Rik Thistle

Woodepgh, I wish you luck ! As I mentioned in the thread there were a couple of decades between me starting the Dallas build (completing the hull, deck etc) ...and then digging it out of the attic and completing the ship (masts, rigging etc) ... this seems to be a fairly common phenomenon 😉 When restarting, it took me a few weeks to get up to speed again with the instructions ... which, as you say, aren't the clearest. The drawings were OK though, but sometimes did require close examination with a loupe to eke out the tiny details. Regards, Richard

John, Thanks. Collins is a respected name in the Avionics business....I worked in that area for a few years. I have a friend who designed and marketed an amateur radio Transceiver with a ridiculously low oscillator drift. It's a fascinating and deep subject. Richard

wefalck, Thank you for the detailed insight. It's an interesting subject in it's own right. I remember the London workshop I did my training in during the 1970s having a 'paint weekend' where all the machines were to be given a fresh coat of paint - volunteers required. There was some debate leading up to this weekend regarding sourcing the paint and colour choice. It had been a number of years since they were last painted so availability and fashions had changed. IIRC, we ended up using a Sky Blue paint with a hint of green in it ... this may have been similar to the Sea Foam Green referred to in the above link. After thoroughly cleaning the machines down and disassembling some, a (very ) thick coat was applied. Richard

Wefalck got me thinking and then reading about paint colours for machinery. It may be that 19th century Beam engines were originally painted black, and as time went by and new colours became available (as well as the machinery needing a fresh coat due to wear) other colours were painted over the original black. This American forum thread has a number of interesting opinions on the subject ... 'Any idea of original factory colors of machines?' - https://www.practicalmachinist.com/forum/threads/any-idea-of-original-factory-colors-of-machines.279746/ Extract - The development of paints had some bearing on the colors machine tools were painted. In the late 1800's-early 1900's, a lot of paint was hand mixed by the person doing the painting. Linseed oil, Japan drier, and a pigment, perhaps thinned with turpentine. House paint was pigmented with white lead. Black paint got lamp black for pigment. Not too many color choices, as it were. Colors varied slightly from one batch of paint to the next. Black was predictable, while gray was going to vary from one batch to the next. I think that battleship gray came into use when it became commercially available in consistent color from one batch to the next. Battleship gray probably came into use as it made for a lighter shop in an era when shops were notoriously dark. Relying on natural light filtered through a jungle of belts, with dirty window panes and minimal artificial lighting, and dirt and grunge from the lineshafting (leather particles mixed with oil from the lineshaft hanger boxes got all over the shop), and black machine tools, the shops were dark places. Battleship gray paint had a psychological edge to it, as it was the era of the Dreadnought or the heavy battleships. I am guessing the gray paint took over some time around WWI. Richard

Thanks Rob, It was a bit of a retrospective build log since I already had all the pictures taken and the build complete. I'm now realising it is simpler posting each stage of a build as it happens, rather than trying to construct a timeline after the build is complete 😉 I did keep regular downloads of the pics in dated folders on my computer and written notes, but it's surprising how much I rely on using fresh memories to make sure I don't miss something when doing an actual 'live build' as opposed to this build. regards, Richard Edit: And thanks Wefalck ...I could have easily doubled the length of the build, but at the back of mind always was 'remember, this is a model ship building forum' so didn't want to overdo it. Good point about the darker colours. Also, I think I read somewhere that 'green' was the more easily available colour in those days, for what ever reason.

Roger, Egilman, True that! Sorry Rik.... It's OK 🙂 It's the end of the build log anyway, and it's always interesting to read information about all branches of engineering/technology and reports from the coal face. Richard

Hi Ian, Thank you. Yes the Clyde was at one time a hot bed of ship building and other industries. Yarrow still does work there, I believe ... I've been on a number of their frigates around the world, but not as a service person. And a toolmaking apprenticeship at RR would be a feather in one's cap...still is. cleaner Back in the day 'engineering' may have been seen as a less promising career by those who didn't know it, but in my book it is the prosperous foundation on which most of a country is built. These days engineering, like most prefessions, relies heavily on computers etc .... but there is absolutely no substitute for hands-on experience to complement the 'higher-tech' skills. Richard

