My little book on building my engine

[Bogstandard]

Cedge (Steve) told me one time that I should note things down as I have a book inside of me. Little did he know that I had already done that, but on another site.
I have been trying to get my meagre offering onto here for a few months, but due to storage allowances could not be done. Then Rake60 (Rick) approached me and very kindly offered to host the files on his personal space.
I was told that I could make money out of this, but that goes against my morals, as feeble as they are. This is being put on here for the enjoyment of others, at no charge whatsoever.
Now that the preface is written, here goes.


Wanna make one of these!!

Or bling it up and turn it into this ------>

Do you think you are not experienced enough to make one, then read on.

The two engines above were made at the same time in parallel, with the shiny one taking a little bit longer. I designed and built them both as I went along, in just over 2 months. Not all my own work, I did have a bit of specialist input over the design from others on the website (a lot was ignored, but a few were taken on and incorporated into the engines).
I designed it to be made by a total beginner with a medium sized lathe and a vertical slide or small miller. You will find a lot of my hints and tips on here have come directly from this book, and there are a lot more in there.
This book was taken directly from my posts on Paddleducks website, edited by a very kind gentleman only known to me as Floyd (TFL45), to take out most of the 'garbage', and reposted as a downloadable series of 8 PDF files, these if you want to, can be printed out onto 113 pages.
Floyd did a wonderful job, all my '*** packet' drawings are duplicated at the end in a much larger format, if you see a web page listed, if you click on it, it will take you to that page. A really nice piece of editing.
You will even get to meet my (now) world famous dog 'Bandit'.
Just a bit of info about when I posted it onto paddleducks.
Since I started the post in May 2007
There have been 240+ posts in the article and 7300+ hits, and it is still continuing, so I suspect that a few of these engines are now being built.

There is one major problem, everything is in metric, but the good side is that there is no wierd sizes, everything was designed to the nearest 1/2 millimetre.

So after all that verbal garbage, here are the links to the files.

http://www.rake60.com/photogallery/Piston_Valve_Engine_01.pdf
http://www.rake60.com/photogallery/Piston_Valve_Engine_02.pdf
http://www.rake60.com/photogallery/Piston_Valve_Engine_03.pdf
http://www.rake60.com/photogallery/Piston_Valve_Engine_04.pdf
http://www.rake60.com/photogallery/Piston_Valve_Engine_05.pdf
http://www.rake60.com/photogallery/Piston_Valve_Engine_06.pdf
http://www.rake60.com/photogallery/Piston_Valve_Engine_07.pdf
http://www.rake60.com/photogallery/Piston_Valve_Engine_08.pdf

If you haven't got a PDF reader, you can download for free a version of Acrobat Reader, just put a search into Google.
Just a little more, the text on the post at the beginning does ramble on a bit about safety etc, but it soon gets to the exciting bits of making things.
I made these engines for a few bucks apiece, if you had to make one from retail purchased materials, maybe $80 to $100, but you will end up with an engine that would cost you at least $1000 to buy commercially.

Enjoy

John

 

[shred]

I already printed the book from Paddeducks (hint to anybody else: don't print all of it, it's huge). The instructions are great. If I had a set of metric cutters and drills I'd be started already.

 

[Bogstandard]

Shred,
I take your note on it being metric, but it was originally written for the UK 'market', where most people now are converting over to metric.
I will hopefully be doing another project like this next year, and for all my new found colonial friends I will 'do' it in imperial.
Got to keep the troops happy.

Worn out John

 

[Capt Turk]

If you want to be able to open the PDF files quickly, get Foxit Reader. It's also free and runs circles around that Adobe bloatware.

No connection with it. Just a very pleasant discovery, and a happy user.

Capt. Turk

 

[shred]

Shred,
I take your note on it being metric, but it was originally written for the UK 'market', where most people now are converting over to metric.
I will hopefully be doing another project like this next year, and for all my new found colonial friends I will 'do' it in imperial.
Got to keep the troops happy.

