Snow Engine

[dnalot]

Hi

Attached is a decal I made for my buddies Bremen walking beam hot air engine. The small letters are difficult to keep in place on the sheet while removing the parent stock but with some care it is doable. I used the Silhouette software to create the logo.

The vinyl letters you cut look great. I was wondering if doing that would be to tedious. I’m going to have to order some material and play with it a little.



And back to the Snow

The connecting rod is made up of a steel shaft with a cast iron bit soldered to each end. For the small end I simply soldered a chunk of scrap a little larger than needed. The large end I turned to rough shape and secure a piece that would become the cap with two screws. I then soldered that piece to the steel shaft. After the part cooled it was chucked up in the lathe to be turned to final form. The next step was to drill and ream the holes. Followed by milling the flats on each end. I used a bit of shafting to align the part square to the mill when I rolled the part over to mill the second side. After fitting the new con rod to the crankshaft I dropped it into the blackening bucket for a few minutes.

I now need to make the aluminum plank that the engine’s cylinders and crankshaft pylon mount to. The plan calls for a simple smooth plank but I plan to make it with holloed out areas that form a drip pan with a grating over it. And while I’m doing that I will be making the pattern for the flywheel. I want to cast a two piece eight spoke wheel that looks like the real deal.

 

[dnalot]

Hi

The base plate is completed and I have mounted the cylinders and the crankshaft assembly to it. I made a change from the original plan here. I milled the top of the plate to provide drip pans for the cylinders and covered the pan with a fine mesh screen. For the crankshaft assembly I milled a gutter around its base to collect the oil that escapes from the bearings.

My work pace has slowed down a bit as its spring time here and I have lots of outside projects to attend to. Still whenever it rains I get to work in my shop.

Mark T

 

[10K Pete]

Wow, that's beautiful!! The rod detail and the 'floor'!! Can't wait to see the whole thing running!!

Pete

 

[dnalot]

Hi

The plan called for a store bought cast iron 6 spoke flywheel. I have a small foundry so my Snow will have a bronze 8 spoke flywheel that looks a little more like the original. I made the pattern on Sunday and cast the part Monday Morning. The odd color is due to the sand I use. It is wetted with oil rather than water.

Mark T

 

[dnalot]

So, I’m back at it. Took a little time off to do my spring chores around the place.

After turning the wheel to rough size I cut it in half so I could drill the holes in the hub and cut the recess for the iron butterflies. Once that was done I joined the two halves together, turned it again to make it round and mounted the brass tire. After truing the tire on the lathe I used the mill to cut the 90 square looking holes around the rim. I made the wheel from bronze and brass but I wanted a silver look to the rim so I nickel plated the wheel before doing the paint work. Next I used some filler to fill in some of the rough areas on the spokes and primed over the filler with a textured primer to give the part a cast look again. The top coat of paint is color matched to the engine assembly. And the happy news is that the wheel turns true.

Mark T

 

[idahoan]

Amazing work on the flywheel Mark; very nice!

Dave

 

[dnalot]

Sometimes life has a way of getting in the way of the things you would rather be doing. Lucky for me nature dumped a foot of snow on me and I'm stuck inside for the winter. So after a number of months off I am restarting the Snow Engine project.

Doug Kelley's original engine used an electric water pump submerged in the water tank. Later he modified the design to replace the electric pump with a belt driven pump that sat between the engine and the water tank. I have mounted mine below the crankshaft. The pump detail is largely the same but mounted to the crankshaft base. Impeller was cut from a single piece of brass stock and the stainless steel shaft is a press fit. The housing was made from brass and nickel plated. Drive belts are simple o-rings. The larger pulley will mount to the flywheel. The small pulley was sandblasted to give it better a grip on the o-rings.
That was fun. Good to be back at it. I'm now working on the Valves and will be posting again soon.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Very nice work. I can tell by the fit and finish on your parts that this isn't your first rodeo.---Brian

 

[dnalot]

I can tell by the fit and finish on your parts that this isn't your first rodeo

Thanks Brian, Coming from you that means a lot.

