






Then partly parted off:






At this point I came over a bit funny and heard a voice in my head about artistic license! I would apply a little here, wouldn't recommend this but I just took very light cuts to give a chamfer:






Then parted off but leaving a couple of steps:






I sawed through the last bit as things were a bit close to the chuck for my liking so flipped it around and faced:






Then just centre drilled and drilled through for an air hole:






At this point I decided to put the angled wick tube into the side of the tube to get the correct height rather than into the cap as I had done with my Jan Ridders Flame Licker. So I set about drilling the angled hole. I just gripped in vice with the base half way up for support:






I wasn't sure how to set the angle but then remembered I got a digi angle gauge for xmas which I hadn't used yet. Luckily it just fit between the jaws so I knew that for the first time, an angled thing of mine was about right!

Gradually opened up to 1/4" dia to accept some copper tube I had found:






I had decided I would silver solder the base and wick tube in now - but that didn't work either. It just wouldn't take to the steel for some reason. I was sure I'd silver soldered stainless before, or at least seen it done?  

So even more of a mess had to be cleaned off now. I was mulling over what to do and decided that being as I had a good fit on the parts, I would loctite them together. Don't know whether it will work long term or not, I was going to use some epoxy glue like araldite but I didn't have any and didn't want to wait for ages for it to dry.

Can't find a pic of the completed burner but I went on to finish the base. I wanted to put a good fitting recess in it so as the burner would be positioned in the right place and the speed could be varied by rotating it within that recess. It would also stop the burner sliding about with vibration.

I was going to do this in the lathe but my lathe doesn't have a gap bed and couldn't quite swing it. So I thought I'd use the milling machine.

I have no boring head so I used the flycutter to outline the recess / sort of trepan to depth:






Then used an end mill to carve out the middle to the same depth. This was tricky, kept forgetting which way my hands were turning if that makes sense!  :big:






I should have used the biggest end mill I had but never thought at the time.

Here you can see I went over the lines a little in a couple of places but not too bad:






The brown stuff then had some more brown stuff rubbed onto it (teak oil) before the engine and burner were put into place. 

Here is the finished engine no.1. I should have mentioned, since this is my dad's present, I decided to just put some emery cloth and oil on the flywheels to stop them going rusty rather than paint them:





















I took a couple of videos last night but the engine kept running away with itself and getting a bit of valve bounce, then the valve would stick. So I had a slight adjustment to do giving it less valve overlap (as per instructions, I just didn't think it mattered before, but guess they are there for a reason!) today and took this video. Apologies if you can hear kids messing around in the background, this was just before a trip to mother in laws 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMfmtRP4OPc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMfmtRP4OPc[/ame]

As I said, I'll be having a short break from the workshop now, catching up on other peoples projects and getting back in the wife's good books before finishing off poppin no.2! She's feeling a little neglected over the last couple of months with me being in the workshop a lot! :-[

p.s. Just noticed that in those photos at the end, it looks like the engine overhangs the wooden base. It doesn't it's been carefully measured to ensure there is a nice border all around it. I've got OCD when it comes to things like that! :lol:

Also, the pic of the stainless tube, must have been sawing it off before I'd faced the end, think I was sick of showing pics of facing off! 

Nick


----------



## doc1955 (Jan 23, 2011)

Nice work on that burner looks good!


Nice job Nick!


----------



## kcmillin (Jan 23, 2011)

The Base turned out Great Nick!

Well Done Thm:

Kel


----------



## NickG (Jan 24, 2011)

Cheers guys, quite pleased with it, just wish I'd finished the other but it was taking awhile doing 2 of everything! Will get onto it after my break!

Nick


----------



## b.lindsey (Jan 24, 2011)

Nice job on the base and burner both Nick. Enjoy your break!

Bill


----------



## kustomkb (Jan 24, 2011)

Nice job Nick. Looks and runs great!


----------



## NickG (Jan 24, 2011)

Thanks Bill and Kevin,

Will do, will give my hands a chance to recover, bags under eyes to fade and head to be void of engine parts spinning around in it!


