Stuart Twin Victoria (Princess Royal) Mill Engine

Ah but did the museum just put it on planks? It's original working enviroment may have been different

Probably, but it's a fairly large working steam engine, bolted to a wood covered floor. Good enough for me!

I was thinking of pasting brick paper around the inside of the wheel well to give a bit more interest too.

I'll mess about with some CAD of different options, and might even try a small section of parquet flooring to see how it looks with the various features like Ramon's concrete MDF bases etc.

I suppose I could get some 1" ply and make a temporary base for setting up. After all everything will need setting up again after painting. I can't finalise & paint the beds yet until I've figured out what holes will be needed for whatever cylinder drain pipework there will be.

I suppose you could have a "screeded" area that extends out beyond the base of the machines and a flush parquet walkway around and between them which would reduce the amount of work needed but still allow you a timber floor. Add a few gridded panels to cover pipe runs and that could look quiet good.

Also worth bearing in mind that what may look like floorboards in mill buildings were infact "board on edge" where you would have substantial say 4" x 12" boards stood on edge and butted up to each other for a solid floor. These fetch a premium now for resawing into floor boards.

If you are going for paper bricks you can also get good looking A3 sheets of parquet too.

Edited By JasonB on 18/10/2022 13:53:04

All due respects Dr. but a museum is not a working environment.

Roy

I can see your point Doc but even in a museum setting I would sincerely hope there was a very supportive foundation directly below those floor boards even if they are around 4-5inches thick.

I would say that most full size engines of your build type were mounted on either concrete or stone block foundations which were usually, though not always, higher than the floor itself. Floor 'decoration' is another matter of course.

Just had a quick look through a volume of the Textile Mill Engine which confirms this, some engines appearing to be directly mounted to the floor, others on 'plinths' of varying thickness. To my mind the plinth gives the engine another dimension so I've always done that. but it isn't something that's cast in stone (oops!)

I'll look forward to seeing your result

R

Though having just flicked through George Watkins' " the steam engine in industry" there are a few images in there of timber floors, plate 52 below would be closest to your engine.

I did put my Filer & Stowell engine onto a wooden floor as I found old B&W photos that showed this. However they were often use din timber mills in the US so far more likely to have had the buildings constructed of timber than here

Edited By JasonB on 18/10/2022 14:14:07

Edited By JasonB on 18/10/2022 14:21:29

Thanks guys - I'll figure something out and see what it looks like.

Roy - OK, the museum isn't a working environment, but the image Jason just posted appears to be?

End of the day it's not a scale model of a specific engine, so if steam engines can be mounted on wood - or at least within a wooden floor environment - then why not do something a bit different?

Doc,

I quite agree for as though some of the larger engine houses show little evidence of wood flooring, quite a few of the smaller, such as the one in Jason's image, do.

Albeit an engraving, here's a good example that might be worth considering - not 'parquet' I know but a lot less work involved

I thought that was quite a large engine room as the flywheel is said to be 32ft dia and weighs 50T

Photo of a similar engine to Ramon's 2nd illustration here

Edited By JasonB on 18/10/2022 16:35:09

That's a cracking image Jason, don't suppose you have one of the valve side too.

I wasn't referring to the engine but the room floor area which though long appears quite narrow - some of the rooms that housed twin engines appear quite massive in area by comparison. Whilst there may be the odd one or so I can't recall any examples of wood floors in the larger rooms in any of the Watkin books I have but it's been quite a while since I was gleaning images for detail from those.

As you are aware, I thought for a while that Doc was wanting to replicate a full size engine. As the intention is to build a nice model based on full size then it comes down to 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' and I'm sure we will see just that at journeys end.

Regards - R

Not one but two of the other side click on them a couple of times and then the zoom tab comes up and you can see a lot of detail

Edited By JasonB on 18/10/2022 18:09:15

Thanks Jason, downloaded and saved

Ramon - the idea was/is to build the Proncess Royal version of the Twin Victoria, pretty much to the plans from the magazine. For a second model and with my limited experience I think it's about the right amount of scale detail; it was never going to be some kind of perfect replica.

I'm all for trying to make a few minor embellishments like glass oilers etc, but I'm also fine with it being 'semi-scale', such as with the main bearings we discussed previously. I suppose that attitude might seem strange, but I think I'll be happy with it once it's complete.

The parquet thing was just a whim, and since I've not seen it before on an engine model I thought I'd have a go. If it looks a bit naff I'll bin it and try something else - probably plain wood.

BTW the very first thing I noticed at the Midlands show last Saturday was the Twin Victoria on the Stuart Moldels stand opposite the main entrance. I was surprised to see it fitted to two separate free-standing base blocks (at least I couldn't see that they were connected by anything other than the crankshaft).

Morning Doc, yes I do now realise that's how you see it, just that initially I thought your intention was to improve on the PR improvement so to speak.

Even the basic Twin Vic is a nice model in it's own right so any embellishment however minor will improve matters. 'At the end of the day' the important matter is to enjoy what you do and how you do it.

