Author Topic: French Beam Engine  (Read 46356 times)

Offline doubletop

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French Beam Engine
« on: May 15, 2011, 05:57:03 AM »
It's time to start my own topic over here, and give the rest of us have something new to look at while the Brits spend their weekend at the Harrogate show.

This isn't going to be a blow by blow account of what I'm doing as its more about me improving my skills rather than a 'how to'.

As with most of these projects, the start is governed by what materials may be to hand. Some months ago I stumbled across this lump of bronze in the scrap yard.



The flange was an odd shape, wouldn't fit my little mechanical hacksaw, and hand cutting it was way too slow. So I tried a slitting saw in the mill. To start with all went well and I got the lump into more manageable chunks. At the time I had in mind doing Bogs Paddleduck, so was aiming to get two cylinder blocks out of it by way of a start.



Inevitability disaster struck, so it was back to the hand hacksaw.



(OK lesson learned #1, use the right tools for the job.)

Some months passed; having spent the best part of 9 months working on my locomotive, that's now working pretty well, so on to something else. I have a copy of the plans for a beam engine from this French website http://jpduval.free.fr/. I've done his twin oscillator vertical marine engine and the quality of this guys plans is excellent so had no trouble in deciding to do another of his engines. I have no French but sites like Bablefish come in handy if there's something I don't understand.



I started off with the cylinder, no idea why, but to me it's the obvious starting point. The plans imply machining the cylinder from solid, I didn't do that and preferred to fabricate from two parts.

The cylinder was another piece of scrap bronze I picked up from one of the guys in the club. It already had a 10mm hole through the middle so was just a case finishing the outside and running the boring bar through it out to 15.8 mm ready for the reamer later. (no pics)

The valve block was a chunk of bronze from the big flange (above) and I used the arc function on the DRO on my mill to form the seat for the cylinder



The two parts fitted together quite nicely ready for silver soldering later



Next part was the valve chest. Another lump of that flange attacked with the home made fly cutter



And a nice shinny block to work with



That's it for now, more later...............

Pete









« Last Edit: May 15, 2011, 06:02:22 AM by doubletop »

Offline saw

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2011, 06:11:42 AM »
Hi, this should be intressting, good work  :thumbup:
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Offline Imagineering

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #2 on: May 15, 2011, 06:14:56 AM »
Looking good so far Pete,

(from the other guy in the club)  ::)

Offline Bogstandard

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #3 on: May 15, 2011, 09:19:39 AM »
Pete,

Please be careful with those plans, and don't show too much. They are not the free ones from that site, those ones with a few others are copyrighted, and you have to buy them.

They do make into very nice models BTW, very elegant looking.


John
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Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #4 on: May 15, 2011, 03:49:59 PM »
Guys

Thanks for the concern; I'm very much aware of IP issues whether the documents are marked or not, and only posted a copy of what is already available on the website here http://jpduval.free.fr/Liste%20des%20plans/Liste_dossiers_plans.html. In particular http://jpduval.free.fr/Liste%20des%20plans/mv%2016x32%20bal2.pdf ( I can happily replace the .jpg with a link to the .pdf if the moderators wish)

That said I'd recommend going over to the site and taking a look around, OK its all in French but pictures paint a thousand words and there's plenty there to whet your appetite.

Pete

Offline Bogstandard

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #5 on: May 15, 2011, 05:59:02 PM »
Peter,

I do know that the drawing shown is in the public domain, I was just raising concern about the rest of the plans for that engine.

I also scan that site a lot, in fact, one of the engines that I used to make as a commercial undertaking is very loosely based on one of their free plans, I just made it a lot better.

