# Mark's Build of Rupnow Vertical IC Engine



## mjonkman (Aug 9, 2016)

I have started my build of the Rupnow Vertical IC Engine. Figured I'd start my own thread to cover my build vs adding to Brian's thread. It will probably take me a lot longer to build then Brian took.

I ordered most of my materials from McMaster Caar - the cast iron bars as well as the rectangular aluminum stock - downside is have to buy 1ft most of the time. I also purchased the bushings from McMaster though they are a little longer then required by a 1/16" in most cases. I figure it was pretty simple to just face off the end to get the right length. I think they were between $0.50 and $0.60 a piece - so I got a couple extras just in case I screw up 

I figured I'd try and do the head first - figuring if I could accomplish that I'd be able to get the rest of the project built. To be honest it took me 3 attempts to get it right. The first one got majorly delayed when the head of my Bridgeport seized up and required a rebuild. While it turned out that the actual cause of the "seizure" was a dog point set screw for aligning collets had been removed by a previous owner then placed in behind another set screw to fill the hole. It worked loose and had been slowly rubbing off and when I had the mill running at high speed it fell out and jammed between the spindle and spindle nose. Once I got the mill back up and running this past weekend, I managed to ruin the first head.  I was completely fixated at entering the bolt hole pattern into the DRO and didn't realize that I was 90 degrees out on the start of the first hole. So you guessed it the bolt hole circle was not in the correct place. I also missed the counter bores for the valve piece when I was doing the bottom of the head. The drawings are pretty busy, one really needs to concentrate on reading the fine print (not mocking the drawings - just a complex piece with a lot of information in there)

The second attempt suffered from me trying to be cheap - using only the barest minimal size to hold in the lathe and then attempting to part of the extra 1/2" of material after completing the first end. Figured hey, 1/2" of 2" aluminum bar that could be used for something else. So I thought that I'd part it off. Not wanting to leave chuck marks in the work piece it wasn't super tight in the chuck.... dumb, dumb dumb - parting tool grabbed and ripped the piece out of the chuck. Hangs head in shame. 

The third time was a charm. It did get a bit hairy at the end. I don't have an angle vise so I had to think of another way of cutting the angle. I also don't have a chuck for my rotary table though I do have one on the end of my indexing head but that creates a very tall stack. Tall means less rigidity. I simply used a v-block with the head on parallel to drill and counter bore all the holes on both sides. Then I used a left over piece of round stock with the 3 holes drilled and tapped to hold the head. I then tilted the Bridgeport head appropriately and machined off the angle area. Not thinking ahead, I didn't take into account the amount of clearance needed to move the table to the left to get access to the tap drill bit required for the 10-1 mm tap. With the vise in the middle of the table I ran out of left travel, not wanting to reset the vise etc I simply loped off the drill bit and resharpened it. It got the job done, hole is drilled and tapped. In hind sight, I probably could have held the drill bit in a 3/8" collet and not needed to cut it off - I thinks only a 1/64" less then 3/8".  I always think of the easier way - after the fact. I did make one minor mistake when I drilled the hole for the spark plug I went through and hit the other side of the slot (see last image). I don't think it will harm anything.

Some valuable lessons for myself. Really wished I hadn't screwed up on that second head but learned its better to just sacrifice small pieces instead of trying to save a few cents. Better to think twice and double check all the operations before committing to a setup.

Thanks Brian for providing the drawings. Looking forward to building out more of this engine. 

Looking for a bit of advise as well. My thought on doing the main body of the engine was to square up the ends of the aluminum. Put in all the holes and so forth ending with drilling the 1" holes. Then go over to the bandsaw and removing the bulk of the waste and then back to the mill to finish up - am I being cheap or should I just mill the excess away?


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## Brian Rupnow (Aug 10, 2016)

Mjonkman--thank you so much for starting your build thread. Please edit your profile so that the location of where you are in the world shows up when you post. That head is a real trick pony. It looks very simple, but as you have found out, there are a lot of "traps" in there for the unwary. I'm not exactly sure that I understand your question about the frame. If you look at the build thread I have on it, you will see the different steps I took and the sequence of machining of the main frame in post #81. I started with a rectangular block, put in all of the holes including the two 1" holes in the face, then walked out to the bandsaw and carved away as much material as I could, then back into the mill to "finish" the saw cut sides will an endmill. ---Just a word--I never mill away material that can be cut away on the bandsaw. I always do 90% of my material removal with the bandsaw, and clean up the sawcut surfaces on the mill. This saves an incredible amount of time. ---This is great to see you building my engine.---Brian


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## mjonkman (Aug 10, 2016)

Hi Brian, your answer was what I was looking for in terms of using the bandsaw to cut off the excess. One of those nervous twitches  in thought process after blowing things up with my second attempt at the head  under to goal at that time of trying to save a bit of material (and of course time, mess etc). I'll update my profile.

Sincerely
Mark R. Jonkman


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## Brian Rupnow (Aug 10, 2016)

Thanks for the update to your profile, Mark. It is always good to know where folks are. I can phone anybody in continental USA or Canada if they get in a bind and need some one on one help with their builds. I can't offer that assistance to the guys in Australia or New Zealand, but they are a pretty sharp bunch down there, and seem to build the things I post without any assistance.---Brian


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## mjonkman (Aug 15, 2016)

This past weekend I worked on the frame of the engine. I'll be honest, this was far more challenging then the cylinder head in my opinion - but maybe its just the shear amount of machining hat needs to be done.

I started with a block of 2"x5" aluminum, cutting off a 4.25" length. I actually bought the large block of aluminum as well as the chunk needed for the cylinder mount plate from OnlineMetals not McMaster Caar as stated in my first post.

I faced the ends of the work with a long reach 4"+ x 3/4" end mill to get them roughly square as my bandsaw left an angled edge. I was really testing to see how the mill would cut with new bearings and a really long end mill - got just a little bit of chatter but otherwise remarkably smooth square cut. However I used a face mill to properly flatten and square up the work piece on all 6 sides bringing it to final thickness and height but leaving almost a half inch extra on the width planning on removing that later and keeping the excess as part of the scrap removed from the right side.


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## Brian Rupnow (Aug 15, 2016)

Thanks for the update Mark. My thoughts on the frame were that it wasn't technically complicated like the head, but it certainly had a tremendous amount of work in it.


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## mjonkman (Aug 15, 2016)

After squaring up the stock I laid out the major features using blue layout dye using the bottom left front as my 0,0. I then drilled and tapped/reamed the 4 holes on the front. I bored the blind hole for the bearing using the boring head, stupidly starting from the .404" dia hole and increasing to ~0.875". I'm going to be honest, I've hardly ever used the boring head and the few times I have used it have been on "rough" holes that just needed to have the bore increased. I struggled a bit with the blind hole.  As I approached the final diameter, and started taking lighter cuts, the boring bar I was using tended to start pushing a ridge of aluminum forward - like an uncut ring while still cutting. This tended to cause some chatter as well and kind of messed me up. I took a real light final cut with a very slow feed rate hoping to minimize that "ridge" and avoid chatter - which it did quite nicely *except* I didn't account for the spring in the cut and blew past the final diameter by a .003". Instead of a light press fit I now have a sloppy fit. Instead of dwelling on it, I just continued to increase the hole diameter till it was about .005" less then 1" and made a press fit bushing to go into the hole. I bored the inside diameter of the bushing for a press fit for the bearing and a fairly tight press fit for the outside. I installed it and for safety added some green locktite. The more experienced will know my mistake, that fairly tight outer fit affected the inside diameter after pressing in and what was a slightly more then light press fit is a really tight press fit for the bearing. May need to bore out a .001" or so. Lessons learned. I finished up drilling and tapping all the required holes as well as the 1" diameter (0.5" radius) for the vertical to horizontal edge interface on the two sides. I step drilled to 31/32" and then I used a 4 flute 1" end mill to finish to 1". I did it for 2 reasons - my 1" harbor freight drill bit has seen better days (its actually been twisted on the shank) and I find I can get a much nicer finish using an end mill to plunge cut to the final 1" diameter. Probably broke some machinist rules on that one but it worked for me and the finish of the hole was extremely nice.

