Ancient Engine

Apologies for the name. This is an early vertical engine that I dug up two plates of on the net. I have made most of the bits, and now I have a flywheel I can make some progress. It's an interesting challenge as it is 'house built' with a cast iron (I've fabricated this) A-frame and the other main bearing in the wall.

The engravings show great detail and appear very accurate (I can find only two, minor, inconsistencies so I am making it as close to the drawings as possible. One odd feature is that both bearing journals are smaller than the shaft either side, others that the valve face is on a 'stalk' that sticks out of the cylinder, the steam supply comes up from under the floor and there are some very interestingly shaped bits - much use of filing butons!

Most of the parts made to date:

And just finished the strap for the big-end. You can see a bit of an error on the slot in the strap

Neil

Edited By Stub Mandrel on 08/12/2012 20:22:58

Nice work Neil and a super bit of fabrication on that A frame. If you painted the rod and some were of course you could easily disguise that blip.

Whats the overall size, bore stroke etc?

Ramon

Thanks Ramon,

It's all rather small, 5/8" bore by 1 3/8" stroke the A-frame is about 6" tall.

The a-frame was cut from 3mm plate, plus additional strips for the ribs. I shaped these over the plan and drilled them and the farme about number 60 and used soft iron wire to tie everything together. On silver soldering the holes filled up. Afterwards I cut off the wire and filed it down, then milled the frame to width (the ribs are thicker on one side than the other).

The cylinder is a fabrication as well.

After partial machining:

Some more pics to follow.

Neil

This is one of the engravings. if someone can identify the source (I can't find it in any of the old classics, like Tredgold), I'd be really grateful:

Some pictures of bits along the way. Making a gear cutter:

The governor gears (80 DP, 50 and 25 teeth):

And the crankshaft with its unusual journals:

These are the internals of the governor valve:

Neil

P.S. If you are Anthony Mount you aren't allowed to make one until I've finished mine

Ramon,

I fixed the strap - by soldering a chip of swarf into the notch, and then filing to shape.

Neil

Hi Neil, just caught up with your first reply. I must have missed it - it's been a busy couple of days. Glad you were able to reclaim the strap and nice work on the gears too.

It's looking very good so far and I like the design - I suppose you could say it's a 'Wall' engine as opposed to a 'Wall-er' eh? Looking at it a bit more closely I guess that flywheel is around 6 inches diameter too?

"This is one of the engravings" - any chance of sharing the others?

Keep at it, it's going to be a nice subject - just that 'bit different' when finished - have you thought about how you will tackle the brick work?

Regards - Ramon

Hermann Von Helmholtz, on the Application of Force.

Hermann V H of Resonator fame

I knew I'd heard of him before.

Sadly the paper contains no information on the engine, it's just used to explain how they work. All it does is date it to pre 1862-63.

Lot's of interesting stuff in the full book if you go up a layer.

Neil