When does the part I might understand begin 
?
?
At the same moment that i start understanding Paul.When does the part I might understand begin
nigel altough i have no steam knowledge, i do see that you are doing a great job on these engines
To be honest Guys, I didn't have a clue up to a couple of months ago when I began researching the subject in earnest.
I can build RC models but Steam power was something that interested me but I regarded it as a "dark art".
Hopefully, I can go into enough detail in this log to provide a point of reference for those who are interested in the subject in general. I am trying to apply what I have gleaned on the subject coupled with advice from the pros. This was mainly for my Boiler choice because if this wasn't right, then the engines would not run at their best for any length to time before the boiler needed refilling.
Project took a bit of a hit today. An order of taps, dies , lathe die chuck etc was delivered by DHL but NOT to my house. Which house, who knows, I live on a big new estate????????????????????????
I got a notification and a picture of the parcel on a path, NOT my path
DHL are trying to resolve this but something I can do without.
I don't know about everyone else, but a signed for package should mean just that, COVID lockdown is over, couriers stop being lazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rant over
Kind Regards
Nigel
I can build RC models but Steam power was something that interested me but I regarded it as a "dark art".
Hopefully, I can go into enough detail in this log to provide a point of reference for those who are interested in the subject in general. I am trying to apply what I have gleaned on the subject coupled with advice from the pros. This was mainly for my Boiler choice because if this wasn't right, then the engines would not run at their best for any length to time before the boiler needed refilling.
Project took a bit of a hit today. An order of taps, dies , lathe die chuck etc was delivered by DHL but NOT to my house. Which house, who knows, I live on a big new estate????????????????????????
I got a notification and a picture of the parcel on a path, NOT my path
DHL are trying to resolve this but something I can do without.I don't know about everyone else, but a signed for package should mean just that, COVID lockdown is over, couriers stop being lazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rant over
Kind Regards
Nigel
Hi Nigel,
Horror of horrors, I hope the parcel finds it's way to you, there are still some honest people in the world we live in and hopefully the people who got your parcel will find it's rightful owner.
Cheers,
Stephen.
Horror of horrors, I hope the parcel finds it's way to you, there are still some honest people in the world we live in and hopefully the people who got your parcel will find it's rightful owner.
Cheers,
Stephen.
NIgel i do hope that you retrieve your parcel, and as for the couriers, they will never stop doing things like this.
And your steamexpedition?? i am following with great interest, i know not a lot of steam, but it is fascinating how to build it.
And your steamexpedition?? i am following with great interest, i know not a lot of steam, but it is fascinating how to build it.
Thanks Guys
Nice to know there are still some good people, a kind lady brought my missing parcel round. Seems like they got the house number right, just the wrong street!
Kind Regards
Nigel
Nice to know there are still some good people, a kind lady brought my missing parcel round. Seems like they got the house number right, just the wrong street!
Kind Regards
Nigel
Fantastic news Nigel.
Cheers,
Stephen.
Cheers,
Stephen.
I have now installed both A frames, I had some rework on the Portside one and had to remove, trim and refit a new foot so maintain some sort of symmetry. Not easy as the hull is not very symmetrical which is most obvious where the shaft penetrate the hull.
The A frames are epoxied and secured with 8BA fixings. The bolt heads are present on the prototype and I have tried to keep these in scale.
The A frames are epoxied and secured with 8BA fixings. The bolt heads are present on the prototype and I have tried to keep these in scale.
A bit of a mixed bag in today's update.
Yesterday I fully assembled the first engine, I will document the process when I build the second one.
I made one of the steam fittings to adapt the thread sizes, this is shown screwed into the top of the engine and took the best part of 2 hours! glad I just made one for now, one of the exhaust ports is close to the hull and may require an elbow otherwise the radius in the copper tube will be too tight. Pause for deliberation.
I have spent most of the day turning a 3/8" x 2" brass slab into swarf on the mill. This will become the engine mounting bed for both engines. It will also incorporate mounting points for another brass plate that will carry the throttle servos. These are what the two stubs at the aft end are for.
This mounting plate could only be made of metal, you can clearly see how close the outer mounting positions are to the hull.
Undecided if this mounting will become part of a larger "ladder" frame so all the workings can be removed and run on the bench, this would be preferable, I am currently banding designs about in my head.
Anyway, time to order yet more brass and stainless steel.................................