I flipped the part over, picked up the same two edges and moved over the other side of the .404" hole and then double checked center with the coaxial indicator - it showed less then a 0.0005 off center. This time I bored the bulk of the hole with a 3/4" end mill to the 0.313" depth and finished off with the boring head. Being far more cognizant of doing a lot of spring cuts near the end. Had a similar problem with the lighter cuts pushing up a ridge (which didn't occur when taking .025" off the diameter -0.0125 depth of cut). Only when taking 0.0025" depth of cut. But after some fiddling it worked out pretty nice and the bearing is a light press fit, I can push it half way in with my fingers.


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## mjonkman (Aug 15, 2016)

With both front and back features completed - those that required drilling, tapping or reaming. I drilled and tapped the features on the top of the frame as well as those on the bottom. 

Then I used the bandsaw to cut off the waste on one of the two sides, leaving about 1/16" - 1/8" of material to clean off after. I just did the one side thus leaving one side that was still parallel and true. That way I could just put it back on the mill and use the 2" face mill to clean up edge down to its final dimension. For some reason I opted to do the side with the extra waste (0.5" I had left behind in width originally). Then had to go back later when I did the second side and cut that off on the bandsaw and bring the base to its final width of 4.5" wide.

Then back to the bandsaw to cut off the second side's waste and brought it down to final dimension with the face mill. I used the radius as my guide to coming down to final dimension as well as using the depth micrometer from the far edge down to side of the vertical to make sure that it was correctly dimensioned. I had to go in an extra .002" to pick up the radius. Thus the final dimension of the vertical section of the frame is about .004" narrower then it should be - but I highly doubt that will affect much.

Then I face milled the two sides of the horizontal section at the same time resting the bottom of the frame on parallels.


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## mjonkman (Aug 15, 2016)

I had to go to DC for an interview with a government agency so I had to take the day off of work, which gave me the opportunity to finish the frame this afternoon. 

I started by drilling and reaming 2 - 5/16" holes to create the radius on the bottom of the slot that runs through the middle of the vertical part of the frame. The reaming was only because I wanted a better finish then the drill bit gives. I then chain drilled the bulk of the waste out of the groove coming in from one side of the frame step drilling up to 1/2".  At one point Mickey Mouse made a short term appearance 

Then I switched the frame to a vertical orientation and used a 1/2" rougher end mill with a 2-1/4" cutting length to clean out the bulk of the remaining waste - going down in 1/4" steps from the top to the bottom of the groove finishing the bottom with a few light cuts to final depth.  Then I backed out the end mill 0.156" vertically and carefully worked the two sides of the groove down to about 0.030" undersized on either side. Switched to a long reach 5/8" end mill which had a 4" cut length - way too long but with light cuts was able to finish out the sides to final dimension. I didn't have a 2" reach 1/2" end mill so I was kind of stuck on using the long reach one with light cuts I got a pretty nice finish. I was worried that the vertical portions might be too springy but it worked out ok. And the frame is finished. I hope I'm not too long winded in my explanations and/or posting too many pictures.


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## Cogsy (Aug 16, 2016)

Picture amounts and explanation lengths seem just right to me. Looking good so far - I'll be following along (and wishing I had the time to be working on mine).


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## Brian Rupnow (Aug 16, 2016)

You did good, Mark!! Now I'm going to give you a hint. I always bore my bearing pockets .001" to .003" oversize on diameter. That's because it is almost impossible to flip a thick piece over and pick up the hole from the off side and still get things perfectly concentric. After all the machining is finished I take a piece of cold rolled shaft that I know the bearings will fit onto, put a skim of green Loctite around the i.d. of each bearing cavity, pop the bearings into place, then immediately insert the piece of guide rod thru both bearings. The bit of clearance between the outer diameter of the bearing will let the bearing "tip" a bit in the housing, the guide rod will ensure perfect concentricity with no binding, and when the Loctite dries the guide shaft can be slid out, leaving the bearings perfectly concentric.----Brian.


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## ZebDog (Aug 16, 2016)

I agree pics are always good and explanations are great on how you encounter and resolve problems. Keep up with the good work I will be following this build


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## Herbiev (Aug 16, 2016)

Making good progress there Mark. I love Brian's idea of getting the bearings concentric


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## mjonkman (Aug 21, 2016)

This weekend I worked on the cylinder mounting plate. I began by milling all 6 sides square to each other - taking a skim cut off the surfaces - at least my 1x2 aluminum bar stock was about .012 wider and .01 thicker then 1x2. So squaring it up and cleaning the extrusion marks out and other nicks and dings is where I generally start.

I love the DRO and being able to put in all the locations for the holes that need to be drilled, reamed and counterbore. I like to say I'm so good that I can punch in all the numbers into the DRO and never make a mistake  Ya right. Therefore I've decided that from here on out, I will always do a quick layout with dye and the 10 min at the surface plate to make sure that I have something to double check my DRO values against. Won't say why 

I did things in a little different order then Brian did. I basically skipped doing any of the boring of the right end on the mill. I did it all on the lathe.

So I started by spot drilling all the holes on the top. Then I drilled the 5 holes on the left end with an H (0.266") bit, then reamed the 5th hole as per the prints. I don't own any counterbores and thus I switched out to a 5/8" end mill and counterbored that hole. Then switched out to a 7/16" end mill and counterbored the other 4 holes. I proceeded to drill the bolt hole circle with a #18 drill bit and drilled and reamed a 1/4" hole in the center of the bolt hole circle.

The reason for the 1/4" reamed hole is I will use that to setup on the rotary table to get it centered.

I flipped the part over, played out the slot on the back and then milled the groove in the bottom. I started with a 1/4" rougher and finished with a 5/16" 2 flute end mill.

I pulled the vise off the mill and setup the rotary table. To center the rotary table quickly I have a slug that I turned that fits into the bore of the rotary table and takes a 1/4" pin. I put the pin into the 1/4" collet and when I can easily slide it into the 1/4" hole in the guide slug in the rotary table then I'm pretty close to being dead on center. after centering it that way, I threw in the coaxial indicator, it was <0.0005" off center. So its a pretty accurate means to quickly center the table under the spindle.

I mounted the workpiece using the same 1/4" pin and alignment hole I drilled and reamed earlier. Then using a 1/2" fine tooth rougher I milled the radius on the end of the part. I only worried about the outside radius. The finish from the fine tooth rougher was fairly decent so I simply stayed with that.  

I finished the part on the lathe. I put on my 4-jaw chuck on my SouthBend Fourteen. It has a huge Buck 4-jaw chuck that comes in handy at times like this. Again I used the 1/4" pin held in the drill chuck of the tailstock and the 1/4" hole in the work piece to quickly center the workpiece with the 4 jaw chuck. Again I double checked it with the coaxial indicator and it was pretty much spot on. Did a really minor adjustment on that. I put smaller pieces of aluminum between the jaws and the workpiece to prevent marring. I had a piece with a radius on it that I put against the radius end but that was simply because it was sitting there.

