Finger engine

[cfellows]

John, I admire your ability to get out in the shop and get things done. Seems like I spend too much time thinking about engines and too little time actually making chips!

Chuck

 

[Bogstandard]

Thanks for the compliments lads, Chuck, just to answer your comment. I get out there and do it when I can, I just might not feel up to it tomorrow.

Anyway, managed to get a bit done on the flywheels.

You can see on the first pic that I have marked them out to roughly what I want to achieve. There is a reason in my madness for choosing such diverse designs. The one on the left is being given to my friend who is the size of a gorilla, so I thought a nice heavyweight flywheel. The right hand one will have children playing with it, so I thought a much lighter flywheel, with no big places to stick fingers in, and if they did get their little digits in the engine somehow, it wouldn't hurt so much.

Three hours later, the basic flywheels are done, ready for boring and polishing.
When I talk about how long it takes me to do something, it isn't boasting, it is trying to show that these sort of things do take a fair amount of time to get done, even by someone with my experience. If you rush things like this, you get something that looks like it has been rushed. Take your time and things turn out a lot better. Do your planning beforehand and you won't be in for any surprises.
They have turned out just how I wanted, the left hand one looks definitely 50'/60's retro, and 'beefy' looking. The other has had an extra set of holes put in from my original concept. It also looks like a large version of a Meccano pulley, so the kids hopefully will relate to it.

All the work on these wheels was done on a RT with just one cutter, a 4.5mm three flute slot drill, and a notepad to write down the settings as I went from stage to stage, so each section is exactly the same. Also you need a big sign on the door of your shop with the words 'Do Not Disturb', it only takes one lapse of concentration and you will be doing an on the run redesign.

John

 

[Powder keg]

Looks good John:O)

 

[deere_x475guy]

Beautiful John....just a really great job. How do you debur those spokes and holes? I am still not happy with some of my deburing jobs.....

 

[Powder keg]

Those will probably go like mad with bearings on the crank like that:O)

Wes

 

[Bogstandard]

For the one with all the holes in, because I used a milling cutter for drilling there was no burring to talk about, just a wipe over with a scotchbrite pad and it was smooth. Final buffing will round out the hole edges, so no sharp spots at all.
Normally for round holes below 1/2" I have a very shallow rake countersink mounted with a handle that I use for deburring, above that size, depending on the material, I use either one of the cranked deburring tools, or a scotchbrite pad formed into a ball.
For most other deburring I use a scraper, very rarely do I use a file. I have a fairly old Olfa laminate cutter.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000BNLIKW/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

It uses cheap solid tungsten blades that seem to last forever, they break because I have put too much pressure on rather than going blunt, and I just scrape all tooling marks and burrs away. It can also be used for cutting laminates, thin ali and plastic sheet. For heavy scraping I use the flat area closest to the handle.

Wes,
I lashed one up the other day with a way out of balance flywheel, got it up to speed and let it run by itself, must have lasted about a minute.

John

 

[BobWarfield]

John, I really liked the curved deburring tools and the Olfa is cheap, so I ordered one after seeing your note. Another deburring gizmo I like are the Keo Zero Flutes from Enco. Pop one in a hand drill (or if you're feeling spendy and have air all the time an air drill) and it puts a nice subtle chamfer on any hole you like.

Best,

BW

PS Love the blingey flywheels. I haven't even got an engine in sight to build yet and I almost went down to the shop to try to make one! LOL

 

[Bogstandard]

Bob,
These flywheels could most probably be made by the CNC lads in a few minutes, but I just like making them, I suppose one day I will figure out how to make the curved spoked ones.

John

 

[BobWarfield]

Bogstandard, curved spokes are covered by one of the Duclos articles. You can probably track it down. Clever arrangement. I was just looking over it the other day, but don't have it handy to pass on more info. It's in one of the Shop Wisdom books by Village Press.