Mark

 

[dnalot]

Hi

The plan called for the valves to be turned one piece from stainless steel. I opted to use polished S.S. Rod .125: in Dia. With the valve head (S.S.) silver brazed on. From there it was a simple job of facing the valve head and cutting the valve face. I set my compound to 45 degrees for facing the valves and I will leave it set there until I turn the valve seat face on the valve cages. I worked close to the collet to avoid any bending of the valve stem. The valve face turned out looking almost polished. A quick look under a 45 power microscope showed it looking like a fresh plowed field.

The valve cages were turned from 12L14 steel. The main body's were turned to form as a group. Then one by one the cages were drilled and reamed for the valve stem and the inlet and exhaust passage. Followed by facing the valve seat.

At this point the cages are all the same. From here on they will be a little different for intake and exhaust. The exhaust having a larger passageway and flange. The cages were drilled for the flanged couplings and the couplings were turned on the lathe. The two parts were then soft silver soldered together.

Then it was the nerve wracking job of drilling all the holes and tapping some of them. The small screws in the flanges are 0-80 x .125” I thought sure I would break the tap doing 32 holes. As it turned out it was a piece of cake.
I lapped the valves to the cages and then cleaned and assembled them. For now they are temporally screwed into place.

Mark T

 

[Ghosty]

Mark,
Love the oversized pencil, Beautiful work, will keep watching

Cheers
Andrew

 

[dnalot]

You know that pop sound you can make by placing your finger in your mouth and then popping your cheek with it? Well hold that thought. Until now I had not connected the con rod to the shaft that runs through the cylinders. To do that I had to remove the intake valve cages and valve assembly so I could see the pistons. And then do some trial and error until I had the pistons traveling an equal distance in both directions. Once that was done I drilled the hole for the roll pin that would connect the shaft to the con-rod. I then dropped the valve cage assemblys back into place but did not screw them down. One of the heads had a spark-plug and the others did not. With a finger I rotated the flywheel one rotation at about 60 RPM and POP, the valve cage assembly in the cylinder with the spark-plug jumped up out of its hole about 8 inches and lucky for me I was able to catch it in my free hand. So we have compression. I moved the spark-plug to the other cylinders and popped each of their valve cages as well.


The next step is to make the cam shaft and the support brackets. The brackets required the mounting screw heads to be recessed and I needed to make a special cutter for the job. The cutter has three flutes and was made from drill rod. I figured with so many parts stacked together to form the inline cylinder assembly that the odds of being able to make the camshaft brackets using a jig would be pointless as each one would need to be tweaked to make up for accumulated errors. So after making the roughly formed brackets I mounted them to the engine and carefully marked out where to drill the holes for the camshaft to run through. As it turned out they were all identical so I went ahead and drilled the brackets in a jig. I drilled the holes for a slip fit to the shaft and then slid the shaft through the holes to see how much binding there would be. There was very little so I returned the parts to the jig and reamed them to the size of the bushings. The bushings I made to be a easy slip fit to the brackets. Once made I assembled the shaft with bushings to the mounted brackets. One by one I rotated the bushings in the brackets until they found their best fit. And then one by one I glued them into place with green lock-tight.

The four cams were machined and then filed and polished as a group. And then they were parted on the lathe. The cams are made of drill rod.

My next step is to make the brackets that will hold the rocker arms.

Mark T

 

[dnalot]

Not to many photos this time. When I moved the photos from my phone to my PC most of the photos were all garbled up. Lesson learned, use copy command not move.

Well the rocker arm brackets were not much trouble to make but the long rocker arms proved to be a little work. I changed the location of the fulcrum on the rocker arm to allow the valve to open a bit more. And I used a smaller diameter pin for both the rocker arm and the wheel. Another change was to make the rocker arms from brass and steel rather than aluminum. The change of materials and the change in pin size allowed for a little less clumsy looking rocker arm. The only reason to use both brass and steel was the fact that that's what I had on hand. I live a mile and a half from the public road. Its winter here and UPS won't start delivering here again until the snow melts off and the gravel road drys out. I'm down to substituting metals and making screws.

The arm parts were silver soldered together. With the rocker arms made and fitted I polished them up and sent them to the nickel plating bucket. And the brackets were anodized.