I then drilled out the center hole to about 1" stepping through a series of smaller bits. I finished up boring the hole to size with the boring bar to 1.375". Then I widened out the hole to 2" for the first 5/8". The lathe worked perfectly for this operation. I could take reasonably decent size cuts so it went really fast. The concentricity from the center hole was really close. I think I got it to within about 0.005 all the way around the radius before I finally broke through. I worked better then I thought it would.

The whole reason I did it different then Brian was because I wanted that 1/4" hole to align on the rotary table and to use the same alignment for on the lathe. 

I had planned on doing the cylinder today but my wife came home yesterday aft with a flyer someone shoved into the mail box that said there was an estate sale 5 houses over and around the corner. I went there after church this morning and saw an old beat up Kennedy box in the garage and some toolbits scattered around it. Asked the young man conducting the sale what he wanted for the whole mess figuring on doing some negotiating - he wanted $10. But for the $10 he wanted me to take everything and by that he reached down and flipped a tarp over that had probably a hundred carbide end mills, 50-60 reamers, carbide burrs, taps, and well basically 3 - 5 gallon pails of tooling. I tried renovating higher and finally I just shoved $40 in his hand. He would go above $25. Still felt like a thief. So I spent the better part of the afternoon sorting the stuff and putting things away. Apparently his father was a tool and die maker that did a lot of work on satellite stuff and a lot of tiny work. There seems to be a lot of little tiny burrs that maybe used in some form of grinder about the size of a dental grinder??

Not all the end mills are sharp but I'm pretty sure I got a lot more than $40 worth of stuff. Now I got yet another Kennedy box to figure out what to do with. Just gave my son (apprentice machinist) 2 of my Kennedy boxes because I didn't have enough room and my new work bench is solid drawers and thus holds most of my measuring instruments. This one needs some new felt and a bunch of cleanup and a new top handle.

Here are the picts.


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## mjonkman (Aug 21, 2016)

Here are some more pictures including some of the estate sale stuff. I think the young man was just happy that someone wanted and would use the stuff. He was planning on throwing the whole works in the garbage at the end of the day.


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## Brian Rupnow (Aug 22, 2016)

Looking really great, and a great buy on the toolbox and all the bits.---Brian


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## mjonkman (Aug 28, 2016)

I wasn't able to get anything done this weekend - life got in the way I guess. I had to do a brazing demonstration at the high school on Friday and I have a young man that comes to my place every Friday for 5-6hrs to learn how to use machine shop equipment. In return for me doing a brazing demo, they taught him to run the CNC plasma cutter and he got to cut a nice little mountain scene.

We finished the gyroscope that Clickspring on YouTube designed on Friday aft and he would like to try and build this engine as well. 

He is on a "gap" year between high school and college and his dad told me he is planning on going to China in Feb for a immersive language program. So that gives him only 5 months, one day a week to build the engine. Trying to figure out if that is enough time. It would most certainly give him a huge amount of experience on a wide variety of machine shop equipment. To give a little more backstory, he's been accepted into a program at a STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) heavy college/university that likes to do a lot of hands on. They have a big machine shop at the college and he has had no exposure to tools in high school so he wanted to learn. So his dad (my boss's boss) asked if I'd show him the ropes. This isn't a paid thing, I just do it because I like showing young people how to use tools - even though I'm not an expert -> my full time job is writing educational software for elementary age kids.

Brian I'd be interested in your take as to whether it wise to attempt this engine with him or find a simpler project. Or if there is a simpler engine that still gives a good broad spectrum of machining techniques that might be more suitable. The gyroscope project was largely a lathe project. I also need to let go a bit, I've been mother henning him - watching his every move and making sure he doesn't mess up.


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## Brian Rupnow (Aug 28, 2016)

I designed and detailed and built and ran the engine in less than 30 days.--But then, I had 11 other i.c and 12 other steam engines "under my belt" previously. The only other "simpler" i.c. engine I know of (and it's not really that much simpler) is the Webster, which is a free plan download from the internet. I do have a great set of plans for a beam type steam engine I could send you, that runs on compressed air, and is simpler than an i.c. engine. If the kid is really a "new guy", and only has 20 days available to complete this engine, it will be pretty questionable if there is enough time to complete it.---Brian


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## mjonkman (Aug 28, 2016)

Thanks for the feedback Brian.


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## Herbiev (Aug 30, 2016)

I shall be following in your footsteps today on the building of the frame. Thanks for the pics and great write up. It shows what works well and also points out some risky areas to watch out for. If mine turns out half as well as yours i shall be a happy  chappy.


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## mjonkman (Aug 31, 2016)

Herbie

Thank you Herbie, I was quite happy with the way the frame turned out overall. Though I did realize that I did make one mistake that I didn't catch until after the cylinder support was made. There is a pocket for the head of one of the screws that holds the cylinder onto the cylinder support and somehow I misread the location and its off by a good chunk. Nothing major I just have to redo the pocket and probably make a little plug to fill in the original hole so that I don't see it every time I look at the engine (its hidden so no one else will ever see it except me and I'm kind of a perfectionist... and seeing the extra hole will bother me to no end. Not enough to want to remake the piece as that would be a huge undertaking but enough to want to plug it and make it sort of "disappear".  

I'm really waiting for the day that I actually make one complete part for this engine without making a mistake. This is by far the most complicated thing I've ever built but I'm not used to making so many mistakes. Maybe I can blame it on the heat and humidity.. its been like 105+ degrees with high humidity around here most of the days I've been working on it in my non-air conditioned shop


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## Brian Rupnow (Aug 31, 2016)

Mjonkman--don't beat yourself up too bad. There is a LOT of information crammed onto those drawings.---Brian


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## Herbiev (Aug 31, 2016)

Im blaming all my mistakes on the cold . Hovering around 14 degrees Celcius here.


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## Brian Rupnow (Aug 31, 2016)

I make mistakes when working from my own drawings. On some of these parts, it really is a case of "information overload". I find that it helps to use a highliter to highlight every dimension that has anything to do with ONE particular machining operation. You can use two or three different colours of highlighter for different machining operations, and if the print gets too messed up, run another print. Paper is cheap. Never trust your memory.--EVER!!! Before you move the mill table for your next cut, look at the drawing. I have been burned more times than I care to talk about by "remembering" what the drawing said when I looked at it for the previous operation. I know it probably sounds strange that I can screw up the machining on a part that I designed, but trust me---"Designing and detailing" parts and "machining" parts  are two totally and distinctly different operations. When I get up from the computer chair and walk 5 feet into my "machine shop", I never try and remember the dimensions of a part I have just designed. I print it out and take the print with me, and work exclusively from the print.


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## Brian Rupnow (Sep 19, 2016)

Mark--Have you hit a bump in the road? I check daily for news of an update.---Brian


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## mjonkman (Sep 19, 2016)

Hi Brian

The only bump in the road has been in time. I've done a lot of work for my job on the weekends in order to be able to take a week vacation next week - funny how it is, you can take a week off using your vacation days but just make sure that you put in enough work so that everything is still done as if you didn't take time off :-(

I did do  a bit of work on Labor day weekend and then didn't get back to it till yesterday. I'll update my build log tonight.. lots of pictures at least of some operations.