Best,

BW

 

[Bogstandard]

Only managed to get a couple of hours in today but did get to a stage to show how I am fitting the bearing pins for everthing to swing on.
What I have done is to make the pins to go thru the bearing blocks and loctited into position, and when mounted onto the bedplate the ends nearly touch, at the same time the spacers are loctited onto the pins. Doing it this way will allow replacement and assembly very easy. The same method will be used for mounting the conrod into the fork on the top.
In the background are the two flywheels after boring and first polish. I am leaving the centres as brushed aluminium, nice contrast, plus it will take hours to manually polish, so they are staying as is.

Very nearly there.


John

 

[wareagle]

Awesome work as usual! Bog, you make this stuff look easy!

 

[Bogstandard]

Actually WE it isn't, but I am a firm believer in that if you are going to do something, do it to the best of your abilities, nothing else is accepted.
There is nothing I am doing that couldn't be done by anyone on this site (with a little bit of effort). Of course you have to have the right equipment, but again, I don't have all the latest all singing and dancing machinery, but what I do have I can use with my eyes closed. When making the flywheels, just turning the handles the wrong way can cause disaster, it has to be instinctive without even thinking about it.
I am also lucky in that I can just walk in and out of my shop anytime I want, even very late at night if I can't sleep. In an average week about 30 to 40 hours, so I am really at an advantage because I am using my machinery almost all of the time, and this site only sees about a quarter of what I get up to.

John

 

[Bogstandard]

You've seen the bits coming along a lot slower than normal, so now here are the finished pair of gift engines, excluding the bases, they are drying in the shop. Just where I normally take my piccies, so came inside to give a different view of things.
Of course something had to go wrong, a different colour cast on the photos than I normally get, so I have made them look a bit better, but not perfect.
On my next post about these little engines I will be giving the final dimensions, so if you want to make one or ten, it will give you a starter base to begin with.
All made from ali or brass except for the under mounting screws, the bearings and one grubscrew in the crank.

The one with the beefy three spoke flywheel is definitely easier to start and keep running, all because of the extra weight. But with this design it is dead easy to pop another flywheel on the other side as well.

The grandson kept the skinny flywheel one going last night for about fifteen minutes before his finger run out of gas.

John

 

[1Kenny]

Good looking engines, John.

I like the engine work on the base and the finger indent is very cool.

Kenny

 

[cfellows]

Those are beauties, John. Lot of good attention to detail and finish!

Chuck

 

[Bogstandard]

There is one major thing wrong with them, no inlet and exhaust port.

Wouldn't like to make many more, too much time for so little result. I've got mine to finish off yet.

John

 

[gilessim]

They look fantastic John, as they always do!, I wonder what obscure windows keycode they're pressing on your laptop though!

 

[ChooChooMike]

There is one major thing wrong with them, no inlet and exhaust port.

That's not quite true ... human powered, so there's is an inlet and and a ....... uhmmmm, outlet, if you will ...... ;D

And ditto on the finish work - beautiful - especially on the base/bed plate ! How was that accomplished ?

Nice !!

Mike

 

[Bogstandard]

ChooChoo,
The exhaust just might be all the hot air coming from me.
The baseplate is just standard fishscale effect engine turning. There should be a post about how to do it on the site somewhere, just search for 'engine turning'.

Giles,
This laptop was given to me a couple of days ago, it is sooooo slow compared to my tower system, I don't know whether to strip it down for bits, or just make it into a games machine for the grandson to carry around the house with him.

John

 

[Oldmechthings]

I see so many finger treadle engines on this site and every time I see one gives me a little thrill. Nearly 20 years ago I stopped in Idaho Falls to visit a old model builder friend, Mark Sutton, and he had a finger treadle setting on his workbench that he had built for a grand child. I fell in love with it on sight, and built one myself some time later. Mark has since passed away. It seemed like such a fun project that I sent a construction article to Village Press who published it in Projects In Metal in 1991. Since that time numerous examples have been built. I'm certainly not the inventor, and I'm not sure that Mark was, but I'm glad that I was able to pass on something that has been an interesting and fun project for so many.
Now if I can just learn how to post pictures, perhaps I can spread some more "wild seeds" in the country side. Birk