Member postings for Colin Heseltine

Br,

I had to use the better positioned holes for the mount to the standard otherwise the valve chest is even more out of alignment with the eccentric.

I don't want to end up remaking everything. Hopefully it wont look too bad by the time it has a coat of paint on it along with reversing gear..

Colin

Jason,

Thanks for that. I will try and get that bit made tomorrow.

Dr_GMJN,

Your wish is my command.

You will also spot that the 5 holes are not quite centered where they should be.

It is what it is.

Hopefully it will run a lots better and look a lot better when finished.

Colin

Well I opted to mill out the poorly formed ports. In order to do this I needed to remove the studs the previous builder had fitted for the top and bottom covers in order to mount in the vice.

The studs decided to fight back. Well one of them did. Five on the upper cover end came out easily. Four of the lower ones came out relatively easily. The last one fought back and said no way am I leaving this casting in one piece and promptly sheared flush wit the top of lower face. Bugger I thought.. I actually said something worse.

I knew drilling it out would be fraught as it needed a 2mm tapping drill size and if this wandered being such a thin drill it would go down the casting in preference to the stud.

I set it up in the vice and refitted and bolted the top cover down.

This now gave me a fixed location. I then used my centering scope for the first time in anger to locate on the hole in the cover.

Once located i remove the top cover and the studs. Fitted a 2mm slot mill and very gingerly raised the table to bring cutter and stud together. Ran at approx 1500rpm and worked my way through the stud. Once remnants cleared out was able to run 7BA tap back down the hole. That was quite a relief.

Blued up the port face on the cylinder and lightly scribed a box around the area to be milled out. This was my sanity check to ensure I had my DRO settings correct. Clamped in vice and set level and set up a 3/16 slot mill.

Initially put in four corner holes at 1/8" depth, then reduced the DOC to 1/16" and milled out first layer. Dropped down to the 1/8" point and took out another layer. I was hoping to get away with this but needed another 1/16". Looked good at this point so them went round the periphery with a full depth cut removing final/1/64" all round.

Pleased with that now need to make the brass insert.

I have never used JBWeld before so am not sure how much smaller I need to make the brass insert. I assume I need the JBWeld as thin as possible. Is it fairly thin as soon as it is mixed. I was think that when the brass insert is pushed into place to use, either flypress or arbor press to push it as fully home as possible.

Colin

Having had a much closer look and spotting some "white stuff" in the miss-shaped port it looks as though there is a small blow-hole between the exhaust port and the miss-shaped inlet port or more likely when drilling the port through from the end of the cylinder it was drilled too far. It has possible had some filler put in somehow. Looks like it will definitely have to be the brass insert.

I think the insert will have to be at least 1/4" thick as it is now going to have to replace the port slots in their entirety.

Colin

Thanks Jason and Br.

Need to have a think?

Colin

Jason,

Certainly not on page 22 Fig & cylinder in my book. But my eyes have finally found it on the drawing you sent. Having stared at it for some length of time.

The exhaust port is only 3/32". The gap between the lower inlet and the exhaust varied from 1/32" to 1/16"

The upper inlet is correct as regards distance from exhaust and its width.

What would be recommendation to correct.? Preferably not scrap it.

Colin

Does anyone have the exact port dimensions for a Stuart 10V or more particularly the depth. The ports on this one I am attempting to resurrect are not cast very well. especially the lh one in the picture above. I am not sure how they are would effect the running of the engine if they are left as is. Is it worth filling the left hand port with JB Weld and then re-machining to the correct size/location. The only dimension I can find anywhere on the plans is the width of 9/32". I assume because the slide valve is recess is 9/32" long then the distance between the outer edge of an inlet port and the outer edge of the exhaust port should also be 9/32".

The dimensions I would like to confirm are shown as A,B and C in the drawing below.

The engine turns over quite easily by hand. It does not appear to be tight anywhere. The piston is very free in the bore (maybe too free). BUT It needs a quite high PSI to get it to run.

Thanks,

Colin

Edited By Colin Heseltine on 03/02/2021 16:38:33

With the mods to the piston rod and the gland nut thread in the bottom cover I temporarily assembled the engine this afternoon. Had a few issues with it locking up when tightening the nuts on the valve chest but eventually sorted this and finally had it running briefly with the air line nozzle blowing into the inlet port.. Gradually speeded up as it freed up. Ran it for about 5 minutes, it was a lot better after squirted some clock oil into the steam chest.

Will now sort out the cladding and pipework. Whilst i am painting it I can continue with the reversing gear.

Colin

Jason,

Thank for that confirmation. This piston rod is 1.443", so it is 37thou too long. (just under 1mm too long). Plus the piston rod sticks out of the top of the piston by another 10 thou.

