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I generally don't ream cylinders I bore them. Unlikely to get a brake hone to fit this engine so turn down a bit of scrap aluminium or even hardwood and use that as a lap, charge with 600g silicon carbide powder and oil mix

It will be fine for display but may just be a little lacking for prolonged runs under load but if you don't intend to do much of that then it will be OK. Just think of future engines that may want soemthing a little larger. I would likely run of a coffee machine's steam pipe.

One of the reasons Brian went for this engine is because he wanted to make one with a distributor. Go and read the first couple of lines of post #1

Pat, just noticed it's in the forum announcements section which only show when a mod or admin starts the thread. You or Shelton should be able to move it.

That thread was started back in 2015, I expect it has got even better since then.

Is that just one guy with problems printing in Wax? Take a look at this companies website, the majority of what they produce is from 3D printed waxes, though they mostly just show the CAD models this page shows an example of some castings. Plenty of detail, no real layer lines etc...

No Crankshaft comes round and trips the points, single spark travels through the distributor to one spark plug Crankshaft does another 360deg and trips the points again but this time the camshaft has rotated 180deg so the other contact in the distributor now sends the single spark to the other...

It is not in the latest posts down the left hand side as it has been pushed off the bottom by more recent ones. Bottom now is 7.41pm my time but the frisco one was 7.14

What about printed waxes and investment casting, surely better than trying to burn out PLA and risking ash left in those intricate cavities With PLA or even resin printing you will have two issues if you want to try and replicate that cast engine block 1. Supports PLA and resin need supports...

Max What metal did you use for the cylinder? is that a brass or a bronze. I would generally opt for a different metal so if you use a bronze for the cylinder then I would have no problems with using brass, something likeCZ121 or what ever they call it in your part of the world. You could also...

Pat. A lot depends on where in the world you are as to what is acceptable with a welded steel (or copper) boiler for models. Here in the UK and also in Australia where the OP is they either need to be welded by a coded welder that is someone who has passed tests for that particular type of...

lagging is insulation material that goes into the void around the cylinder between the two end flanges. You then fit metal or wood cleading or cladding over that to keep it in place. It would help a little with heat loss and reducing condensate but on a small 5/8 bore engien that is not really...

Valve timing has some effect but I also find that ignition timing has a greater effect so make many of my engines with a means of advancing and retarding the ignition timing while running as I like a nice slow tick over. Although a large flywheel can help keep an engine going at low reves it is...

So what design did you end up going for and what size? Although I often fabricate my cylinders or manually cut from solid I have done one on the CNC which was straight sided like that. Could have taken advantage of the 5th axis and recessed around the cylinder for some lagging though if it's a...

The rods were a bit too large to start with even if the cut had been along the full length of the D/T

Personal choice but having a steam engine with a conrod that looks like one from an internal combustion engine would look odd to me. Even the early IC engines had rods that harked back to steam engine practice usually with "marine" type big ends.

The remaining jobs on the engine frame were to drill and tap for some studs to hold the cylinder to the frame, this was a bit tight as room for nuts had been left off of the original Nattie design plus as I wanted the cylinder flange to be a smaller radius than the arched top of the frame as per...

Plenty a copper boiler with tig welded tubes and many many more with the tubes silver soldered in. Where are you getting the information that they are "typically not welded or silver soldered? Expanded steel or copper tubes tend to be used on welded steel boilers but not very often on silver...

You missed out If it is properly tested before use. Preferably by someone else who is competent to do so.

It all depends on what you want to do with the engine. If built reasonably well without tight spots but equally without sloppy fits then with no load most "steam" engines will happily tick over on a couple of psi or 0.1bar. At the other end of the scale if you want the engine to do real work...