Small simple turbine engine

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foozer:
I'm loosing hair over the elbow engine and here you go with another "Oh its so simple"

a little sandblast and paint scheme also is nice :)

Looks good

Robert

arnoldb:
Thank you John Bogs. After today's work it runs OK, but I'm not entirely happy, as its not too good on breath power. On compressed air it goes great guns though.

Stew, Andy, Thanks chaps; I normally prefer the satin look as well, but this one's going to be shiny. I think it's the weather we've been having of late here in Namibia - not our regular allotment of sunshine ::)

Thanks Robert. Don't worry; you're getting along just fine - you lack a lot of the tools I have now that makes this look simple and quick to do. A year and a half ago, this would have taken me many weeks to do with just a lathe and none of the time saver bits of tooling I've made around. I thought of paint - I've done very little of that on my projects. But I first want to get a hold of "How (not) to paint a locomotive" - as I've never been good at painting. And my compressor's a bit small for sandblasting; that might soon be rectified though, as I have a bit of extra cash coming my way end of April and a new bigger compressor is a definite on the expenses list :D

Thank you John H. It's a fun little project. You're getting nicely set up in your new house now :thumbup: I'm also looking forward to what you get up to when you get your mill - I know the feeling of anticipation very well; took me quite a while to save up for mine - but boy-oh-boy, what a pleasure; even if it's not the best quality around!

This morning I finished the axle; first I milled a flat for the pulley/retaining ring's grub screw to engage on:

Then I widened the recess on the shaft that I made for oil retention slightly. This also makes the bearing surfaces slightly smaller - hopefully to reduce friction a bit:

The axle was then sawn off to length and the sawn end cleaned up.

To retain the shaft, I decided to turn a pulley instead of just using a plain ring. Some "scrap" aluminium that was used on a previous project was turned down and profiled a bit; I didn't have a suitable radius cutter for the pulley groove, and was not in the mood to grind one up, so just used a largish round needle file to profile it:

The pulley was then just center drilled, drilled out to 5.9 and reamed to 6mm to fit the shaft before parting it off. A quick trip to the drill press and a 2.5mm hole was drilled and threaded M3 for a grub screw to engage on the flat on the axle.

Next I turned up an air connector from some 8mm hex brass. All the threading and profiling for the pipe connection was done first, before drilling it out in the center to 3mm. Doing the drilling out last saves a lot of heartache, especially when doing threading!:

That was then just parted off as well.

In yesterday's post I was wondering about how to polish into the nooks and crannies... That was solved with an ear bud cut in half and mounted in the Dremel. The first one broke off very quickly close to the Dremel's chuck, went into orbit, and landed in an inaccessible part of the shop. To prevent this, I used the other end, and just inserted a piece of straight wire in the plastic "handle". Worked a treat at lowish RPMs on the Dremel:

The engine still needs a base. With my aluminium plate stock running low, I didn't want to use any of that for the base, so wood is the only other viable alternative from my stocks. I _really_ was not in the mood for fiddling with wood today, so I'll make that up when I do a bit of woodworking again. Saves on cleaning up as well :lol:

All the parts for the engine:

And all assembled:

::) I noticed too late there were some drops of oil I didn't wipe down!

Does it run ?
Well... yes, but not as well as I'd hoped on breath power. It takes a fair bit of blowing power to get it running, and it seems the bearing is a bit tight for breath power. It works OK on its side though. And I learned today just how much air friction there is in 1.5m of aquarium pipe! With a 30cm piece of pipe I got it to run; but by blowing straight into the pipe connector it goes quite well.
The first part of the video is on breath power (and NO - those are not farts :palm:) and the second part off the compressor with 20 psi maximum pressure:

The final result reminds me of some women I've met; pretty from far, but up close far from pretty :lol:

:beer:, Arnold

saw:
Nice Arnold :D

Rob.Wilson:
:bugeye: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow: how cool is that mate :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

You really made a fine job of the machining ,, i especially like the casing :bow: :bow: :bow:

It has a lovely wine to it :med: ,,,,, how fast do you reckon it is revving too :smart:

Rob

foozer:

--- Quote from: arnoldb on March 06, 2011, 12:49:02 PM ---
Thanks Robert. Don't worry; you're getting along just fine - you lack a lot of the tools I have now that makes this look simple and quick to do.

--- End quote ---

Its the little things that drive me bonkers, need some 2-56 screws, quarter inch long, do they have them locally NOOO! of course not, Grr. half inch long? sure by the hundreds, so its now to drill and tap a quarter inch plate to thread the screw into and trim em down. And of course Ill put the little plate down when done and never find it again should next time its needed

All good fun tho, regardless of the end product. Best to give it a try, than wonder if it can be done.

Robert

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