The Geneva .... My first Hit and Miss Engine

[bearcar1]

The first step that I took down this road of uncertainty after the lumps were properly sized was to give them a coat of fresh layout dye and used my digital height gage on the drill press table to mark out all of the points of interest. These included the bore center, the mouth of the water hopper as well as all of the hole locations for the ancillaries and such that will eventually be attached to the block. Upon completing this task, all of these locations were carefully and accurately center popped and then drilled.

Not wishing to set up the quill stop on the drill press, I cheated and used the appropriate sized cutter bits as spacers for the depths that I needed. After placing the part on table I lowered it until I could 'touch off' the top of the part while the quill was fully extended, then by placing the spacers under the part and drilling to the end travel of the quill, each hole was a perfect, identical depth.

The next step was to mill the pocket in the side flank of the block where the cam follower guide would one day reside. This I did with the smallest cutter that I had which was .062" and required a series of light shallow cuts to depth and then a final cut to the markings to clean up the sides.

Before I got too far along I tapped the hole in the top/rear of the lump, 8-32 to accept the drip oiler. This step could have been done later but I wanted to be sure to have enough metal to assure a straight threading of the hole. After the tap reached a depth that would be below the top surface of the cylinder tunnel I counter bored the hole about .375" so that the tap would be able to reach full depth. All other tapping went well albeit a bit time consuming. I'm going to stop here as "old what's her name" :big: says that dinner is almost ready.

BC1
Jim

 

[tel]

Man, you guys in the land of OZ are all such fartsmart smellersfellers rotfl rotfl

You speak remarkably fluent Orstrayian yerself, for a bloke from Ill, Ioll - that place with Chicago in it.

 

[ksouers]

You speak remarkably fluent Orstrayian yerself, for a bloke from Ill, Ioll - that place with Chicago in it.

Tel, we just call that state Silly-Noise. ;D

 

[Maryak]

Tel, we just call that state Silly-Noise. ;D

That I get, but how do you get Arkensaw from Arkansas ??? even in Oz, we have not managed such a feat of English manipulation. :

Best Regards
Bob

 

[ksouers]

That I get, but how do you get Arkensaw from Arkansas ??? even in Oz, we have not managed such a feat of English manipulation. :

Best Regards
Bob

We blame the French :

 

[zeeprogrammer]

That I get, but how do you get Arkensaw from Arkansas ??? even in Oz, we have not managed such a feat of English manipulation. :

Sorry to hear that. I'm sure you'll get it eventually though. ;D

(Father's side is from Arkansas...Little Rock, Malvern, Tulip, Hot Springs...some of you know these places. Daughter and I were just talking tonight about Eureka Springs.)

 

[zeeprogrammer]

Twins? really Z', you could have ventured a better guess than that.

Not so sure about that. But I was really going for 'two of something' like a twin cylinder something. I just don't have the knowledge yet to express it well. I won't tell you what was in my mind (it was way off)....but as it turns out...it doesn't look like I was too far afield with 'two of the same' :shrug: ???

Looking forward to the build.

 

[bearcar1]

;D Zeep, you've been staring at entirely too many Rorschach test sheets my friend, they are just two lumps of Allie block. Trust me. That's ALL they are, now, repeat after me, "I will cut down on my M&Ms intake for the next month" Go on, say it. :big: :big: :big: (I wonder if they make a 'patch' for that?) ;D And Tel, "Iz jus' a po' fahm boye from donstate ya'here?" :big: :big: WoW! maybe I should cut down on the M&Ms, that or give up that third bowl of Captain Crunch every morning...... NAAAAAW! ... That would be like cutting the oxygen flow to my brain off (as if that hasn't happened before, it's the excuse I use for being this way) *bang* Rof}

Anyway, this A.M. found me setting up this first block in the lathe chuck to begin the process of hollowing out the water tank. I chose to do this step first rather than boring for the cylinder sleeve first, because I figured that if I screw this step up, at least I would not have wasted the time on the bore. ??? As can be seen here, I am using a wiggler and a dial indicator to exactly set up the center of the block that previously had been rapped hard against the chuck face with a wooden mallet.

I took quite a bit of time in this step to get the runout to be so negligible it was not funny. The needle had virtually zero deflection up as close to the chuck as I could get as that is where the most significant movement would occur.

