Building a bigger Easton & Anderson Grasshopper

[Rivergypsy]

Now that I like - very nice work indeed

I've been pondering the 10" flywheel for my entablature engine, and how to fabricate it, so this has been interesting - thanks!

 

[AussieJimG]

Bloody brilliant.

Jim

 

[ChooChooMike]

:bow:th_confused0052

Great build log and WOW ! Excellent results thus far !!

Mike

 

[Jasonb]

Next on the agenda are the "A" frame supports that the beam tie bars fix to. I started out by marking the shape onto an odd bit of 1.5mm plate, clamped it to a second piece, rough sawed the two out and then filed to the final shape.

Next a couple of strips of the same material were cut off, I find the easiest way to cut thin sheet is to place it between two scraps of MDF as this stops it flapping about and jamming the saw blade.

These were then just bent by hand and tweaked until they followed the shape of the "A" I also machined up a bit of 3/8x 5/16 with a slot in the top to form the feet.

Some slightly thinner material was cut & bent to form the inner flanges and then the lot silver soldered together along with a flat piece of plate for the cross tie. After that I soft soldered in a piece of copper to complete the flanges as it was getting hard to hold any more pieces together for silver soldering.

Finally some brass disks were soft soldered on to form the bosses where the rods and tie bar fix

The flanges and bosses were then all milled back to the correct widths, the outside one is narrower than the feet and the inner ones narrower still. Fillets added with Miliput, primed and a few simple turned parts from steel and another part can be crossed off the list.

J

 

[sssfox]

Jason,

You make this stuff look soooooo easy, it's giving me a complex.
Your technique is incredible and the final product looks nothing like the materials you used.

I guess I need to get some sheet metal and start practicing.

Thanks for showing this.
Steve Fox

 

[Jasonb]

The Vertical movement of the valve rods is transfered from the horizontal movement of the eccentrics by cross shafts which run in beraing blocks. These are of a far simpler design than the ones for the crank and ladder frame shown earlier and were just milled and drilled from steel.

These were then cut with a slitting saw and some bronze split bearings added

And here they are with the rods in place and one of the levers, there are several other levers which are basic milling work with the rotary table so I won't detail them here.

What I will show is the way I fabricate links rather than the more common method of turning from flat stock and then rounding off the ends. Start by cross drilling some overlength rod that will become the eyes of the links to fit the bit in the middle. A few punch marks on the rod hold things in the right place while they are soldered

Once cleaned up one of the eyes can be held in the lathe and carefully faced back to length and bored, followed by the other

As the eyes are getting a bit short now its best to transfer to the mill and flycut the two eyes to length.

And the finished pair of links

And here are all the bits together.

J

 

[AussieJimG]

Your fabrications are always innovative. I enjoy them.

Jim

 

[gus]

Very well done and finished.

 

[Jasonb]

Next on the list is the piston and rod, this has a marine type end so first machine some steel and bronze

These were then machined up in the same way as the other rod ends so I won't detail them again

I like to use aluminium for my pistons to keep the recipricating weight down which helps with a smoother running engine at low revs so a lump of 2" stock was machined down to 1 7/8"

The groove was put in and the dia left 10thou or so oversize before parting off and a recess cut for the lock nut

The rod was then screwed into the piston and used to hold it by while the it was skimmed down to finished size and thats it about done

J

 

[Jasonb]

The Steam enters the valve chest by a tightly bent flanged elbow. These cannot easily be bent and carving from solid takes a while so one method that I have adopted in the past is to use a standard compression plumbing elbow, in this case 12mm.

Throw away the nuts and olives and loctite one end onto a suitably sized piece of rod. Turn off the external thread from the mandrel end and saw the other off before milling flush

Then turn up a couple of suitable flanges with spigots to locate them into the modified elbow

Then silver solder the bits together

After a quick clean up the elbow can be held in the mill and a light skim taken off the face of the flanges to ensure they are at right angles

While set up true the bolt holes are easily drilled letting the DRO work out the positions

While the PCD settings were in the DRO I also bashed out the exhaust pipework, here it is along with the elbow in the foreground

J

 

[Jasonb]

As a change from metal bashing I'll detail how I made the base for this engine.

A few strips were ripped off an old salvaged mahogany shelf, run through the planer and a simple moulding cut on the spindle moulder but similar could be done with a router. These were then cut with the mitre saw and fixed to the edge of a 12mm MR MDF board. A "box" was made to stand the engine on and a few off cuts glued together to form the plinth for the outboard bearing block. Holes for the flywheel and pump pits were cut and lined with more MDF. Overall size is appox 450mm x 300mm (18"x12")

I had decided to go for a stone look, to simulate this drywall filler was mixed with wood glue and water, the glue helps the filler stick to the MDF and also makes it a bit more workable. Some strips of 2mm thick board were used to allow me to screed the filler to an even thickness. This was left to set up for about 30mins then as it started to firm up the surface was textured by lightly dabbing a rough stone onto the surface in a random pattern.

