Old Castings

[Tuscan8]

Hi

I have a set of castings of a Reeves twin cylinder steam engine. They are about 15 years old. question is do casting deteriorate with time. maybe a stupid question but it would be good to know before I invest to much time in them.

Thanks

Steve

 

[chipenter]

Far from it let them go rusty , the rust breaks down the hard skin and makes it easier to machine .

 

[n4zou]

Cast Iron improves with age. They will machine better now than when they were cast.

 

[Tuscan8]

Thanks time to finish the Elmers Scotty and crack on with it then

 

[jasonh]

I read a book recently on old marine engines.

http://www.marineengine.com/books/g5.html

As a matter of practice foundries would leave the castings outside for months to "season" before they machined them.
The theory was that the daily temperature cycling would help stress relieve the material.
Having some rust on them probably helped get rid of the hard skin that can form on CI castings.

Jason H.

 

[JLeatherman]

Same idea with high-performance engines. You let the block 'season' before you machine/build it.

 

[GWRdriver]

I've never heard anyone ever mention rust removing the skin from iron castings, seems to me it would have to rust awfully deep to do that, but it might. An example of casting aging, it took 5-6 months for Atlas Tool Co (Atlas and Craftsman lathes) to produce a finished lathe bed. A fresh bed casting got rough-machined and then went to an open-air yard where it was aged for about four months before it was brought back in and finish machined and ground. No doubt every maker of machine tools had a similar normalizing process. Some of us older model engineers have a phrase to describe castings which we've had for too many years and haven't yet gotten around to machining . . . they are "still normalizing under the workbench."

 

[rhankey]

I don't know about Reeves specifically but chances are good that your 15year old castings are probably of much higher quality than what you could getwith brand new castings. Cherish the oldcastings. I have an ever growingcollection of rough castings that range from 40 to 80 years old, and they are gorgeouscompared to the more modern castings I've been working with currently.

Robin

 

[aonemarine]

That skin is actually what is know as chill. It's where the graphite does not reach the outer parts of the casting before it cools. Depending on how fast the part cools and the carbon content will determine the extent of the chill. I've see it up to 1/2" thick before, would take quite a bit to rust that away... Not all old castings are better in quality, I think its more of a foundry giving a **** or not.

 

[gus]

I read a book recently on old marine engines.

http://www.marineengine.com/books/g5.html

As a matter of practice foundries would leave the castings outside for months to "season" before they machined them.
The theory was that the daily temperature cycling would help stress relieve the material.
Having some rust on them probably helped get rid of the hard skin that can form on CI castings.

Jason H.

Hi Jason,
This is true in practice.In the 1940s as a 12 year kid,I lived in a family shophouse cum machineshop with a good size front yard which served as open storage.
Our neighbour machineshop would mature his raw marine engine cylinder sleeves in his open yard for a minimum of six months before machining and put into inventory.He would also sell aged raw sleeve castings to other marine workshops.All his castings were date marked. He will replace bad castings.
12 month old castings cost more.
All the machineshops,boilermakers and foundries were moved out by 1970s to new industrial estates to make way for office blocks.

 

[Charles Lamont]

OK - so who's got the oldest untouched set of castings?

I have some for a Simplex loco that must have been under the bench for getting on for 40 years, but I have no invoice to prove it, and, in any case most of the castings have had at least some work done on them.

 

[Jeff L]

I have a casting set for a Clarkson Horizontial 2" x 2" with reverse . The receipt in the box is from 1970

 

[Tuscan8]

The set of castings in question. Having second thoughts about usung them as the first try. If I get it wrong there is probably no chance of replacements. So can anyone recommend a cheap set to try first ?

Thanks

Steve

 

[Lukas Pils]

Hi
Don't worry about availability of replacement parts! Because you can order evry single part from reeves 2000.
The most import rule when you work with castings is don't rush! Think twice about your cutting operations and you will end up with an nice engine.

Lukas

 

[SandyC]

Hi Steve,

You will have to wait a long,long time for all but one of those to rust...!!!

Apart from the Main engine base ( cast aluminium) and the large round lump ( Flywheel casting..Cast iron)
all the others are cast Gunmetal.
These early Reeves castings are of very good quality and are considerably better than the latest ones from Reeves 2000.
The main problem with them is that you don't get much in the way of spare material... so they need to be mounted quite carefully in order to get them machined to size without running out of material.

The lot of the later ones are much worse in this respect as a lot of the original masters were lost or damaged during the takeover... as a result some of the new ones have been made by using a casting as the master... hence, there is not much available shrinkage allowance left so some become almost impossible to get to size.

