The Moriya Story -- short form !

[bob shutt]

Two I made

 

[TinkerJim]

They look great, Bob. Very fine authentic job. The shield between the front legs is a good addition.

 

[jlchapman]

TinkerJim, I'm fine on materials.

But I'm wondering if you have some bearing part numbers. From what I read so far, the bearing plate needs bearings and the power crankpin.

I do have a question. On the engine base, you have a .332 dia hole that you drill and tap for 3/8-24. What diameter is the hole that goes all the way to the 1.625 cold end hole?

Thanks, Jerry

 

[TinkerJim]

TinkerJim, I'm fine on materials.

But I'm wondering if you have some bearing part numbers. From what I read so far, the bearing plate needs bearings and the power crankpin.

I do have a question. On the engine base, you have a .332 dia hole that you drill and tap for 3/8-24. What diameter is the hole that goes all the way to the 1.625 cold end hole?

Thanks, Jerry

Inch bearings are hard to find these days. BearingsDirect.com and SDP-SI.com both have 5/16" ID bearings (in assorted ODs) that can be used. ABEC 3 grade bearings are plenty good for the Major. Or you could also go metric with 8mm.

The .332 dia hole goes through to the central hole as the drawing indicates - only the end is tapped for a plug.

Jim

 

[jlchapman]

Hi TinkerJim,

Thanks on where to buy the bearings. They arrived today.

My next question is the flexible leather cup seal. Do you have a good source for the seals?

Any recommendations on the gasket material?

Thanks, Jerry

 

[Steamchick]

Look what I found!
https://warpfivefans.com/More fun to make your own though... Must buy the book!
K2

 

[TinkerJim]

Hi TinkerJim,

Thanks on where to buy the bearings. They arrived today.

My next question is the flexible leather cup seal. Do you have a good source for the seals?

Any recommendations on the gasket material?

Thanks, Jerry

The leather cup seal is not a stock item. It was homemade using thin very flexible leather stock and formed as leather is commonly wet shaped. In this case a leather disc was soaked, pressed into a die, left to dry and then trimmed. The seal is then thoroughly oil soaked. The goal is to get a cup that seals readily against low pressure yet slides through an open cylinder with very little friction.

I checked and have an extra seal that I made when constructing Moriya Major to which you are welcome. But then you would have to use the exact same tube size for the power cylinder - of which I still have some.

I must say that making a close fitting cast iron piston is more straightforward. So far my leather seal has held up well, but have decided that if it wears out too soon, I will switch to a cast iron or graphite piston as on Moriya and Moriya II.

As to the gasket material I used, it is FEL-PRO #3157 Gasket Material. I found it at our local auto parts store, but I checked and it is available from the amazing Amazon. This material cuts clean and it dry seals superbly.

 

[Steamchick]

Leather cup seals - for around 1/2" bores - are available on-line from companies that supply spares from Paraffin (pressurised) blowlamps, and lights. I bought a few just a year or so ago, as they are better than my home-made ones. Finding leather the right thickness is mot always easy. My gardening gloves welding gloves and old shoes have bits trimmed off for washers, but either too thick, too thin or not durable.
You may be able to make a different piston (aluminium?) To take a size-for-size polyurethane o-ring... if you can find a suitable component. Polyurethane is durable, long lasting, and has a low coefficient of friction and can be lubricated with silicon grease (PVC pipe assembly grease), PTFE spray or furniture polish spray..... if silicon. But you need to size the o-ring to bore so there is n interference, nor clearance as assembled. Just a sliding fit.
K2

 

[jlchapman]

Hi TinkerJim,

As far as tubing, I used what was specified the 1.312 OD x 1.072 ID for the power cylinder. I like the leather cup because its something we would of had back in the day. I'm interested in your offer for the leather cup.

Thanks for the gasket material part number. Amazon delivered it yesterday.

