Something new and kinda sorta 100 years old looking
- Thread starter fishguts
- Start date
Just was wondering if you seen this. Some old popular machincs plans.........Curt
Build a Mini Steam Engine Plans
Build a Mini Steam Engine Plans
Thanks, Curt. I haven't seen this particular article, but someone else certainly did as these engines (the same as far as I can tell) are in production and can be found on Ebay and other sources. The bore and stroke of my engine is actually bigger, but this example is fairly large compared to most model engines.
Putting off the welding one more day ... nasty storm is here blowing cold rain - ugh! I do my welding in the driveway and I don't mind the cold much, but this is just way too miserable to be out. So, I'll be working on the flash boiler and other stuff in my basement shop.
Put the flash boiler together. This amounted to fitting the copper coil with the level sensor through the side of the boiler and making a copper flange thingy for the top to steady the steam tube plus fitting the bottom pipe reducer to accommodate the burner. A 3" stove pipe will serve as a deflector up the middle of the coil to force heat to the outside before leaving the stack. In the bottom photo you can see how the water feed line will run into the bottom of the boiler, the blue tape marking the eventual location of an el fitting. Two brass straps will secure the boiler, but I'm holding off making those until I get in a good day welding and final adjustments are made.
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Got some of the welding done today. Adjusted/corrected some things and got the luggage racks in place. Next, I need to bend and weld in some support rods for these parts. That will get the frame basically finished except for mounting the jackshaft, belt tensioning linkage and a couple line brackets. The goal is to get the frame finished this week and assemble the bike next week. Then we'll see if this crazy thing actually runs.
Next Installment. Finished the major frame welding, including bar supports for the luggage racks and a heavy duty taillight bracket. Bottom photo shows how the luggage fits.
Got the motor mounts done. I used a couple billet light mount brackets I got from a dune buggy place and some 3/16" plate. 1/8" seemed too flimsy to me. Had to get out the round file and change the angle of dangle of the mounts to give the motor the right slant to fit under the tank. I will probably turn the front mount around so the clamp is above the motor mounting boss, but this gets things close enough so I can now lay out and fab the jackshaft.
Here are the motor mounts in their proper position. Flipped the front one around.
The propane burner mounted up:
Now to head out to the shop and weld up the jackshaft mount plate ...
The propane burner mounted up:
Now to head out to the shop and weld up the jackshaft mount plate ...
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Hope you guys don't mind me posting so many pictures...
A psychiatrist can always use this thread to document my spiral downward into madness.
Got the jackshaft all welded up and assembled and swapped out my rear wheel for a 36 spoke job and bolted on the sheave and mounted the wheel ... all lookin' good ... well ... that is until it became evident that the jackshaft bracket which is solidly welded to the frame now needs to be moved to the right 3/4". fun fun So I'll be cutting welds tomorrow and repositioning it with the added challenge that I can no longer run two of the pillow block bearing bolts straight through the mounting plate. I'll have to weld studs into the plate in place of them because they'll fall right on the center line of the seat tube.
This is all because I lost the directions a ways back ...
Here's a shot of the sprocket side of the jackshaft:
Look like a good place for a chain guard?
The pulley side:
The up side is that it looks like the belt tensioning lever is going to be pretty easy to design and make.
And here's something to scratch your head over. That itty bitty circuit board is the time delay relay that will signal the water feed solenoid to close when the water level in the boiler gets to the sensor. Behind it is the box it came in! Sometimes you gotta laugh.
A psychiatrist can always use this thread to document my spiral downward into madness.
Got the jackshaft all welded up and assembled and swapped out my rear wheel for a 36 spoke job and bolted on the sheave and mounted the wheel ... all lookin' good ... well ... that is until it became evident that the jackshaft bracket which is solidly welded to the frame now needs to be moved to the right 3/4". fun fun So I'll be cutting welds tomorrow and repositioning it with the added challenge that I can no longer run two of the pillow block bearing bolts straight through the mounting plate. I'll have to weld studs into the plate in place of them because they'll fall right on the center line of the seat tube.
This is all because I lost the directions a ways back ...
Here's a shot of the sprocket side of the jackshaft:
Look like a good place for a chain guard?
The pulley side:
The up side is that it looks like the belt tensioning lever is going to be pretty easy to design and make.
And here's something to scratch your head over. That itty bitty circuit board is the time delay relay that will signal the water feed solenoid to close when the water level in the boiler gets to the sensor. Behind it is the box it came in! Sometimes you gotta laugh.
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Most places figure the shipping charge based on weight. But some used to figure the shipping charge based on size/dimensions, etc. I don't know if that's a continued practice, but it's made me wonder what you paid for the shipping.
If the crank case breather isn't big enough,,and I don't think a 1/8th hole is,,the piston when rising can create a vacuum and suck steam/water into the crank case, the piston need to breath, it displaces air when rising and dropping.
The displaced air will be pulsing out and in, you could put a hole in the cover plate and epoxy a copper 90 deg. fitting and add a length of tubing with a open cell filter at the end, the copper would keep the steam engine look and let the engine breath,,,just a thought.
I like that idea. I wonder what sort of filter would fit on the end of a piece of 1/2" copper pipe? Like I said, I can probably find a grommet to make something fit, but is there a really small filter out there? I've been looking at some differential breather filters but haven't found anything suitable yet.