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## mjonkman (Sep 19, 2016)

The high level overview to bring ya all up to date. I had a little bit of time on the Labor day weekend to get some work done on the engine. I was able to create the cylinder and the crankshaft. However I was too aggressive with the hydraulic press when I pressed in the crank pin and I actually bent the pin. It didn't go in cockeyed, it went in straight and then when I gave it one last little bit it started to bend over - I was quite disappointed. This past weekend I was able to make a new crank pin and press the old out and the new in without incident. I also made the connecting rod and started the piston. So that is where I'm at as of 9pm last night. Now for the details.

Cylinder

Being a bit of a cheap person, I didn't want to cut off a chunk off my 12" long cast iron bar to make the cylinder and while my lathe is a fair sized - South Bend Fourteen, its not big enough to slide the bar into the spindle. So I carefully set it up in the 3-Jaw chuck and got it running fairly true. It was held quite solidly, I faced the end off lightly and then center drilled and put the tail stock center in to support the bar. Then I took a light cut to true up the outside diameter far enough back to install my steady rest. While I didn't need the steady rest to turn the outside I wanted it in place so that I had extra support while running the parting tool to cut the fins as well as doing the initial boring using drill bits. I realize I could do all the boring after parting off the cylinder but I liked the idea of doing the drilling while it was still intact and I could torque down on the chuck and not worry about marring the surface finish.

I second Brian's statement about the stress/cringing while cutting the grooves using the power feed - worked extremely well. Stupidly I made a slight mistake - my lathe is direct reading (diameter vs radius) and I calculated the depth of cut as radius and thus only made the grooves half the depth. However I realized the mistake on the last groove and just reversed the steps backwards to recut all the grooves to the correct depth. To cut the grooves I used a dial indicator against the saddle to move accurately on the longitudinal axis - keep the spacing uniform.  I was exceptionally happy with the results. 

I rough bored the cylinder to the appropriate depth by step drilling to about 7/8". Yes I could have gone closer to 1" but I erred on the side of caution - at least in my opinion. Once rough bored I decided to cut the cylinder off on the bandsaw as I was getting some harmonics on the lathe. Having snapped a blade off on the cylinder head I'm a little gun shy on the parting tool.

Once the cylinder was cut off from the raw stock I set it up in the 4-jaw got it running true. Faced the cylinder to length and turn down the shoulder and then bored it out to 1".  I don't have a 1" reamer and I was reluctant to purchase one (cheap again). I bored it with the largest bar I had the fit the hole and then used a brake hone to lightly hone it and knock off any tool marks. I managed to bore it fairly true <0.0005" taper at 1.000" inside diameter. My neighbor - auto mechanic and funny car engine builder for the past 50+ years liked the internal finish of the bore.

Then it was over the mill and drill and tap the holes for the cylinder head and attachment to the cylinder support.


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## mjonkman (Sep 19, 2016)

With the cylinder made I started work on the crankshaft.

I started with a piece of mystery steel - probably 1018 that I faced off and then machined to final diameter and finally cut off in the horizontal bandsaw. Then I faced to final thickness. Sorry didn't' take many pictures of that process.

Once complete I set it up in the vise on the vertical mill. I supported it on 2 parallels and a v-block.

I drilled and reamed the center hole to spec and then the crank pin hole. I then drilled and reamed the two radius holes for the main throw / counter weight. Reamed because I like the finish over the drill plus I planned on using dowel pins in these holes on the next setup.

After completing these two holes I realized I didn't have dowel pins but found a broken end mill and by the looks of it a broken reamer instead. The goal here was to use these two pins along with my small parallels to set the piece upright in the chuck and be perfectly level. Then I could remove the pins and the parallels and have everything setup correctly. I then milled the waste area away with a roughing end mill and cleaned up with a 4 flute carbide end mill.

I turned the crank pin (sorry no pictures). And created the main crank rod and cut the key seat with an end mill.

I polished the crank throw as best I could with varying grits of sandpaper until I was happy with the surface finish. 

I then assembled it and gave it a bit too much of a press and the end result was a crooked crank pin [email protected]#%.


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## mjonkman (Sep 19, 2016)

I remade the crank pin and pushed out the old with the hydraulic press and carefully pressed in the new one. I didn't take any pictures.

I then started on the connecting rod. Cut out the rough size - bigger then required but honestly I should have gone wider as you will see later.

I squared up the two long edges and got them parallel and squared of the one end. I drilled and reamed the two bushing holes on the two ends. Then drilled and reamed the four holes for the radius between the straights and the round ends. As you can see if I had gone wider I would have been able to drill and ream all the holes instead the last 2 had to be cut with an end mill. But there was just enough meat there to hold the two dowel pins I wanted to position there.

Using these two dowel pins and my small parallels I was able to set the angle cut up as a flat cut on the mill without any screwing around with angle blocks, sine bars or any of those fun to use items. Then I just milled to the scribe lines and radius bottoms with a 1/2" end mill. Wash rinse and repeat on the other side.

Then I turned two guide pins that fit the two bushing holes.  The 1/4" ends fit a plug in the top of my rotary table. So after setting up the table on center I simply popped in the appropriate guide piece, a sacrificial plate. Attached the connecting rod and clamped it down. Then using the offset for the two holes I was able to simply cut the radius in a few passes. Wash rinse and repeat on the other end.

After some sanding and light filing/polishing I pressed in the 2 bushings. Only to realize that I should have tested the bushings on the crank pin. It was two tight of a fit - ie it wouldn't go on. So back to the lathe, setup the crank in the 4 jaw chuck and spun it up and used some emory cloth to polish up the crank pin and reduce it by half thou for a good fit. Lesson learned check the stupid fit before you take it off the lathe in the first place 

Finally the engine showing all the parts made to date.


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## mjonkman (Sep 19, 2016)

Finally I started on the piston last night. I turned it on the lathe, boring the main skirt, finishing the outside diameter to just about 1.001". I then polished with emory cloth to get it to being in the bottom of the cylinder and be a light press in the top end of the cylinder (remember cylinder as a few tenths taper from boring). I figure I can lap out the taper - at least that is my hope.

I cut the groove, parted it off in the lathe and then faced to length. Both ends of the piston will enter the cylinder with limited pressure.

And that is as far as I got on it.


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## Brian Rupnow (Sep 20, 2016)

Great work and great write up Mark. Thank you.--And if it's any consolation, I too have fits with press fits!!--What is your plan for the gears. I have a couple of guys in Australia building this engine, and they are having a rough time with the gears. It seems that all or at least most of the gears over there are MOD style gears, and nothing matches the DP gears that this engine requires. Are you making your own gears or buying a set and modifying them to suit?--- Brian


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## mjonkman (Sep 20, 2016)

My plan is to make them myself. Bought the gear cutters a couple months ago from Travers.

The folks in Australia might look on eBay for cutters. There seems to be cheap sets - the problem I had was they are all metric bores and my horizontal mill spindles are all imperial sizes.

Mark


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## mjonkman (Oct 1, 2016)

I finished up the piston a week or so ago. Basically held it in a 5C square block collet holder. So that i could machine the slot for the connecting rod and bore the wrist pin hole perpendicular to each other. I had to trim the connecting rod bushing to the proper length and give the connecting rod a light lapping - 420 sandpaper on my surface plate in order to get it to move smoothly in the slot. 

I have not yet lapped in the piston to the bore of the cylinder - haven't quite gotten up the nerve to do that yet 

Last weekend I had to make a table top out of ash for a young lady who lives around the corner from me, so that took up most of my weekend.