Thanks, Jerry

 

[TinkerJim]

Hi TinkerJim,

As far as tubing, I used what was specified the 1.312 OD x 1.072 ID for the power cylinder. I like the leather cup because its something we would of had back in the day. I'm interested in your offer for the leather cup.

Thanks for the gasket material part number. Amazon delivered it yesterday.

Thanks, Jerry

That's the tube ! Send me a PM with your mailing address and I'll get the cup seal on its way to you.

 

[jlchapman]

PM sent!

 

[wolf GFX]

Hello community!

I just introduces myself shortly on the new members thread today. I gave also a few impressions of my workshop there, and how I got the various tools to work correctly.

For me the HMEM community is a rich source of inspiration and a vast collection of projects with an exhaustive and well made documentation by the members. I can spend hours reading the discussions and take up the tips, hints and propositions on the way you do things - and also the fails including the remedies to it.

The news: I have finished a Moriya Major Fan too! Staying with the dimensions of James' booklet, i had to make a few changes due to livings in Germany and being metric. Taps, drills, ball bearings, bar and tube stock, all will be metric for me. Wher the aluminum parts are all to the book, especially the hot end and displacer, as well as the power pistion and cylinder are crtical parts with close tolerances. I had to take what's in stock and keep as close as posisible to the original dimensions.
This done and said, I finished with a lovely fan, running at about 360 rpm after a few minutes of operation.

(-): Take may excuses for the poor paint job. I think the quality of the heat resistant spray paint I used is pretty poor. It doesn't like silicone spray too - which i used in the break in phase for the power cylinder. It doesn't stick to well to aluminum, neither to steel. Albeit everything was throroghly cleaned with solvent prior to painting. Anyways, I'll take her apart again and redo all painting - or better, have it done by a friend of mine (a professional).
I'm not too much concerned about the looks, more by the function. This said, I put a bit of pain in the fan guard to have it look "vintage".

Technical details: Also, all moving parts have ball bearings, apart from the displacer rod by design. Down to 3mm ID, 8mm OD 4mm wide for the displacer yoke.
The fan blades are stainless steel 1.3mm thick. Quite heavy, which doesn't do any harm to the fan as a flywheel.

An interesting thermodynamic detail: Knowing that aluminum is by far not the best material for the displacer tube, I had nothing else suitable in stock. So i gave it a try and turned down a piece of tube down to 0.5mm (20mil) wall thickness and OD 37mm. And guess what - it does work, against all my expectations!

Changes to come (soon): I'll rebuild the crank shaft including the counterweights in the crank webs. For now, the fan is still not well balanced, albeit I added the (good looking) bronze counterweigts externally. Which will statically balance the whole engine part, but dynamically doesn't make it significantly better (maybe worse). I bolted the fan on a pretty large piece of granite plate for now, but would like to ged rid of this in the future. I'll use Fusion 360 CAD software to calculate the center of gravity of the whole arrangement and optimise the crank webs this way.

Coverage: See the photos and short videos attached (I'm not a great photographer, and even less a maker of decent videos. I'll have this done by a pro too, but I was eager to show off a bit right now)

Before you ask: The engraving on the starter whell is NC made. See my introduction in the new member thread.

To come: I have 100+ photos of the making of - and the fails too. I'll post some of these if you are interested in a future post.

Happy chip making!

Wolf

 

[wolf GFX]

Follow up:

A few short videos.

 

[delalio]

That's an impressive build. Congratulations! Are you able to share where you got the plans, or your modified, ones?

 

[wolf GFX]

Hi delalio!
I bought the booklet of James R. Senft.
You'll find it on Amazon, about 13€ or $. Moriya Major is the bigger one with 15" fan. There is a smaller model too, 10" covered in another booklet. The Major makes for an overall height of about 63 cm or 24".
It's big and develops a sturdy breeze at 360rpm steady state.
Best regards, Wolf

 

[idahoan]

I built three Moriya fans years ago, one for me and two as gifts. As you can see I made a few changes to suit my tastes at the time.
They have always been great runners.

