Scratch building the Hicks Oscillator

[Steamchick]

Thanks Peter. Keep us On-Track!
Deeferdog. I am amazed at the imagination of scratch builders - and you are up with some of the best I have seen. To want to engage in making all that detail is rewarded with the finished engine. Something unique and special. And I thought you must have used or made some castings. Especially the base plate!
I am lazy and all my engines look childish in comparison. - Very Minimalist and Cubist!
K

 

[lathe nut]

deeferdog, Thanks for more pick and more understanding why some of the design was put into it, been saving to file so the more you post will not only help me with the build but others, hoping to build one in the winter when its to cold to get out, thanks again for sharing your talent, not even counting the photos the time to save them and post them, appreciate you fine work, Joe

 

[mecanotrain]

Bonjour à tous,
Je lis beaucoup ce forum, mais mon anglais étant faible, je ne réponds pas . . . . Je ne voudrais pas vous faire rire.

 

[Steamchick]

For the benefit of most Englishmen who don't "parle Francais" - I have to use Google translator:
Roger writes:
Good morning all,
I read this forum a lot, but my English being weak, I do not respond. . . . I wouldn't want to make you laugh.
- then a string of happy faces.

I welcome everyone, and we can combat our language deficiencies. (I have worked with some excellent French Engineers - Mostly from Renault, but some others in different industries).

Bonjour Roger: Comment ca va? Je suis Ken. Je ne parle Francais pas. Mais le Google parle a tout le monde:
Eh bien!
K
=> Google dit:
Bonjour Roger. Je suis Ken. Je ne parle pas français, mais Google peut traduire pour moi. Veuillez en écrire plus? K

 

[Peter Twissell]

Tres bien Ken (et Google)!

Bienvenue Roger. Je parle francais comme un ecolier. Merci de rire si vous voulez.

 

[daChurchPcGuy]

Deeferdog, thanks for the added photos. I really appreciate your craftsmanship and attention to detail. Your departures from the original plans paid off in spades.

 

[deeferdog]

Flywheels for model engines can pose problems as far as getting the right material. At op shops and car boot sales I always keep lookout for cast iron weights used by the keep fit members of the population and that is what I had on hand for this engine build. The first step is to turn a mandrel up out of mild steel and press fit it into the boss of the weight. This now allowed me to turn it in the lathe and face it off as well as machining the rim. It’s all a bit of guess and go as sometimes the cast iron can be so hard as to be un-machinable, however this piece turned like butter. The finished size came close to the plans, that’s always a bonus in scratching, and I parted off the mandrel and bored the centre to take a 12mm shaft press fitted.
Over to the mill and the rotary table for the spokes. These aren’t hard, providing you don’t make too many mistakes. If you do, like I did with the miss drilled holes, plug them, machine them off and put them in the right place. Expect to do things wrong unless you make flywheels for a living or have done a lot of them, there are many opportunities to humble the ego.
I fluted the spokes but then machined them off as I wasn't fussed with the look. A bit of work with the file and I was happy. The shaft was a piece of 12mm bright bar and I press fitted this into the hub with a bit of loctite 263 for insurance. This assembly was then returned to the lathe for a final skim across both faces of the flywheel and the rim, if you do this it guarantees that the shaft and wheel will run true without a wobble. (I have built some terrible wobblers in my time until I resorted to this.)
The main shaft pillow blocks for the bearings I had already made, along with the bearings. I certainly didn't bother to make them as drawn in the plans as they seemed far too unnecessarily complex, I just turned them to size and fitted them to the pillow block. Later I will loctite them into the bottom of the blocks.
The whole arrangement turned out OK, it is especially pleasing to see it rotate so true. At this point the engine was really starting to take shape but I knew the greatest challenge lay ahead, and that was the cylinder. If I had realised just how hard this this would be I might not have been in such a good mood, thinking that possibly I was making a bit of progress with this hobby. The thump you hear in the next post is me coming to earth. Cheers, Peter.