I did some work on my home foundry this week. I built a crucible lifter/ pourer for my A12 crucible - similar construction to Myfordboy's version (see on youtube). I've also made my first official casting pattern and will hopefully cast the flywheel out of bronze. This will be a lot of firsts - first real pattern, first use of the lifter and first melt of brass/bronze and first real part cast. I've broken down and melted about 50 small engines and even some aluminum mower decks and created at least a 100lbs of aluminum ingots but never actually cast a real part. Unfortunately it has rained all week here (of course its my vacation) so I haven't had a chance to try out the stuff since I made it. I still have to finish painting the pattern. 

The pattern is made out of mahogany as I was able to get some cheap mahogany at a local wood supplier - boards were not "sellable". I jointed and then planed and finally resawed the mahogany (to get it thinner while not wasting the extra 3/16" of material). Because I was too lazy to change out my bandsaw blade (takes about 20min) I did a rough cut of the pieces but did not even attempt to create a nice circular blank.  I glued up some rough pieces to create the general shape I wanted. The split between the two halves was done by gluing a piece of craft paper in between so once I was done turning I could split the pattern apart with a chisel.

I left it for a few days while I made the crucible lifter (why does it always take so long to build a tool when your in the middle of a projects  ). 

I turned the blank on my second oldest son's small wood lathe. Since I have to store his two lathes in my shop I may as well use them. Apparently he can't have them at Fort Sam Houston during AIT. And I highly doubt the army will pay to move em around so maybe I get them for quite a while. In a way its too bad because he started turning at age 12 or 13 and by the time he was 16 he was turning fantastic hollow forms - urn shapes and the like that have 1/8" thick walls and only a small 1-1/4" hole in the top - way way beyond any of my abilities. (sorry I digress).

The pattern is turned - I wasn't trying for perfect symetrical sides, I was trying for approximate shape with the goal to turn the fly wheel to final shape and size. I had a minor snafu while turning the second side and broke off the spigot I had made on the one end. I had to resort to using my metal lathe to turn the second side (ugghh) because I didn't have a chuck that could hold that large a diameter on the wood lathe. I did glue it back on and have filled in any cracks and damage from the break.

I am trying to do this as a casting because I just couldn't justify the cost of a large piece of bronze and didn't want to make it out of steel. And since I made a foundry furnace last year and had piles of brass/bronze pipe fittings, broken gears etc.. I figured on trying to make the flywheel by casting the blank and then turning accordingly. But we'll see how that goes if and when it stops raining. I still have to final sand and paint the pattern and make the gating system. Based on research the gating system will need to be a bit fancier then say for aluminum - square or rectangular runners that are fairly small to help control the flow of material into the pattern such that it doesn't erode the sand as it goes in. So some work on that front still to come.

Today I'll be working on the gears for the cam and crank shaft. Note - I assume there is nothing special about the cam shaft itself? I got the dimensions off the whole engine drawing but didn't see a separate sheet in my downloads for that particular piece.


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 1, 2016)

Mark--that is a very interesting post about casting the flywheel. You are right about the camshaft. It is just a piece of plain cold rolled round stock, and doesn't rotate. The cam gear has a bushing in it and spins on the camshaft. --Brian


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## mjonkman (Oct 2, 2016)

I had started on the gears - making the blanks on Friday evening (before my last post). I made 2 blanks for each gear in case I screw up - course I did manage to screw up the last blank - larger gear, misread the depth mic and took .017 instead of 0.007" on the last cut and now the one shoulder is a little short. Maybe I'll use it as my first trial cut.

In order to cut the gears I plan on using my horizontal mill and dividing head. I've never had the dividing head on the horizontal mill and totally neglected the fact that the keys to hold it in line with the slots on the table might work well on my Bridgeport but not  are too wide to fit the slots on my small horizontal mill. So I had to make new keys for the bottom of it as well as the tail stock. I spent last evening making the ones for the dividing head but unfortunately the tail stock is not the one for the dividing head - its one my dad picked up at Busy Bee in London On and swapped for a smaller tailstock that I had and was going to modify for my dividing head. Long story, the key slot in the bottom of the tailstock is a different size then the ones on the dividing head so I have to make a different sized set for it. So another evening will be spent on that at some point this week.

The sun came out around 2pm this afternoon and with the threat of rain gone for the remainder of the day I thought I'd take a stab at casting the flywheel. In a short statement, the process was not a success. However, there was a ton of learning and a number of changes that I will implement before the next attempt.

Things that went well

Using the runner system as suggested on a post on Alloy Avenue seemed to work well. Basically from http://www.alloyavenue.com/vb/showthread.php?6173-Gating-Brass-bronze-castings. However I didn't do the math I just followed the pictures. In reading more I should probably increase the height of the runner to about twice what I used and increase the size of the gate.

I used Petrobond sand and that seemed to hold the shape and pack in very nicely.  However I really wish I had bought a lot more of it when I picked it up a year or so ago. I thought 100lbs in 2 - 5 gallon pails seemed like a lot of sand. I used almost the entire amount in my flask - which I will admit is a bit big. Next time I get some spare change I'll pick up another 3-4 pails.

What didn't work so well.

My new crucible lifter / pourer that I made last week. I'm not a super "strong" person - I can lift and move around a 100lbs without an issue but when I have to balance a A12 crucible 2/3 full of molten bronze it gets awkward very fast. I did not include any kind of handle to get a grip to twist/rotate the handle to pour the bronze.  When I finally managed to get it twisted enough to pour I could not sustain the pour and was unable to restart it fast enough. The end result was that I filled the runner and started to fill the pattern area but it froze before I could start the pour again. I welded a bolt to the handle to give me twisting leverage and added another piece of rod at the end of the handle so a second person can help with the pour. The other issue I found with the new lifter pourer is that the rotating lock on the lower part of the handle. The lock worked sort of okay but I feel that it also reduced my ability to twist the handle to some extent. I will be revisiting that. I think I solid rod protruding out permanently fixed would suffice for a lock - perhaps with a little play to allow slight differences in crucible heights. Still thinking on that. I'm not that experienced to know how variable the height of crucibles will be.

I think I need to get the bronze a little hotter then I did to keep it pouring and flowing better. I don't have a thermocoupler setup yet.

I need to modify the flask design and add some handles for lifting at least the cope off the drag.With 50lbs of sand rammed up it was hellish to lift it off. Two handles one either side would have really helped. 

Get some foundry gloves so I don't keep ruining my welding gloves - my cheap welding gloves from Lowes burst into flames while skimming the crap off the top of the molten bronze.

Give myself enough time to ram up a good mold before starting the furnace. Thought I would have enough time to do both at the same time. But it took me 3 attempts to get a more or less decent - but not perfect mold. Unfortunately it was getting dark and I was getting exhausted so I went with that and it would have worked.

Also the extra piece I had added onto the pattern to allow for work holding also became a bit of an issue. I was ramming that part up in the cope and then continuing it on up as a riser to help prevent shrinkage. I could never get the pattern to pull out correctly without tearing the sand perhaps because I couldn't ram it down hard enough. Perhaps a piece of copper pipe to cut out the riser vs working around a pipe would have helped. 

But I think with a few modifications and more daylight I think I can be successful. Definitely need a 2nd person to help with the pour or I need to start working out at the gym  Lot of learning going on.


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 3, 2016)

Mark--thanks for the update. You're a braver man than me. I have never tried casting metal.---Brian


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## mjonkman (Oct 3, 2016)

Not so sure about "braver"... "stupider" might be a better word  

I wanted to create my own foundry furnace because down the line my goal is to create scale models of real engines (gas, steam, stirling) etc without jumping through hoops with crazy setups to do the same out of bar stock. I have seen some fantastic weldments etc to get beautiful models without casting but I like to dabble in woodworking as well as metal working so this is one part that lets me do a bit of both. After this engine is complete and I need to finish up a Stirling (Jan Ridder's coffee cup Stirling) I started a while back and another steam engine I started with my eldest son (waiting on him to have time to help finish it - want it done as a joint effort) then I'll be making patterns for my next engine.