 

[bob shutt]

I used sample jelly jars for burners. If you close you can see slot for ventNew item by Bob Shutt

 

[TinkerJim]

The news: I have finished a Moriya Major Fan too! Staying with the dimensions of James' booklet, i had to make a few changes due to livings in Germany and being metric. Taps, drills, ball bearings, bar and tube stock, all will be metric for me. Wher the aluminum parts are all to the book, especially the hot end and displacer, as well as the power pistion and cylinder are crtical parts with close tolerances. I had to take what's in stock and keep as close as posisible to the original dimensions.
This done and said, I finished with a lovely fan, running at about 360 rpm after a few minutes of operation.

An interesting thermodynamic detail: Knowing that aluminum is by far not the best material for the displacer tube, I had nothing else suitable in stock. So i gave it a try and turned down a piece of tube down to 0.5mm (20mil) wall thickness and OD 37mm. And guess what - it does work, against all my expectations

Wolf

Hello Wolf...
Looks like you've made a fine running Moriya Major for yourself ! I usually run mine also around 350 rpm at which speed it gives quite a good wide airstream. Occasionally, iI I'm working a ways off, I'll pull up the wick and let her work at 500 rpm.

Indeed, Aluminum works for a displacer., Page 4 of the ' Moriya II ' booklet has a little discussion about this so no need to go on about it here - only to report that the original 10" Moriya has an Al displacer !

Best wishes...TinkerJim

 

[Hopper]

Hi Jim. Just thought I would post a cheap and easy source of very thin walled stainless tube for Moriya II's displacer. For about $5 from our local hardware store I bought a solar powered garden light as pictured below. The stem is stainless tubing OD .960", which is not far from the .983" I think your book quotes after machining the wall thickness down on 1" tube. Wall thickness on this tube as supplied is .012". Perfect. There is a small seam down the inside, maybe about 5 thou high, but a few strokes from a small riffler file will fix that good enough to glue the end caps in with hi-temp Loctite or hi-temp RTV silicone to ensure a seal, I reckon.

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Having just bought the Moriya II book, I have a couple of questions if I may:
1. Is there a technical/performance reason for the fewer fins on the new aluminium cold end? Or is it just for ease of machining?
2. Where the hot end is shown necked down in the drawing to stem heat flow, did you have to mount the hot end on a supporting mandrel to machine down that thin or is the steel strong enough to machine it in the same set up as the rest of the job, maybe with a pipe centre supporting the end instead of the fixed steady?

Looking forward to getting started on this build as soon as the materials land on my front doorstep. It could actually be very useful here in the tropical north of Australia in coming months.

Thanks
Pete

 

[TinkerJim]

Thanks, Pete, for the tip on the thin wall SS tube source. I found some smaller thin SS tube on a different kind of solar garden light that I'm saving for who knows what.. I'll have to do some shopping for the bigger garden light you have too!

If you do use that SS tube with .960 OD, you can make the ID of the Cold and Hot End about 1.020 as suggested in the drawings. That's why the book starts the construction narrative with the Displacer.

re Q1: As to the fin spacing, there was a tech reason - to provide more space between fins for better cooling air flow. It's not really easier to machine though b/c each space required two cuts anyway - my parting tool is .100 wide !

re Q2: After turning the OD, boring the ID, and turning the flange end as shown on page12, the steady rest was removed and the end was supported with a plug (or pipe center) by the tailstock for turning down the thin section.

Hope you make good progress - Moriya II will help keep you cooler there 'down under'. I had mine working yesterday - it wasn't really that warm up here in Wisconsin but was a little stuffy in the basement shop so I had her going at one end of the long workbench.

G'day mate,
TinkerJim

PS: I visited your country twice for lectures at the ANU. Great place ! Made it up to Brisbane for a few days too. Loved it !