Worn out John

Do one with similar quality instructions on a somewhat simpler-looking engine so as not to scare the newbies right off the bat and I think you'd have a runaway internet best-seller... or at least a few dozen downloads and a new engine builder or two out of it

I vaguely remember somebody was drawing it up in CAD. In that case it would be simple to convert the plans to imperial, but I was also considering how hard it would be to actually do it in pseudo-metric without acquiring another boatload of tooling.. my DROs and calipers can be switched over and I could probably find stock and drills that are close enough to not matter in most cases. End mills might be a problem, as would threads and taps in tiny sizes, but probably manageable.

 

[Bogstandard]

Hi Shred,
I gather that you have had a good look at the 'book'.
Was there anything in there that couldn't be tackled by a relative beginner with the right equipment?
The reason the book was born was someone said to me, could a complicated looking engine be built by a beginner if it was broken down into easy to follow step by step instructions, where in the beginning everything was do it this way and do it that way, then as they gained experience along the way it was then, just make this and just make that, but pointing out the pitfalls and ways around them.
The exercise was to make a complicated 'looking' engine from the beginning. Where a beginner could look at the instructions and say, 'hey, this isn't as difficult as it looks', and 'now it has been explained, l could easily do that'.
The other design criteria was that this would be, when completed, a fully operational steam engine that can be used for powering a model boat, rather than a display engine.

It just might be just a clash of cultures, whereby in the UK, most modellers would want their engines to do work, whereas I have noticed that the US modellers, on the whole are quite happy to just have a model that runs for display purposes only, in which case 90% of this engine could be made of totally unsuitable materials for running on steam, and so would inherently be a lot easier to make.

Do one with similar quality instructions on a somewhat simpler-looking engine

I would never do that. There are hundreds of that type of build out there, but very few where you can easily build a complicated engine.
I would prefer not to do it, rather than build another run of the mill, mundane, been done a thousand times before type of engine.

Surely Shred, you wouldn't want me to do something that I didn't enjoy doing :lol:

Time for bed John

 

[shred]

Hi Shred,
I gather that you have had a good look at the 'book'.
Was there anything in there that couldn't be tackled by a relative beginner with the right equipment?

Not that I remember. The tricky bit is people look at it and think 'that's a whole lot of parts to make.. it'll take forever..' and go off looking for something with a little more immediate reward.

The exercise was to make a complicated 'looking' engine from the beginning. Where a beginner could look at the instructions and say, 'hey, this isn't as difficult as it looks', and 'now it has been explained, l could easily do that'.

ok, in that case it succeeded very well.

The other design criteria was that this would be, when completed, a fully operational steam engine that can be used for powering a model boat, rather than a display engine.

It just might be just a clash of cultures, whereby in the UK, most modellers would want their engines to do work, whereas I have noticed that the US modellers, on the whole are quite happy to just have a model that runs for display purposes only, in which case 90% of this engine could be made of totally unsuitable materials for running on steam, and so would inherently be a lot easier to make.

yeah, there's no steam culture, for lack of a better term, around here except for live-steam railways. Locomotives get a pass. I suspect it's got something to do with our romanticized history involving wild west trains versus the more nautical traditions over there. The misconception that making your own boiler is only slightly less dangerous than wrestling live rattlesnakes doesn't help either.

Do one with similar quality instructions on a somewhat simpler-looking engine

I would never do that. There are hundreds of that type of build out there, but very few where you can easily build a complicated engine.
I would prefer not to do it, rather than build another run of the mill, mundane, been done a thousand times before type of engine.

Surely Shred, you wouldn't want me to do something that I didn't enjoy doing :lol:

Time for bed John

No point doing anything you don't want to :wink:, but actually there's a lot less of that about on the internet than I thought. Simple oscillators abound, but past that there's not a lot that has the details a beginner might want, especially with the why you do something. Perhaps I meant "just as complicated but with less parts to make ". Books like Elmers Engines and such are available if you know where to look, but they rarely get into the 'why' of doing things, sticking with 'make this part.. then make this part, being careful to keep it smooth.. now put it all together..'

