Gnome Monosoupape rotary engine

[Wez1]

I have detail CAD drawings available for an exact 1/3 scale model of this famous engine. No castings required. Would make an excellent long term project. Several under construction around the world. Mine has flown a Sopwith Pup many times.

Current project is a 1/3 scale Armstrong -Siddeley LynxIV radial. I hope to find a way of producing castings at a sensible price so others can make this model too. It is about 3/4 complete.

Am new to this site but will try to post a couple of photos.

Wez1

 

[rhitee93]

That is quite an engine. I'd love to see some build photos if you have them.

Please share the progress on your latest project as well. It sounds very interesting

 

[ninefinger]

Hi Wez1,

Please tell us more about the monosoupape engine - your mention of detail drawings has me very interested!

I would like to add it to the (growing) list of round engines I'd like to make (1/6 scale Wasp Jr. R-985 in progress, 1/4 scale Wright J5 castings on hand,..)

Regards,

Mike

 

[Wez1]

Brian
Thanks for your interest. You may have already seen Charlie Welkie's photos of this engine posted on this site. He is building it in 1/4 scale. Here are a few of the original model incl one taken just after its maiden flight.
I will organise some pics of the Lynx tomorrow.

Wez

 

[Wez1]

Mike
I can email all the drgs to you plus construction notes. There are about 35 sheets I think mostly in A4 format so easy to print out. They have been well proved by other builders. Cost is £45 payable by Payal. If you want to go ahead send me a private message and I will give you payment details. NB this is a true scale model in nearly every respect.

Wez1

 

[cwelkie]

Good to see you here "Wez1"! It's always nice to see photos of your Lynx ... you really must share a couple more of the crankcase and the spectacular work you've done with that intricate "piece".

Charlie

 

[Wez1]

Here are some photos of the Lynx. Cylinder heads, rear end of crankcase and valve rockers all lost wax castings. I made the waxes with great difficulty. Three other crankcase components cast in alloy using rubber patterns and plaster. Crankshaft, master ring, con rods (one H section, 6 tubular) and prop hub parts all in EN24T. Pistons in Dural 2014, cylinders in leaded steel. Valve rockers cast in HT stainless with 2 preloaded ball races fitted at fulcrum.
Cam followers are plain hardened rollers fitted to silver steel tappets in 7075 Al guides. Induction pipework all in electroformed copper. This is about 0.015" thick wall so very light in weight.
Engine is intended to be a fairly exact copy of one in possession of RR Derby. I hope to fly it, possibly as a small sustaining engine on the back of a full size powered glider. Not very authentic but at least pilot and engine would be near one another in the event of difficulties!
My w/shop facilities are pretty basic, no CNC, just a decent Emco lathe plus very old Deckel miller. I made all the tooling for the casting work then farmed out the metal pouring to 3 foundries. It was all very hard and I wrote a long piece all about it in EiM (UK) earlier this year. If anyone wants to know more about this side of the project I will gladly forward the file.

Best regards

Wez1

 

[Wez1]

Hi again
I see that only half the pics arrived. Here are the rest. Pity the captions get lost but you can probably work out what's what. Incidentally, is there a quicker way of uploading photos in a folder rather than one by one?
Wez1

 

[dsquire]

Wes

Those are fantastic pictures of a fantastic project. Using the method of attaching photos like you did I believe that there is a limit of 8 photos per post. Also, the photos all appear at the end of the post and do not allow comments between them.

If you upload your photos to photo-bucket which is free (or similar service) then you can place more photo's per post. You can also place text between photos. I would recommend not placing more than 10 photo's per post. We would rather you make multiple posts as it helps them to load faster. Also please keep the photo size down to 800 x 600 for landscape or 600 x 800 for portrait. Many people use "FastStone Photo Resizer" to resize their photos and add a watermark.Here are a couple of links to help you get the programs mentioned and links to instructions.

FastStone Photo Resizer ver 3.1
http://www.faststone.org/FSMaxViewDownload.htm

Photo-bucket account
http://www.photobucket.com/

Photo help - Photo-bucket
http://madmodder.net/index.php/topic,607.0.html

Photo help - FastStone PhotoResizer
http://madmodder.net/index.php/topic,4735.0.html

If you need any further help with any of this give a shout and I will help you out.


Cheers

Don

 

[rhitee93]

Wow. This is one of those threads that makes me want to go home, sell all the equipment and take up knitting

Beautiful work! (Both on the engine, and in destroying my ego )

 

[metalmad]

Hi Wez1
That is one lovely piece of work.
How about a run Video?
Pete

 

[Wez1]

Thanks for your help on the photos Don. I'll try that next time.

Brian - don't sell the workshop! I've been there too believe me, especially at about 3am. So keep at it. As for knitting.. my wife often goes purple with rage, so not recommended.

I do have videos of the Mono flying but only on DVDs. Don't have a clue how to publish them.

Wez1

 

[rusty]

hey so my name is russell fox and you mentioned that you had CAD drawings for this. how would i be able to get those from you so that i could work on this project myself? please get back to me eiather by email [email protected], or by text 802-777-5100

 

[Wez1]

On Youtube there is now a flight of this engine fitted to our Sopwith Pup. See it at S5s2P2T8Dbk.
Don't know who the cameraman was and we didn't notice that the dummy pilot had fallen out of the cockpit, so the aircraft took off without him!

Enjoy

Wez

 

[Rivergypsy]

I've just read this thread and put two and two together with your article on electroforming in EIM - nice one!

 

[rweber]

Hi Wez,

this is an aewsome engine! I am thinking about building my own for a longer time. You said, that you have detailed drawings about that. Would you be so kind and share them width me, or tell me where I can get them?

kind regards from Bavaria
Robert

 

[Wez1]

Robert
Thanks for your interest. Please tell me which engine you are looking at. I have drawings for both the Monosoupape and the Lynx, both in 1/3 scale. They are sent out as pdfs for home printing.

The prices are: Monosoupape £50
Lynx £100

Both include extensive construction notes and some photos. Both are dimensioned in inches, except for bearings & gears which are metric. Both models are extremely close to the originals. The Mono requires no castings but the Lynx needs many. I can supply these.

You can pay by Paypal. Let me know and I will send a Paypal invoice to make it easy for you.

Best regards
Wez

 

[rweber]

Hi Wez,

sounds great. Are the drawings are complete to get the whole engine built? Are there parts that
have I have to buy, the the ignition unit. for example?

regards,
Robert

 

[Wez1]

Robert
Yes the drawings are complete but you may have to buy the parts for ignition, eg the modules and coils. I can suggest a good supplier in the UK. Spur gears you can buy and adapt. Skew gears for the Lynx you can make and all instructions are provided. All bearings you can buy. They are standard metric types in both engines.

The Lynx engine uses castings and the total cost for these is likely to be approx £2500 plus shipping.

The Lynx has 57 drawing sheets in various sizes from A4 to A1. The Mono has 34 x A4 sheets.

Best regards
Wez

 

[rweber]

Hi Wez,

thank you for the information. I am interested on the plans for the Monosoupape. Please drop me a note how
i send can you the money. Paypal is fine.

kind regards,
Robert