Final assembly, test and painting. The engine was piece-meal assembled as finished parts became available. Once enough were available I connected a cordless drill to the end of the crankshaft and powered it up to get a general feel for how well it would (or wouldn't) function - all seemed OK. Before painting I did a full assembly, had an initial attempt at setting the timing and then applied compressed air to the Steam-In port on the front of the Cylinder. There was little or no movement, so I tweaked the timing...now it moved hesitantly but required about 40 psi - far too much! After a day or more of further tweaking I could get the engine to run very smoothly at 1 psi, according to the pressure gauge. These gauges are not accurate on the first 15-20 % of their scales so I'll call it 5psi and a very satisfactory result. Whilst I had been building the Beam engine I had been researching other's build and the paint schemes they chose. Traditionally the full sized engines were painted mainly green with red highlights. I wasn't too keen on that scheme since, although accurate, I felt something a bit 'different' but still industrial looking was required. So I ended up choosing PlastiKote Satin Black and Satin Warm Grey - results below. The current wooden base is only temporary. I may add a Stuart models Engineering lathe (https://www.stuartmodels.com/product/stuart-engineering-lathe-unmachined/ ) so a larger piece of wood will be required. (Edit: On 2nd thoughts a lathe would be inappropriate for a Beam engine - it would be more suited for the 10V). Close-up. View from the other side. Finally, my 6" high Stuart 10V with a 3" diameter flywheel next to the Beam engine with it's 7" flywheel. It was a fun build with a good bit of puzzle solving helping keep the grey matter in shape. I started it in April and finished towards the end of July, doing a little bit most days. I'm currently building the Governor for the Beam engine so will add a picture of that on the Beam when the time comes. Thanks for all the Likes etc and the interesting side-discussions on related topics 😉 All for now, Richard

Mark, Egilman, Interesting stuff, thanks. downforce created actually slows the car by about 20% I always wondered what the actual effect of downforce was on all-out speed. From the little I know about F1 design I believe that downforce pays dividends in cornering ability though. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Motor_Carriage_Company it would seem that the Stanley brothers eventually had an unbeatable competitor at 25% of the price and with instant start. Richard

powered the Stanley Steam Car to 150 MPH I hadn't heard of that...time for a read-up 😉 Thanks, Richard

I'll make this post the second to last on the build. Today I'm looking at the Conrod, and the Eccentric Sheave parts. First the Connecting Rod (Conrod). It started life as a plain length of rectangular section mild steel. It would require turning and milling. As can be seen on the drawing extract below it required fishbelly'ing. Below, held in the 4 jaw at one end, live centre at the other. Being turned down to size before it the fishbelly profile was added. This is basically a double taper that was then 'curved' using files and emery cloth. And off to the mill for the end fixing regions to be shaped. Below, the Crank which is pinned on to the Crankshaft and pivoted on the end of the Conrod. The Crank has a Phosphor Bronze bush that is a press fit in the end of the Conrod. Below a part assembly showing the Conrod connecting the Beam to Crankshaft. Now on to the Eccentric Sheave parts. The Eccentric Sheave (Pt 44) is enclosed in the two halves of the Eccentric Strap (Pts 99 & 102). The sheave sits eccentrically on the crankshaft and is connected by a rod (Pt 96) to the valve mechanism. The sheave is held on to the crankshaft by a grubscrew (Pt 45) so can be adjusted to give the optimal valve timing. The sheave is restrained within the strap by a raised ring of metal ...this sits in a corresponding groove in the strap. It was 1/32" x 1/32" in size, which I felt was a bit small but I did get it to work smoothly. Another pic showing the boss that the crankshaft runs through, being machined. Below, the sheave (which arrived as a single piece gun metal casting) being drilled for two clamping bolts. It would then be slpit into two halves. One of the split halves having the inside clamping face cleaned up to size. Now in the lathe, ready to be bored out to size (for the eccentric) and to have the 1/32" x 1/32" groove cut. The finished eccentric assembly. L>R, the sheave inside the strap which is then bolted to the rod, and then the other end of the rod meets the valve mechanism. Well, that's it for the parts manufacture. I've missed out quite a few parts but hopefully included enough to give a flavour of what the build entails and maybe encouraged some other curious folks to have a go at 'steam engines' ;-). The final post will be painting, assembly and test. Richard

