Member postings for Peter Hoerlein

Thanks for the advice. I will try the casting first as an experiment and new experience. If this does not work out I will go the fabrication route.

This reply is probably a bit late. My father started a Vulcan but never finished it or got it working. I inherited his machines and tools and have recently retired so started to restore the Vulcan and get it running. I ran into the same issue with the links and entablature bosses. Initially I made the two links that fit to the entablature bosses slightly longer so that they would bolt centrally to the bosses, However this puts the parallel motion out and the connecting rod had about 0.010" lateral movement over its stroke. Solution was to re-make the links to standard size and hence all 4 links are now exactly the same size and as per the drawing. I machined the old bosses flush to the channel on the entablatures then drilled a hole through them at the correct centre position and silver soldered in a set of new bosses and now the links are bolted centrally. The connecting rod now runs perfectly true and the repair turned out very neat. I can send some pictures if you are interested.

I have had the Vulcan running on air and it runs well. I am currently building the governor valve and regulator as described by Edgar T Westbury in later editions of Model Engineer. I will have to make my own castings for the bridge and control arm bracket which will be interesting as I have never done this before. Hopefully it will look like the model on the cover of September 1967 Issue of ME when finished.

I have all the original ME build article which was very helpful in restoring the Vulcan.

Good luck with your build.

Regards Peter