 

[Steamchick]

Excellent! I enjoy explanations - especially when they match my expectations, or teach me something new.
Your correct approach to main in the flywheel - mount on mandril, machine, including centre hole, remove and everything is aligned.
I cringed some years ago when a supposed "expert" made a tapered centre for a boat propeller, and when I expected him to use it as a mandril, bore for the prop-shaft taper, then part-off, but NO! He cut off the tapered end of what should here been the mandril, hammered it into the propeller, then proceeded to try and set-up the whole propeller in a 4 jaw chuck, where he then bored the centre for the prop-shaft! "Wrong!" I hear you say, as the prop was eccentric and wobbled when on the boat! An even better way of course, would have been to machine a blank boss with bore for the prop shaft, mount the prop-shaft in centres, then machine the larger taper for the prop. But I think the prop-shaft would not fit in his lathe to do it that way. But at least all concentric surfaces should be done on a single setting, which he didn't do. Trust TV "experts"!
Keep writing. An excellent subject, well explained, a joy to read. Much better than
K

 

[lathe nut]

Deerferdog, gosh thanks a lot for that show and tell, you show and tell is wonderful, I am going to some yard sales today one of them ready that they fellow had a bunch of tools and a lot of junk "Junk" is where the deals are and the good fines, hope to be able to find something that I can get to start gathering parts for the build, I sure hope that you continue with the show and tell and especially the governor, thanks again for your time and patience to have taken the pictures, your knowledge and sharing with us, Joe

 

[Richard Hed]

Flywheels for model engines can pose problems as far as getting the right material. At op shops and car boot sales I always keep lookout for cast iron weights used by the keep fit members of the population and that is what I had on hand for this engine build. The first step is to turn a mandrel up out of mild steel and press fit it into the boss of the weight. This now allowed me to turn it in the lathe and face it off as well as machining the rim. It’s all a bit of guess and go as sometimes the cast iron can be so hard as to be un-machinable, however this piece turned like butter. The finished size came close to the plans, that’s always a bonus in scratching, and I parted off the mandrel and bored the centre to take a 12mm shaft press fitted.
Over to the mill and the rotary table for the spokes. These aren’t hard, providing you don’t make too many mistakes. If you do, like I did with the miss drilled holes, plug them, machine them off and put them in the right place. Expect to do things wrong unless you make flywheels for a living or have done a lot of them, there are many opportunities to humble the ego.
I fluted the spokes but then machined them off as I wasn't fussed with the look. A bit of work with the file and I was happy. The shaft was a piece of 12mm bright bar and I press fitted this into the hub with a bit of loctite 263 for insurance. This assembly was then returned to the lathe for a final skim across both faces of the flywheel and the rim, if you do this it guarantees that the shaft and wheel will run true without a wobble. (I have built some terrible wobblers in my time until I resorted to this.)
The main shaft pillow blocks for the bearings I had already made, along with the bearings. I certainly didn't bother to make them as drawn in the plans as they seemed far too unnecessarily complex, I just turned them to size and fitted them to the pillow block. Later I will loctite them into the bottom of the blocks.
The whole arrangement turned out OK, it is especially pleasing to see it rotate so true. At this point the engine was really starting to take shape but I knew the greatest challenge lay ahead, and that was the cylinder. If I had realised just how hard this this would be I might not have been in such a good mood, thinking that possibly I was making a bit of progress with this hobby. The thump you hear in the next post is me coming to earth. Cheers, Peter.
View attachment 118458View attachment 118459View attachment 118460View attachment 118461View attachment 118462View attachment 118463View attachment 118464View attachment 118465View attachment 118466

I've been following what you are doing but I'm curious as to know how you made that mistake that you put the plugs in. I see you have added blue lines to make sure you don't do it again. Does brass against alum. create a battery? (That is, does it have electrolytic action?)

 

[deeferdog]

Just a stupid mistake, I started cutting out the spokes in the wrong direction as you can see in the pictures. The answer to your other question might be found here, Galvanic and Corrosion Compatibility Dissimilar Metal Corrosion - Engineers Edge. Cheers, Peter.

 

[Richard Hed]

Just a stupid mistake, I started cutting out the spokes in the wrong direction as you can see in the pictures. The answer to your other question might be found here, Galvanic and Corrosion Compatibility Dissimilar Metal Corrosion - Engineers Edge. Cheers, Peter.View attachment 118475View attachment 118476

As an afterthot, maybe you could have turned it into a decorative style cut out

 

[JohnBDownunder]

I have a question! Have you found cold spots (Bleedin hard areas) in the cast iron weights? I've heard that this is common and some folk toss them into a fire to red heat and allow to cool gradually for this reason.
I have certainly found them in the old cast window sash weights. I Believe these were poured from the last dregs in the foundry.
Great show and tell as has been said above,
Regards,
John B

 

[Steamchick]

