Not LS, but LS - A 4" scale steamroller

[Mik]

Yes, I know it's the 'wrong' scale (1:3), but I thought maybe you guys might be interested anyway. I've probably mentioned this thing from time to time, but hadn't actually accomplished much on it since before the big D..... Well, we FINALLY went to get the boiler last month from where it had been stored for about 6 or 7 years, rescued the wheels from my ex's basement, and scrounged the engine and governor parts from out of my van....... So, what I have is all in the same place for the first time EVER!

I still don't have a 220v circuit run for the welder, or gas for the torches, but at least it is a start. Anyway, rather than have the neighbors upset over a bunch of scattered rusty junque in the yard, Kim and I threw a coat of paint at it this afternoon. ----- It may still be scattered junque, but at least it isn't rusty anymore! Kim and my daughter Sara picked the paint scheme. The rolls and gearing will be a dark blue, the engine and bunkers Case 'LC' Grey. -- of course just as we almost finished the sky opened up and it POURED for half an hour...

Boiler, smokebox and flywheel all looking rather snazzy. The boiler is 10-3/4" in diameter and 4' long. I'd love a curved spoke flywheel instead, but haven't found the right one yet.

A 1/2" injector, and a 2" bronze hand pump will have to do for my 2 means of adding water. The firebox door is smallish 5" x 6" -- I've thought about firing it on kerosene. The grates seem to have gone missing, so I might have to look more into that.

Rear rolls are a pair of threshing machine pulleys. Not what I really wanted, but they were affordable. I may need to bolt sheet rubber or old bald tire treads to them to keep them from jarring and breaking.

Front rolls are from a 3-ton or so gas roller. A little large, but for $25 I couldn't resist! I'll be cutting down the frame so the boiler will sit about 4" above the rolls.

A face only a mother could love? Kim and Sara have both laid claim to it!

Half a Mason steam car engine will provide power. It's the 'wrong' half, so either the flywheel will be on the left, or the cylinder will be towards the rear... all depends upon what gearing I scrounge up, yet.

This 3/4" Gardner governor is really too large, but it's here. Yes, I need to get new weights for it. Luckily they are still available.

Still needed: gearing, bunkers, lubricator, canopy, and a money tree..... But I hope to at least have the boiler mounted on the wheels before Fall so we can move it around without an engine hoist!

So, just what will it look like when it's finished? Something like a mirror image of this:

 

[trammayo]

Very, very interesting indeed. You have a good eye for what might or might not do for the job. Keep posting and I wish you well with your endeavours.

Mick

 

[Dtsteam]

Yes, keep posting.

Roughly what is the bore and stroke of the mason engine ?

I'm just amazed you can find so many bits...

 

[CoggesRailway]

Is it just me or the photos just showiing red crosses? Sounds interesting!

 

[Mik]

Hmmm, the pics work for me? Try here http://s397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/steam car engine/

The Mason twin was originally rated at 10HP. So half would be 5HP -- but they used an ungodly pressure to get that. The bore is 2-1/2" the stroke is 4". I'll be running at 100psi, and will set the governor at 300rpm... from there you can figure the indicated HP (2PLAN/33000)

For those who never used it, that's a quick, down and dirty method to guesstimate a steam engine's HP.... 2 (double acting) x pressure (100psi) x length of stroke in FEET (.333) x area of the piston (4.91 sq in) x number of revolutions per minute (300rpm) all divided by the definition of 1HP (33000 ft lbs/min) = 1.48 ....... So we should get about 1-1/2 HP before allowing for friction losses, cut off, etc. Not quite a fuelly Hemi, but more than adequate for what I want it to do.... namely haul my fat butt around.

As for finding the bits. They're out there - if you're smart and patient enough (and/or willing to spend barrels of money)... I got the governor in 1997 as part of another deal, and paid $100 for the injector later that summer. I built the boiler in 1998 for $1000 in ASME code materials. I bought the engine in 2003 for $700 - then spent the next 3 years looking for the rest of the reverse gear (I eventually bought another partial engine, took off what I needed then resold the rest for more than I paid - subtract $50). The hand pump was $80 off feebay in 2005. I got the wheels 2 years ago for $75. As I said, I'm still searching for the proper gearing because I don't really want to spend the going rate ($250+) for a double geared pumpjack just to tear it apart. ----- If that gives you any idea of what is involved in a project like this....

Or you can just buy an already built traction engine model for about $15K -- You Brits with a lot of money to spend might consider calling Maxitrak, they have a nice 1/3 scale Aveling and Porter as a machined (mechanic's) kit... or RTR for a price.

 

[Neil Robinson]

That's a very interesting project Mik, good luck with it.
Regarding horsepower I've often heard the following tale and I believe that there's some truth in it.
In the UK traction engines were taxed on horsepower but the relevant act of parliament failed to define horsepower. So someone dreamed up a definition of Nominal Horse Power for taxation purposes which was considerably less than the actual power output of the engine!

 

[themole]

Mik, nice bit of kit, here's a couple of pictures of my 1/10th scale Burrell Special Scenic.Gas or Meths fuel, will pull me along. Alyn

 

[Mik]

I love showman's engines... but I'm too lazy to polish all that brass.....

Kim was having trouble visualizing how it would look (She has an artist's eye for taking photos and drawing, but I guess she can't quite do it in 3 dimensions...), so I did a temporary mock-up last night. I need to make a minor change to the upper water column valve piping, so the engine can go down another inch and back about two.......