I personally have purchased all the plansets that interested me on that site, and I can say that they are well worth buying. They really do make up into nice models, in fact John Somers has made the sister version of the one you have just started. I know that because I made the flywheel for it. In fact, I turned it into a bit of a teaching post.

http://madmodder.net/index.php?topic=871.0


John
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Offline websterz

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #6 on: May 15, 2011, 06:12:18 PM »
French Beam Engine? Where does the white flag go? :palm:
"In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird.  Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal."
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Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #7 on: May 16, 2011, 02:32:05 AM »
John

All's well; I had no intention of publishing the plans, that's why I pointed people over to the French site. As you say they are well worth buying and the guy deserves a plug. As you know I've made the twin oscillator as well and was very pleased with it. I took the view this one should be equally as good.

websterz

Not sure which version of history you are alluding to but if a flag is required I'm sure those requiring one could work out where to put it.

Anyway preamble over, let's get on with the build..........

Pete

Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #8 on: May 16, 2011, 04:04:18 AM »
This project has been moving on a bit since I started around 7th May, about 10 days ago.

Silver soldering of the cylinder and ‘saddle’ I placed the fluxed saddle in the hearth with three pieces of silver solder  sandwiched between it and the cylinder, cylinder on top. Heating it up the solder melted and the cylinder settled into place.

There was a hairline crack at the ends so rather than risk it I re-soldered the ends by placing 3 small nuggets of solder in flux on the ends and re-heated. One end at a time.

After the pickle, a quick blast in the sand blaster to give it that casting look.



As you can see its been reamed and all the holes and ports drilled and milled. I’m quite pleased with the way it turned out. As Bogs can attest I struggled with soldering this time last year.

Next was all the bits that bolt onto it.



And loosely assembled



Next came the base plate. This was just a mark out, clamp to the mill table  and mill/drill as required. As I’ve said I have DRO’s on my mill but I still took the time to mark it out as a second check that everything was where it should be. The DRO’s make the job relatively easy as you can always get back to any point. The DRO rectangle function helped with getting the three slots finished although I freehand roughed them out first up close to my marked out lines



The standoffs were a quickish job now I have worked out how to easily setup a backstop on my lathe.  I realized that I can install collets in the nose and fit the chuck over the top. So with the ¼” collet and a suitable length of rod I have my backstop. OK somebody is going to tell me you all do that, so do I now.

Cylinder assembly in place



Next was the bearing blocks, relatively simple and done before morning tea today



Now on to the flywheel. This is another donated piece of scrap from Murray (Imagineering). It was a dirty black ring when I was given it and in a quiet moment had stuck it in the lathe to see what I had.



Clearly it was destined to be a flywheel for something, now is it's time.

Serendipity applies from time to time in this game and I just happened to have some 64mm dia ally and the hole in the ring was around 63mm.



It didn’t take long to get it down to a nice fit  with the intent of loctite’ing it in when ready. The next job is to machine some spokes. If that doesn’t work I may resort to a hub and silver steel spokes. I’ve seen both done on the forums



That’s it for now;  because  you have 10 days compressed into 2, things will slow down a bit from now on.

Pete


Offline DaveH

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #9 on: May 16, 2011, 05:33:19 AM »
Pete,

Looking rather splendid :clap:

Like the look of the flywheel.

DaveH

Edit - finger trouble!
« Last Edit: May 16, 2011, 05:58:26 AM by DaveH »
(Ex Leicester, Thurmaston, Ashby De La Zouch.)

Offline saw

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #10 on: May 16, 2011, 05:45:11 AM »
Very nice build  :clap: :clap: :thumbup:
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Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #11 on: May 16, 2011, 06:16:32 AM »
Thanks Dave, Saw, Murray (and apologies for not acknowledging previously).

I went on the search for a flywheel 'How to' which I thought I'd seen on HMES only to be redirected over here to a Bogs post on the subject which uses the same engine flywheel as an example. http://madmodder.net/index.php?PHPSESSID=282779f14615aa033c7f5d9e8cca14a2&topic=871.0

I haven't read it through yet but do recall his preference for collet mounting, which means I may have to comply.

Pete

Offline Imagineering

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #12 on: May 16, 2011, 08:15:35 AM »

Looks like you've caught  :proj:
At the rate you are progressing Pete, you'll have it up & running before the next Club Meeting. :clap:

Murray.

Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #13 on: May 16, 2011, 04:01:43 PM »
Thanks Murray

I don't think I'll get that far and its not about trying meet any particular deadline. However, I find the "eating an elephant analogy" works for me. Focus on the part being made one at a time, work out the plan of attack, do your best and then move on to the next. If you go wrong work out a recovery strategy or start again.

There is an example here



The plans have the base tapped 4mm for studs for the stand offs. I'm using BA throughout and ended up drilling 4BA clearance with the intent of using bolts, I then found the bolt heads would get in the way of the cylinder. I had a number of recovery strategies, including start again. The drawings require some of the other holes to be counter bored so I counter bored these holes and then turned the heads down on some 4BA cheese head screws. I think its now neater than the original not having stud ends peeping out of the holes.

So having a pile of half completed parts is just fooling yourself you aren't a production line and its unlikely that your workshop is equipped to have a number of things on the go at the same time. Of course 'bling' is done at the end, repeated assembly dis-assembly while fitting parts will just mess them up so they have to be blinged again.

Doing it this way means you progressively get to the end. I think this model has different 45 parts I think I've done about 12 so just over a quarter of the way through.

Pete

Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #14 on: May 17, 2011, 05:52:51 AM »
Armed with a copy of the relevant bits Johns "Making a flywheel" post I headed to the workshop. It was all pretty painless really and I was pleased with how it went. However, I had formed the shape of the disk too deep and the 8 mm drill wandered off on the outer ring on one side of the spokes. I pressed on to the end by way of making it a test piece/prototype to prove it was what I wanted






A new blank was hacked off tonight ready to do another one tomorrow.......

Pete






Offline Bogstandard

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #15 on: May 17, 2011, 05:59:32 AM »
Don't worry Pete, excellent first try.

What you have to realise, I have been making them for a long time, and know a lot of the pitfalls, but even so, I still make mistakes, and have to 'modify' on the run to get them looking OK. It is knowing how to rescue when they do go wrong that is the secret.


John
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Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #16 on: May 17, 2011, 06:34:54 AM »
Thanks John; it went pretty well really and your instructions helped immensely. It was also helped with me using the same DRO and making a version of the same flywheel as in your example, albeit with a smaller outer diameter. So it really was a case of do what it says on the box.

I did notice one small anomaly with your instructions that comes about with making a smaller diameter using the large 8mm radius fillet. When setting the X offset for the spokes on the outer diameter the offset moves tangentially to the PCD. As I only wanted a thin outer ring I had to compensate by reducing the Y slightly. I didn't do the maths and just reduced Y 'a bit'. You can see that in an extreme case of a large radius fillets, thick spokes and a thin outer wall moving Y to the PCD - fillet radii and X to 1/2 spoke width - fillet radii you could end up drilling outside the outer diameter. (hope you follow that?)

Thanks again

Pete

Offline DaveH

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #17 on: May 17, 2011, 06:44:17 AM »
Pete,

I think thats a pretty good flywheel  :clap:

It could be rescued - on the fly so to speak   :D     (on the fly) :lol: :lol: :lol:

But there again I'm a lazy o' sod  :)

DaveH
(Ex Leicester, Thurmaston, Ashby De La Zouch.)

Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #18 on: May 17, 2011, 06:56:43 AM »
Dave

I thought of trying to rescue it but opted for completing it as it was to see if there were any other pitfalls. The fact is John instructions are so easy to follow that doing another one, and getting it right, is good training for all the others I may need to make in the future.

Pete


Offline Imagineering

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #19 on: May 17, 2011, 07:41:36 AM »
. . . is good training for all the others I may need to make in the future.

Pete

Does that mean we will see more than one new Engine at the next Meet :whip: :whip: :whip:

Murray.