Hi all, Today I'll post some pictures and thoughts on the tapered Column manufacture. The Column supports the Beam itself. I believe that full sized columns were made as hollow castings. As with most of the larger parts for Stuart's model kits the column is supplied as a cast iron casting. It wasn't that rough around the edges regarding casting artefacts so less filing was required. I firstly mounted the column in the lathe to clean up the base's outer face ie the surface the column sits upon. I didn't notice at the time but the tapered part was oval in section and about 1 mm off centre from the square ends, which meant that if I had finished machined the square ends I would have later found there was not enough meat on the column to keep it co-axial with the ends. I did notice this issue in time, as it was being set up on the mill but I needed to do a bit of backtracking since I had already drilled a centre hole on the lathe in one of the square ends - I managed to fudge my way through that. Cleaning up and squaring the ends of the column on the mill. Now to taper the column on the lathe - it is held in the 4 jaw at one end and a live centre at the other. Again, because the lathe is on the smaller side of things, I needed to do the tapering in two steps since the cutting tool wasn't able to traverse the full length of the taper without clashing with the chuck. This meant the toolpost being reoriented along with the tool. Tapering pretty much finished and with a reasonable finish. Emery cloth brought a nice sheen to it. Profiling the curved lines of the ends of the column. I pecked away at this with the tool and then finished the curves off with a round file and Emery cloth. OK, now to the fun stuff - adding flutes to the column 🙂 The Stuart drawing doesn't ask for this but Beam models I have seen with fluting look that bit better. It's been decades since I used a Rotary Table (RT) so forgive me if my set up isn't traditional. I needed to get the top surface of the taper to line up horizontal, to match the cutting path of the 3mm round end cutting tool as it passed by. To do this I tilted the RT upwards. Unfortunately the RT Tailstock (although it has height adjustment) couldn't quite get it's nose up that high...so I tilted it upwards. This meant that the conical end of the dead centre in the tailstock was not sitting fully home in the centre drilled hole on the end of the the column - I got away with that, almost. The obvious thing to do would have been to raise the height of the tailstock and then point it downwards ...20:20 hindsight! I had calculated that I could make about 14 flutes at around 30 thou" (0.75mm) deep. It took 3 passes of the cutter to achieve the depth and then I indexed to the next flute position. All was going well until I was about 3/4 of the way around the column and I noticed the gap between the last two flutes was larger than expected. Something had changed....what I believe happened was that the tailstock dead centre had resettled into a different 'happy position' in the end of the column's centre. This was disappointing, but there was nothing I could do so, after a bit of recalculation of the indexing required, I continued on my way. My reasoning was, that from a distance and providing there were no Flute Inspectors around, no one would notice 😉 Below, the column sitting happily on the base. I think it looks acceptable. That's it for today, so catch you soon, Richard.

Rob, These static steam engine model kits are great fun. I'd highly recommend having a(nother) go 😉 Richard

