Entablature Steam Pumping Engine

[Rivergypsy]

First CAM op for the governor lever - soon it'll be on the mill

 

[kvom]

I'd do the finial on the lathe and screw/solder it to the body.

 

[Gedeon Spilett]

this engine will surely be worthy of the fabulous drawing of G. Gentry.
beautiful workmanship

 

[Rivergypsy]

Thanks very much, Gedeon, I'm hoping so too!

Kvom - I'm torn which way to do it at present. I'm thinking to either turn a blank with the threaded base and finial, and then mill it from there, or if to mill the lower half and solder/loctite a German silver finial in place. I do love German silver, but I'm worried that it will looko out of place on this engine...

 

[Rivergypsy]

Ok, a little play today. I've got the lever post mounted on the governor mount, and got a collar on the shaft, and this evening I've roughly filed out the last two corners on the crosshead - it has to be said though, filing out internal corners where 3 pieces meet each other - not pleasant!! Nearly done now though

Tomorrow hopefully the sliding collar, fingers x'd!

 

[Rivergypsy]

Couldn't get on the CNC today, so I went back to basics and started on the corners of the teak base to get a good foundation to build up from. I found some 1" gauge plate which I sliced on the saw, and then roughly blocked with a face mill up into square sections before roughing out with an 8mm cutter. They're now sat at 0.25 on each face, so tomorrow on to the finishing

I did start on modelling the valve gear as well, starting with the eccentrics, but it's proved tricky to get the proportions right, but I'm going to have to stop machining soon and push the SW work forwards, as I'm running out of bits to machine, and the proportions are proving tricky to align with the Gentry drawings

 

[Rivergypsy]

Here's progress so far on the corners of the base. I haven't taken any set up pictures lately, partly as it's plain manual mill/vice work, and also because I dropped my Ipod, so haven't got a camera handy :wall:

They need a little tidying inside, and a lot of work with emery paper and needle files outside to get them to a polish, but the basics are there.

Hopefully the governor lever will make it to the mill later today too...

 

[Rivergypsy]

At last, the governor lever made it to the cnc woohoo1

Starting from some 316 stainless 3/4 wide x 4 1/4 long so I had some to hold on to for later ops, I first roughed to within 0.5mm in 1mm levels with a 10mm carbide slot drill, then to within 0.25 with the same cutter but 3D profiling. Then a 5mm cutter and 2D milling to open the forked end up, before switching to a 6mm ball nose in 3D milling. I could only get down to 0.5mm stepover due to program capacity on the mill (our Interact has ~5500 line memory), but it's got a finish and accuracy now that will be easy enough to finish on the next ops.

What I hope to do next week is hit it from each side to get the pivots drilled and profiled, and then (fingers crossed!) machine the lower profile to leave the lever hanging on a pair of little tabs that i can then saw through and hand finish...

Here's a couple of pics too of the corner pieces loosly fitted to the teak base, and of the engine as she is today - I can't wait though to see her with some motion work in place!

 

[idahoan]

That's beautiful!

I have enjoyed watching this engine take shape.

Dave

 

[Rivergypsy]

Hi Dave,

Thanks very much for your kind comments! It's feeling as though things are slowly starting to come together now

Cheers
Dave

 

[Rivergypsy]

*beer* It's celebration time - the crosshead is finally finished, and brass bushed!! *beer*

It's been far too many hours of needle files, and emery paper, split up by trips to the buffing wheel only to find another bit that needed more TLC, but absolutely loving it now it's done. Roll on getting home to get it fitted on to it's guide bars!

 

[user 2584]

Oh, its absolutely beautiful! I admire your persistence.

 

[aarggh]

I'm loving this thread, what a brilliant job you've done Dave. It's just spectacular work mate!

cheers, Ian

 

[Ramon]

That really is a lovely piece of hand finishing Dave - bet your fingers are sore

It's a truly super build so far and a cracking subject - looking forward to more progress.

Regards - Ramon

 

[ChooChooMike]

:bow: Beautiful work !!! Not sure I'd have the patience for that

 

[idahoan]

Wow what a beautiful piece of work!

It is a piece of art in itself; this is going to be one magnificent engine when completed.

Dave

 

[aonemarine]

That is beautiful... im trying to figure out a way to do it without cnc...

 

[Rivergypsy]

Many, many thanks for your kind comments guys - they're much appreciated!!

Aonemarine - the ways that spring to mind without CNC are to turn the bulk of the areas with the thinest, sharpest tool you can find (I used a VCGT 35deg jobbie on part of mine), and a few fixtures to pick up on the 5/16 reamed bores to align it. Or if you're extremely patient, to manually do some point to point milling cuts at maybe 1mm levels to get the profile - nasty work to do though.
I'd planned to take the first route and turn as much of it as possible, before I turned into a wuss and headed for the CNC, but whichever route you take, it's going to be file or Dremel work to get in around those bosses.

Just on to the bearings for the con rod now, to try start linking up some motion work - I'll post pics as soon as I can though

 

[Maxine]

Wow that piece looks fantastic!

 

[Rivergypsy]

Thanks Maxine - much appreciated!

I've got a bit of a problem at the moment, so I though I'd try and tap into the wealth of knowledge out there...

I've currently in the process of working out what's happening around the pump and valve links, and I keep running into the term 'gab ends with sliding keeps'. Now's I've found older gab ends for disengaging valve gear of horizontal engines, but I can't find anything that seems to suit what we have here.

I've attached images of the links themselves, the text from the write-up, and an image I found for horizontal gab ends, so if anybody gets the urge to take a look and throw any ideas or pictures up, it would be very much appreciated, please! I've lost count of the number of copies of the enlargement that I've been sketching on so far, lol :hDe: