Building Rudy's Steam Tractor

[JimN]

Amazing work Dennis, your thread is better than any instructions for building the Tractor.

I looked at the throttle plate and decided it would be less work (less burned fingers) to just make it one pieace.

Few other parts I have made waiting for some metal to arrive. I also made the cylinder one pieace, just seemed the easier way to go. I still want to try your way (and Tels) for cylinders but on this one just did it the way I have always done.

 

[cobra428]

JimN,
Simply AUSOME. Nice clean crisp workmanship. Luvin it!

Tony

 

[zeeprogrammer]

That's just beautiful work.

 

[Deanofid]

I watch every part you make, Dennis. Lovely work!

Dean

 

[arnoldb]

Some more very good going there Dennis :bow:

Kind regards, Arnold

 

[Powder keg]

This is making me want to work on a tractor ;D You guys are doing a nice job!!!

 

[4156df]

Vernon...as soon as I work up the nerve to build the boiler I'll show you where the throttle goes.
Dean, Carl, Arnold et.al...Thanks for the kind words. You keep me motivated.

Post 35. (I like Metal Butcher’s idea of numbering his build posts for future reference and I plan to do the same. Not sure I’m ambitious enough to go back and add it to my earlier posts though.)

Fuel Tank & Burners

This post is a change of pace…sheet metal instead of machining.

Like everything else metal related, I saw this way of making a tank on an internet board (not this one). It was quite a few years ago and I’d give credit to the originator if I could remember who it was or where. If you’re out there, thank you.

Rudy’s plans call for a simple alcohol-fired heater consisting of a tank with two 1/4” feed tubes feeding fuel forward to the bottom of two 3/4” dia. wick type burners. When the tank is filled, the alcohol flows. There are no control valves.

I used 0.010” sheet brass for my tank. I made it in two pieces, although it could be folded from one piece.

For the tank, lay out the bottom including allowing for tabs to overlap the corners.

Cut out the corners.

The above tool was a recent swap meet find. It’s a hand-held notcher used in the heating and sheet metal business. Only good for light gauge, but very handy. If I didn’t have it, I would use a jeweler’s saw to cut out the corners. As it is, I still needed he jeweler’s saw to cut out the angled notches for the tabs.

The sheet metal was bent using bending rods held in a vise. The bending rods are two pieces of 3/4” steel dowel pinned to keep them in alignment. They are supposed to have countersunk allen head cap screws next to each dowel pin for clamps, but I never got around to adding them and have just used clamps and the vise to hold the rods.

A rawhide mallet works good for bending because it’s softer than the brass and so won’t put dings in the metal. The first bend should just be the center piece. Leave the tabs for later.

Before bending the tabs, loosen the clamps and slide the part up by a little more than the thickness of the material (I used a steel rule as a spacer). This will allow you to fold the tab behind the side wall and toward the inside of the box. Re-clamp the part and bend the tabs.

Here’s the tank ready for the final folds.

To fold the ends, get a piece of material close to the interior size of the tank and at least as thick as the tank is high. Metal would probably be best, but I had a piece of oak so used it. It worked fine. Clamp in the vise and bend the ends. Note how the tabs slip inside the box.

And here’s the folded tank.

The marked location in the center is for an overflow pipe that will be added later.

The feed tubes to the burners are two 1/4” pipes that need to exit the tank on the front side as near to the bottom as possible. I drilled them using a 1/4” wood worker’s spur bit.

The spur bit worked great and I actually ended up with round holes.

That’s all I’ll do to the tank for now. I plan to soft solder the seams and silver solder the feed pipes. I need to build the pipes and silver solder them in place before soft soldering the seams.

The cover is done very much like the tank but since the sides are only 1/4” high, there is no need for tabs. I laid it out and then cut a piece of wood to the outside dimensions of the tank (The cover fits over the tank).

Then clamped the part in the vise and hammered over the four edges

to complete the lid. The tube in the photo is the filler pipe. It will be soft soldered in later.

That’s it for today. Next up will be the burners.

Regards,
Dennis

 

[cobra428]

4156df
Very nice sheetmetal work. The wood bit is a great idea. Got to get one of those notchers!
(see you went to blue Dykem....thanks :big
Tony

 

[Powder keg]

Neat job on the sheet metal!!! Mine would look like it was built in a physical therapy class for the mentally challenged.LOL ;D

 

[Deanofid]

Nicely done metal work, Dennis.
I'm curious about why you will hard solder the pipes in, but soft solder the rest of the tank. I would have thought soft solder for the whole thing.
I find when hard soldering thin sheet, like this piece, that it wants to warp quite a bit from the high heat needed. Maybe being close to a corner will prevent that problem.

I like your gum ball machine! I see my shop is not complete. I do have a WD-40 can like the one shown in the same pic, though, but mine is a radio. : )

Thanks again for the write up and pictures!

Dean

 

[Maryak]

Dean,

If you hard solder the pipes and use soft solder on the rest, the pipes will not fall out because the soft solder has a lower melting point, (a trick I learned here when making my 3cc diesel cylinder).

Best Regards
Bob

 

[Deanofid]

Hi Bob;
I use different melting temp solders for that reason, too. I was thinking about all that .010" brass sheet and the heat it takes for hard solder. I expect your reason may be the answer.

 

[arnoldb]

Lovely sheetmetal work Dennis :bow:
Regards, Arnold

 

[zeeprogrammer]

Please keep the details up on the sheetmetal work. Very educational for me.