Hi all, Today a short post about the Stuart Beam engine Flywheel manufacture. The flywheel stores energy from the engine and that helps smooth out the pulses from the cylinder, and also encourages the crankshaft to continue in the same rotational direction when TDC and BDC are reached. The Stuart models cast iron flywheel arrives with a reasonable amount of casting artefacts and needs cleaning up before being mounted on the lathe. The lathe, a Sieg SC2, can accommodate a maximum diameter of 180mm ...the raw casting was larger than that. It's finished machined diameter is 177.8 mm (7"). After being cleaned up on the linishing belt there was about 0.5mm clearance from the bed of the lathe, which was fine. For a finished flywheel to appear to run smoothly to the eye one should carefully file the inner face of the rim since that cannot be machined. I also spent a good bit of time on the linishing belt trying to clear off the hard outer perimeter of the casting...I got most of it off but there were still some patches that gave my Carbide tipped tool a few moments. Below, the flywheel is mounted in approximate position on the faceplate, and away from the lathe to avoid a fight with gravity. Final alignment of the flywheel on the lathe was greatly aided by my trusty die holder which fortunately had the same end diameter as the boss on the flywheel. The four clamps were equi-spaced and didn't create much, if any, of an imbalance at the turning speed. Below, skimming the outer perimeter of the flywheel. Try as I may, I could never get the tool tip to cover the full width of the flywheel from one side - I resigned myself to having to finish that job by turning the flywheel over. Below, after part turning the outer surface and cleaning up the wheel face, I bored out the hole (7/16") for the crank shaft. I did need to buy a smaller boring bar than the ones I already had. The white dot was a rough indicator for when the tool was through the flywheel. Once done the crankshaft was a good sliding fit. You can also see the step on the outer surface of the rim which was as far as I could sensibly go - to finish it off the flywheel was turned over and re-clamped. Below, the finished wheel. It cleaned up nicely once I got the Emery cloth on it 🙂 The flywheel, and a few of the other rotating items are clamped to their axles by slotted-head grub screws. I don't feel this is entirely suitable for a number of reasons. The slotted head gets disfigured quickly (a socket key head is better), the axle gets marked (a flat needs to be added to the axle) and the grub screw can slip against the axle (again a flat will help prevent this). There are changes I plan to do. Catch you all soon, Richard

fishbelly-shape Euler strut theory - I should have recalled that. pivot-pins Some of the pin material came as 1/8" stainless steel rod, so those I left alone, apart from adding threads on the end. Not being ground stock the stainless, IIRC, was not 0.125" but closer to 0.123"... but good enough for this job. Some of the other pins had stepped diameters ... the one shown in the pic with the 4 mm collet is 5/32" rod, with it's ends being turned down to 1/8" I should have mentioned I not only drilled the holes but did also ream them to size. tapping Yes, I tried using that method also when I first got that mill (SX2P), but the head has a bad habit of suddenly dropping if the clamping is a bit off. I also use the smaller taps in a pin vice held slightly loosely in the drill chuck. The pin vice knurling gives enough purchase to hand turn the (small) tap. Thanks for the inputs. Richard

Hi all, Today, a short post on the Watt linkages, and the Valve Chest linkages. James Watt, regarding his linkage idea, wrote in 1784 ... I have got a glimpse of a method of causing a piston rod to move up and down perpendicularly by only fixing it to a piece of iron upon the beam, without chains or perpendicular guides [...] and one of the most ingenious simple pieces of mechanics I have invented. .... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt's_linkage There were 8 off Watt links to make, plus two off Valve chest links. The Links are used in pairs. The linkages are usually given a fishbelly profile. I suspect this is done for looks, but any advice on that welcome. The fishbelly (on models) is achieved by mounting each linkage between centres in the lathe which allows an elegant shape that tapers from the middle to each end. I had a long thought about doing that but decided on a simpler process - use the mill to taper the links in one plane. Here is the pair of valve links in the mill vice, aligned with a pair of 1/8" pins. Below, to get a suitable taper angle I calculated that clamping the links at a 4.3 degrees slope was ideal. My Wixey digital angle gauge helped accurately set the angle. Below, the 8 off Watt links get the fishbelly treatment, again held in line with 1/8" pins. Reset the links and angle, and the other side is done. All 8 off Watt links almost completed. The ends of some need a bit of trimming, but since they were all to have their ends rounded anyway a file took care of that. The Valve Levers having slots cut in them. And then the Lever grub screw holes tapped. I tend to use my flat bar tap wrenches for most tapping jobs. But small taps don't have a guide hole in their end - I recently acquired a Starrett T Bar tap wrench which has a guide hole in its end so ensures vertically tapped holes - I think I'll be using it a lot more in the future. The Sterrett also feels extremly well made - the only drawback is that the wrench's cross-bar is much higher than the flat-bar one so has a higher wobble factor (assuming it isn't supported by the guide hole). One of the many 1/8" diameter pivot pins that the linkages use, being turned up in the lathe. Now a couple of pics of the cast iron Valve Chest. It's very similar to the 10V chest. It required mostly milling work. And a little 4 jaw chuck lathe work to round off the Valve rod dome - the tail of the valve rod always sits within the internal hole drilled in the dome. Using the cast iron Valve Chest Cover to spot fixing holes through onto the Cylinder itself. There are a number of brass glands required, for guiding steam in and out, and also for guiding the piston rod. For these Stuart supplies a length of brass extrusion that is turned to shape in the lathe, central hole drilled, parted off and then fixing holes added. Finally, we see the Watt linkages hanging from their bearing points on the main beam and entablature arms- the arms were still hanging loose at this point. Also the two Valve links are in place, connected to their levers which in turn are worked by the eccentric sheave on the crankshaft. Up next, in a day or two, should be the Flywheel 🙂 Regards, Richard

