My Briesch Olds

[JPar]

I'm posting these at the request of another member. I acquired this last fall from another modeler. It is not currently running and needs a little work before it will be ready to try. There are a few projects in the queue ahead of this one, so it will be awhile before I begin working on it.
John

 

[rklopp]

That's timely. I am about at the point of trying to fire mine up for the very first time. I made everything including the gears, springs, studs, nuts, and most screws. The crank is machined from solid. In a concession to modernity, the ignition is triggered by a Hall effect device and magnet on the pushrod.

 

[JPar]

That's timely. I am about at the point of trying to fire mine up for the very first time. I made everything including the gears, springs, studs, nuts, and most screws. The crank is machined from solid. In a concession to modernity, the ignition is triggered by a Hall effect device and magnet on the pushrod.

Looks good! I like using Hall sensors for model ignition. They are small and less obtrusive than automobile points. I have one on the Fairbanks-Morse in my avatar and one on my Stickney.
John

 

[Skeehorse211]

I'm posting these at the request of another member. I acquired this last fall from another modeler. It is not currently running and needs a little work before it will be ready to try. There are a few projects in the queue ahead of this one, so it will be awhile before I begin working on it.
John

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Looks great

 

[GreenTwin]

Anyone know if Briesch Olds drawings are available?

.

 

[JPar]

Anyone know if Briesch Olds drawings are available?

You might want to contact Ministeam. I believe they sold the casting kits at one time. Their web site says the kits are out of stock, but they may be able to supply the plans.
John

 

[GreenTwin]

Thanks, I will send them an email.

Seems like there is a consolidation of some of the old designs to some of the new casting kit companies?

I saw Muray's (Lone Star) ball hopper monitor go to some other company.

I have been offered two engine casting kit companies but neither seemed to be anything I could handle or make money from.

.

 

[Jasonb]

Doug at Minicastings bought up quite a few of the various patterns and stock of castings from several suppliers but does not seem to be casting anything at the moment and last time I looked his site was down. He did list several sets of drawings for the designs he had taken on

Ministeam who are linked to Minicastings list the 1/4scale olds drawings on their site Model Machinist Hit and Miss Casting Kit Engine Plans

 

[JPar]

Looking at this a little closer, it appears there are/were at least two different sizes of Olds casting kits. My engine has 1-7/8" bore, 2" stroke, and 8" diameter flywheels. There is a letter "B" cast into the side of the hopper, and the drawings say "Breisch".
The MiniSteam engine has a 7/8" bore, 1-1/8" stroke, and 4-1/2" diameter flywheels. From the picture, it does not look like there is a "B" cast into the hopper. I think this kit originated from a different supplier, maybe Dick Shelley?
John

 

[GreenTwin]

I did some research last night on the net, and it seems to confirm that there are Breisch drawings/castings, and MiniSteam drawings/castings.

I also found some history of what happened to Paul Breisch's patterns/kits, but I have misplaced that at the moment.
It seems that all of Paul's stuff went to auction, and one individual bought the 1/4 scale materials, and one purchased the 1/2 scale material (I guess for the Olds), and the 1/2 scale Olds were never produced.
(Somebody correct me if they know different from this story).

So anyway, nothing against Ministeam and their fine offerings of castings for the Olds, but I think their offering is the 1/4 version with modernized Ministeam drawings, not the 1/2 scale castings with the original Breisch hand-made drawings.

I appreciate the old hand drawings very much because when I started working as an engineer in 1985, we hand drew every project that we designed, and there were no computers that we used (some firms had mainframes with dumb terminals that ran FORTRAN, using batch programs, not interactive).

So long story long, I don't know who owns the rights to the 1/2 scale Breisch drawings, but I would like to obtain a set, so if anyone knows of someone who is willing to part with a set, please let me know.

Thanks much,
Pat J
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[GreenTwin]

I found the info on some of the history of these casting kits.

Email from August 18, 2005 about the Breisch/Peters model engine kits:

Per John Davis:

Jay Peters model business was sold off at the Iron Fever show last week.
The 1/2 Domestic and the Nanzy were purchased by Bob Herder of NJ.
Bob is already selling his own kits, and these two kits expand his product line.

The 1/2 Olds and 1/3 Associated were purchased by another man near York, PA.
These two kits will take longer ot get to market. He is a new entry in the model kit business and needs time to develop his contacts.

The 1/4 Olds, L'il Brother, 1/5 Sandwich and the flame licker were either a proxy bid, or did not meet the reserve price.



It appears that someone named Jay Peters ran his own model business, and he purchases Paul Briesch's estate, so this is how Jay Peters auctioned the Breisch engine material, as noted above.

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[GreenTwin]

I assume the 1/2 scale Breisch Olds was a copy of a real engine?

