Kittiwake Major - A Bit of a Mystery!

An extremely generous forum member (I'll let him decide if he wants to identify himself, but he is a forum regular!) has given me a very old set of part-machined castings for an Edgar T. Westbury.

It seems ETW, published Kittiwake in 1944 following 'extensive testing'. In his book on Model Petrol Engines he claimed it was a development of the 1935 Kiwi Mk 1. Thjis is a bit of a porky as it was a 1930 design and the bits of Kittiwake came with an original (and very delicate) Geo. Kennion Blueprint of a drawing dated 1930 with the ball bearings and wet sump claimed as improvements over Kiwi! The castings are for a water cooled engine, although the drawing shows an air-cooled one. It has a very fine v-arrangement for the push-rod operated overhead valves.

In ME 2275 of 1944, ETW described the engine as a 15cc air-cooled one.

In ME2359 of 1946 FH Miller also described the 15cc version.

In ME 2766 of 1954, AE Clauson wrote a letter about a 30cc Kittiwake Major.

Now the interesting thing is that the 1930 blueprint is for an air-cooled Kittiwake Major, but these castings are clearly for a 30cc water-cooled version.

The only example I can find on the web is a 15cc version, air cooled and with the wet sump for the gearbox missing.

Clearly the Kittiwake story is not a simple one! Can anyone help me with any of the three articles/letter mentioned above?

Also what is the best way to remove light surface corrosion from aluminium alloy castings without damaging them?

Neil (very excited...)

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You are going to need a bigger lathe.

Nick

Looking at the castings, they are clearly pressure die castings and of excellent quality. That suggests he was planning mass production, perhaps that's why he didn't publish.

Neil

According to Ron Chernich's Index of ETW's engines the only engine that seems to fit the bill is Kittihawk :4SOHV 1.76 cu in drawn as PE18 . Whether there is a water cooled option on the plan you are probably in a better position to find out than me - he certainly offered both options for Kiwi MkII. The fount of all ETW wisdom is Eric Offen - Jason can probably put you in touch.

HTH

Rod

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Garryflex block [cut to useful shapes] lubricated with Solvol [Autosol]

MichaelG.

I'm pretty sure Kittyhawk is Kittiwake Major. PE18 fits the Kittiwake Major drawings. The MHS page says "A 30cc air-cooled OHV four-stroke engine. (Vols. 91-92)1 1/4in bore x 1-7/16in stroke, this is an enlarged version of PE5."

The 'Kittyhawk' found easily on the web me in the fifties appears to have been fabricated and has a very different arrangement for the valve gear.

On The Wire has an example of a boat that turned up fitted with an air cooled Kittiwake Major, Boxotrix. Ironically it was featured in a 1955 ME with a different engine fitted! I wonder if it acquired AE Clauson's 1954 Kittiwake Major?

Neil

Regarding your corrosion problem, glass bead blasting is what I normally do to give a nice finish to aluminium castings.

Eric Offen is the "go to" man for information as already mentioned above, he is a member over on MEM, maybe your question could be put there as well.

Phil

Well I should have all of those forties and fifties MEs in my collection, and most of my collection is now unboxed after our move last year, so I will go and have a look. I can scan them for you.

Two minutes later...The 1946 one is sitting on the scanner, I will upload to my album once it is done. The others have not come out of their boxes yet, but I will see if I can find them later today. I have a complete collection of ME from 1940 on, plus maybe a quarter of the years before that.

OK, done. I will get onto looking for the others after I go and get the tyre changed on my car.

But wait, there's more..

I haven't found the 1944 issue yet, but they will be here somewhere. We moved a year back and there are still boxes to unpack.

regards

John

Neil, let me know if you want me to contact Eric. You may also want to look at Jo's thread on MEM where she is building a Kiwi and Kittwake , the Kittyhawk is the larger 30cc version for the larger class of racing.

As Phil says bead blasting would be best on teh castings, garryflex is OK for machined but won't do much on the lightly textured surface of castings

.

Jason,

That ^^^ is why I suggested Garryflex and Solvol

[but, I bow to your wisdom]

MichaelG.

Having handled a few kity and kiwi castings I would say they are too rough for garryflex but would like to see some pics of Neil's bits to be sure.

That's great,

Thanks John. There is a full at at MTM headquarters but it';s 150 miles away and they are bound and impossible to put flat on a copier even if I was there!

Neil

My thought on looking at the castings is Ajax and a scrubbing brush! Bead blasting might be the best way to go, but I may try a nylon brush on the dremel first..

I will put some photos up later.

I have looked at Eric Offen's website, I will drop him an email when I have a photo or two to send hime (if you can pm me his email that will be great, thanks Jasonb).

Found the Kiwi build thread.

**LINK**

I have used this product for many years for cleaning motorcycle castings - sand and die cast, Other suppliers are available - I got my last lot from Millers Oils trade counter in Brighouse.

It is economical to use, as the supplied concentrate is heavily diluted before application. I use a trigger action spray bottle to apply the product & agitate with a stiff plastic brush or Scotchbrite pad, keeping the surface wet with the product. Use rubber gloves ! When the oxidation is dissolved, rinse off with clean water & apply a water displacer to protect from further corrosion. Doesn't remove or damage the parent metal, but it does dull previously polished surfaces.

For badly corroded motorcycle parts I degrease first, then use Alubrite, then glass bead blast in a desk-top blast cabinet that my 2 Hp compressor is barely up to running. It is possible to get BMW sand cast parts to look "as new" like this, but I have found that castings that have been badly corroded & cleaned up start to corrode again more easily than castings that were not allowed to get into such a state in the first place.

Nigel B

That looks serious stuff, Nigel

Worth noting for the surface etch [for bonding]

Thanks

MichaelG.

MSDS

Adrian who has sort of taken up the reins of Model Engine News has an article on cleaning magnizium engine castings which may be of interest.

PM sent

Hmm, reading Adrian's article, I think i need to do a density test - I suspect these may be magnesium castings.

Neil

You should be able to feel it easy enough, I handled a set of the Stuart Lightweight castings which are magnisium and they are so much lighter than aluminium. The mag ones are likely to be noticably blacker than any aluminium parts in the same set of castings.

Westbury did publish a design for a supercharger for 30cc engines if you fancy that too Neil, did have a cast mag outercasing but could be cut from solid

Edited By JasonB on 23/05/2016 11:47:11

I'v just been looking through my copy of Edgar T. Westbury's "Model Petrol Engines", and I notice under the cam diagram for "Kittiwake" is this(designed by Mr D. H. Chaddock), did he design just the cam, or the whole motor? Ian S C