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French Beam Engine

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doubletop:
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

doubletop:
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


 

NickG:
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

sbwhart:
Some nice neat maching their Peter  :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:


Stew

doubletop:
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

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