----------



## tinkera (Jan 26, 2011)

Hi Nick, thanks for the write-up, I only discovered these pages a couple of days ago so was a bit lucky to come in at the end. You did a great job & it looks & runs really nice. I found the site as I was looking for info on Jan Ridders flame sucker that I have just built but doesn't run. BTW what fuel do you use? Looking forward to more of your projects.
Regards from Ian S. (Down Under)


----------



## NickG (Jan 26, 2011)

Hi Ian,

thanks for the comments. On this engine I just use any methylated spirits, it's a bit more forgiving, but on the Jan Ridders Internal Valve engine I made, it's much more tempremental - I bought some Industrial DNA (Denatured Alcohol) = Industrial Methylated spirits which burns cleaner. It would run on the other stuff but not as well and those engines need all the help they can get! Is that the Ridders version you built? Most people that have built them have had trouble getting them running but a few builds on here have got there in the end through perseverence!

Shout up if you need any help with that, I will try to give some pointers.

Nick


----------



## tinkera (Jan 28, 2011)

Hi Nick, thanks for the info on meths & also the offer to help. Ivé tried meths, white spirits, a product called 'Shellite" it's designed for lighters & camp stoves, but I found it pretty oily, also tried methanol. I priced denatured alcohol & at $38.00 for 1/2 a litre it can stay there. I think the problems are two fold (the piston & valve fit fantastically, if you hold the cylinder vertically & lift the piston out, the valve follows it & flies out of the bore.) I think that the flame is not big enough, too small a wick & the flywheel bearings are not free enough. these things don't have much spare power. I have bought a cotton floor mop so have enough wick to last a life time. I'm going to redesign the con-rod so tht it has a split big end & then make up a one piece crankshaft with cone bearings each end. If it works o.k. I will make up little siver steel cups to press in each end of the crankshat & silver steel pointed screws, all hardened. But not for awhile as I'm still building the new workshop. I just built the engine to have a break from installing machines & cupboard building. I will post the success or otherwise when I'm done. 
BTW, where abouts are you? I'm in a little country town about 75 Kms south of Adelaide.
Ian


----------



## NickG (Jan 28, 2011)

No worries. I'd go with the meths out of those. Yes, friction is very very critical on that engine. The flywheel should run in its bearing for many revolutions, maybe 30 seconds on its own, and without the valve in, but the crank connected with the con rod and piston it should run for at least 20 revolutions. Jan has a pretty good troubleshooting section on his site for this but I couldn't achieve his requirements for friction!

You do need a huge flame (pay attention to jans site - the wick and flame position is literally the only place it will run in! My wick was a couple of mm thinner than he suggests and I think that affects it.

My conrod seems to work well, mine has a little more slop in it but it helps reduce friction. One guy at a show came up to me as he couldn't get his running. It was very well made, much better than mine but beceause it was so well made I noticed a tight spot with his piston rod. If that is all not aligned perfectly you will get a tight spot, hence the clearance in mine. Another thing that's a must is the hole in the valve - you want about 0.5mm or so clearance in there or it will cause the valve to bind slightly as the rod pushes it back and forth. the piston and valve should drop through the cylinder under their own weight.

My final point is controversial but works for me - put some thin, synthetic engine oil on the piston and valve - it just gives mine that last bit of perfect sealing it requires and stops the products from the combustion adhering to it which causes excessive friction and stops it. 

I don't use oil on this poppin engine as it has a graphite piston but note the original plans have an oil cup. 

Your crank / conrod idea sounds good.

I'm in a place called County Durham in England, nearest big city that you may have heard of (doubt it!) is Newcastle, then York or Leeds. Did you get hit by the flooding? Hope all is ok.

Nick


----------



## NickG (Jan 28, 2011)

Not sure whether you saw my Jan Ridders version but here is a vid incase you can get anything from it.

I just like watching it too! ;D

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0GIegp_ZD8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0GIegp_ZD8[/ame]


----------



## tinkera (Jan 29, 2011)

Hi Nick, thanks for the reply & vid link. I will get the engine running 1 day. I have spent quite a while in your part of the world, lot's I could talk about but this is not the place. At least you are close to Harrogate, great exhibition. Great train museum & great national coal mine museum & great city wall to walk around. Cheers, Ian.


----------