So does anyone have a photo of the original full-sized Olds engine that was used for the 1/2 scale model?

That would be very interesting to see.

.

 

[GreenTwin]

It would appear that this is the same model that Briesch used to create his kit.
I can't read the horsepower on the nameplate.

 

[GreenTwin]

 

[GreenTwin]

Looking through the photos from an engine show I attended in Ohio, I noticed an Olds, that I really did not pay attention to at the time (a few years ago, pre-COVID world).

Looks to be about the same size/horsepower Olds, but very different design, and very different flywheels.
Maybe one size larger in horsepower?

This almost looks like a headless design, where the valves plug in from the top and bottom.

And another engine I saw at the same show that looked pretty interesting (green engine).

 

[Jasonb]

Well if they are anything like the updated Galloway drawings then updated ones would be better than the originals as all the errors have been corrected by George Britnell.

If you can't get the 1/2 drawings then you could double up the 1/4 ones which would get you most of the way there. I've dome casting kits without drawings so just needs a bit or research and a lot of looking at photos if you can't get to measure one.

 

[GreenTwin]

The problem with some of the kits out there is that they tend to be approximations of the real engine.
The Galloway kits I have seen have a cylinder that bolts onto the frame, but that is not how the original Galloways (at least the 7.5 hp my dad had) were made (the frame and cylinder were a one-piece construction).
And so if I am going to go to the trouble of drawing an engine, I want it to be just like the original, not an approximation.
With the advent of 3D modeling, and 3D printing, there is no need to approximate anything, in my opinion.
Why change from the original design when modern design tools are available?

And I don't necessarily like to adhere to fixed scales either, and if I built an Olds, I would probably make one with a 10" diameter flywheel, so I guess that would be a 62.5% scale?

One of my pet peeves (on of many according to my wife) is the approximation of the spokes in the flywheels of a lot of kits.
Original engine flywheel spokes generally were ellipsoidal in section, with a taper in both axis that looks visually correct.
The flywheel spoke design is often the first thing that seems to be thrown under the bus when people kit an original engine.

That being said, I think Jason is right, but I would still prefer the old Briesch hand made drawings, just for nostalgia/originality.

I can work out the geometry from the photos and videos alone, but a set of 1/2 size drawings would definitely speed up the process.

I am not sure about trying to use 1/4 scale drawings, but I did get an email back from MiniSteam, and the 1/4 scale drawings are available.

I don't see 1/2 scale Olds castings available anywhere.

A set of 1/4 Ministeam Olds castings sold last night on ebay for $420.00 with $16.00 shipping, and I am not sure if that was a complete kit, but it did have two frames (photo below).

I would hate to think of what a 1/2 size Olds kit would go for.
I am not aware of anyone offering a 1/2 sized Olds kit.

Edit:
My appologies for totally hijacking this thread.

Edit2:
The parting line is vertical, along the long axis of the engine, along the centerline.
The water hopper front/back is bowed out with draft angle.

 

[Jasonb]

Modern design tools are OK Pat but it is the complex cores and subsequent machining that are the challenge as the scale comes down. That is why the Galloway and many others are done in more than one part and often with an inserted CI liner as it is not that practical to cast as one piece and the cost if the kits were to be sold would be uneconomical.

Same with the positioning of parting lines, if you start making the patterns which will need multiple boxes and loose pieces that all adds to the costs, may be OK for a one off for yourself but simply doe snot pay. I've recently made a new loose piece for someone as the foundry lost the old one, thats another problem when outsourcing the casting and had I charged for making it the cost would have been high.

There is a model traction engine available here that has all the passages cast in like the original that needs 9 separate complex cores, takes two men two days to prepare the pattern for casting. That puts the cost of the cylinder at over £1000GBP not many can afford that so machine passages and fit liners.

 

[GreenTwin]

Yes, it is a fine line between accuracy and efficiency.
I hear what you are saying though.
Stuart had those special molds, I forget the name of them, that lent themselves to mass production. They may still use that process.

That being said, you can do a lot more with bound sand than you can with greensand, and there is a bit of an art to minimizing bits and pieces required for molding.

You can use Solidworks to create coreboxes, although I generally just print 1/2 of a frame or something, and use the interior as a corebox, such as on the bottle engine.

Ministeam does not have the 1/2 scale patterns/kit for the Olds, and so the 1/2 scale kits are quite rare I guess, unless someone pops up one day with the 1/2 patterns and starts producing.

I will start a thread on the Galloway I plan to build, and you can see some of the capabilities of SW.

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[rklopp]

I am fairly certain the Breisch 1/2-scale is based on the Seager-Olds Type R 1-3/4 HP engine. Here is a link to Smokstak with literature and photos. I don't believe Paul Breisch ever sold a 1/4-scale version.