Then the pattern of the joints was scribed into the soft filler with the back of a snap off knife blade. I cut a few scraps of MDF to the stone size and stacked them one on top of the other to scribe each sucsessive course. The verticals were done by eye from a marked out "rod" making sure that the bond carried around the plinth.

The joints were then refined, the odd chipped corner added and any loose material lightly removed with a soft brush

The insides of the pits were treated in the same way and the final stage was to do the paving slabs, you can't really do it all in one go as the filler will have firmed up too much before you can get it all textured and jointed.

After leaving to dry for a few days all the filler was given a coat of craft acrylic paint and left to dry overnight. The next stage is to apply oil washes, these are coats of heavily thinned artists oil colours in this case raw umber. You can see how the wash accentuates the joints and texture of the stone wheer it has been applied to one wall.

And here is the base after several washes, more can be applied to areas of shadow/dirt such as the pits and where the base joins the plinth. The odd stone is also given an extra wash to save them all looking the same.

The final step is to dry brush some of the base acrylic colour lightened with increasing amounts of white to add heighlights to the stone.

J

 

[Banjoe]

Thanks for sharing your amazing talent for turning raw metal into works of art.

 

[Rivergypsy]

Very nicely done, Jason - that looks good! Have you done a trial assembly onto the base yet?

 

[Jasonb]

Yes but you wil have to wait for some pictures. I wanted to get the base done so I could air test the engine which will be ready for that this comming weekend.

J

 

[Rivergypsy]

Lovely job - I'm looking forward to it!

 

[Jasonb]

After the brief interlude for the base its time to get back to some metalwork. The governor is mounted on a Tee shaped pipe arrangement where the bottom leg of the tee allows any condensate to gather and is fitted with a drain cock so any water can be blown down.

Not much to say here as its basically just pipes and flanges, the tee joint was formed by plunge cutting with an slotdrill the same 12mm dia as the tube to the midpoint and the short piece had its end coped to he internal bore, again with an end mill.

Add a bit of silver solder and this is the assembled part.

The gears were cut on the end of a bit of 5/8" brass

The governor itself was made from 1.5" brass, starting with a lump for the main body this was drilled, bored and then a 1"x40tpi thread cut in the end.

The top section was then mounted up in the lathe and a matching male thread cut using the body to check the fit.

After which some of the outside was turned to profile

The body was then put back in the chuck and used to hold the top while the remainder was shaped and a hole put down the top.

The two parts were then transfered to the rotary table on the mill and further shape added to the top with a 1/2" slotdrill that had its corners ground to a radius which creates the fillets to give the cast look.

The inside of the cut out was cleaned up with a long reach cutter. The next thing was to locate the cross hole for the governor drive shaft which I did my mounting one gear in the collet and checked the mesh against the other. With things running sweetly the R/T was turned 90 deg and the hole drilled as well as a slot to locate the stiffening web

With the drive shaft tube soldered in I added the holes to take the inlet and outlet flanges.

And here is the main body ready to have the flanges soldered in place.

More to follow.

 

[Jasonb]

I missed out a few photos of the next stages but this is what I have.
The parts for the regulator valve prior to soldering.

The profile of the valve handwheel was machined on the lathe before transfering to the R/t to first cut the spokes

And then remove the waste

While the R/T was set up I used it to cut the two large radii on the stuffing gland

I decided to use commercial balls for the governor, these are 303 stainless and reasonably easy to drill in their supplied state. A split collet was used to hold them for drilling

These were loctited to the arms, I also made the small tee shaped legs that stop the balls dropping too far

As this engine is only likely to run on air I added a finishing touch with some "Slaters" letters, these are 2mm high

And here are a few shots of all the bits fitted together, the eagle eyed of you (Jo) will also spot the bracket to support the other end of teh governor drive shaft.

J

 

[jwcnc1911]

This build is just fantastic! I'm having a hard time seeing this engine, would you take a picture with a 6 inch scale or something for reference? Beautiful work on the governor there!

 

[Rivergypsy]

Very, very nice work, Jason; you've got some lovely detail on that. Any chance of some pictures of the whole assembly yet, please?

 

[gus]

I missed out a few photos of the next stages but this is what I have.
The parts for the regulator valve prior to soldering.

The profile of the valve handwheel was machined on the lathe before transfering to the R/t to first cut the spokes

And then remove the waste

While the R/T was set up I used it to cut the two large radii on the stuffing gland

I decided to use commercial balls for the governor, these are 303 stainless and reasonably easy to drill in their supplied state. A split collet was used to hold them for drilling

These were loctited to the arms, I also made the small tee shaped legs that stop the balls dropping too far

As this engine is only likely to run on air I added a finishing touch with some "Slaters" letters, these are 2mm high

And here are a few shots of all the bits fitted together, the eagle eyed of you (Jo) will also spot the bracket to support the other end of teh governor drive shaft.

J

The speed governor amazed me since day one when I saw it running in the Heat Engine Lab In College 1961.
Great Job and superb finishin/workmanship. Did you cast/make the Tangye valve body? If so please advise plan source.

Regards,

Gus Teng.