Choices currently are 

1) Maytag model 92 (I bought a 1931 at auction a few weeks ago, so I have an original to work with)

2) Rider Errickson Stirling (started making some patterns but screwed up a complex composite piece pattern during glue up)

Saner heads prevailed on Saturday and I avoided going to an auction where a IHC 2HP Famous Vertical was sold. I would have had to bid on that puppy and I had no where to store it and no way to get something that big home. But its one cool engine that I might like to model someday.

It may be a week before my next update on the engine.


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## mjonkman (Oct 9, 2016)

Sorry no update this week and possibly next week or two. Major issues to deal with at my full time job.


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 10, 2016)

Work has this nasty habit of popping up and interfering with one's hobbies!!!


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## mjonkman (Oct 15, 2016)

I got a chance to get back out to the shop late Thursday afternoon. The first thing I did was make myself a pouring shank for my crucible. This one is just simply a ring to hold the crucible and a small vertical riser and then the handle. With the ring correctly sized and shaped it seemed to hold the crucible extremely stably so I decided to forego temporarily a locking mechanism to prevent the crucible from falling out (aka I was in a hurry and wanted to get on with the show )

On Friday morning after getting my "apprentice" working on his project - he's building a Jan Riders' coffee cup Stirling, I started getting ready to create a new mold. 

Some of my issues with creating the mold stemmed from the fact I didn't really have a way of lifting the cope off the drag perfectly vertical because I had no way of gripping the cope. Therefore I added some draw pulls to the sides of the cope and drag to make them easier to move. This worked well *except* I put them 90 degrees to the lock between the cope and drag which gives better grip but means that I can't set them on edge to clean out loose sand.  Will adjust before next go round. I need the handles because in this scenario there is 50lbs of sand in each half of the mold.


Because I had a lot of problems the last go round with the hub that I added to one side of the pattern for holding while turning. While the true problem was probably not being able to lift straight up (no handles last time) I decided to ram up the drag with this half of the pattern instead. It worked. I also used a thicker runner to feed the pattern, not sure whether the runner was too small last time or not. Next time I might do back to the narrow runner since it took a lot of molten metal to fill that thing up.

The pattern rammed up nicely on the first attempt. It wasn't perfect but the pattern area itself was pretty good, the runner had some crumbling along its edges that I tried to clean out. Making the runner even bigger then the wooden runner pattern. I don't have any pictures itself of the rammed up pattern. My "apprentice" might he was doing a lot of pictures, snapchat and videos of what I was doing (hopefully none of those videos see the light of day).

With a good pattern or at least one I was happy with I fired up the furnace. It was a coolish day out and I had a hard time getting it to stay lit. Finally got sensible and put the hot plate under the oil tank and got the oil warm - amazing difference in performance on that. Actually had to cut back the amount of oil going in because it was burning too rich. Lesson learned even if its a comfortable cool day, get the hot plate out as the oil viscosity really affects the burner.

I filled the A12 crucible full of brass shavings that I had saved (as well as spent .22 casings and some miscellaneous brass/bronze fittings that were buried in that pail. Once that melted it left a fair amount of crap on top, guess the small chips oxidized more then big stuff did. After scrapping that off the top and then adding more big fittings and the like I got about 2/3 - 3/4 of the crucible full of molten metal. I let it heat up till it was nice and viscous. 

I used the old lifter/pourer - now relegated to crucible lifter to get the crucible out of the furnace and then the new pouring shank to pour with. The only headache was the plinth got stuck to the bottom of the crucible again :-( but didn't seem to effect anything just a bit in the way is all.

When I poured the top half started to lift a bit causing some bronze to seep out the split, I stepped on it to get it back down and continued to pour out the entire contents of the crucible into the mold. A small amount started coming up the riser above the center of the hub - basically to the level of the bottom of the riser extender. But didn't go up into the extender. With the crucible empty and the pouring riser full but not a lot in the other riser, plus the lift of the two halves I was certain that this was yet another failure.

After waiting an impatient 10 min with "apprentice" and wife harassing me about whether it was a success or failure  I dumped it out into a wheel barrow to prove it was a failure. Much to my surprise the riser on the hub had fed the pattern nicely and while it had shrunk down in the middle to almost next to nothing above the pattern, it had done its job and the pour was a *SUCCESS*.

The only negative at the end was the when I tried to lift the cope and drag to get it into the wheel barrow the sand in the bottom of the drag broke loose onto the ground. Next time I'll lift with the board it was sitting on. 

After letting it cool for a good while - aka  cleaned up all the pouring stuff, put away the lifters and pourer and all that paraphernalia. I came back to the casting and hit it with some water to cool it off and then cut off the riser above the hub and the in gate. Both were solid, though I bet the riser was empty a 1/4" or so above the hub. 

I started machined it later yesterday evening. I should have done a few things differently but it came out ok. I still need to drill the holes into the face of the flywheel. There is a funny - smearing area on the face of the flywheel and a couple of tiny pinholes on the circumference. But overall it was a complete success. 

In order to machine it, held the side without the extended hub in the 3-Jaw on the outside then I machined the face and hub to clean them up. This is where I made my mistake. I did not go to final dimensions anywhere, I just cleaned up this side. I should have taken everything to final dimension or at least within .020" so that when all was said and done it would be just skim cuts to finish off after cutting off the hub extension. Oh well, lesson learned. After roughing the first side I used the spigot or hub extension to turn the opposite side to final dimensions and turned the outside diameter to approximately final size. Then flipped around and tried to finish the first side using the inner hub to hold - it worked but it was a bit flimsy and did at least once pull it slightly out of running true. Next time I either completely finish the first side or use the outside diameter to hold when finishing the side where the extended hub was. This is the first time I've turned a casting like this so it was a learning process. I had the idea correct just not the execution steps in the right order.

Pictures to follow from my iPhone momentarily in a separate post.


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## mjonkman (Oct 15, 2016)

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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 15, 2016)

Mark--that looks fabulous!!


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## Herbiev (Oct 15, 2016)

Turned out great.


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## Brian Rupnow (Oct 22, 2016)

Any updates, Mark?--I'm still waiting for the first running vertical engine.---Brian


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## mjonkman (Oct 22, 2016)

Sadly no. I haven't had a chance to be in the shop thus week. Might get an hour in thus aft if I'm lucky. I got a month and 3 days of vacation plus holidays to take before end of year so my target is by Dec 31st.


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## mjonkman (Oct 29, 2016)

No update again this week, work has taken over for the next two weeks.


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## mjonkman (Dec 9, 2016)

Back in the saddle again

Finally after what feels like ions of time, I finally got back into my shop and will be out there approximately every other day for the rest of the year if I can help it.

I got out there last week, made a couple of arbors and finished setting up the horizontal mill (had to cut keys for the tailstock of the dividing head) and I cut the gears. I'd say I did it perfectly the first time but I'm guessing no one would believe me  I almost got it right on the first attempt. after much research and watching youtube videos and doing the calculations etc I felt pretty confident. Decided to do the smaller gear first (less material to waste). Well despite double checking everything I somehow had the plunger pin engaged with the 19 hole ring on the plate vs the necessary 18 hole. How or why I did that I have no clue. Sometimes I baffle myself. Anyhow it was evident on the last tooth that I had messed up. One look told me my mistake. 

