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My first steam engine
01/20/2015 at 23:01 • 0 commentsJust wanted to share pictures of the very first steam engine that I made during the summer !!
This is the Schaublin milling machine that I use to machine most of my parts.
Here in Switzerland Schaublin is a pretty famous brand especially for metal lathes.
That is the cylinder assembly. The cylinder is made out of cast iron, which has the advantage to have a low dilatation ration when the temperature goes up. It helps maintain a tight fit with the piston.
This the piston, it is made of brass, which against cast iron has a really low friction coef. to improve the efficiency of the engine.
This is the chassis assembly, the chassis is made out of aluminium because it is easy to machine, the fly wheel is a plain cylinder of steel with a set screw to grip the main arbor.
Unfortunately my english vocabulary is not good enough for me to describe how the steam flow through the engine. But this is a really popular design called "oscillating cylinder steam engine" check out on youtube there are plenty of videos that describe how this works.
Here is the completed engine !! It took me about 2 week, 8 hours a day to complete this engine. Note that I had only one week of machining lessons of background. So this project had a lot of trials and errors before me to be happy with the final product.
Finally I brazed together a boiler to make this engine works standalone (no compressed air needed !!)
Now it works flawlessly on my parents bbq, it also works on the cooking gaz, which is very cool to show it of.
The brazing on the boiler is disgusting, I am really ashamed of my work on this, but it take a lot of practice to get it right.
That is it this project is over, I will do a video of it running in the near future. Since then hope you enjoyed the photos, and my english mistakes...
Bye.