My input has always been based not on what you should do but what I have done and found to be the easiest to achieve an accurate result with minimal effort. I'd like to think that I have never made a comment on anything without previous experience of it and at times an example to show for it. Advice comes from different directions on any forum or indeed club room - but it's the individual that makes the choice and hopefully enjoys the process as a result.

On that note your thoughts on a Parquet flooring may be a whim to some but it would certainly be an eye catcher from a display point of view. My thoughts are based on planking ships decks with similar width but much longer lengths of wood using cyano as said. I'm not sure I would want to tackle a parquet floor with CA as it can be difficult to control but I see no reason why (apart from its a big commitment) you should not give it a go. If you draw it out in Cad as you say with edging and all and place the model on top you'll soon get the idea of whether it's worth doing or not. Jasons idea of inserted areas of it is a good suggestion too.

If you decide to go for plain wood may I suggest using lime - readily available in strips from various sources - an easy wood to work that takes a stain well and has a fine grain too - the latter being something to really consider from a scale effect point of view.

I can't recall seeing the ST Twin Vic display model but to my mind a firm sub base on which to construct the model base is an absolute necessity - the firmer the better too as it's easy to wring something if not. Whether you then decide to put it on separate plinths is down to choice.

Heres a top view of mine - main base is about 1" thick multi layer ply, a scrap piece I coined from somewhere - the plinths are MDF. Apart from the Corliss base which was a constructed affair all other engines have been on kitchen work top chip board with a hard wood border - very rigid.

All the best - R

Edited By Ramon Wilson on 19/10/2022 08:45:49

So today (actually yesterday at this time), I centre drilled the other end of the soldered brass bearing block, and did a few bits of lathe housekeeping ready for making the bearings.

I can’t find Jason’s procedure, but I think I needed to use a thin parting tool to make the central groove where it fits into the housing. Question is how do I grind the steel tool exactly perpendicular? If the edge is slightly skewed, it’ll make a groove with a ridge at one end or the other. I’m concerned it won’t seat properly. Also, can you move a parting blade side-to-side to make continuous cuts?

I also have an insert parting tool which I believe is deliberately skewed to aid break-through into a bore, or to form a point which breaks off when parting solid.

Thanks.

Bottom of page

If using your belt sander make a simple guide to keep it square, bit of MDF would do Other points covered in my post.

Thanks Jason, so “feeding in and then traversing side to side”, to me that means I’m using the parting tool like a normal cutting tool, but wouldn’t that just bend the tool because there are no cutting edges at the side? Or do you mean feeding in to a set depth, moving out, stepping over then feeding in again?

Once most of the material has been removed by plunging the last few thou can be done by moving sideways but only advance the tool a thou or so at a time, the tool will cut it.

If you are worried about leaving metal at the ends due to the grind of your tool a shallow 2-3 thou undercut can be used at either end.

Made a start.

Centred the brass block:



Drilled to 10mm so I could a) get a boring bar in, and b) give clearance for the crank spigot so I could test fit the crank shaft all the way along it’s journal:



Faced off to form a thrust face:



Then bored to a tight running fit on the crank:



Then took intermittent cuts on the square to form the o/ds of the bearing side faces:





Unfortunately this partially broke the solder joint; when I test fitted the crank again, oil slowly bubbled out of the joint.

Anyway, thought I might as well carry on, so formed the bearing holder groove with a parting blade - deeper cuts at each end:



Test fitted until the halves just about closed:



It fell apart after final parting, but after cleaning the faces it looked fine:











There is a bit of a gap left when the cap is screwed down to a good running fit. If fully tightened it gets a bit too tight for comfort (but still turns). I expect once it’s been lapped in it’ll be spot-on:



The parted-off face needs thinning a bit, but I can do that with wet & dry on the surface plate.

I did make a mistake and over-bored a bit of the block at first, but hopefully I’ve got enough left to clamp in the chuck and make the other. Anyway, so far so good. Thanks for the advice.

Hmm I thought there was something not quite right when I was test fitting and reducing the bearing diameters - it seemed like even though I was taking more off the inner flanks, it wasn't making a proportional difference to the fit. Eventually, despite finding it difficult to get consistent vernier readings (for obvious reasons now) they seemed to be a perfect fit, so I carried on.

It turns out that I've not ended up with straight sides, so the bearings are sitting on an edge at either side of the housing:



Both bearings are the same.

I set up the parting tool with a dti so that it was moving straight in and out of the workpiece, but looking closer at my parting tool, it seems to be tapered:



I knew it was a V-shape:



But I assumed its profile...



Would have made - if anything - a reducing taper the other way, such that the flanks wouldn't touch the work during feeding in. I still can't figure out what's going on there. Anyway it is what it is, and it's properly screwed the bearing fit.

Very, very annoying to find out after all that work. I can't really correct it either, because the machined grooves are now too small a diameter to be fit against the housing as it should be.

So I have a choice to make - leave it knowing it's wrong, or re-make the entire brass parts of the bearing. Functionally it probably won't make much difference...but it's wrong.