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Marks Monitor Build
A little history can be found here USS Monitor - Wikipedia
The Iron Clad USS Monitor was designed and built by John Ericson for the US Navy during the American civil war. The contract required the ship to be built in less than 100 days for a cost of $225,000 with a money back guarantee if the ship was late or did not perform as advertised. I found conflicting information on how long it took to build the ship but 118 days was the most likely. And it more than met expectations.
Its historic match-up ( Battle of Hampton Roads ) against the Confederate Iron clad Virginia (Merrimack) lasted 4 hours and ended in a draw.
The ship later sank in a storm with the loss of 16 of its 49 man crew. The engine was recovered in 2001 and has been undergoing cleaning and conservation.
The engine is described as a Vibrating Lever-Half Trunk Steam engine. It weighted 30 tons and produced 400 HP. The unusual design allowed for a very low profile keeping the engine below water line. One of the more interesting elements of this engine was the reversing design.
A full set of drawings were produced by Mr R. W. Carlsedt after 20 years of research. The drawings are in full scale and he has made these drawings available at no cost.
Find the excellent drawings by R. W. Carlstedt here https://homeshopmachinist.net/resources/downloads/
Find an introduction to Mr Carlstedt and his fine model of the USS Monitors Engine here USS Monitor Engine
Find a YouTube video of Mr Carstedt's model here
Mr Carlsedt's model was in 1/16 scale. Mine will be a bit larger because of my old arthritic fingers. Surprisingly (with the time limit) the castings of the original engine had some fancy embellishments.
To make this part and a few other hard to make parts I decided I would need to cast them. So for five months I have been learning how to do investment casting. First I learned how to use a 3D cad program (Fusion 360), Bought 2 3D resin printers and learned how to print 3D patterns with a special casting resin and made a kiln to burn out the pattern. I bought an electric smelter to melt my metal. And I bought vacuum chamber and a pressure pot for getting the air out of the plaster investment.
Everything was a struggle. But after a lot of effort getting my equipment to work properly and a lot of trial and error I have finally started to get some decent results. I have been doing sand casting for many years but this investment casting is a world apart in complexity. But the results are well worth the effort. When everything goes to plan the rough cast parts are well beyond anything I was ever able to do before.
There are NO SHORTCUTS in investment casting. If you plan on giving it a try. Get your wallet out. As a n example a 50 pound box of investment powder cost $44. With shipping and sales tax it came to $162. I tried using scrap metal but could not get repeatable results so I had to buy brass beads made for investment casting $120 for 10 pounds but boy was it worth it. 3D resin for casting is expensive even if you use the lower cost brands. Even the flask deteriorates quickly. Make one mistake and it will cost you $$$ and a lot of time.
Here is a link to my Build of a burnout oven or Kiln https://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/threads/marks-kiln-build.33783/
Here is a link to my first try at Investment casting. It will show you my setup and equipment.
Mark's First investment casting
Look at the top of post number 1, on the right side corner, click on the word “watch”. Now you will get a notification whenever there is any activity on this thread. Comments are welcomed. Kriticize my speeling and gramor if you like, it dosen't bother me.
This photo shows the difference in scale between Mr. Carstedt's Model and the one I am building.
Mark T
A little history can be found here USS Monitor - Wikipedia
The Iron Clad USS Monitor was designed and built by John Ericson for the US Navy during the American civil war. The contract required the ship to be built in less than 100 days for a cost of $225,000 with a money back guarantee if the ship was late or did not perform as advertised. I found conflicting information on how long it took to build the ship but 118 days was the most likely. And it more than met expectations.
Its historic match-up ( Battle of Hampton Roads ) against the Confederate Iron clad Virginia (Merrimack) lasted 4 hours and ended in a draw.
The ship later sank in a storm with the loss of 16 of its 49 man crew. The engine was recovered in 2001 and has been undergoing cleaning and conservation.
The engine is described as a Vibrating Lever-Half Trunk Steam engine. It weighted 30 tons and produced 400 HP. The unusual design allowed for a very low profile keeping the engine below water line. One of the more interesting elements of this engine was the reversing design.
A full set of drawings were produced by Mr R. W. Carlsedt after 20 years of research. The drawings are in full scale and he has made these drawings available at no cost.
Find the excellent drawings by R. W. Carlstedt here https://homeshopmachinist.net/resources/downloads/
Find an introduction to Mr Carlstedt and his fine model of the USS Monitors Engine here USS Monitor Engine
Find a YouTube video of Mr Carstedt's model here
Mr Carlsedt's model was in 1/16 scale. Mine will be a bit larger because of my old arthritic fingers. Surprisingly (with the time limit) the castings of the original engine had some fancy embellishments.
To make this part and a few other hard to make parts I decided I would need to cast them. So for five months I have been learning how to do investment casting. First I learned how to use a 3D cad program (Fusion 360), Bought 2 3D resin printers and learned how to print 3D patterns with a special casting resin and made a kiln to burn out the pattern. I bought an electric smelter to melt my metal. And I bought vacuum chamber and a pressure pot for getting the air out of the plaster investment.
Everything was a struggle. But after a lot of effort getting my equipment to work properly and a lot of trial and error I have finally started to get some decent results. I have been doing sand casting for many years but this investment casting is a world apart in complexity. But the results are well worth the effort. When everything goes to plan the rough cast parts are well beyond anything I was ever able to do before.
There are NO SHORTCUTS in investment casting. If you plan on giving it a try. Get your wallet out. As a n example a 50 pound box of investment powder cost $44. With shipping and sales tax it came to $162. I tried using scrap metal but could not get repeatable results so I had to buy brass beads made for investment casting $120 for 10 pounds but boy was it worth it. 3D resin for casting is expensive even if you use the lower cost brands. Even the flask deteriorates quickly. Make one mistake and it will cost you $$$ and a lot of time.
Here is a link to my Build of a burnout oven or Kiln https://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/threads/marks-kiln-build.33783/
Here is a link to my first try at Investment casting. It will show you my setup and equipment.
Mark's First investment casting
Look at the top of post number 1, on the right side corner, click on the word “watch”. Now you will get a notification whenever there is any activity on this thread. Comments are welcomed. Kriticize my speeling and gramor if you like, it dosen't bother me.
This photo shows the difference in scale between Mr. Carstedt's Model and the one I am building.
Mark T
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