Motorman1946
Active Member
In March 2014 I purchased this part built engine:
I bought it from a friend of a model engineer who sadly had departed for the great shed in the sky and left it as is, part built - what you see is all that's been completed so far. I did ask around on several forums if anyone recognised the engine, as it came with no plans and despite all efforts of the friend none could be found. Someone did think it was similar to Gerald Smith's Osprey engine, but that was as far as it got.
Now, 5years on, I aim to start work on finishing it. Why the great delay? Well, we also have a motorhome and go off in that for up to a month at a time, plus we spend 4-6 months of the year in France, which restricts available shed time. Then another engine came up along the way, a single cylinder sleeve valve engine, which took quite some time as most bits had to be made twice and sometimes 3 times; although I'm a retired engineer it's many many years since I used a lathe and never had used a vertical milling machine before so there was a great learning curve to spend time on, and learning how to hold work was like starting almost from scratch. Plus there were some other little projects, like re-motoring both lathe and mill with VFD controlled 3 ph motors, repositioning the motor on the mill to the side from the back so I could get the mill on the bench, machining a chuck back plate which involved making a dummy nose spindle first, making a ER32 collet chuck to fit the lathe and, just finished, a lathe apron overall, remaking a shaft and bearing bush and fettling several gears in the lathe apron after a very solid crash! Plus I don't work very quickly, most times it's just the 2 speeds, dead slow and stop.
Well, the sleeve valve engine didn't run, no compression, still uncertain why, plan to remake the junk head and liner to fit better, but that's on the back shelf for now, I want to get on with the 3 cyl radial. I have called it by the name of Mystic, as it's a mystery where it came from and how it was proposed to be finished.
You can't have reached an engine build that complicated with no plans surely; but no plans could be found so the first job was to measure every component I had, draw it all out in CAD - another delay as I gradually taught myself CAD, good job I did, and loved doing, engineering drawing in my youth! - and then design, and redesign, and draw out all the bits necessary to complete the job.
So. Drawings drawn and printed, stock bought, enough to make a good start, I'm ready to go.
I have a Weiler LZ280 lathe from the late 1960's early 70's, not sure how old, originally a quality built lathe and still in reasonable condition after some TLC from me, with power feeds both longitudinal and cross, ability to cut a very wide range of metric and imperial threads, and a round column Warco 'Economy' mill/drill and a small bandsaw, worth it's weight in gold for the work it does for me, hate hacksawing. I work in both metric and imperial but think in imperial, a product of my upbringing and training, and both lathe and mill are in imperial. I can visualise thousands of an inch, it means something to me, bits of a mm mean nothing until they get translated back into thous! My shed calculator is my best friend. Not a lot of kit but enough.
I will post bits on here as I go, but don't hold your breath, as I said I'm a slow worker and exit visa's for the shed have to be earned first, but I hope to make a start later this week.
Chris
I bought it from a friend of a model engineer who sadly had departed for the great shed in the sky and left it as is, part built - what you see is all that's been completed so far. I did ask around on several forums if anyone recognised the engine, as it came with no plans and despite all efforts of the friend none could be found. Someone did think it was similar to Gerald Smith's Osprey engine, but that was as far as it got.
Now, 5years on, I aim to start work on finishing it. Why the great delay? Well, we also have a motorhome and go off in that for up to a month at a time, plus we spend 4-6 months of the year in France, which restricts available shed time. Then another engine came up along the way, a single cylinder sleeve valve engine, which took quite some time as most bits had to be made twice and sometimes 3 times; although I'm a retired engineer it's many many years since I used a lathe and never had used a vertical milling machine before so there was a great learning curve to spend time on, and learning how to hold work was like starting almost from scratch. Plus there were some other little projects, like re-motoring both lathe and mill with VFD controlled 3 ph motors, repositioning the motor on the mill to the side from the back so I could get the mill on the bench, machining a chuck back plate which involved making a dummy nose spindle first, making a ER32 collet chuck to fit the lathe and, just finished, a lathe apron overall, remaking a shaft and bearing bush and fettling several gears in the lathe apron after a very solid crash! Plus I don't work very quickly, most times it's just the 2 speeds, dead slow and stop.
Well, the sleeve valve engine didn't run, no compression, still uncertain why, plan to remake the junk head and liner to fit better, but that's on the back shelf for now, I want to get on with the 3 cyl radial. I have called it by the name of Mystic, as it's a mystery where it came from and how it was proposed to be finished.
You can't have reached an engine build that complicated with no plans surely; but no plans could be found so the first job was to measure every component I had, draw it all out in CAD - another delay as I gradually taught myself CAD, good job I did, and loved doing, engineering drawing in my youth! - and then design, and redesign, and draw out all the bits necessary to complete the job.
So. Drawings drawn and printed, stock bought, enough to make a good start, I'm ready to go.
I have a Weiler LZ280 lathe from the late 1960's early 70's, not sure how old, originally a quality built lathe and still in reasonable condition after some TLC from me, with power feeds both longitudinal and cross, ability to cut a very wide range of metric and imperial threads, and a round column Warco 'Economy' mill/drill and a small bandsaw, worth it's weight in gold for the work it does for me, hate hacksawing. I work in both metric and imperial but think in imperial, a product of my upbringing and training, and both lathe and mill are in imperial. I can visualise thousands of an inch, it means something to me, bits of a mm mean nothing until they get translated back into thous! My shed calculator is my best friend. Not a lot of kit but enough.
I will post bits on here as I go, but don't hold your breath, as I said I'm a slow worker and exit visa's for the shed have to be earned first, but I hope to make a start later this week.
Chris