Yesterday I fully assembled the first engine, I will document the process when I build the second one.
I made one of the steam fittings to adapt the thread sizes, this is shown screwed into the top of the engine and took the best part of 2 hours! glad I just made one for now, one of the exhaust ports is close to the hull and may require an elbow otherwise the radius in the copper tube will be too tight. Pause for deliberation.
I have spent most of the day turning a 3/8" x 2" brass slab into swarf on the mill. This will become the engine mounting bed for both engines. It will also incorporate mounting points for another brass plate that will carry the throttle servos. These are what the two stubs at the aft end are for.
This mounting plate could only be made of metal, you can clearly see how close the outer mounting positions are to the hull.
Undecided if this mounting will become part of a larger "ladder" frame so all the workings can be removed and run on the bench, this would be preferable, I am currently banding designs about in my head.
Anyway, time to order yet more brass and stainless steel.................................
With a few questions unresolved regarding how I am mounting the Steam powertrain, I have shifted focus to sorting the propeller shafts. My boiler etc should hopefully ready in the next couple of weeks so I can then get a better idea of the internal layout.
With little reference material to hand regarding the prototypes running gear some artistic licence is needed. The kit uses a simplistic design based on commercial items used out of the box.
IMHO, this results in a frail looking set up that once you multiply by the scale, it is obvious things are undersize.
I had come up with a design using ball races but abandoned the idea as everything would have looked too clunky due to the restrictions of bearing sizes.
My revised design uses Caldercraft M5 shafts inserted and bonded using locktite 638 (Bearing setting adhesive) into 10mm diameter by 1mm wall 316 Marine grade stainless tube. The stainless tube will be polished on the exposed area and remain unpainted.In reality this section should rotate but we are back to practical limitations and these parts would only be spinning when in the water so it won't detract from the model on display.
I have included a picture of the Caldercraft shaft as supplied and one inserted in the Stainless casing.
My next big machining job as to turn 3/4" Brass bar to form the fairings that fit where the shafts penetrate the hull. These ar 163mm long and I drilled a 10.1mm hole all the way through to except the stainless tubes.This had to be done from both ends in the lathe and was not an enjoyable experience but got there in the end.
These fairings had a 1 degree taper over 138mm. My Compound slide has less then 50mm travel so I elected to turn steeped diameters on these pieces using a little trigonometry to work these positions out. The items were then filed in the spinning lathe and then finished with emery and finally 400 Grit wet and dry using WD40 as a lubricant. This was all done with the lathe spinning at 1300 RPM, don't try this at home etc etc, I except no responsibility for lost fingers.
The final picture shows a mock up with the propeller, this will obviously be supported by the a frame fitted to the hull
With little reference material to hand regarding the prototypes running gear some artistic licence is needed. The kit uses a simplistic design based on commercial items used out of the box.
IMHO, this results in a frail looking set up that once you multiply by the scale, it is obvious things are undersize.
I had come up with a design using ball races but abandoned the idea as everything would have looked too clunky due to the restrictions of bearing sizes.
My revised design uses Caldercraft M5 shafts inserted and bonded using locktite 638 (Bearing setting adhesive) into 10mm diameter by 1mm wall 316 Marine grade stainless tube. The stainless tube will be polished on the exposed area and remain unpainted.In reality this section should rotate but we are back to practical limitations and these parts would only be spinning when in the water so it won't detract from the model on display.
I have included a picture of the Caldercraft shaft as supplied and one inserted in the Stainless casing.
My next big machining job as to turn 3/4" Brass bar to form the fairings that fit where the shafts penetrate the hull. These ar 163mm long and I drilled a 10.1mm hole all the way through to except the stainless tubes.This had to be done from both ends in the lathe and was not an enjoyable experience but got there in the end.
These fairings had a 1 degree taper over 138mm. My Compound slide has less then 50mm travel so I elected to turn steeped diameters on these pieces using a little trigonometry to work these positions out. The items were then filed in the spinning lathe and then finished with emery and finally 400 Grit wet and dry using WD40 as a lubricant. This was all done with the lathe spinning at 1300 RPM, don't try this at home etc etc, I except no responsibility for lost fingers.
The final picture shows a mock up with the propeller, this will obviously be supported by the a frame fitted to the hull
My next task was to drill a 10mm hole in each fairing piece that will accommodate a stainless tube to oil the propshafts, these will be accessible under a removable aft superstructure section. This was carried out on my mill using a 10mm end mill as the surface is curved.
