Miniature Tunnel Ram on Demon V8

raveney · Dec 30, 2022

Thank you Captain John!
I work with many Navy veterans who gave good advice to help me with this. They were all amazed when I brought the engine into the shop and ran it for them. They often support my hobby by saving small bits of scrap for me before sending it to the dump. Thank you for your service

Thank you also Richard,
I bought a Lincoln Square Wave 200 this year and have used three cylinders of argon so far.
First project was the welding cart to hold it made from galvanized pipe and bedframe out of the dumpster. Learned how well galvanized TIG welds and also how hard bed frame is on your bandsaw blade.

Next was a simple table for the horizontal bandsaw and then the sheet metal bender seen in the post above. So not much experience at all before diving into aluminum.
After the Demon engine fuel cell, I did a heat treat oven out of 304 3 mm sheet that welded beautifully. Since then I have fabricated a steam engine cylinder using silicon bronze filler. Very nice tool to have in the shop.

a41capt · Dec 30, 2022

raveney said:
Thank you Captain John!
I work with many Navy veterans who gave good advice to help me with this. They were all amazed when I brought the engine into the shop and ran it for them. They often support my hobby by saving small bits of scrap for me before sending it to the dump. Thank you for your service

Thank you also Richard,
I bought a Lincoln Square Wave 200 this year and have used three cylinders of argon so far.
First project was the welding cart to hold it made from galvanized pipe and bedframe out of the dumpster. Learned how well galvanized TIG welds and also how hard bed frame is on your bandsaw blade.

Next was a simple table for the horizontal bandsaw and then the sheet metal bender seen in the post above. So not much experience at all before diving into aluminum.
After the Demon engine fuel cell, I did a heat treat oven out of 304 3 mm sheet that welded beautifully. Since then I have fabricated a steam engine cylinder using silicon bronze filler. Very nice tool to have in the shop.

I love to use the silicon bronze filler. It is perfect for joining non-similar metals, and great for repairing cast iron! I needed an adapter for my irrigation pump (cast steel of unknown parentage) to a Navy brass fitting. I was about to get out the oxy-acetylene setup and the brass filler rod/flux when I remembered the already set up TIG. Easy-peezy, faster than a speeding bullet, and neat as a pin!

John W

raveney · Jan 1, 2023

Last parts were the cooling system. I didn't save any pictures of the water pump, pulleys or fan but pretty much followed what others have done and made the fan little larger and added a shroud. The radiator was made a little different in the way the fins were spaced. I made a bunch of little aluminum washers and stacked the fins around these and only soldered at the end plates.

I was frugal and used a brass runner for the end caps and found a lot of porosity after I was committed. I just silver soldered the holes, and was going to paint the whole thing black, but liked the whole "au-naturale" no paint theme in the end.

Also note that I made the radiator two pass by adding a small brass divider to the RHS tank. See arrows.

The radiator cap is polished SS and has a tiny relief hole to tell me if the engine gets too hot. After I added the shroud and real antifreeze, it hasn't puked out. I found I didn't need any hose clamps using silicone hose

So that's it for this Demon V-8 build using Steve huck's excellent plans and several forum member's build notes. It was very enjoyable during the 18 months it took to build.