Gerhard's Lady Steph

Just adding my bit here.

Trefelux is for stainless steel.

WD 40 cutting fluid is pretty good.

Rocol RTD is much better it is a paste and can be thinned with WD 40 to make it easier to apply by a small artists paintbrush.

Normal WD-40 will work well on aluminium as will paraffin.

Can't find anything called 'Trefelux' on Google, so I assume you're talking about 'Trefolex' ? If so, where did you get the idea that it's specifically for stainless ? I can't find anything on Google saying that, just that it's sold for the 'drilling, tapping & reaming' of 'metals and plastics' (Cutting Compound 2KG (2.5LTR) ByTrefolex). I've used it for years, on everything from nylon to gauge-plate.

40 years in a machine shop making components for anything from nuclear submarines to formula one racing cars and sewerage pumps. The post was offered as friendly advice from a wealth of personal experience. I apologise if my advice offends you and will happily bow to your superior knowledge from a ten minute Google search.

Oh, and I do apologize for the typo, yes you are correct, it is trefolex. Have a really great day, you earned it.

Sigh...

Let's have some peace in the forum, there is enough weapon rattling in the world around us.

Was at MK metals for some bright steel bars, so I can start the main bearing pedestal and the crankshaft. Nice to have a local shop and some good chat. And the prices are better than on the internet.

Your columns look impressive. The lady Stephanie is a lovely looking engine. I am currently part way through my first engine build, and doing a simplified grasshopper engine from drawings I found on t'internet. I may try something like the lady Stephanie next.

Thanks for that Mark. There is not much there yet, but so far I am happy with it.

There are some drawings for Lady Stephanie on the Internet as well, it is a slightly larger version using no castings. And it is metric. (I always have a calculator next to me as I cannot get my head around the imperial system)

The one on the internet is from De Waal.

For sure a nice machine, but I do like working with castings, having built 3 Stuart models over the years.

Looking forward to hear or see more from your build.

Mark / Gerhard, I can't say I enjoyed making the Lady Stephanie Beam Engine. Mine is not quite complete, just the final governor parts to finish it off. For me there were too many tiny parts to make, of which some got lost in my workshop and had to be remade. I plan to make something larger for my next project and also need to spend more time on my Pansy Loco to move it along.

Alan.

Alan,

just looked at your album - the Lady Stephanie looks good, and there is not much missing. The flywheel you are using has many more spokes than the one I got with the casting set.. Is it a replacement?

Hi Gerhard, it is actually a cast iron weight from, I think I am calling it right, a dumbell. As in weight lifting. Aldi were selling a pack of 4 for a few pounds so I thought they might come in use for flywheels and bought a pack. Because the weight bore was much greater than the flywheel bore in the drawing, I had to make a boss to fit the weight bore so that I could reduce the inner diameter to fit the shaft. I could have removed more spokes but decided to leave it the way it ended up. If need be I could still take out the additional spokes if I wanted to.

Alan