Before installing the prop shaft fairings in the hull, I used my masking tape trick to produce what will become the overlapping plate detail in car body filler.
With that sorted, I then bonded the fairings into the hull with Stabilities express adhesive. The propeller shafts were used to ensure everything lines through.
Next step is to blend the fairings into the "flanges" using car body filler
You may notice there is some Asymetry to the hull, I reasoned to make the flanges symmetrical and to try and visually loose this when fairing.The propeller shaft positions are within fractions of a millimetre, but the curve of the hull is not.
Before installing the prop shaft fairings in the hull, I used my masking tape trick to produce what will become the overlapping plate detail in car body filler.
With that sorted, I then bonded the fairings into the hull with Stabilities express adhesive. The propeller shafts were used to ensure everything lines through.
Next step is to blend the fairings into the "flanges" using car body filler
You may notice there is some Asymetry to the hull, I reasoned to make the flanges symmetrical and to try and visually loose this when fairing.The propeller shaft positions are within fractions of a millimetre, but the curve of the hull is not.
I have had a weekend focusing on motive power including building up the second engine.
I firstly turned some 40mm diameter solid bar to make two flywheels. These each have 4 stainless pins locktited in to create drive dogs. There was no why I would be able to access Allen screws in universal joints with the throttle servos in place and I wanted to make the engines easy to remove for any maintenance.
Two of the pictures illustrate how close the flywheel comes to the inside of the hull. This is the worst side due to the Asymetry in the hull shape.
The sequence of pictures show the second engine being built. One point to note for anyone building these is to ensure the piston moves freely once installed with the bottom cylinder cover. Two of the four did bind at the bottom of the stroke. Unscrewing and refitting the bottom cover after turning the cover 180 degrees solved this and is covered in the instructions. The other important thing is to ensure 1/16" clearance between the piston crown and cylinder top at TDC.This is accomplished by the adjustable big end bearings.
Other than the initial paint and prep, the most time consuming part of building these engines was cutting out the gaskets out of the supplied sheet of raw material
Last picture shows both engines assembled with my home-brew flywheels. I just have to finish the rest of the inlet and exhaust pipe adapters to complete
I firstly turned some 40mm diameter solid bar to make two flywheels. These each have 4 stainless pins locktited in to create drive dogs. There was no why I would be able to access Allen screws in universal joints with the throttle servos in place and I wanted to make the engines easy to remove for any maintenance.
Two of the pictures illustrate how close the flywheel comes to the inside of the hull. This is the worst side due to the Asymetry in the hull shape.
The sequence of pictures show the second engine being built. One point to note for anyone building these is to ensure the piston moves freely once installed with the bottom cylinder cover. Two of the four did bind at the bottom of the stroke. Unscrewing and refitting the bottom cover after turning the cover 180 degrees solved this and is covered in the instructions. The other important thing is to ensure 1/16" clearance between the piston crown and cylinder top at TDC.This is accomplished by the adjustable big end bearings.
Other than the initial paint and prep, the most time consuming part of building these engines was cutting out the gaskets out of the supplied sheet of raw material
Last picture shows both engines assembled with my home-brew flywheels. I just have to finish the rest of the inlet and exhaust pipe adapters to complete
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Good morning Nigel. So cool. Now you are working with a zero tolerance- respect. Cheers Grant
Thanks Guys
I have to admit I am enjoying this machining very much. So much so, I added another rather different project to the stash........
A full casting and drawing set for an O.B. Bolton Marine Triple Expansion model steam engine. This I feel will challenge both my machining skills and ingenuity.I won't start this properly for a good while but the supplier had 20% off and this is not a cheap project. No good at links, but plenty of examples on Google and Youtube. The finished engine is 10" long but weighs in at 27lb so unlikely I would put it in a boat!
I do feel it only fair to point out that my college education was in Mechanical engineering and I was trained in Machining and Bench fitting so I am not a complete novice. Just don't have the quality or size of tools I used at college, but my Tutor did say a good machinist can work around issues with the equipment, mmm I will be putting that to the test
I have to admit I am enjoying this machining very much. So much so, I added another rather different project to the stash........
A full casting and drawing set for an O.B. Bolton Marine Triple Expansion model steam engine. This I feel will challenge both my machining skills and ingenuity.I won't start this properly for a good while but the supplier had 20% off and this is not a cheap project. No good at links, but plenty of examples on Google and Youtube. The finished engine is 10" long but weighs in at 27lb so unlikely I would put it in a boat!
