This is the wooden bits attached to the sliders that slide in slots in the big gear---
Brian's Donkey Engine
- Thread starter Brian Rupnow
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And here is the whole clutch "buttoned up".---But, as Ringo says, "It don't come easy!!!!" Only I and probably Captain Jerry know the ammount of pure "Friggery" involved in getting all those little pieces together. The clutch seems to work, but I haven't had the time to properly test anything today. My real work is interfering with my "play work".
AussieJimG
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The wood boring came out well but Yuk - the mess. And all around the air intake to the motor too. But I have done similar things and the lathe survives.
That clutch is looking good and nobody but you and Jerry will ever know the secrets it contains.
Jim
That clutch is looking good and nobody but you and Jerry will ever know the secrets it contains.
Jim
AussieJimG said:That clutch is looking good and nobody but you and Jerry will ever know the secrets it contains.
Jim
I agree completely that it is looking great, but there are a lot of people watching here that will thankfully know the secrets
Tom
Brian, now that you've got the design nailed down I come along with this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1912-Clyde-...04863?pt=BI_Books_Manuals&hash=item4601b5d67f
Depending on how the day goes, we may have an operational winch by the end of the day.
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We be gettin' closer!!! I picked up a piece of bronze tube this week for the best of all prices (free), and it has become the center for the winch drum. This afternoon I will work on the shaft.---The whole winch drum assembly is just setting on top of the bearing caps right now, waiting for the Loctite to set up.
Look close----Look real close----Can you see the string hanging down from the winch drum? Thats not a dead rat hanging on there----Its a five pound chunk of steel. I've been clutch testing. See that round piece of brass with the 3/8" rod sticking out of it, just to the left of the Donkey set up?---Thats my clutch activator. It works like this---I had my electric drill on the bit of winch shaft that sticks outside the bearing cap on the opposite side from the gear. I would turn on the drill, slowly, and it would turn the shaft and gear slowly, but the winch drum just set thare and didn't revolve. Then with the drill running I would poke that drill activator thingy down the hole drilled in the center of the winch shaft and push on the cross pin which caused the clutch shoes to expand and grip the inside of the drum. Then things would get exciting real fast, because the drum would start revolving and that chunk of steel would start climbing up towards the winch drum as if it was a live rat!!! Scared the Hell out of myself a couple of times. Sometimes the clutch would disengage when I let the pressure off the clutch activator, and sometimes it wouldn't. I plan on putting a compresssion spring in behind that cross pin to ensure that the clutch disengages when I want it to. i didn't have enough hands left over to make a video like Jerry did, but the clutch works fine.
Here is a larger picture of the "clutch activator thingy" inserted in the end of the winch shaft. It will be replaced by a lever mechanism with a scale sized handle as the build progresses.
cfellows said:
Chuck----Its unbelieveable!!! Counting the cost of the brass, the scale model piping and elbows that I haven't shown anything about yet, and other miscellaneous bits, I have close to $500 in materials in this engine. I'm happy with the progress I've made, and things I have learned, but its turning out to be a very expensive engine.----Brian
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Brian
If you are not feeling pumped, then your life experience has been way more exciting than mine. When I first lifted a chunk of metal with my clutch operated winch, I could hardly contain myself. It's about 100 yards from my shop to the nearest restroom facility in the horse barn and when I got back to the shop, I spent a lot of time making that weight go up and down. A truly enjoyable experience and I congratulate you on reaching this stage of construction.
I can truthfully say that I have never experienced a tendency of the clutch to hand and not release. In my first test, I used and external power source to drive the winch shaft directly as you have done. In later tests and demonstrations, I have powered the winch via the small gear on the crankshaft, again with no tendency to hang. Your clutch is almost identical to mine, with a few very small differences in detail mostly related to the slight difference in scale. If you have not already resolved the problem, here are a few suggestions.
Make sure that all sliding surfaces of the mechanism including the face and slots in the big gear are polished and lightly lubricated.
Make sure that the slots of the sliders are also polished and lightly lubricated and that all corners of the slider slots are eased or slightly radiused.
If you have used a spacer between the gear hub and the winch drum, be sure that the spacer and the surfaces that it may contact on the gear hub and the winch drum are well polished and lightly lubricated. There should be no pressure on this contact face and I would advise a gap of at least .0005".
These are just some thoughts that might help to smooth out the operation but as I am sure you know, the best tool to use here is the fiddle. A couple of courses of intense and enlightened fiddling will have that thing working just the way you want.
It's looking good. keep at it!
Jerry
If you are not feeling pumped, then your life experience has been way more exciting than mine. When I first lifted a chunk of metal with my clutch operated winch, I could hardly contain myself. It's about 100 yards from my shop to the nearest restroom facility in the horse barn and when I got back to the shop, I spent a lot of time making that weight go up and down. A truly enjoyable experience and I congratulate you on reaching this stage of construction.
I can truthfully say that I have never experienced a tendency of the clutch to hand and not release. In my first test, I used and external power source to drive the winch shaft directly as you have done. In later tests and demonstrations, I have powered the winch via the small gear on the crankshaft, again with no tendency to hang. Your clutch is almost identical to mine, with a few very small differences in detail mostly related to the slight difference in scale. If you have not already resolved the problem, here are a few suggestions.
Make sure that all sliding surfaces of the mechanism including the face and slots in the big gear are polished and lightly lubricated.
Make sure that the slots of the sliders are also polished and lightly lubricated and that all corners of the slider slots are eased or slightly radiused.
If you have used a spacer between the gear hub and the winch drum, be sure that the spacer and the surfaces that it may contact on the gear hub and the winch drum are well polished and lightly lubricated. There should be no pressure on this contact face and I would advise a gap of at least .0005".
These are just some thoughts that might help to smooth out the operation but as I am sure you know, the best tool to use here is the fiddle. A couple of courses of intense and enlightened fiddling will have that thing working just the way you want.
It's looking good. keep at it!
Jerry
This morning I installed the pinion gear on the shaft between the two cylinders. This is far more complex an operation than you would give credit to, as it involves removing both flywheels and timing cams. After a morning spent realigning everything and chasing down "tight spots" I have everything back together and running reasonably well, but it appears i may have the engines running in the wrong direction. Oh well, thats easy enough to change. i'm happy with the results, and can now probably move on to the clutch lever part of the build.
Andrew---No reverse on this one. This is a logging model, not a lifting donkey. The clutch/winch was put into freewheeling mode, and the cable pulled by hand back to the next tree. That is why this one had no ratchet on it either---It wasn't used for lowering loads.
lazylathe
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Thanks Brian!
Taking all that into account are you going to making some scale logs?
I have been pruning the oak tree and can send you some!
All your builds are great reads!
My favorite thing about all of them are that you build an engine and then you build something else so that the engine has a function!!
Andrew
Taking all that into account are you going to making some scale logs?
I have been pruning the oak tree and can send you some!
All your builds are great reads!
My favorite thing about all of them are that you build an engine and then you build something else so that the engine has a function!!
Andrew
My good wife is upstairs doing the (shudder) income tax for 2011, so I snuck as far away as possible and came down to my design office to see what I could do to stay far away and out of the way!!! I guess the next trick is to have something to actuate the clutch mechanism with, so drawing directly from Capatain Jerrys expertise, I have drawn up the "activation block" that attaches to the gear side bearing stand. I will build it next.