Offline madjackghengis

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #20 on: May 17, 2011, 08:07:18 AM »
Hi Pete, I guess I missed this build till now, but I'll chime in with my two no make that about half a cent worth, we keep printing funny money and it's hard to get two cents together these days here:  I suspect you ran into a piece of aluminum bronze in that flange, from the damage done to the slitting saw, keep the pieces and cherish them, it is good material to make strong things from, even if it's hard as a witch's heart, and it keeps its shine a long time too.  I suspect I should have bought a more expensive DRO, because I keep reading about arc functions and rectangle functions, and mine has none of that, just bolt circles(PCD) and straight line bolt hole functions.  That arc function, if I read it right, lets you mill an arc in a piece of stock that a cylinder will drop in I am guessing? The rectangle function lets you set up corners and stay within the lines, or am I reading too much into it, as I do rectangles by choosing a corner, milling to the next, changing directions and milling to the next, and so on down through a piece of stock or plate?  All in all, you've got a very nice build going forward and I think it will really shine with the bronze and aluminum setting each other off.  I look forward to seeing it with all the rods, beam and connections in place and ready to put steam to her.  Great job so far.  :beer:  Cheers, Jack

Offline DaveH

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #21 on: May 17, 2011, 12:32:07 PM »
Good one Pete :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

DaveH
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Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #22 on: May 17, 2011, 04:37:21 PM »
Murray

Yes there will be more than one engine at the next club meeting, yours and mine. Regardless of their state of completion. We should also take along the warts to demonstrate its not all plain sailing. My wonky flywheel and your toothless gears come to mind...........

Jack

I did a bit of research on DRO's before I purchased, there are expensive like Newall and Easson and the cheaper Chinese versions such as Sinpo and Sino (there are plenty of others) In the end I went for Sino on the simple differentiation that if they are OK for the Bogmeister they will be fine for me. Later investigation showed that the manual content for Sino and Sinpo is virtually the same indicating to me the controller electronics is the same. It then comes down to the scales which the seem to be differentiated by the number of seals they have. As they are offered on the basis of "the price is the same how long do you want them?" they are much of a muchness. OK its impossible to do the true technical spec assessment MTBF, EMC, IPxx etc etc it becomes a case of you pays your money and take the chance or buy Newall or Easson.

On the functions; as well as the PCD function it has

Smooth “R”  - which allows concave or convex curves to be milled in either the XY, XZ or YZ axis. The YZ mode is what I used to make the 'saddle" it was a bit tedious as it required 250 steps as it incrementally to mill the shape along the X axis

Internal rectangle  - This progressive give the coordinates to mill a pocket in a workpiece as it works you from the center of the shape outwards. External rectangles are just a standard milling function. I used this for the valve chest and base plate

Mid-split - Use edge finder to find the one end of the workpiece, zero the axis, use edge find to find the opposite edge. do mid split and you have the coord for the center on that axis. No need to compensate for edge finder dia. I used this to center the mill on job in the round table, when finding say the x axis I move the Y backwards and forwards slowly to ensure I find the peak of the circular job. Although doing this may not be unnecessary as the perpendicular of the center of any tangent passes through the center of the circle. The experts can put me right on the accuracy of doing it this way compared to an expensive centre finder.

Divide holes on an oblique line - like PCD but a line of holes at an angle, I've only used this to set my 4"  machine vice at the correct angle by setting it to do two holes at an angle at 4" centres and using the DTI in the chuck to ensure the vice is set correctly. It may be the way of setting up to do the relief in the beam later.

There are a few other things in the box but these are the most useful.

Hope that helps

Pete

Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #23 on: May 18, 2011, 02:50:18 AM »
Dave

Apologies I missed acknowledging you; Thanks for the support

Jack

If that's aluminum bronze its certainly nice stuff it even comes out of the mechanical hacksaw with a shine.



Today was another go at the flywheel. This time I started with a flat blank so the drill wouldn't go walkabout.