Having said that, yes, spares are available but be aware of the above and check them for adequate size before machining... Reeves are quite good at replacing any bad ones, though they can be a bit slow to respond.

The Warrior is a good, and quite powerful engine so I wish you luck with the build.

Just take your time and check your setups before cutting metal.
You will need good ,sharp ,zero rake tools for all the gunmetal parts.

Enjoy.
Best regards

SandyC

EDIT... I believe John Bertinat did a 'BUILD SERIES' for this engine in 'Model Engineer' some years ago so if you have not got this it would pay you to obtain a copy from them... they will certainly help you get the build sequence right.

 

[GWRdriver]

I won't say these will compete for the oldest castings but they are old, and somewhat rare. The castings I have are for the ME (Model Engineer) Compound Undertype stationary engine designed by Henry Greenly in 1913, and updated by Harry Taylor in 1970. The castings for this large model were produced for a number of years by Stuart Turner and as near as I can determine they were produced until around 1960. The earliest Stuart catalogue I have is 1969 and the engine doesn't appear in that issue, although they could no doubt have been had on special order. The castings were almost black with age when they were unwrapped, and the base casting is cast iron, so I estimate they are 50 years or more old.

 

[rhankey]

Harry,

I think your casting kit is a fair bit older than you think. According to Stuart, the Henry Greenly version of the Undertype as you show in your picture was designed in 1901. The earliest Stuart Models catalogue I currently have is for 1940, and it was long gone by then. Stuart started selling the H.A. Taylor updated and larger version of the Undertype in 1973. Based on the digging I’ve done over recent months, I believe both versions of the Undertype are rather rare, but especially the Greenly version.

I seem to be accumulating old castings kits faster than I have time to machine them (I am still working on completing a Stuart Triple). My current stockpile includes:
~1935 Stuart AE Petrol engine – partly started by my late grandfather
~1950 Stuart Compressor or Vacuum pump – partly started by my late grandfather
~1969 Stuart Twin Launch – not started
1973 Stuart Undertype – not started

Robin

 

[GWRdriver]

Harry, I think your casting kit is a fair bit older than you think.

Hello Robin,
. . . or possibly younger. The photo was pulled from my small collection of Undertype photos pulled off the net without regard to version and I didn't realize the Greenly and Taylor versions were substantially different. Also I've seen conflicting dates (1901 vs. 1913) for Greenly's design. I'll have to check my drawings set to see which version they are but my recollection is they are for the Taylor engine, so for the moment I have to assume I have the Taylor redesign. (Confirmed - I have the Taylor drawings.)

Stuart started selling the H.A. Taylor updated and larger version of the Undertype in 1973. Based on the digging I’ve done over recent months, I believe both versions of the Undertype are rather rare, but especially the Greenly version.

That they are, and certainly extremely rare over here. A NOS set for the Taylor engine sold on eBay this year for around $2500/US. The sale description also mentions a German book on the Undertype which contains photos, construction details, etc. for the model. As for collecting, I have an attraction to beam and Corliss engines and have a couple of sets each (none particularly old - still normalizing under the workbench) but I'm beginning to realize that I need to get busy and pick up my building pace or they'll end up in the estate sale.

 

[rhankey]

Harry,

I assumed you had the Greenly version, as you mentioned having a cast iron base, and the photo is that of a Greenly (smaller cylinders, two base plates). The HA Taylor version has a single cast Al base (roughly 25” long) that was optionally supplied pre-machined.

The year 1901 for the Greenly version of the Undertype came straight out of Stuart’s 1973 catalogue when they released the HA Taylor version, and is the same date used in all their subsequent catalogues until they ran out of castings. I am guessing they only produced one lot of castings. I too have seen a couple different dates for the Greenly version, but assume Stuart is probably most correct since they produced the castings.

I have both the ME articles by HA Taylor and the German book for the Undertype. I have crudely translated about half the German book to English, and it doesn’t seem to provide any value add over the ME articles, other than including one or two photos that aren’t in the ME articles. The German book also translates all the dimensions they show to Metric which is confusing (to me) given there are still many dimensions you have to read off the original MEplans that are still Imperial. If you have neither, then I would suggest getting the ME articles if you can track them down. They are light on how-to's, but do explain what some of the parts are for that isn't easily derived from the drawings alone. If needed, I can supply you the volumes/edition #’s. I have seen a couple used sources online for the German book should you want that too. And complete new sets of replacement drawings appear to be readily obtained from a number of online sources as “ME Undertype”.

Robin