Murdock Vertical Oscillating Steam Engine

[vederstein]

Completed this a couple of months ago.

It's from Myers Engine Works. I wasn't very impressed with the quality of the castings. I had to scrap the two main bearings, the crank, and the manifold. I had to remake them from barstock because the castings were so bad.

The engine turned out pretty good though (at least for my limited skills).

--ved.

 

[aonemarine]

Looks good. How is the porting to the cylinder done? Im looking into designing and building something similar.

 

[vederstein]

It's a wobbler.

Referencing the bottom photo, the block on the right is the manifold for steam entry and exit.

The cylinder has a boss along its centerline which faces the block. There is a pillow block supporting the boss end of the cylinder. (There is another, smaller, pillow block supporting the other side of the cylinder. To get the engine to work well, the mating surfaces between the manifold block and the cylinder side boss must match evenly.

Therefore the manifold block is "floating". The brass hand nut (and a wave spring) on the right adjusts the clamping pressure between the two surfaces. A screw and spring washer mates the manifold block to the base framework.

 

[aonemarine]

Ok so the ports are the same as any wobbler?? I thought at one time I saw one where the ports came thru the side of the piviot pin and not the face of the block or side of the cylinder. That way you wouldnt need to have a tension spring keeping the mating surfaces together. Kinda like porting a crankshaft.....

 

[vederstein]

You may have looked at some other design. This one is a "simple" wobbler. Below is a photo of the cross section view from the plans.

I recently posted in the Plans Section a Gnome Rotary style engine that does have valve porting as you describe.

 

[nemoc]

Very nice job! Do you have a video of it running?

Craig

 

[vederstein]

I didn't want to post a video of this engine until I had a reason to break out the boiler which I only do about 3 times a year.

Here's the video of the engine:

[ame]http://youtu.be/f3YjU22wRP4[/ame]

 

[lennardhme]

Good job.
Nicely shaped engine - pity about the castings, but thats life.