Drilling completed



Final cut done



Actually this is my third attempt the blank I did last night was a scrapper before it got to the mill it was undersized for the outer ring. All three efforts below. You'll see this time I reduced the spoke thickness after the milling. I'm very happy with the result.



It just needs blending, the bush making, fitting to the outer ring and the whole thing skimmed up.

Pete









Offline saw

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #24 on: May 18, 2011, 04:04:33 AM »
Very nice build, good work  :clap: :clap:
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Offline Imagineering

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #25 on: May 18, 2011, 04:34:20 AM »

Hmmmmmmmm,  I seem to have one of these lurking around myself . . . :D



Missing a Spoke though  :doh:

M.


Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #26 on: May 18, 2011, 05:37:25 AM »
Thanks Saw, plenty more to do yet.

Murray

Nice; but you do need to do something with that CNC setup of yours and fix the missing steps. Your stuff seems to end up being asymmetric........

Pete

Offline Imagineering

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #27 on: May 18, 2011, 07:18:52 AM »
Murray
Nice; but you do need to do something with that CNC setup of yours and fix the missing steps. Your stuff seems to end up being asymmetric........
Pete

Yeah, I'm still trying to cure that BackLash problem. So much for making a Clock - I couldn't machine a round Cog if I tried . . . :(



M.
« Last Edit: May 18, 2011, 07:20:27 AM by Imagineering »

Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #28 on: May 19, 2011, 04:06:53 PM »
Thanks Murray; Having seen them I can confirm these gears mesh and rotate which is pretty weird when you see it for the first time.

Yesterday was just little things; the flywheel outer was attached to the inner. It aligned well and runs true, which is encouraging, the rim of the inner just needs a quick skim down to size. I made the two parts for the eccentric and the crank and that was it. It all fits together nicely, it turns with no tight spots, rubbing or squeaks and not too loose that it rattles around.



The next step is either back to the little bits and bobs on the cylinder or the cross-head. I'm still waiting for the material for the piston rod to be delivered so I'm stuck there for the moment.

Pete

Offline Bogstandard

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #29 on: May 19, 2011, 06:29:09 PM »
Just to add a little interest Pete, this is the sister engine made by John-Som, flywheel as shown in my topic. Yours has the floating beam whereas John's has the column support, but still basically the same size, rough shape etc. A very nice and elegant looking engine.

John stated that the flywheel could do with being a bit heavier on the rim, to allow it to run a lot slower. So you have made the correct decision to make yours as you have.




John
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Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #30 on: May 19, 2011, 10:12:11 PM »
John

Thanks for that very interesting and provides some ideas for finishing. I was hoping it would run slowly. We went out to see the Crofton Beam Engines  last time we were in the UK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUx7kwZqa00

http://www.croftonbeamengines.org/intro.html

Something like that lazy flip flop is what I was hoping to achieve with this, although this engine is a grasshopper and nothing like those at Crofton.

The heavy flywheel is a happy accident as the outer is a piece of scrap that Murray (Imagineering) came across. I had just faced it up to see what it was and it was just about perfect for this.  All I have done since is round the outer edges. You'll see Murray has done a similar flywheel for something he is in the process of building and no doubt will reveal at some point.

It has also occurred to me that most of the parts for this engine would be directly transferable to the engine John Som made. When I've finished I may just make the other parts then I can have one or the other.

regards

Pete

Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #31 on: May 28, 2011, 06:34:21 AM »
I've been a bit remiss this week on posting progress, but progress has been made every day. I was going to do a retrospective of the parts made each day but it was too many photos. So here are a few pics of the current state

Piston and Eccentric



'A' Frames



Valve Gear



Column and Beam



Jig for soldering the fabricated connecting rod



If I hadn't messed up the connecting rod today by giving it too much heat and melting the yoke I would have all the parts completed to the point of everything being machined but not finished. I take the view that spending a lot of time polishing a parts to find there is something wrong with it because it doesn't fit for whatever reason. For example the dimensions on drawings for the crank are incorrect and the crank pin and crank are incompatible, as drawn. I hadn't noticed until the other day. It can also be the case that it is necessary to assemble and disassemble things more than once, potentially messing up any fine finish you may have done.

