Arnold building the "Little Blazer"

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arnoldb:
Thanks everyone :beer: :beer:

Wood may not have been a good choice for the base. It's gotten all stained with graphite powder, so when it starts to look really bad I'll make a new base for it from metal.

I had a lot of fun running it so far; took it to work for show and tell; it must have gotten at least 1 hour total run-time on it from that, as everybody heard the commotion and then wanted to see it run. Even the MD popped in,sat down and watched it go for a full tank-full. He seems to like the engines I build; after running it his comment was "Well, at least you didn't have to blow it like the others" :lol:

At one point it got so hot that I actually burnt my finger on the flywheel when starting after a re-fill; soon after this it jammed up solid; with the piston wedged in the bore from heat expansion; once I let it cool down completely it was fine again.

And yes, I agree fully with John as well :thumbup:, and have the highest regard for people who share their builds and their experience.
A "Thank You" for that is sort of hollow; so I'm trying to return the favour by posting my own progress as I go along on my own personal machining journey.

Personally, posting up a build like this one on the Blazer is a bit of a hit-and-miss thing (even though it is a flame licker in this case ::)); I'm never sure if there's too little or too much detail, and it takes quite a bit of effort to post up as well - besides the time taken to type up things I have to be pretty careful while typing it up, as English is not my native language. And yes, I do attempt some bad puns on the side...
I try to tell a story while posting, with some "diversions" in between; these are usually just for my own benefit while thinking things through, but they end up as part of the posts. The posts in this build log were all quite long - the result of simply getting more done in shop sessions than I used to in the past.
A while ago I wondered whether it was worth the effort of posting in any kind of detail, and then I received a nice surprise over on HMEM; I received a PM from a complete stranger who had never posted (I really don't like to use the word "lurker") who, it turned out, had been quietly following along on quite a few of my projects.
He was inspired by, and inquired about some of the "simple" bits 'n bobs I made "in between" on a build. Receiving public acknowledgment for a build is very nice indeed and very much appreciated, but that PM is what's made me decide to carry on posting in detail; just maybe someone else will be inspired by my little posts; just like I have been inspired by posts from others. I'm open to criticism in my write-ups; if anybody thinks there is a way to make my posts more readable or usable, then please do pipe up or send me a PM.

--- Quote ---I don't think I've seen anyone's build go as smooth and without hitches as yours has unless you kept all the frustrations bottled up inside, and didn't share them with the rest of us
--- End quote ---
Mad Jack - I forgot to respond to that; this build went exceptionally well - I shared all the frustrations and hitches along the way - even to the point of modifying a mill handle totally off-topic to stop a squeak, sleeping over a troubling valve spring plate, and for the first time ever running my mill's collet chuck into the workpiece. I've found that by building a model, or any other workpiece, over-and-over-and-over in my head before actually machining it helps a lot to prevent frustration. I know my lathe fairly well by now, and can compensate for it's limits. The mill is another matter, and I'm still pushing it gradually to get to its limits. And I spare myself some headaches by just doing things the manual way; it can be really hard to try and figure out a way to clamp and position a workpiece to mill a curve and so on - a lot of the time it's quicker to just grab a file and do it manually!

Kind regards, Arnold

sbwhart:
Well done Arnold a real fine engine that runs beautifully and a great write up to boot.

:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

Thanks for sharing with us

Stew

madjackghengis:
By the way, Arnold, I quickly discovered the staining of the walnut base I put mine on, and in keeping with the heat aspect you mention in your latest post, got inspired, took the head off a five horse dead briggs and stratton lawnmower engine, faced the head surface dead flat, flipped it, faced the surface of the fins flat, so they sit without rocking, and drilled the base of my engine to take two allen screws, and screwed it solid to the head, and when I had it with bronze piston and aluminum cylinder, it would spin up about like yours sounds, which checked with a digital tach was some 2500 rpm, and would run two "burners" of alki out before the piston would stick. Unfortunately, unlike the cast iron, I had to "hone" out the cylinder with some 400 grit paper, and take off the burrs of the piston before I could run it again each time it stuck. Added up to five cylinders and six pistons before graphite.
I finally took a new generator brush, machined a piston out of it, got it all back together, and it barely runs, only runs for a minute or two while cold, and won't run more than ten of fifteen seconds when hot now, so I think I've got too much clearance with the non-expanding graphite piston. Time to make an iron cylinder and go back to a bronze piston I think. The cylinder head from the lawnmower engine is a fine heat sink though, and makes a big difference in running time when the rest is right. I'm still kind of jazzed over the great running of your engine, really enjoy listening to it. mad jack

arnoldb:
Thanks Stew :beer: - I'm fighting with myself over what to build next :lol:

Cheers Mad Jack; I'll leave mine as is for now. A cast iron piston should do well too; in fact it might be better than bronze. I'm just a bit stingy with my cast iron as it's horribly expensive and hard to obtain here in Windhoek; I usually end up wasting quite a bit of it because I can't get close sizes. Bronze works out cheaper for me, as its fairly obtainable in closer matching stock sizes, so not as much ends up as chips for me.

Kind regards, Arnold

cfellows:
Great job, Arnold. Hope mine takes off as well as yours did! One queston... I don't recall any mention in the oiginal built article about soldering the valve pieces together. I thought the thin metal piece was held in the valve slit by spring pressure alone?

Chuck

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