My father told me that some sash weights and other "scrap" castings also used surplus (unworkable?) Steel from the armour plating of scrapped first and second world war ships. I have a part of a sash weight thar is harder than anything I have expeienced. More like tungsten carbide tips or high speed steel, except for the cast structure. I managed to drill some after cooking at red heat and cooling slowly. My father even managed to get a piece in a muffle furnace so hot it softened and developed a flat on one side, but still to hard to machine except with tungsten carbide masonry drills and similar tips. But some is too hard for that and can only be ground, or cut with the angle grinder! But it sits as a weight that I pick-up as a simple hard drift... or as a weight to rest on something to hold it while being brazed....
It may one day just go in the scrap....
I may grind it into a small anvil shape?
Any suggestions for it?
K

 

[Steamchick]

Sorry, spell checker didn't like "too", as in "too hard". I have saved "too" now!
K

 

[a41capt]

Great explanation on hardness of cast weights. I’ve had similar experiences in both directions in the past, and the application of the oxy acetylene torch with rosebud tip up to a nice cherry red and burying it in sand to cool solved the problem. Back when I had a coal fired forge, that worked too!

John W

 

[deeferdog]

Inspection of the plans does not reveal any way to go about making the cylinder, I decided the best shot would be to make it out of three pieces of brass, silver brazed together and thus began accordingly. Part way through this it slowly dawned on me that the chances of me making the cylinder with the two arms being in the same plane and perpendicular to it were about zero, so all the precious brass was returned to the scrap box--bugger!

I had a nice piece of 40 mm bright bar and using this I turned the cylinder to it’s outside diameter then placed this in the mill and bored a perpendicular hole through it to take the cross piece, then the part was finished in the lathe. The cross piece was machined to suit the plans and then pushed into the hole in the cylinders’ axis and silver brazed in position. I used 15% silver and made sure the parts were well fluxed where they touched, I also used oxy-acetylene as I think that it might just be beyond propane, maybe mapp gas could do it but I don’t have any. Another way would be to TIG fuse the join but I don’t have that either.

After cleaning up in the sand blaster, I returned the part to the mill in preparation to bore out the cylinder. A succession of drill sizes, all the way to 22 mm, and the part was ready to finish bore in the lathe. This needed patience since I figured the bore had to be perfectly concentric to the outside which I hoped was at perfect right angles to the cross arms. This was one of those jobs that the more I thought about the more convinced I was that would stuff it up, I must have measured everything a thousand times using my little granite surface plate and the height guage, looked at it from every possible angle then decided to give it away for the day. That night, after a couple of very stiff scotches it became a bit clearer. Tomorrow would be another day. Cheers, Peter.

 

[BaronJ]

Bonjour à tous,
Je lis beaucoup ce forum, mais mon anglais étant faible, je ne réponds pas . . . . Je ne voudrais pas vous faire rire.

Je ne m'en soucierais pas! Mon français est très pauvre, donc je triche et utilise Google Translate.
Meilleures salutations. baronJ.

 

[lathe nut]

deerferdog, thanks again for making it more plane, your soldering is really good, thanks again, Joe

 

[deeferdog]

The main problem with the way I was building the cylinder was the decision I made to incorporate the steam galleries as part of the cylinder barrel rather than the much more complicated method called for in the plans. (An external passage welded to the outside). The original bore was 24 mm but by reducing this to 23 mm and not having the top and bottom grooves as deep as designed, then the galleries could be incorporated in the cylinder walls. Unfortunately, when drilling out the cylinder prior to boring I should have stopped at 20 mm instead of 22 mm as the drill had wandered off centre as all drills are inclined to do. This meant that the boring required to bring everything back in line and size was going to be a “damned close run thing” to quote Wellington after the battle of Waterloo. A defeat of similar proportions to that fight was avoided more by luck than management and if any lesson can be learned it is to leave plenty of meat when drilling out a hole that needs to be bored to final size.
I reamed the bore to specs and then drilled out the steam galleries, a fairly nervous exercise as I could see that it would be quite easy to wander through the cylinder wall but all ended well. The gallery is relieved at the flanges by milling. Each gallery in the cylinder wall meets it’s appropriate branch drilled perpendicularly through the arm.
The final piece in that day’s puzzle was to drill and tap the flanges for the cylinder heads. I’m lucky in that I have two milling machines, (that’s a story in itself) hence I can leave the rotary table set up in one for as long as needed and still be able to mill. As a consequence that all went pretty quickly and |I finished the day in a better frame of mind than the previous. Tomorrow the cylinder heads, a clean up and possibly be able to say the cylinder is finished. Cheers to all and thanks for all the comments, Peter.