Pile Driver

[Brian Rupnow]

We have a video!!! Its been a wild and crazy morning, but success has been achieved!!!! ---Brian

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Thanks for moving this to the "work in progress" Tin.---Brian

 

[cfellows]

Pretty cool, Brian. Are you going to use it to crack nuts?

Chuck

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Pretty cool, Brian. Are you going to use it to crack nuts?

Chuck

Chuck---To be perfectly honest, I haven't the faintest idea what I will do with it!! It was one of those "Gee---I wonder if that would work??" moments. Its like a lot of the things I build---Fun to build, but once its finished it sets on a shelf and gathers cobwebs.

 

[kcmillin]

That is pretty cool Brian! It is running very smooth, Well Done.

I could smash things al day with that ;D. Some old MatchBox cars would be neat, or tenderize tiny steaks :big:

Kel

 

[Noitoen]

Just don't get your finger caught under it.

 

[zeeprogrammer]

I'll use your word as it seems the most appropriate...

It is indeed 'nifty'.

 

[Diy89]

Very Cool! Would make a "nifty" nut cracker for those hard nuts the parrots like.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Today I machined a 3 step pulley from aluminum, with 2" dia., 1 1/2" dia. and 1 1/8" dia steps. I fitted it to my most powerfull steam/air engine, the twin horizontal that I built 3 years ago. News was not terribly good. When the drive belt was on the smallest pulley, it ran the pile driver fine, but was too slow. When the belt was on the large dia. pulley, the engine just plain didn't have enough power. I increased the air pressure to 45 psi., but the engine just didn't have enough grunt to run things. I didn't try it on the mid range pulley, because wife came out to the garage and demanded help cleaning up the basement!!! Tomorrow I am going to try the same 3 step pulley with my Hit and Miss engine and see what results that gives.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

We have a (partial) success story!!! Although the steam engine wouldn't run it very well, my Kerzel hit n miss I.C. engine seems to run it without any problem. Please forgive any "fogging" in the video, but its about 95% humidity in my garage right now, and the digital camera decided it didn't like that very much. The video starts out great, but gets foggier as it progresses.

 

[b.lindsey]

Nifty indeed Brian...and unique...and just well done as are all your projects. Thanks for sharing this one!!

Bill

 

[Brian Rupnow]

This was one of those projects where the finished parts were pretty well all made exactly as per drawing. I messed around a bit with the 5/8" dia. s.s. rod in the drop hammer, but probably didn't have to. Ultimately, I drilled it out to 1/2" inside diameter to reduce its weight before realizing that the two magnets embedded in the slider had lost their magnetism due to an application of heat. Once I had replaced the magnets, I turned a peice of 1/2" dia mild steel and filled the hole back up again. This is not a project that I would recomend for driving with a small steam engine. It simply requires more power than a small steam engine is capable of producing. I had fun with the build, and ultimately it DID work as I had envisioned. It was a good practice project, and although I can't say I learned any new machining techniques with it, I certainly brushed up on some of the things I already knew, and it filled in a two week void of "What will I do Ma" time. I am now entering the summer doldrums as far as "Real Work" is concerned----Many factories are closing for "summer vacation shutdown", the economy isn't rebounding like we had all hoped????---expected??? Thank you to all who followed the build, and commented.----Brian

 

[larry1]

Brian, Great work as always, thank you for sharing thuiwith us. larry