Larger steam stationary engine

Would anyone know of a larger sized stationary steam engine design that could be built from bar stock ? My machines are a bit too large for the very small designs that are commonly available , it needn't be a complicated design , something simple like a horizontal mill engine.

Thanks.

The best thing to do is find one of the many smaller engines and then just scale it up to a size that suits you.

If you look back here you will see the Benson engine that I did earlier this year, that was one of Anthony Mounts engines scaled to 1.5 times its original size and all fabricated. It could easily be made even bigger, 3x would be easily possible. I've also just started on another of his engines at twice size that will be about 18" long when finished.

The flywheel is usually the hardest part so choose a commercial one be it one from the likes of RDG or Engineers Emporium or pinch one from a traction engine and then scale the engine to suit the wheel dia.

What do you term large? If you don't mind the bar stock look then any of Elmers could be scaled up several times though the will look even more chunky than usual

J

Edited By JasonB on 11/08/2012 20:07:11

Hi Ronan
Looks like you have converted your mill to 3 phase and as it appears to be a Tom Senior
So the world is your building oyster. There are many large scale projects around it it only depends on your imagination and what you would like to build. And how deep is your pocket.

Bob

I would hardly say the Senior is too large for whats available in the smaller sizes, infact the way you were talking I expected you to have much larger machines.

The doubled up engine I mentioned above will push my similar capacity mill to the limits of its travel so the world is hardly your oyster.

J

Edited By JasonB on 11/08/2012 21:02:51

Its more the lathe i have which limits what i can turn, i have a colchester master 2500 and trying to turn anything less than about 10mm is a bit of a pain. As for the mill , no its still three phase as i believe the 3 phase motor is a smoother and a vfd is as cheap as a replacement motor and has far more features. The travel it has in the z-axis is a bit limited and i might make a spacer that sits under main column giving a bit more room.

i am open to any ideas as regards the engine design, but something maybe 12"-18" long would be good.

What about a Perseus at double size, this would be about 16" long though there would still be a lot of parts smaller than 10mm dia, I think you would need to be looking for an engine with 24" dia flywheel to keep the number of parts under 10mm to a minimum and then you need to have a big compressor or boiler for something which may have a 4" piston.

Are there plans available for that engine jasonb ? metric dimensioned would be great, does anyone publish them ?

i was thinking something like this 

http://hasbrouck.8m.com/eng5.htm

Edited By ronan walsh on 11/08/2012 23:31:20

Perseus was originally drawn for castings but its quite easy to fabricate which allows it to be made to any size and is a horizontal not the vertical you are now looking at. Myhobbystore and Reeves sell the drawings, if you click the drawing on reeves site it comes up a reasonable size to give an idea of whats required, but like the Hasbrouuck engines is in imperial. The plans were also free in the mag not so long ago. Though if I were doubling up I would go for the more detailed Unicorn.

The Hasbrouck engines look quite nice for barstock engines, there are a few builds of them on the net, I'll dig one out later.

As I said any of the Elmers engines can be scaled up but they tend to look a bit chunky, his plans can again be found on the net on sites like this

You could also up the size of the popcorn or overcrank engines that was in the mag not so long ago they are both in metric.

If you did want a nice looking large horizontal then Anthony Mount's latest offering must be about 18" long, It only uses two castings the rest if from solid/fabricated though the castings could also be made fairly easily again that will be in metric but will have some smaller detail.

J

Ronan,

I have a Harrison M300, which is virtually equal in dimensions to the Colchester Master (though not quite so substantial) so I know what you mean about it not being ideal for turning very small parts. However, this position becomes a whole lot better if you use a collet chuck instead of a conventional 3-jaw. Probably the best choice would be an ER32 chuck, you can get an excellent full set of collets for around £100.

For a scaled-up engine, I was quite intrigued by an example at the back of the Building Victoria book - someone in Africa (I think) had fabricated a 2x version and was using it to provide power in some remote location. No constructional details given though.

David

Hi Ronan,

I wanted to do something similar and settled for the Beam engine 'Mary' scaled up to twice drawing size, with the flywheel ending up at about 16" diameter.

Everything has been machined or fabricated from stock, no castings used at all and machined on a Colchester Student and Bridgeport R8.

The engine has succesfully run on air and I just need to put some time in to finish it off properly.

I think the hardest part was fetching the lump of two inch thick by 18" diameter lump of steel used for the flywheel !!

Lofty

Hi,

When I had access to M300 before I had my own kit, I used a 3 jaw jacobs drill chuck (with drawbar and adapter) in place of the large 3 jaw self centering for very small stuff. I found it quite accurate. and it is no harder to turn small stuff on the larger lathe. in fact being so rigid it tends to be easier to use. It is often said that it is possible to make small stuff on a large machine rather than visa versa. (wouldn't like to try watchmaking on it though).

Best regards

Terry

Edited By Terryd on 21/10/2012 12:29:48

Check out the steamboat association as they are the main people using bigger engines. It also avoids the need to find a big flywheel.

However for the extra cost of materials a bigger engine will entail you coud just buy a Hobbymat which is self contained and can be stowed under the bench when athe small bits are done. Your real problem is not owning enough toys.