Created a new blank set the plunger right and made a second gear and it came out perfectly. Same with the larger gear. The only headache I had was that it was very difficult to measure the gear while still on the mill. But I only have a 3 jaw chuck and tailstock so I didn't want to remove the gear until it was complete. When I finished the larger gear I miss measured and stop a few thou to shallow. Had to put it back in tonight and take an extra cut. Seemed to work out perfectly.

Mounted the gears up in the engine frame to check fit and after a minor adjustment (skim cut) off the larger gear. It all fit perfectly. the gears mesh nicely and the crank and cam gears spin with no interference and very little backlash. I'm really tickled pink at how they turned out.

I'll be concentrating on any missing parts for the cam shaft and the crankshaft then move back to doing the remaining parts of the head and lap in the cylinder. Once that is all done I start moving towards the rest of the stuff like carburetor and fuel tank and so forth.

 I got the spark plug, points and condenser sitting in my drawer of parts. I still have to figure out the what else I still need on that front.

I didn't take many pictures of the gear cutting because it was kind of awkward to get a good picture and poor lighting.


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## Brian Rupnow (Dec 10, 2016)

Great stuff Mark. thank you so much for the update. Gears can be a real pain in the head if you lose track of your "turn count" any time during the machining.--Brian


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## mjonkman (Jan 2, 2017)

Well I never got as much time to do machining as I expected over my 3 wk vacation. Seems like everyone wanted a slice of my time and unfortunately my wife's grandmother (oma) passed away so she went to Holland so I had to be Mr. Mom as well for the first 10 days of my vacation. My "apprentice" used up a lot of shop time as well trying to finish a Stirling engine before he takes off to China at the end of this week. Then of course Christmas showed up - hey on the bright side my loving 14yr old daughter gave me this awesome present of a beautiful black rock with heat generating capabilities (then she wanted me to buy her an iPhone 7 the very next day...) Overall it was a great time, my son flew in from Fort Sam Houston so I got to see him for the first time since he graduated basic on July 1st.

That aside, I did do some work on the engine.

I spent a morning lapping the piston into the cylinder and it now has a very nice fit. Might need a tad more lapping as it slides through with a gentle push but does not fall through on its own weight.

I silver soldered the small gear onto the hub and drilled and tapped the set screw holes.

I made the starter hub.

I finished the flywheel, broaching the keyway, drilling the big hole pattern and the holes for mounting the starter hub. The only slight screw up was when I broached the keyway, I put the shim in and it wasn't required for the 3/32" broach, so I had to machine a 1/8" key to 3/32" width to get a proper fit. I wish Dumont would include at least some instructions in the kit... or maybe I should have read the 1/8" stamped on the back of the shim...

I also made the cam and mounted it to the larger gear.

Made the little hub that the points ride on.

Tonight I made the Valve seat cutting tool that Brian suggested to use for cutting the valve seats.

I didn't take a lot of pictures along the way. I was mostly trying to get time in the shop and didn't want to stop to do a lot of picture taking as it does consume some time.

Most of the pictures I did were around making the cam. Not knowing exactly how to tackle the problem I went with the following:

I machined a length of rectangular aluminum and drilled and reamed 3 by 3/8" holes in a row, parallel to the edge of the work piece. The outer 2 holes were for hold down bolts in my rotary table and the middle was for an alignment pin that goes into the center slug of my rotary table and also the 3/8" reamed hole in the cam blank. A forth hole was drilled directly above the center hole and counter bored to allow the socket head cap screw head to sit below the surface of the material.

The cam blank was then machined to size and the 0.375" hole reamed in the middle and the holding screw hole drilled and tapped. 

I then mounted the cam onto the fixture block I had previously made. With the rotary table mounted and set at 0, I locked the fixture down making sure the edge of the fixture was dead in line on the x-axis of the main table. I then centered the rotary table under the spindle with a coaxial indicator.  Then it was a really simple process of calculating the correct angles in degrees, minutes and seconds and using the offsets I cut the two angles. and finally I cut the bottom radius to match the drawings. The top radius was already made as part of the blank. 

Making the fixture was 90% of the work. Cutting the cam probably took maybe 5 min.

I reused the same fixture plate later with new holes drilled to hold the starter hub in such a way as to make it really easy to drill and ream the 0.125" hole.

Finally a picture of all the parts that I've made to date.

I had really hoped to have this done and running by Cabin Fever but looks like I'll be showing up with the a bunch of parts again... wonder if anyone think I'm nuts for having 2 engines in progress and only 1 complete engine....


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 3, 2017)

Very nice work Mark. That cam is a very "forgiving" cam. as long as you are somewhere "close" the engine will run okay.---Brian


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## mjonkman (Jan 15, 2017)

Here is are a couple of pictures of my engine at Cabin Fever. I had made the valves, valve cages and lapped them in last weekend. I had also made the push rod guide and started on the push rod. Obviously I didn't make my year end goal of having it done nor my goal of having it running for Cabin Fever Expo.View attachment ImageUploadedByModel Engines1484491945.920281.jpg
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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 15, 2017)

Just lovely, Mark. Herbie seems to be stalled out on his build, so you may still have the first runner of 2017.---Brian


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## Herbiev (Jan 15, 2017)

Looking really great Mark. The weather here cooled down a bit over the weekend but the leader of the opposition brought home a heap of garden seedlings so that was my shed time gone. Hopefully this week I should have my engine running with a bit of luck.


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## mjonkman (Jan 15, 2017)

That means I need to get out in the garage and work all night to see if I can build enough parts to get this thing running if I'm going to outrun Herbie... Then again common sense says I need to get a bit of sleep and start working off all the money I spent this weekend.


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## mjonkman (Jan 29, 2017)

Got a little bit of work done the last two weekends. Could only manage sneaking a couple of hours last weekend, and a few hours yesterday and today. 

Basically I finished the push rod - cut the slots, drilled the cross hole etc.

I made the rocker arm support bracket and the rocker arm - lot of machining steps in those two pieces.

Didn't take any in process pictures but here are some of the pictures of the finished items.

Sorry its not much of an update but wanted to let folks know I'm still working at it when time permits. Next weekend I'm off to Colonial Williamsburg for the Woodworking in the 18th century conference learning how to make chairs. So don't expect an update for at least 2 weeks.


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## Brian Rupnow (Jan 30, 2017)

Looking good Mark. Glad to see you are still working on it.---Brian


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## mjonkman (Feb 26, 2017)

Yesterday I spent the day in the shop, the goal being to make a jig to wind springs and to make the two valve springs. I've looked at various ideas on how to wind springs on the lathe from various sources over the years but I've never done it myself. I figured the first thing that needed to be made was some form of wire guide that I could put in the quick change tool post to guide the wire while the lathe turned. I took a rectangular piece of 1" x 5/8" cold rolled steel, 2.5" long. I milled a chunk off - 1" by 0.5" along the length. Making sort of a L shaped piece. I drilled a 1/16" hole through the remaining part, then drilled and tapped a 1/4"-20 hole at the front end to interchangeable offices (can't think of a better name) that is sized appropriate to the wire I'm using - at least that was my plan until I realized how hard it would be to drill a 0.015" hole. Since I had a couple of hundred or so carbide 0.033" drill bits I decided to make a single orfice with that and see how it went. I also drilled a 3/32" hole down from the top to intersect the 1/16" channel. I counter drilled and tapped a portion of that hole to take a 10-32 screw. The idea was that the wire would feed through the 1/16" hole into the custom sized orfice. The top screw would have a small brass extension that would be able to add variable amount of tension to the wire as it pulled through the channel. Probably doing a crappy job explaining it. I had planned on adding a brass shoe to a steel screw then realized that was way too much work and simply made the whole screw from brass. The pictures might make more sense then my words.