It is now time to permanently secure the valve cages to the heads and then assemble the rocker arm assemblies. At this point I adjusted the valves to have .007” clearance as per the plan. A test turn of the cam shaft shows the exhaust valve closing just as the intake valve begins to open. I will need to make a wheel with degree markings before I can time the cam to the engine. the valves do not interfere with the pistons so there is no need to worry about anything getting damaged if the engine is rolled over. I roughly timed the cam to the engine and turned it over a few times. Everything was smooth and I could feel the compression in three cylinders but number 3 was flat. A little troubleshooting indicates that the exhaust valve is leaking so I will need to fix that before moving on. At this point all the moving parts have been made and assembled.

Still to be made; the plumbing, water and fuel tanks, ignition system and the wood base. So next up is the wood base as everything else needs the base to complete. My UPS driver gave me some black moldy boards a while back that he swears has some beautiful Hickory hiding inside.

 

[ShopShoe]

dnalot,

That's shaping up very well. I think I can almost see and hear it running. There is always a lot of interesting movement when a sideshaft engine is running.

I like your attention fit and finish. It will be beautiful.

--ShopShoe

 

[dnalot]

First off I would like to thank Shop Shoe for his comments.. It has inspired me to trudge on.

Turns out there was some nice looking spalded hickory inside those moldy boards. The wood was warped and twisted so I did my best to glue the boards together so that they would counter act each others deficiencies. Helped a little but not much. Next I cut and fit the parts together picture frame style. Once the glue dried I used my CNC router to face the bottom into a flat plane. Turned the part over and faced the top side. From there on it was a simple task of profiling the outside and pocketing for the flywheel and the aluminum plate the engine was built on. The flywheel pocket is a little extra long on one side. This is where I will place the on off switch for the ignition system that is hidden under the base. The final step was “v Carving” the lettering.

A little sanding with some 320 paper and the the base looked polished. Never worked with hickory before, I like it. Machines like aluminum. Gave the base one coat of wipe on poly and I could see the lettering was going to be hard to read with the spalded wood background. After the poly dried I used a brush to wet the lettering with poly and then wiped the surface dry. Using a dry brush I dusted the lettering with some graphite lock lubricant powder. And then with a little thinner I wiped the surface clean. And then I sprayed a little poly on the lettering to lock in the powder. From there I just applied several coats of the wipe on ploy on all of the surfaces.

I made my board a little wider than the plan called for because the plan had the fuel tank hanging half off the board. And I wanted to have my flywheel sitting in a well. It may not show in the photos but the base has curved sides. The only thing I'm not happy about is the mess this wood project made of my shop.

I have a little of this Hickory left over So I think I will make a picture frame to hold the booklet I am building this engine from.

Next I will be making the plumbing. The snow has melted away so UPS should be delivering my brass tube in the next few days. While I wait I need to make a tube bender.

Mark T

 

[stevehuckss396]

She looks nice. Great job on the display base.

 

[dnalot]

Hi

I'm all tubed out but the tubes are done. Nothing difficult just tedious. I took special care to insure there was no internal blockages from tubes protruding into the manifolds. Solder was 4 percent silver (no lead) , strong and it plates well. As per the plan the manifolds were nickel plated.

I made a number of changes from the plan here. The plan called for the exhaust to run just of the ground with all cylinders joining into the same collector. The manifold terminated in a vertical stack at the far end of the motor. The designer noted that the system sprayed oil up into the air and suggested a fix using an elbow to redirect the exhaust to the side. I thought I would exhaust into a chamber with an absorbing felt lining the sides. To make the exhaust manifolds equal I split the single system into two. The other changes were slight re-arrangement of the other manifolds to work with the changes made to the exhaust. And I added a drain plug for draining the coolant from the engine. The plug doubles as a mounting screw for supporting the water supply manifold.

Started on the fuel tank, still needs a stand. The tank was made from thin walled steel tube with steel end caps soft silver soldered into place, as were the filler neck and out-tube. The filler neck is threaded for a 1/2-28 cap. No leaks so when I get the material I will make the stand. Next up is the water coolant tank. I'm thinking I will make it of wood with a galvanized steel liner.

Charged up the batteries for the ignition system, getting close to starting this thing.

Mark T

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Dang, that certainly is a nice gas tank.----Brian

 

[dnalot]

Thanks for the comment Brian

 

[jimsshop1]

Fantastic work for sure!!!:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup: Are those plans for sale anywhere?

Thanks,

Jim