In the day and age of the internet, unless the information is easy to get, people will move on to the next thing and never find out how much fun it is to build little engines (which leads me to another pet-peeve-- people that answer project queries with things like "Read the article by Triplex in the Nov and Dec 1952 issues of HSMEWSM")-- it's complete, accurate and also completely useless to a big part of the audience)

Anyway.. now that I've typed well over my aliquot of free letters for the day, I'm going to 'have a go' at building one not too long from now and let you know how a near-novice makes out.

- Roy

 

[Bogstandard]

Shred,
Many thanks for your honesty in your replies.
It is nice to get a good discussion going without having to go into all the very technical jargon, and I do respect your views and comments in what you have said.
This is what a forum is all about. It shouldn't be all a^se kissing and brown nosing, but views where a person can express their values and be respected for it.
Well done.
My next design will be dedicated to you.
I hope it will meet with your exacting criteria.


John

 

[1Kenny]

Thanks for posting your book John. Also thank you for hosting it Rake.

It took about 8 minutes for me to down load everything, not bad, but I do have the full blown Adobe software and high speed net.

After reading every page, I think one could just use imperial taps and screws the way it is written by looking at a conversion chart and finding the closest size tap and screws. It would be the same as on the Elmers' drawings of changing fractions to thousands. I like the detail you went into on the crankshaft and (if it is ok with you) would like the use that design on my current engines as it would be easier for me to make the crankshafts that way. There is alot of things that could be applied to any engine.

There is one paragraph that was repeated, but you have to read the book to know where its at. :lol:

Again, thank you John for taking the effort and time.

Kenny

 

[Bogstandard]

Julian,
I appreciate all you have said, I used to do multiple builds, but now the single brain cell is starting to get a bit lacklustre and tired I try to make one at a time and complete it fully before carrying on to the next job. But it is very frustrating sometimes waiting to get onto the next project.
You have also put me into a bit of a sticky situation, I have yourself wanting metric, and Shred wanting imperial. Maybe I should invent a new system somewhere in between.

Kenny,
The book is there to be used, please use any of the methods you find in it in any way you can. I have put it into the public domain for just such a reason. The idea about the crankshafts isn't mine by the way, but it is such an easy way to make a low torque multi throw crankshaft, it automatically aligns itself if you are careful with the machining, I just borrowed the idea and modified it to suit my requirements.
There is very little new in engineering, just old techniques being rediscovered and modified for new applications.

John

 

[Bogstandard]

Kenny,
Forgot to tell you about the cranks using the design in the book.
The third little hole is essential in that it allows the other two holes to collapse down and grip the rods. You might be better going for the second easier option shown, unless of course you like the balanced crank look. Hole sizes are not critical, they can be any size, as this method grips both rods the same no matter what size, but they do need to be fairly close tolerance, 10 thou oversize might be pushing it a bit, but if you make the small distortion hole larger it should allow a little more of a collapse.

John & Bandit the Brain

 

[rake60]

I think this book of John's is very well done!

And, I was one who suggested he wave under the nose of a publisher. :wink:
I do very much appreciate his morals in making it a free public offering
instead. I'm very please to be able to host it.
Very good stuff!

Thank You John for sharing it here!

Rick

 

[shred]

I was researching around metric-inch conversions and found a couple interesting ideas. Redefining the mm as 1/32", (so for example 5mm becomes 5/32") you end up scaling things down about 20%, but the tools and math become much simpler. As long as the small metric parts doen't end up too small, scaling could work.

But, not particularly liking fractional inches either, the major problem seems to be limited to making smaller metric-size holes-- drilling and reaming in metric sizes can't be done easily with a calculator and inch-size tools. So long as a design doesn't have a lot of that or had workable fractional-inch-size equivalents, it seems like it would work in either system.