The next step was to make some spring winding mandrels. Simply just a straight rod with a small hole drilled in one section so that the wire could be fed into it.

Having never done this before I figured a 3/16"mandrel (0.1875") might do okay for winding a spring with a  center of 0.195".... wrong!! I tried winding the .022" wire on it and was successful but when I removed the tension on the spring when I cut the wire from the wire guide, it sprung out to 0.245". The first attempt I hadn't added the tensioning screw to the jig just using a gloved hand for tensioning. I then added the tensioning screw and retried and got a small amount better maybe 0.005" difference on internal diameter.  Then I cut a piece of 1/8" drill rod as a mandrel and tried again. This time I got a spring with a center diameter of 0.145". If there is a mathematical equation to describe the right sized mandrel its beyond me. I then made a 0.165" mandrel and tried again, this time I got a 0.205" inside diameter - I figured this was close enough. The other thing I noticed that I had to use a 11 TPI pitch on the lathe to wind up with a spring with a 0.1" pitch (which should be 10TPI) so i guess there is spring back on that dimension as well.  I made two 0.022 wire diameter springs.

Then I moved on to the 0.015" wire for the other spring (intake). Thinking I could just use the same mandrel I wound the spring and when I cut the wire it sprung out to 0.240" internal diameter.. ugh. Tried a 0.125" mandrel and got too small. Finally I made yet another mandrel at ~0.145" mandrel and got another 0.205" inside diameter spring. The other headache I hit was that the tensioning screw tip wasn't long enough to contact the 0.015" wire so I had to use a pair of needle nose pliers to provide the tension. So I need to solve that another day.

Being the first time making springs, I was really surprised at the amount of spring back and other less then predictable results.

The picture of the springs on the valves has the springs reversed - heavy spring on intake and light spring on exhaust.. oops.


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## Brian Rupnow (Feb 26, 2017)

Mark--Thank you for the update. I have wound my own springs in the distant past, and it certainly is a "hit and miss" effort to end up with the diameter you want. Did you temper the springs after making them? I tempered mine because I was told that without tempering the springs will eventually lose their "springiness".---Brian


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## Brian Rupnow (Feb 26, 2017)

I found the original thread which shows how to heat treat (temper) the springs.
http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/f25/springs-things-7552/


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## mjonkman (Feb 27, 2017)

I haven't yet but plan to. Haven't read the link you posted but another site 
http://www.deansphotographica.com/machining/projects/springs/springs.html suggested about an hour at 450F. I'll have to fire up the barbecue next weekend and cook up some springs.

Mark


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## mjonkman (Feb 27, 2017)

Funny, the link to the post that you provided has the exact same info as the link I had - same guy, same pictures, same info. Cool, didn't realize he was on this forum.


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## mjonkman (Apr 9, 2017)

I've been continuing to plug away on the engine in the rare amounts of free time I have had. I have some pictures but can't upload them at this time. But I do have a question or two.

What do I need other than the points and condenser for the ignition system. I assume I need a coil and obviously a battery. Was looking at a coil this aft on Amazon but wasn't sure what to buy

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BW5QKJC/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

This one indicated: Internal Resistance. For straight 12 volt systems without series resistance 

Based on a thread I found somewhere that indicated needed to put in resistors etc into the system so wondered if the above would not require that.

Anything else I need on that front?

I've been thinking of one of those jump start battery packs for the battery portion.. thus have it for jump starting the car when necessary as well - saw someone at Cabin Fever using one and thought it was a great idea.. especially when travelling long distance to show to have that as an extra piece of equipment.

I've got the carburetor body, ends, throttle lever and the throttle part that goes into the carburetor body completed this weekend. I also completed and mounted the gas tank bracket (not the gas tank). The engine is mostly assembled and even without the rubber o-ring on the piston it seems to get some compression.


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## Brian Rupnow (Apr 10, 2017)

Either coil will do. you really don't need any kind of resistor, but if the coil has an internal resistor it won't make any difference. Big 8 cylinder cars had a resistor so that the car started on a full 12 volts but as the resistor wire heated up and built resistance the voltage flow to the coil cut back to 8 volts. This was sufficient to keep the car running all right, but not enough voltage for starting. This was all intended to make the ignition points last longer because of lower voltage flows. With a one cylinder engine you will never see any difference.---Brian


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## Bowtie41 (Apr 10, 2017)

I also wouldn't pay that much for a coil.Go to your local discount auto parts store(or even ebay http://www.ebay.com/itm/BRAND-NEW-I...tem33b048002f:g:-2cAAOSw5dNWn~46&vxp=mtr),and ask for a coil for a 50,60,70's Chevy,Dodge,BOP.Ask for the cheapest they have.Like Brain(oops,Brian,for him they are interchangeable,lol,jk)said,a 1 Cyl will never see the load of a V8.Kinda like a flea farting in an elephants nose:fan:


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## mjonkman (Apr 17, 2017)

Some more progress.

I finished up all the parts for the carburetor on Saturday and I just finished up the main body of the gas tank. 

Here are some pictures. Don't look too closely at the brazing job on the tank. I just got a set of oxy-acetylene torches on Friday and this is probably the second time in 25yrs that I've done any brazing. I have to admit with a 00 tip on the torch, I was able to silver solder (45% silver) with great ease, compare to the constant battle I've had trying to do it with my MAPP gas torch.

Getting closer but still a handful of parts to make and then final assembly.


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## Brian Rupnow (Apr 18, 2017)

Looking very very good. Your soldering job looks a lot like most of mine.--Brian


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## mjonkman (May 12, 2017)

I'm still trying to get the engine completed. Been sucked down by life &#128512; Had hoped to complete it last weekend but my wife suddenly decided that she needed a quilt rack made to hang her latest piece on. She suggested PVC water pipe but I figured that would never do - it would sag and look plain ugly.

Instead i made 2 - 5 legged bases with legs blind dovetailed to a central hub. Hub has a stainless steel center that holds vertical uprights with a hand screw to lock upright to base. Upright is schedule 80 aluminum pipe along with another schedule 80 pipe connecting the two uprights. I turned two caps for the horizontal out if 1.5" aluminum. I reamed a 31/32" hole through them so that they can slide over turned down ends if the vertical. Counterbored the holes1-1/8" end mill. The fit is purposely sloppy- .012" larger as its very difficult to lift the bar on with a quilt on it. Any tighter and there could be no room for error such as sliding one end in before the other. View attachment ImageUploadedByModel Engines1494622565.818721.jpg
View attachment ImageUploadedByModel Engines1494622583.870704.jpg


Not quite done yet. I want to add a bottom horizontal to keep the legs from getting kicked out. Then I want to polish to mirror finish in buffer. Right now its just been polished with emery clothe on the lathe. Pushed my lathe to the limits on turning ends down in verticals as they are 86" long.

Wife is happy she can show off her quilt - she spent 10 yrs cross stitching live verses from the bible and various hearts. She sewed all if em together and then quilted it. Do to the Aida cloth its very susceptible to wrinkling. 

She had it hanging from my sons bunkbed but he's coming home next week for a few says after completing his AIT and then heading overseas. Flying to San Antonio in a few minutes to see his graduation so no work on engine this weekend.


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