Roger, surfaces were often coated with Prussian Blue Yes, from what I've read recently there was quite a bit of fettling required to get a good rotating fit. Once electric motors became available I can see why they quickly replaced steam engines in many applications ie less maintenance and manpower required and overall, cheaper to run. Follow the money, as usual. I find steam engines fascinating and it is a shame they are no longer a part of our daily lives. However, nuclear power stations still heat water to produce steam so it could be argued that steam power is still very much with us. Richard

...housing was filled with molten Babbit- white-metal.... I didn't know that...very interesting and a clever solution, thanks. Richard

Hi all, Today I'm going to focus on the three sets of main bearings in the Beam engine, seen below in the exploded view ie the Crankshaft bearings (37 - bottom left), Beam bearings (56 - top middle) and the Watt linkage bearings (74 - middle right). In the real world, the Crankshaft bearings support great weights and experience constant rotation, so need to be tough, accurately made and have low friction. The Beam and Watts linkage bearings don't experience the same weights and experience oscillating part-rotational motion, meaning their wear pattern will be different from the Crankshaft bearings. The Crankshaft and beam bearings still need a lot of lubricating oil to prevent metal to metal contact and lower friction. And, I imagine, the oil also helps dissipate heat. I'm not sure if the Watts linkage bearings used oil reservoirs or relied on being made of a different material from the steel pivot shaft, say, Phosphor Bronze - more reading required and any advice welcome. Firstly, the Crankshaft/Beam bearings, shown below. They arrive from Stuart models as two-part brass castings . Earlier versions from Stuart seem to have been one-part castings. There are a number of faces that need cleaning up on the mill and lathe and the Crankshaft hole needs boring. Cleaning up one half of the mating Crankshaft/Beam bearing faces in the mill. Generally, I tried to machine the bearings in pairs to ensure they were dimensionally the same. They were spaced apart in the vice to allow even vice clamping forces, and are sitting on a pair of parallels. Below, the 'other side' of the bearing mating faces being milled. This time sitting on a single parallel that covered the gap in the base of the vice. It's always a puzzle as to what the optimum sequence of machining actions are eg the bearings underside had only been filed flat but my plan was to use the bored hole (later to be done on the lathe) as the datum for cleaning up the bearing feet. Below, cleaning up the sides of the bearing feet, again in pairs. And creating flats for the drilled and tapped holes that the oil reservoirs would screw in to. The Crankshaft/Beam bearings now ready to have the two halves joined by bolts. And here they are, ready to march off to the lathe. The bolts are 2BA (British Association) - I later replaced them with similar 2BA bolts but with smaller hexagonal heads that were more in keeping with the scale of the model. Below, positioning and gripping the bearings in the lathe's 4 jaw chuck was a bit tricky - there wasn't much to grip on, they needed to be axially correct for the Crankshaft/Beam bore and also had to be square to the chuck. The black thing is a threading attachment that happened to already be fitted to the tailstock and was called in to service to help achieve squareness of the part. Cutting the first surface on the lathe. The Stuart models part list does say the bearings are made of brass, but these parts have more of a Phosphor Bronze'y look to them, in my mind? I thought I'd photographed the boring of the bearings, but can't put my hands on the pics. I needed to buy a smaller boring bar than the one I had and that went fine. I used the (already made) Crank shaft as a gauge for the hole size. Below, the bearings were, one by one, Loctite'd to the Crankshaft for gripping in the lathe to face off the far side of the bearings. To break the Loctite bond I dipped the assembly in Acetone for about 5 mins - that worked fine. The four Crankshaft/Beam bearings sitting on the crankshaft ready for the next machining stage. Back to the mill. I used the crankshaft bore as a datum for machining the feet of the bearing to the same distance to the centre of the bore. Fortunately the vice was able to grip the bodies of the bearing without too much issue...I think I had to pack out a couple of them with a bit of paper. The Crankshaft os supported on V blocks sitting on 1-2-3 blocks. And now the Watts linkage bearings. They arrived as an extruded length of brass that needed drilling and cutting to width. The Watts bearing material centred in the 4 jaw. That went fine. I then tentatively parted off the two bearings whilst still held in the lathe, again that was OK...it it had been Mild Steel rather than brass I may have considered a different method eg saw to length and clean the sawn face up on the mill. Finally, a view of the bearings installed. The Crankshaft and Beam bearings proved to work fine - their shafts etc were already made, but the Watts linkage had to wait till their links were made. Also seen in this view are the machined Flywheel and partially-machined central support column, both of which I will add posts on in the near future. Regards, Richard Edit: I forgot that the Valve Linkage bearings (83 -bottom right of exploded view) were also made alongside the Watts Linkage bearings. So there were 4 pairs of bearings made in total.