 

[Bogstandard]

Shred,
The easy scaling method is the 40 thou rule. 1mm equals 40 thou, so 0.1mm = 4 thou, 0.01mm = approx 1/2 thou

or

1mm = 0.040"
0.1mm = 0.004"
0.01mm = 0.0004"

So 12.5mm would be 0.5" (12.5 x 0.040" = 0.5")

It is v-e-r-y slightly out but in this situation it is more than close enough.
I use this calculation all the time in my head while working, as my machines are all imperial, and after a time it comes naturally, think 2.5mm times 40 = 100 thou or 9mm = 360 thou.

Hope this hasn't confused anyone too much, but this is definitely the easiest solution for metric to imperial conversion when doing it on the run.

With regards to using nearest equivalents as in cutters etc. If you wanted to ream the bore, instead of 10mm you would use 3/8" and make everything related to the bore 3/8" instead of 10mm.

I don't know if it is available in the US, but our pocket bible is called a ZEUS book, everyone who is into making things has one by him all the time, I think it is shown in my 'book'.


John

 

[mklotz]

I consider a scientific calculator to be the second most important tool in the shop (after the micrometer). Many today have built-in metric/Imperial conversions or you can simply store 25.4 in one of the memories and recall it as needed.

Nevertheless, it's a good idea to learn a few mental conversion tricks for those situations where the calculator is not to hand. John's approximation of 1 mm ~= 0.040" is one of those.

Here's another one. If you have a fractional inch dimension, keep doubling the numerator and denominator until the denominator is 256 (which is happily very close to 254). Then the dimension in mm is the numerator divided by 10.

Example: 17/32" = ? mm

17/32 = 34/64 = 68/128 = 136/256
136/10 = 13.6 mm (the correct value is 13.49 mm)

The error in this approximation is 0.78%.

 

[Bohrwerk]

Hello, Master!
Oh yeah, i must say that word! What a wonderfull Maschine and a very great Work of Documentation!I am German and my Language is not so pretty but i must say :the Pictures and all what i see and understand is going direkt in my Heart! Perfect!!!

Thanks a lot for a great Pleasure from Bohrwerk (Eckhard) in Germany

 

[Bogstandard]

Bohrwerk,
No masters on here, only members, everyone justs helps each other.
Glad you enjoyed my little engine book.

John

 

[Canyonman]

Hi All,

IMHO, THE beginner engine is the Double Scotch.

I found oscillators not to my minds eye because I could never picture one running a piece of equipment. Although I'm sure it was probably done, I've just never seen it.

The design is almost foolproof and will run in most any "quality" of build. From "Drill Bit" tolerances and smoothness, to Lathe and reamer. Smoothing things off, fitting things more accurately only serves to make the little bugger run faster!

Now to bring it to the discussion, How might one suggest to add "Bling" to that design? I have always wanted to put a flyball governor on top.

I will be downloading the book in just a moment, so maybe I have spoken out of turn.

Regards, Ken

 

[mogogear]

An old topic- "as the warning indicated" But I printed off the entire book all 8 chapters, printed front and back- color- and bound in a nice 3 ring binder...

:bow:

WOW John and all that made this possible... _ became familiar with this engine through Mooseman that now has one of these in his steam launch.. He has done much chuffing on how well it performs ! I have been reading this book for two days...I aspire to one day feel good enough to attempt it and at least make respectable headway- if for no other cause show other newbies that it is not impossible... Maybe I should just go for the Oscillator..it seems a little simpler.. but the instructions are not as complete as the book( I think John referred to the French plans he had cleaned up to make it..I have printed those plans up .. but I am a step by step guy these days...

At least that is what I keep telling myself..Take one step at a time. Try not to digest the whole of Christmas dinner in one bite... learning basic fundamental technique is my learning curve for the near future.. an engine... a ways off.. but I have my book!!


Ok- time to go chuck up something and make different chips..

Thanks again Bog!!

 

[Bogstandard]

Mo,

Even if you never make it, just reading thru it will give you a load of tips, especially if you are on a budget and can't afford expensive tooling.

Mooseman has been in contact to tell me how pleased he is with the oscillator. It seems that everyone who obtained one can't believe how powerful they are for the size. I must make a few more.

Just enjoy what you are doing.

John