The drawings spell out a cooling channel that runs around the cylinder sleeve and is accessed through a .375" slot that is milled into the bottom of the tank. In order to pick up this dimension during the cylinder boring operation I drilled a .375" hole that dead ended at the center line of the cylinder.

Then it was "off-to-the-races" with the boring bar. Now I know how a wren must feel when it is building a nest in a knothole of a tree Good lord does this equate to some serious sphincter tightening time!! A more or less BLIND 8) hole inside a solid block. Needless to say the use of carriage stops on both sides of the apron were in order as well as the frequent shut down of the machine in order to clear the scrap curls out of the cavity as it became increasingly larger in size as I proceeded.

I did not have any calipers or measuring device that would fit inside the entrance hole so I made due with a short length of copper wire that I cut to length and used that as a extremely inexpensive bore gauge. If I was not able to fit the wire inside the tank than I had not bored it out far enough and proceeded to do so until the wire would fit inside the walls of the tank. Whew! what an adventure this turned out to be. After it was all through I was pleased with the overall results and decided to take a break for a bit as I was wound up tighter than an eight day clock from all of the excitement of the morning.

BC1
Jim

 

[arnoldb]

Wow Jim - great work :bow:

As to my tiny part (thank you for the mention ), it is completely insignificant in the greater scheme of things.

I'm really looking forward to the rest of your build!

Kind regards, Arnold

 

[zeeprogrammer]

Great post Jim. Looking forward to more.

Capt'n Crunch eh? Might be interesting to take a poll sometime and see what cereal machinists prefer. Since no one can class me as a machinist (yet)...I don't have to say.

Oh...and I did not say...nor will I ever say..."I will cut down on my M&M's"...Are you nuts? ;D

 

[bearcar1]

........Are you nuts? ;D

Well yes as a matter of fact I am, funny you should say that, why do you ask? Rof} AFA the Capt'n Crunch goes, I figured I may as well enjoy it while I can as it won't be too much longer that they will be spoon feeding me oatmeal and mopping up the drool. EEWWW!. :big: :big: Thank you for your kind words Z', they are mucho apprecinande.
How's yer "little engine that wants to" progressing?


BC1
Jim

 

[bearcar1]

Before I go into a current update of progress I would like to back up just a bit and talk about this engine in general. It was designed by David Kerzel, who is a member of the Florida AME organization and is being built from his drawings. The bore of this engine is .750" and the stroke is .800" with a flywheel diameter of 3.500", making it a nice size with pieces that aren't so small they require magnification to see : ;D. It features a simple points type ignition as well but I suppose that the Hall effect setup could be employed. I have a couple of sets of castings for hit and miss engines in my possession but found that this particular design, using barstock, had the lines of a foundry based model without a lot of complicated setups, we shall see about that last part as I go along. I've received several inquiries as to the name. "Geneva" was my Mother's name and I felt compelled to name it after her and the memory of her should provide me with the necessary fortitude and determination to see the build to its completion. Her favorite color was Yellow and my plan is to paint it as such and trim it out in Red and or Green pinstripe. Now having said all of that, let us continue.

After successfully completing the hollowing out of the water hopper I was stoked as I had the feeling of "so far, so good". Next up I had to turn the lump 90* in the four jaw and perform the same set up steps I used previously, to get the bore center located, and after achieving that, proceeded to bore the lump through to .950", this design calls for a cast iron sleeve to be press fit into it. I first used a .250" drill in the tailstock to drill completely through the block, then went to .625" and then .750" before using the boring bar to bore to final size. I used a stone to clean up the cutter before the last two final passes and the 6061 material cleaned up smooth as a baby's back side after a bath. (don't ask )

Next up I put the trepanning cutter I had into action and cut the counterbore at the mouth of the hole that would receive the flange on the press in cylinder sleeve.

The next step required was the undercutting of a groove in the center of the bore and this is where that .375" hole that was drilled to start the water hopper comes into play. I do not have DRO capabilities in the shop and I did not want to take the chance of 'missing the mark' and you all know what that can lead to, (don't you ???) so by first drilling the hole I established the edges of the counterbore and all I then had to do was 'merely' machine to the edges of that hole. Other than having to crane my neck to "look up the skirt" of this part, it wasn't too bad. With the assistance of my small goosenecked flashlight, this went reasonably well. That is after finally getting the cutter ground and set to the proper height.

