Elmer's Kimble engine

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arnoldb:
Cheers David :beer: - I think that must be the same video then (this one)... One chap has drawn it up as a CAD model as well,but like I said, info on actual builds of this one's a bit scarce. I found this video that shows the "cylinder" (vane) movement in the engine block, but the valving and passageways on Elmer's design is different; it uses a rotary valve.

:beer: Thanks rleete; I also would like to see it running!

Nelson, thanks :beer: - I envy you a bit now :D. I wish I had Elmer's book; I just have all the plans from downloads off the Internet.

:lol: - Cheers Dave :beer: - I decided to keep the posts shorter just for you :poke: :lol:

I stole a couple of hours in the shop after work today, and started on the bearing columns. The plans call for 1/4" thick columns, and while I have some 6mm aluminium plate, I decided to rather make them from steel as well. The base will be painted, and keeping the material the same will save some headache when it comes to that. The columns need to be fairly close in thickness, as they will have the flywheel between them, and cranks and linkages on the outsides. I used some more of that 10mm hot-rolled bar (It's cr@p stuff to machine, but I have about 4 meters of it, so it must be put to use :lol:) :

The edges were milled square and to size, one face fly-cut to get rid of the mill scale, flipped in the vise, and then I hogged down the thickness to 6.4mm with a 16mm end mill:

A 0.05mm fly-cut, and the ugly hog-marks were gone and the bit of plate at 6.35mm ;D:

Split the bit of plate down the middle on the band saw:

And then milled the sawn edges down to size.

One block was laid out and the two were then carefully clamped together - ensuring all edges matched up - and the lot clamped in the mill vise and drilled 8mm:

The main axle will be 6mm, but as it will be steel and the bearing blocks are steel as well, I decided that I'll add pressed-in phosphor bronze bushes.

The last step for today was drilling the columns 2.5mm to tap M3 later for the mounting screws:

:beer:, Arnold

ncollar:
Arnold
Keep up the good work, looks great. I love it when a engine comes together.
Cheers :coffee:
Nelson Collar

arnoldb:
Thanks Nelson :beer:

Managed a couple of hours in the shop today :D

I used the mill vise stop as a kind of parallel to get a good angle on the bearing blocks (the bottom corners of the blocks actually rests on top of the vise stop bar), milled off the angle, flipped the blocks over & repeated:

Then milled the tops close to round:

A quick bit of file-work smoothed off the milled facets:

Tapped the bases M3 for the mounting holes:

Turned up a couple of press-fit phosphor bronze bushes:

Then started on the flywheel. I had a ring of phosphor bronze left over from the Coomber engine, so used that for the flywheel rim. One side and the rim was already true, so I just used two 8mm toolbits to offset the rim to allow me to turn it down to thickness - of course, removing the toolbits before starting up the lathe!:

After a bit of turning and boring, I had the flywheel rim:

Then I turned a bit of 70mm diameter aluminium down for a light press fit for the rim (0.02mm over size)- I had to wait a bit for it to cool down before the final finish pass, as I didn't want it to shrink down too much after machining:

I just left the rim outside in the sun for a couple of minutes; it was a searing 38C here today and the sun was beating down mercilessly, so that heated the rim quite enough to allow me to lightly, but quickly tap it into place on the aluminium, and once it cooled it is staying very much put. A careful clean-up on the rim and a face-off and I left things like that to go inside for a bit of time with the air conditioner. :

I did snap a photo of the base with the bearing blocks mounted; at least that's starting to come together now:

The parts just need a final clean-up to remove the last tool marks and a ding on the sub-base that I haven't noticed before, then some paint.

:beer:, Arnold

Doc:
Nice looking base and that's going to be a sharp looking flywheel!

sbwhart:
Going well Arnold :thumbup:

Stew

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