Hopefully I can get the connecting rod sorted in due course and do some initial tests on air. It then does need a complete strip  down and the parts finishing. This model uses a locitite to hold a lot of the parts in place. I don't plan to do any gluing together until everything is ready for it, otherwise its guaranteed something will have to come apart

Pete


 


Offline NickG

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #32 on: May 28, 2011, 09:55:16 AM »
Nice work Pete, I do love that design and it's been on my list of projects for some time. I've always wanted to make a beam engine. It was buying a beam engine in a junk shop that gradually got me started in Model Engineering - selling it for a profit and using the money for tools and such like. Always wanted to replace it with something worthy!

Nick
Location: County Durham (North East England)

Offline sbwhart

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #33 on: May 28, 2011, 04:51:15 PM »
Some nice neat maching their Peter  :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:


Stew
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Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #34 on: May 28, 2011, 08:51:07 PM »
Thanks Nick and Stew

A beam engine has always been on my list of things to do. Now I've got my loco working I realised I needed to get back to doing something serious, rather a bit here and a bit there. Those French plans are pretty good and have enough in then to try different techniques and with the DRO's on the mill helping considerably with accuracy. As with anything there are things I would have done differently, but that's the learning process.

regards

Pete

Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #35 on: May 30, 2011, 05:34:22 AM »
OK I had to share this with you as soon as I could.

I remade the melted con-rod yoke today, this time in steel to remove the risk of another meltdown. I then assembled the whole thing to see how it all fitted together. It just needed a little skim of the piston, (I’m using O rings so the seal won’t be an issue), adjustment of the length of the piston rod (the design provides for this) and an ‘eyeballed’ setup of the valve timing. With plenty of oil it was a little bit tight but no really tight spots that required a hammer to shift. It felt ‘right’ so I had to give it a go so I quickly made a ¼” x 40 inlet port and connected to the airline. With a flick of the flywheel it was off (this is not a self starter).

This video is the first run, I didn’t even have time to tidy up the bench

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E8lTwT2RNs

Its running on about 10psi of air, not a single gasket or any silicon in sight, just metal on metal. None of the bolts or pins are secured with loctite. You can see one of the pins working its way out, hear the leaking air and see oil seeping out of the bottom cylinder cover.

All in all I’m pretty pleased with that. It just needs a strip down, parts finishing, a bit of paint here and there to highlight things and the obligatory wooden base.

……………….and before Murray says it, it probably now needs its own boiler, but that’s another day.

Pete

Offline sbwhart

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #36 on: May 30, 2011, 05:45:22 AM »
Well done Peter  :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:
 
:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

 :ddb: :ddb: :ddb: :ddb: :ddb: :ddb: :ddb: :ddb: :ddb:

 :nrocks:

Stew




A little bit of clearance never got in the road
 :wave:

Location:- Crewe Cheshire

Offline Bogstandard

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #37 on: May 30, 2011, 05:51:23 AM »
A very nice first run there Pete, congratulations to you.

I am sure that heavier weight flywheel has made all the difference to how it runs. I reckon that when it is fully tuned in, it will tick over at just a few rpm.

I looked at the plans for both these engines, and came to the conclusion that just doubling everything up would make really impressive display models.
I doubt if ever I would have the time to complete just one.


John
If you don't try it, you will never know if you can do it.

Location - Crewe, Cheshire

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Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #38 on: May 30, 2011, 06:18:28 AM »
Stew & John; once again thanks for your support.

I'm pretty pleased with it working out of the box. As you say it should run nicely once, sealed, run in and properly finished. A doubled up version would look impressive although this was at the maximum of the capacity of my little lathe.