Another minor issue is that the piston rod gland nut does not screw fully down. The hole is not fully tapped, had a lot of packing in it. But the cross-head is very close. If I can get a tap then can deepen the hole little deeper, put a bit less packing in and the cross-head will then clear.

Fixing someone else's poor work takes a little longer than you would think.

Colin

Dr_GMJN,

My problem was the fact that the bearing mounting bolts were not very well placed which Is why I fitted the bearings and bolted them down before drill/reaming.

I have now come across another little problem. Having machined the sole plate flat this has now lowered the cylinder by six or seven thou. The piston now hits the top of the cylinder and prevents the crank from going over centre.

I have the "Building a Vertical Steam Engine" book but I think there are a few errors in it. On page 64 it gives the length of the piston rod as 45mm PLUS the 4mm and 6mm threaded portions giving total of 55mm. The plain section on this engine is approx 37mm long. Because of this the piston bottom is 2mm above the inner face of the lower cover. I have a feeling that 45mm in the book is the overall length and the plain section should be 35.719mm (1 13/32" not 45mm.

I think I am going to have to shorten the piston rod by around 1.5mm.

What is the clearance between the top of the cross-head and the bottom of the piston gland. This looks very close. Again I think I am going to have to take a 0.5mm skim of the top of the cross-head to bring it down to the 10.5mm given in the book.

Colin

Was going to use angle plate and mount the fixture to it, but realised did not need the angle plate, just had to but fixture plate on edge in vice. All was square so centred on the middle of the bearing and went through upper bearing with centre drill and then with 3mm drill followed by 6mm drill. At this point I stopped and fitted long center drill and checked was still on centre in lower bearing.

All was okay so put 3mm and 6m drill through the lower bearing. Followed this with 9.8mm drill through both together. Followed this with 9/32" reamer. Then tried 9/32" drill blank. It fitted.

Removed the bearings and then made small mandrel to hold the bearing by the bore. Used the Cowells lathe and turned the bearings down to final dimensions.

Refitted bearings to the sole plate to drill for pair of oil cups. Where are the b....y cups. I had them two weeks ago. Searched high and low through workshop and office. No sign whatsoever. Just about to order some and then decided to make my own. Again used the Cowells lathe as can work in the office in the warm at eye height.

When happy with a pair I drilled and tapped the holes in the bearings.

Now to sort a few studs out.

Colin

Edited By Colin Heseltine on 30/01/2021 21:31:51

I felt was going to have difficulty doing the bearings in the normal way by drilling/reaming or boring them in lathe and the turning the bosses down and then trying to fit them onto poorly aligned bolt /stud holes.

I elected to fit them to the sole plate first, would rill/ream whilst fitted to the sole plate, then remove and turn bosses to length etc.

I started by putting the sole plate in the vice and using the DRO on the Cowells to locate the co-ordinates of all four existing holes.

When I had noted these down I fixed (use this word advisedly) the bearing in place with carpet double sided tape and spotted the holes with a centre drill.

All appeared great so far. Removed the bearings and then used 1mm pilot drill to locate the bearings in vice to drill the holes to 7BA clearance.

One worked perfectly, the rear bearing had moved and one hole was offset by around 1/2 its diameter in two directions.

I pondered this for a while. Do I get spare casting and start over or attempt repair. Opted for the repair. The 7BA clearance should be 2.55mm but I had done it at 2.5mm. I turned a short brass pin 2.52mm dia, Loctited the hole and used a punch to drive the pin into the hole then left on a radiator to go off for an hour. Reset the sole plate inthe vice and re-checked the co-ordinates of the holes. This time I was able to use one bolt to hole the bearing firmly in place whilst drilling the 1mm pilot hole. Removed when drilled and opened up to size.

Both bearings now fit and are held down by bolts.

Next task to mount vertically on an angle place and drill ream the hole for the crankshaft.. What can go wrong??

Colin

I also have a Paragon SC2. Up to now have used it to bake high temperature paints and also to heat treat a couple of chilled castings. Also intend having a play with glass melting.
colin

Many moons ago I bought a built Stuart 10V on Ebay. When it arrived I had a quick look and due to work commitments it got put on one side. I have recently finished two of the Alyn Foundry engines and then saw Dr_GMJN's build of his Stuart 10V and this prompted me to take a look at the one bought a few years ago.

I quickly found a few problems. The main bearing bolts on one side were loose, so I tightened them up. Bad move, engine locked up completely. Decided to strip it completely, repair any issues, add a few bits and paint it.