I do feel it only fair to point out that my college education was in Mechanical engineering and I was trained in Machining and Bench fitting so I am not a complete novice. Just don't have the quality or size of tools I used at college, but my Tutor did say a good machinist can work around issues with the equipment, mmm I will be putting that to the test
All of your skills and ingenuity are already on full display Nigel!
Wonderfull new project Nigel.
It surprizes me that boilers under 3 bar/ltr are now so strictly enforced in the UK.
As far as I know in the EU these can still be used as hobby boiler without any certification.
It surprizes me that boilers under 3 bar/ltr are now so strictly enforced in the UK.
As far as I know in the EU these can still be used as hobby boiler without any certification.
Thanks Maarten and yes boiler legislation in the UK is very strict, fancied making my own but can't be doing with the miles of red tape.
My boiler has landed, pictures in due course. I have made a cardboard template to enable me to determine best positioning against the plan. The Burners will run slightly under the foredeck which means I can't have a complete removable tray with all the driveline equipment on as the throttle servos run under the aft end of the access hatch.
I am continuing work on the engine mount now I know which way I am heading. This will allow both engines and throttle servos to be removed in a unit.
The pictures show the base bolted to an oak block. This oak block is oversize to allow shaping to fit the hull and will be bonded to the hull.The two M4 nuts will be the only fasteners holding this engine/servo mount in place.
The counterbores will be filled with Epoxy making the M4 stainless bolts captive. Also shown is the plate that bolts to the engine mount to carry the two RC throttle servos.
One final note, the mount and plate have been through the Autoblast at work before fitting the threaded studding. This is to give a cast texture and these will be painted black with my VHT paint. This was an experiment and will come into play when I build my Bolton triple expansion engine. I can remove casting lines then blast to restore the cast texture. The Blaster at work is an animal as it blasts steel sections up to 1m wide by 0.6m high on autofeed rollers.We have six of these machines.
My boiler has landed, pictures in due course. I have made a cardboard template to enable me to determine best positioning against the plan. The Burners will run slightly under the foredeck which means I can't have a complete removable tray with all the driveline equipment on as the throttle servos run under the aft end of the access hatch.
I am continuing work on the engine mount now I know which way I am heading. This will allow both engines and throttle servos to be removed in a unit.
The pictures show the base bolted to an oak block. This oak block is oversize to allow shaping to fit the hull and will be bonded to the hull.The two M4 nuts will be the only fasteners holding this engine/servo mount in place.
The counterbores will be filled with Epoxy making the M4 stainless bolts captive. Also shown is the plate that bolts to the engine mount to carry the two RC throttle servos.
One final note, the mount and plate have been through the Autoblast at work before fitting the threaded studding. This is to give a cast texture and these will be painted black with my VHT paint. This was an experiment and will come into play when I build my Bolton triple expansion engine. I can remove casting lines then blast to restore the cast texture. The Blaster at work is an animal as it blasts steel sections up to 1m wide by 0.6m high on autofeed rollers.We have six of these machines.
In order to determine the exact position and instal the engine mount I have to instal the propshafts.
First I need to make the two bolted flange details that fit on the a frames as the shafts slide through these.
I have polished the exposed area of the shafts, these will be unpainted and are marine grade stainless. I have also added the oil holes which will line up with the previously installed tubes.
Final job for now was to paint the flanges, no way I am getting to the back of the bolts heads with an airbrush once on the model.A coat of Tamiya surface primer followed by Vallejo premium air red. I am opting for a bright red below the waterline as I feel it suits the time period of the vessel better. I suspect the prototype may actually have been a shade of Salmon pink but in the interest of aesthetics I am going with bright red.
First I need to make the two bolted flange details that fit on the a frames as the shafts slide through these.
I have polished the exposed area of the shafts, these will be unpainted and are marine grade stainless. I have also added the oil holes which will line up with the previously installed tubes.
Final job for now was to paint the flanges, no way I am getting to the back of the bolts heads with an airbrush once on the model.A coat of Tamiya surface primer followed by Vallejo premium air red. I am opting for a bright red below the waterline as I feel it suits the time period of the vessel better. I suspect the prototype may actually have been a shade of Salmon pink but in the interest of aesthetics I am going with bright red.