This guys plans are pretty good but as I had said previously I did find an error on the crank and there were inadequate dimensions on the A frames that I had to re-draw to work out what where the cutout holes needed to go (attached). None of which would stop me doing another of his at some point.

regards

Pete



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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #39 on: May 30, 2011, 06:20:45 AM »
Well done Pete  :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:


Thats a fine engine you have built  :thumbup:

Rob

Offline HS93

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #40 on: May 30, 2011, 06:22:08 AM »
Nice I like the finnish on the cylinder.realy nice and quick.

Peter
I am usless at metalwork, Oh and cannot spell either . failure

Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #41 on: May 30, 2011, 07:02:55 AM »
Thanks Rob I am pleased with it.

Peter

The method I used for the cylinder is the same as for my previous two engines. This approach is driven by not having large lumps of bronze or brass available to machine the whole thing from solid, or having castings. Machining the radius of the recess for the cylinder in the valve block very slightly under size of the radius of the cylinder means it sits in alignment when soldering. Having got my soldering technique more or less sorted now it went together well. The sand blaster just gives it a nice finish and helped with the 'blending' of the two parts.

The milling of the radius wasn't that quick, each quadrant was around 250 steps, maybe too many, but better small cuts than large gouges that go wrong. Getting the SINO DRO to do the 'smooth arc' function correctly needs a bit of practice. It can seem to be doing the right thing at first and then head off pointing if mid air or somewhere else strange. I now step through the cut sequence to see where it wants to go before switching on the mill. Getting any of the start parameters wrong can lead to apparent odd behavior. Once you get it right you realise its a case of operator GIGO.

Pete

Offline NickG

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #42 on: May 30, 2011, 09:36:24 AM »
Very very nice Pete.  :thumbup:
Location: County Durham (North East England)

Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #43 on: May 30, 2011, 03:35:55 PM »
Thanks Nick

Strip down and finishing starts today

Pete

Offline Doc

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #44 on: May 30, 2011, 09:12:36 PM »
Nice engine good job!

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #45 on: May 31, 2011, 09:53:46 AM »
Nice good work  :clap: :clap: :thumbup:
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Offline kvom

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #46 on: May 31, 2011, 10:14:16 AM »
With the cylinder's sand blast finish looking so nice, why not do the same on the steam chest?

Great build.

Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #47 on: June 01, 2011, 04:11:30 PM »
Doc, Saw, Kvom

Thanks for your support and apologies for my tardy reply;

It was club night last night so was doing a bit of a tidy up for the 'show and tell'. Funny how when you strip it down and re-build it doesn't seem to go back together as well as it did the first time. However, leaks have now been dealt with and tightening of the glands has stiffened things up a bit. I am going to remake the crank pin as the drawings suggest making it from a bolt but the clearance on the bolt shank is too much and the engine now knocks as a result of the tightness of the rest of it.

Kvom

I could have sand blasted the steam chest but felt the contrast added to the overall effect. There are a few cosmetic bits I need to do to finish this off but I'll save the remaining jobs for the weekend. In the meantime I'm fixing a few parts for one of the club members locos.

Pete

Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #48 on: June 06, 2011, 07:40:02 AM »

Offline arnoldb

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #49 on: June 06, 2011, 08:16:54 AM »
Nice one Pete  :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: - Well Done!

Kind regards, Arnold

Offline andyf

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #50 on: June 06, 2011, 09:42:01 AM »
That looks really good, Pete!

It looks really interesting when running - the beam and all those linkages mean there's a lot to watch. Thanks for the build log.

Andy
Sale, Cheshire
I've cut the end off it twice, but it's still too short

Offline PekkaNF

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #51 on: June 06, 2011, 10:57:24 AM »
Beutiful engine. Looking it running is mesmerizing! I found myself thinkking: How are all those joints and bearings lubricated?

Thank you,
Pekka

Offline DaveH

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #52 on: June 06, 2011, 05:32:52 PM »
Pete,

That's a very nicely made engine - runs very nice too :clap: :clap: :clap:

Liked the video :thumbup:

 :beer:

DaveH
(Ex Leicester, Thurmaston, Ashby De La Zouch.)

Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #53 on: June 06, 2011, 05:40:36 PM »
Thanks Arnold - Something for your new lathe?

Andy - Thanks yes a lot of little parts needed to be made and I must admit I had to psych myself up when it came to doing some of them them. Mostly it was all in the mind and once I'd started a part they went quite well.

Pekka - An oil can; I squirted a lot of oil on all the joints and then ran it on air for about an hour. Degreased and cleaned it all up and then a little more oil and a coat of WD40. Its going to spend more time sitting around looking pretty than running, so will be oiled as and when it needs it.

Dave - I got a bit carried away with the video. After seeing Ton Soms video Bogs had posted it made me realize Windoze Movie Maker did a bit more than I was used to using.

Thanks again guys

Pete

 

Offline NickG

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #54 on: June 06, 2011, 05:54:59 PM »
Really impressive Pete, that's made me want to do the French beam engine more, should I promote it further up my list?!  :lol:
Location: County Durham (North East England)

Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #55 on: June 06, 2011, 06:55:14 PM »
Nick

As I think I had said earlier in the post, this guys plans are excellent and nicely detailed. I found one error on the crank and the dimensioning on the A frames wasn't sufficient that I had to re-draw them to work out the cutouts. (see attached). I also converted all the threads to BA as I have a stock of small head BA screws.

The place where things could go wrong, and I only realised this after I finished it and was reading an article on a grasshopper in a recent ME. The geometry of these engines is such that if it is not built accurately enough it can lock up as there is no cross head on the piston so there can be a tendency for it to cock over. The piston yoke is adjustable so I think that's where any errors are resolved.

That's two of his I've done now and will no doubt do another at some point.

Pete

Offline PekkaNF

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #56 on: June 07, 2011, 06:12:57 AM »
Pekka - An oil can; I squirted a lot of oil on all the joints and then ran it on air for about an hour. Degreased and cleaned it all up and then a little more oil and a coat of WD40. Its going to spend more time sitting around looking pretty than running, so will be oiled as and when it needs it.

What kind of oil do you use? Does it leve any solid residue and gunk up when left alone long time? I have had bad luck with so called sewing machine oils. Some g#n oils dried up too.

One further question about cylinder lubrication: Do you have a mist lubricator on pneumatic line or do you spray a little of oil before each run and spin it before power up?

Pekka

Offline doubletop

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #57 on: June 07, 2011, 06:43:15 AM »
I used mountain bike "wet" cycle oil, as that is what I had. I just gave a generous squirt down the inlet port before I connected the airline. It wasn't on there very long as I cleaned up after the run and then sprayed with WD40.  If I build a boiler I'll make a displacement lubricator like the one on this other engine of mine (which incidentally is also from JP Duval plans)



John Bogstandard provided the link for the lubricator to me some time back

Quote

http://www.roundhouse-eng.com/faqs.htm#14

Go down the page on here, and it shows everything you need to make a working displacement lubricator. You can make either the inline or offset, they both work as well as each other. You could even modify it a bit and put a drain in the bottom, to save having to use a syringe to get the water out.

http://modelsteam.myfreeforum.org/ftopic7859-0-asc-15.php


Pete



Offline nel2lar

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #58 on: February 23, 2019, 10:00:22 PM »
It down right sucks when people use photo host to use their photo and when something happens the PICS disappear. It should be a must that the group take control over all photos that they stay intact or delete the whole thread.
That is my rant, Good day
Nelson C

Not the other Nelson

Offline awemawson

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Re: French Beam Engine
« Reply #59 on: February 24, 2019, 02:59:15 AM »
It's a difficult one Nelson. I was always banging on about not using external hosts but keeping photos on the forum server even before the debacle with a well known photo host site.

But some threads whose pictures have been lost this way still contain useful information in the text so just to delete such threads would be a shame.

Andrew Mawson
East Sussex