The bearings were a major problem, they had been drilled completely out of alignment and needed 25 thou of shims underneath both the flanges on one of the bearings. Also found he had filed the base and the sole plate but not very squarely and the locations of the bolts for the main bearings were all over the place. Some things I would have to live with others would be fixed. New bearings extrusion ordered, along with valve chest cover, drain valves etc. along with small 7ba nuts. Also 5BA and 7BA taps and dies.

Whilst waiting for the bits to arrive I started on the steam chest. The slots in the steam valve for the fixing nut were filed but not square and to depth. Also the nut was tapped at an angle. Bit of work with a 3mm slot mill in the Cowells Mill saw the looking a lot better a new nut was fabricated and tapped. The steam chest had also been fitted back to front and had an out of square piece of gauge plate for a cover. By now the ordered parts had arrived and so I machined up the new cover. Started this on the Cowells with a flycutter but it was so chilled around the edges I migrated to the big mill and used a carbide facemill.

The cylinder and end covers appeared to have been made quite well and all I did with these was drill the cylinder for drain valves.

In one of my other post you can see a fixture plate I made to use initially on this engine. I was able to clamp the soles plate down and facemill the bearing platforms and the standard mounts to get them all level.

Then flipped the casing over and flattened the bottom. I used the same clamp but files the bar so that it would fit between the lower inside of the casting and and not be proud of the top of the base whilst being machined.

Colin

Nigel,

The plate is dowelled to the tenon in the vice. As it was all machined whilst assembled I am loathe to split it. I think if I need another small one I will make one. I intend making a much smaller pone for the Cowells mill.

I have in fact just recently made a very large fixture plate for the mill. It is dual purpose, in that it is used to hold the big indexer (200mm chuck) which is too wide for the table slots. It has rows of 10mm tapped holes and 8mm reamed holes for dowel pins. The indexer is around 85Kg's and the fixture plate is at least another 6kg if not more. Luckily the large piece of tooling plate came FOC, otherwise it would have cost me over £100.

Colin

Having read this thread through, I am just wondering what comments I might get regarding issues I might experience, if any, whilst machining the Sole Plate for a Stuart10v on the fixture plate I have just made.

I have just finished making this fixture plate to be able to hold smaller more awkward bits in my large vice.

I am only intending to take off a couple of thou or so to square up (level) the various mounting points. I am intending to run a face-mill lightly over the surface to do this. The previous owned had filed them but not very square. The sole plate is held down by metal bracket which has the bar (located in the bearing recesses) welded to it.

The biggest problem I have with the engine is that he had machined the bearing bores so badly that it needed a 24thou shim under both sides of one of the bearing block to free the crank up. When I got it it only spun the crank if the bearing hold down bolts were loose. The recesses for the bearings are level with one another.

Colin

The tariff may say you must have a Smart Meter with that particular tariff, but if they cannot fit one (for whatever reason) then they will still let you on that tariff.

I am on 3-phase and I am not aware of any domestic smart meters that can handle 3-phase.

Colin

Almost finished a small fixture plate. My mill is Bridgeport sized and has a large vice and I have found trying to hold small stuff a bit awkward. Particularly at the moment as I am trying to resurrect a Stuart 10V which I bought on Ebay a few years ago.

I wanted the plate to be able to just be dropped in the vice and for it then to be level and square. Cut a 7" length of BMS 25mmx30mm section and squared it up on the mill then drilled/tapped three M8 holes down the X -axis centre line.

I had bought a 200mmx80mmx15mm for this job. Set it level in lathe and brought the two ends close to size and then used face-mill to clean up what was to become the bottom. Turned it over and then drilled and counterbored three M8 holes along the center to match previously machined bar. Bolted the two pieces firmly together and then back into the vice to drill and ream two dowel holes. With dowels made and fitted I then squared up the ends and sides and ran face-mill over the top face. Hopefully all is now square and solid and flat.

Then proceeded to layout a hole pattern for M6 tapped holes (two rows of 9 and two rows of 8), these were then centred, piloted, drilled, lightly c'sunk then tapped M6.

Followed this up with 3 rows of 5.8mm holes (8, 4 and 8), ready to ream at 6mm for location dowels. These were again centered, piloted, drilled and very lightly c'sunk. These dowels will allow me to set stuff up parallel to the X or Y axis very easily.

Part way through all this I then found I did not have a M6 machine reamer, but luckily my mate down the road has spares and am collecting an MT1 and chucking reamer tomorrow.

The first job it will be used for is getting the Stuart 10v sole plate flat. The original builder had filed it but the mounts for the stand (particularly) and the bearing mounts are not perfectly flat and luckily are not at the required dimension so I have scope to correct it.

Colin

Edited By Colin Heseltine on 24/01/2021 17:56:15

See what you mean. I had not thought of that until you said.

Colin