With that out of the way I decided to turn the radius for the 'lip' on the front of the block and that again was fairly straight forward. Again, "so far, so good". I have a long way to go still but after having success up to this point, I am feeling pretty good. I'll have to see about taking the piece over to a friend's shop, as he has a rotary table, to cut the 'chin' under the front portion of the block as well as the 'hump' over the top rear portion of the cylinder.

At this point, with the successful machining of the first block, the second will be put aside for another day. Next up I think I'll do the base plate.

BC1
Jim

 

[crankshafter]

Jim.
Nice work on the "lump" . The wrightup aswell.
I'll be watcing you :big:
Ps. Is it possible that you can put up a drawing/pic. of the engine?
Regards
Crankshafter.

 

[4156df]

Jim,
You really do an excellent job of showing us how it's done. Nice machining too. I just went back and re-read the whole thread. Terrific write-up.
Dennis

 

[techonehundred]

Is this the same engine? If so he has downloadable plans on the page.
http://www.floridaame.org/GalleryPages/g1h0106.htm

 

[bearcar1]

Crankshafter, I thank you for your kind words and support, and yes that site that Techonehundred has shared with us is where these drawings came from. Now EVERYONE will be wanting to build one :big:


Dennis, I thank you for your kind words as well, after viewing your work in progress that is quite a compliment indeed. :bow: I just hope the rest of this build goes well, we shall see.


BC1
JIm

 

[zeeprogrammer]

Ah...I was glad to see the pic of the engine. I understand a lot more now.
I really enjoyed the write-up about Geneva, yellow etc.
Nice to know why people build what they do...especially nice when it has stories like yours.

 

[bearcar1]

Thank you Zeep, I probably should have covered my reasons of motivation earlier and you are correct, a picture IS worth a thousand words, if only they were worth $$$$$, we all would be rich :big:

The drawings call out for a base plate that is .600" thick so I began with a length of 2.000" wide stock, .625" thick, that will get skimmed down to the proper dimension after all of the holes have been marked out and drilled. After squaring the lumps, remember I said I was going to be making two of all of the bigger chunks, I again used the digital height gauge to lay out the required hole locations and proceeded to drill the holes that would be used to mount the cylinder block and bearing standards to the base. These would be attached to the base with hex head cap screws but I was almost going to use some flat headed countersunk fasteners instead but finally elected to go with the former to eliminate some of the potential headaches that can come with not getting the holes and the angled fasteners to properly line up after assembly. (don't ask ) Plus I had some in the drawer from another time gone by. If you look closely at this image you will notice a couple of 'extra' lines that seemingly do not have a purpose. C'mon, really ??? Would I do something like that? yeah, probably. ;D

BC1
Jim

 

[bearcar1]

I had to accompny 'old what's her name' ;D ;D for a bit so I had to cut things a bit short on the last post but am back now and can finish up where I left off. As I said previously, there were lines that did not have any apparent use, not so. I got lazy and did not feel like breaking out the edge finder and dialing in the centerline of the plate so I used these phantom layout lines as a guide when I cut the shallow trough. As can be seen in the first image I have begun a test cut down the middle of the plate to see how well the cutter would perform and after seeing that it was satisfactory I increased the depth of cut and proceeded the full length. The deeper the cut became, the width also increased, so when the cut was approaching the lines, all I had to do at that point was make any corrections in the 'Y' axis to make/keep the advancing cutter centered. I used two sets of these lines between the center of the plate and the finished width markings and it was simple and effective for someone not having DRO or for the just plain lazy. ;D

Next step was the 'turn out' portion at the bottom of the base. Using a ball end milling cutter I was successful in achieving this by once again using the "cut to the line" approach. Several passes were used and I found that by getting the cutter set to a finished depth +.010" and then advancing the cutter in the 'Y' axis in steps and making the full passes with the 'X' axis until again finished dimension +.010" was achieved I could then rotate the base 180* in the vice and perform the same steps but this time cut to final dimensions. All that remained at that point was to once again rotate the part 180* again and doing one more pass along the 'X' axis to remove the final .010" that was purposely left on in the previous setup. I wound up with both sides being exactly the same without breaking a sweat.

The bearing standards will be next I think and I have a few 'surprises' in mind for those pieces but I need to think about it for a while. "So far, so good"

BC1
Jim

 

[Deanofid]

Real nice job there, Jim. I really like the way you did the "troughing", or whatever we call it. Profiling, I guess. Anyway, well done!

Dean