Hello from Kansas!
I joined about 5 months ago looking for The PerfectValve for an engine I was building at the time. Sadly that project is stillonly a few drawings in PRO E (Wild Fire) and I have moved on.
The shop Im so lucky to get touse is 40x60 fully insolated and filled with all kinds of good stuff for a kidto get in trouble with. Five or sixyears ago my dad was getting ready do build another work over rig so he boughta new lathe and mill. The lathe is a 16x48 Birmingham along with the mill whichis along the lines of 14x 42 but not positive. I guess to have around 20 to 30 hrs on experienceon the two starting when I was 13ish. When I was 8 or so I was really intosteam and about every old engine there was. I had a 3 3ring binder full ofpages I printed from catfish hollow and RPM research that I would spend hourslooking at. After my dad took me to a few steam and gas shows I got a three setof Rudy Kouhoupts books and pushed me to have my mom order a set of castingsfor an osculating engine from catfish.
After growing up and my attentionmoved to guns I forgot about my 3 beloved books until late 2010 when I foundthem when I was cleaning my room. Well the love was back and out to the shop I wentand made Rudys Model Oscillating Steam Engine in less than 5 hours. I washooked to say the least so after standing around it for a few days smiling likean idiot while it purred along in the vice I made the move to start my nextmodel. At this point I would like to saythat the little osculater looks and runs just as it did all throws years ago(still unfinished). My next buld was to be the Piston Valve Engine from thesame books as my first runner. After 6 months or so I finly finished the parts.With basically nothing done at the end of that 6 months I pushed hard for aweek and made it run finely after a few attempts at the relativity tiny spoolvalve but it ran!! As my first build after I had this one running (if I turnedthe cylinder just right) I just to the next build. With a lathe and mill thesize of ours building .125 spool valves my definition of over rated. So Ifixed that problem by building the same motor but twice the size which will bea very nice runner when I finely get good bearings in it. The cheep bearingsfrom tractor supply are treble for five dollars apiece when I found some for $2.40at Baulm. Lesson learned. Third timemust be a charm because after taking three months to build the cylinder I knockedthe rest out in a few weeks, Im seeing a trend but this one did get mounted ona piece of our old deck along with a little electric motor from something I toreup as a kid. I have pulled 9 volts out of it but dare not to take it much furtherthat that on account of the slop in the bearings. Having around two hours ofrun time it time to rebuild the valve. Finely running in I guess.
Having not made chips on my bigengine I was going to build I have now decided to build one of Rudys simple stirlings.Having learned from my second build I was planning to just double size thedrawings from the start until I had the power cylinder done and discovered thatIm going to have a problem getting a piece of Alu 6x3x1.5. I have sinceregrouped and am now going to make it in the listed size although for the lifeof me I cannot get a decent cut on mild steel (not sure on alloy) I have tried justabout everything so we will see how this goes I will be starting a build ofthis one shortly. If your still reading this thank you and sorry for being so longwinded :hDe: a lot typed with little said. HMEM app for I phone is AWSOME!!!
GJ