James, My initial post wasn't a 'complaint' .... it was more of a detailed heads-up for future reference for MSW Admin. Apologies if it was seen as such. As always, I think MSW is an amazing safe harbour - thank you. Regarding alerting folks (eg me) who refuse to allow 'social media' apps on their devices, how about an 'Announcements' heading on the NRG website ( https://thenrg.org/journal ) ...I don't think NRG use the same server as MSW since I'm sure I had a look on NRG for info when MSW was down. Regards, Richard

Roger, Yes, I did know of the power equation but I'll admit I wouldn't have recalled it easily since it donkey's years since I used it ;-). Fascinating that the diameter was the one variable that could be enlarged. I take it weight wasn't an issue and didn't affect the Centre of Gravity....I guess they placed the engine down the centre line. I did see a picture of a railway engine boiler explosion the other month .... it was dramatic....the cylinder burst open and many, many lengths of narrow diameter piping all over the place, and sadly some lost of life. I'm (so far) only running my steam engines on compressed air.... primarily because I don't want the risk of boiler explosion or fire near me (or anyone). Richard

I have been following this YouTube channel for a while Yes, I've been following Blondiehacks for a couple of years. She's very good at explaining things. That current steam engine build of her's is quite large and needs a bigger lathe than I have. But it is fascinating to see it coming together. Richard

Steam Trawler 'Huddersfield Town' off the Faroe Islands Tremendous. That sea colour is amazing. Richard

Roger, Thanks for that. The steamers on the Great Lakes are something that has recently appeared on my radar and is a fascinating subject. I need to read up on it. Six foot diameter is some size .... but no doubt designed to match the requirements. A few months back I bought 'When Rails meet the Sea' by Michael Krieger ...not got round to reading it yet but looking forward to it. It focuses on the American port cities 1830-1960. Richard

Egilman, Agreed. But since these are castings with little or no regular sufaces to locate on to I went for the mill first, to give me a square face to grip on once it was in the lathe. And since the batch size is only 'One Off' mating parts can be fettled to suit 😉 These engines are interesting and, usually, relaxing projects. One of my favourite scratch builds is this one here .... https://www.modelenginemaker.com/index.php/topic,10250.0.html It's a real tour de force requiring skill, perseverance and knowledge. Most of it was done on Sherline equipment ...the forum thread is over 140 pages long so that gives some idea of the complexity involved. regards, Richard