 

[vlmarshall]

Nice folds! Ever built any cardstock models? ;D

 

[4156df]

You guys are right on, on the reason for different temp solders. Rudy specifies Silver Solder for the burners because they definitely get hot. I think soft solder would be okay where the feed tubes enter the tank, but I figure why take a chance. I'll be reporting on how all the soldering goes later this week... ;D or :'(.

Vernon,
As a matter of fact, I have done cardstock models. Great fun particularly with the grandsons when they were younger. Not to hijack my own thread, but take a look at www.fiddlersgreen.net. Lots of neat models and many freebies.

Dean,
Re: The gumball machine. Very popular with the grandkids. I keep it filled with peanut M&M's. Carl is probably salivating already. Definitely not a money maker though because I supply the pennies too.

Regards,
Dennis

 

[Deanofid]

Dennis, I noticed those peanut M&M's when I was looking at the post last night. I'm a fan. Now it's turned me into a thief.
My sister lives just down the road from me. She's out of town for a day or two, and asked me to get the mail. While taking it into her house, I noticed there was a bowl of peanut M&M's on the counter. Nobody home.

I put her mail over the top of the bowl...

Ashamed but satisfied,
Dean

 

[1hand]

Dennis; I think in the beginning of your thread here you said your from midwest MN. Where? I grew up around Benson.

Matt

 

[4156df]

Matt...I grew up in Southeastern MN. Near Austin.

Dean...Leaving a bowl of unattended M&M's is considered entrapment. You're free to go.

Post #36.

Fuel Tank & Burners (Cont’d.)

Rudy’s plans don’t specify the material thickness for the burners but by scaling the drawings, it looks like he used 0.062” wall tube. However, in K.N. Harris’ Model Boilers and Boilermaking he says: “Wick burners and their spirit supply tubes should always be made from the lightest gauge tube available…” I have no idea why that is, but based on his statement (and on the fact that I had some in stock) I used 0.014” wall tubing for the sides of the burners and 0.010” sheet for the bottoms.

I fabricated the burners much like jeweler’s make bezels for mounting stones.

Cut the tube to length. Then cut a base slightly larger than the tube OD. Silver solder the two together. I used “Medium” solder for this to minimize the chance of the bottom unsoldering later when the feed pipe is soldered in.

I forgot to take a pre-solder picture, but my method was to flux the seam, lay small pieces of solder on the inside of the tube, and then heat the joint from the outside.

After soldering, use a pair of snips to trim the base as close to the tube as possible

and grind the remaining part of the base flush with the tube. I used a 3M gray wheel. Note I also inserted a dowel as a handle for grinding. Highly recommended as the soft brass gets pretty deformed after flying across the room. DAMHIKT.

A woodworking spur bit works great for drilling the feed pipe hole. Drill the hole as close as possible to the bottom. I used a dowel to provide support for the soft brass.

The feed pipe is then silver soldered to the burner using “Easy” temp solder. The solder I have is 0.032” wire so I made a solder pre-form and put it around the feed tube on the inside of the burner and heated from the outside. With the thin material it takes relatively little heat and it solders quickly. In hindsight, I think the bottom could also have been soldered on with “Easy” silver solder.

You’ll need one more pipe just like this. When both are completed, they’re silver soldered to the tank. Again using a pre-form on the inside.

That’s it for silver solder on the burners. From here on it’s all 63/37 tin/lead solder.

To solder up the sides of the tank I used stainless steel wire as a binding clamp to hold the tabs and ends together.

The binding wire is a twisted pair of 0.020” stainless wire. The partial loops on each side provide stress relief so the wire can give slightly and not deform the sides as the brass heats up.

As an aside, a jeweler told me how to make the binding wire. Double it, clamp the two ends in a vise and use a drill to twist it. Keep pressure on the wires as they twist and the pair comes out straight as an arrow. When you cut it or bend it, it stays just where you put it.

The tank was soldered with a 200W electric iron applied on the outside of the seam. Solder was fed into the seam edge from the outside.

There was no deformation of the brass, but solder on the iron made a mess of the exterior of the box that will have to be cleaned off later. If I had it to do again, I’d use a small propane torch and apply the solder from the inside.

The vent/overflow tube is soldered in next.

A few notes on the above picture…1) The hole in the lower right is for a drain plug. It’s not on the plans but I think it will be useful. 2) I extended the feed pipes into the tank because I thought they would need to be soldered to the bottom to get enough rigidity. Once the side seams were soldered it was clear that that wouldn’t be necessary. Next time I’d leave just enough pipe to hold a solder pre-form. 3) I left the binding wire on in case the side seam solder re-melts when the cover is soldered on.

Make sure the vent/overflow pipe is a little lower than the upper edge of the burners to prevent alcohol from flowing over the top of the burners when the tank is filled.

Several things have been done in the next picture; the cover is soldered on, the filler pipe is installed and mounting tabs are soldered to the base of the tank. All this soldering was done with an electric iron, but this time just 100 watts. Also, most of the excess solder has been cleaned off.

Here's the completed tank and burners.

The burners have been stuffed with cotton yarn in the above photo. There seem to be a lot of different ideas for type, length and packing of wicking. I’m going to try a few variations and see what works best for me. I’ll post the results. Playing with fire!! I can hardly wait.

Regards,
Dennis

 

[zeeprogrammer]

Fantastic post Dennis. Wonderful stuff. Thanks.