 

[Chris Bird]

Mik - that looks like a great (and brave!) project. I thought you might like to see a similar one completed by Len Watts, a member of our local model engineering club here un Weymouth (England).

The rear wheels are Bren-gun Carrier track bogies mounted on a truck back axle shaft. The front wheels were from a chicken house . The front wheel treads were from an old combine drive belt. The front axle from a tractor implement drive shaft, the steering gear once strained an electric stock fence and the smoke box door was a tractor pulley blanking plate. A dog choke chain was used for the steering gear.
The pressure gauge, whistle and water gauge are new, as are the lubricators and pumps, but the boiler itself is part of an old steam boiler scrapped at a local hospital. The safety valve is from an old compressor, the fire grate is from an old solid fuel stove, the main steam valve is an old ¼? ball valve tap and the drain taps are old Calor Gas valves.
[font="arial narrow, sans-serif"]The electrics are powered by a 12v car dynamo. The problem was that this didn?t look right so Len disguised it in a Hoover washing machine motor shell.[/font]
[font="arial narrow, sans-serif"]It took 28 years to complete with time off for family, restoring trucks, cars etc. Len shows it at all the local steam rallies and it runs beautifully.[/font]
[font="arial narrow, sans-serif"]Cheers[/font]
[font="arial narrow, sans-serif"]Chris
[/font]

 

[Mik]

Went to a family friend's in Jamestown, Pa today to get some old manure spreader wheels to use for the rear rolls instead of the fragile pulleys. He was planning to scrap it out in a couple weeks, so I guess we had good timing!

One wheel was stuck fast to the axle, so we decided the expedient thing was to just take axle, pillow blocks and all. Then we can soak it all down with Kroil at our leisure. It cost us gas for an 80 mile round trip, plus $10 and a couple zucchinis for the parts....

The front axle, and one from a husker shredder, will be rescued as well to make a wagon to mount a couple steam pumps on. The rest of it is pretty rough, so the scrap man will probably get it unless somebody has a parts request.

 

[Mik]

Started welding up a frame this week. Yes, I know, Baker, Case, and Leader rollers didn't have them... But if it makes the local inspectors less unhappy, it will be worth it -- besides, it will probably save me a couple pages worth of stress calculations.....

First we set the rear parts to drill them for mounting holes, and to get the measurements for the rest. 3" channel is overkill, but it was free.

Not my best welding. But considering I hadn't struck an arc in the last 5 years, and was using an AC buzz box - It's serviceable...

Looks better with some grinding and paint. I think it will be black eventually.

Now a question: Can anyone translate the phrase "Not for Hire" into the Irish, or failing that, Welsh? thanks!

 

[Mik]

My apologies, to anyone attempting to view the pictures.

Photobucket has decided to hold my photos for ran$om until the 22nd or until I $end them money. They claim I have exceeded my allotted monthly bandwidth, and expect me to pay to upgrade because of thi$. A$ u$ual, they have offered no proof to $upport their claim$. $ince I'm $ubjected to their paid adverti$ement$ every time I upload a picture, I feel I owe them nothing, but they $till de$ire more....

I'll simply post new pics to Kim's account. The others will be back in 5 days

 

[Mik]

Yesterday, a friend if a friend cut the yoke piece off for me. It took about 20 minutes with a power hacksaw....

Since I no longer had an excuse to not make progress. I spent the evening mounting the front pedestal bearing brackets and some other bits that absolutely needed to be welded to the frame.

Today I finished up welding on the frame and got some help to heave the boiler into place.

After looking at it, I need to lower the pivot point on the front end a little over an inch - easy enough; Jack the frame up, pull the front rolls, cut the ears off the top of the roll bracket and drill a new pair of holes through the hollow bracket itself... then reinstall. If everything co-operates (yeah right!) it should take less than an hour

 

[Mik]

Spent part of yesterday reworking the front roll mount and welding up an engine bracket.

It's starting to look like a roller... maybe.... if you squint? lol

Definitely thinking I need the larger flywheel, or maybe one even a bit bigger yet

Still looking for gears that I can afford.

 

[Mik]

No this isn't a "zombie thread", and I have pix to prove it!
Some stuff I forgot to show:
I couldn't find gears, so sprockets would have to do:

The steering gear is just like the full sized ones. Believe it or not these worm parts are $10 flea market items!

Test firing in October 2010

Then the snows came

Other projects and generally negative cash flow meant I really didn't get much done on this thing at all last summer. (I scrounged some more parts, but that was about it....) Since our new landlord was being a pain in the butt about it anyway, we had a friend haul the wee beastie to the Portersville Pa steam show grounds a few weeks ago. It will be on display in the steam building there during the summer show in August for those who are interested in examining it. Nothing like an "open house" to motivate you to get busy doing stuff that you've been procrastinating about! Anyway, here's some NEW pix!

A minor project, but it needed doing. I made a bracket to hold up the inside end of the lift for the Stephenson's link reverse. It's just a bit of bar with a bushing welded to it - on the original Mason twin, this part was cast in on top of the other engine frame. It took me a while to figure how to do the offset without it looking totally cobbled. There will be a diagonal brace bolted to the hole to further help hide the joint.

This photo shows the end result of about 10 hours work just to get things back looking almost exactly how they did before I started.... I never liked the way that the front end sat higher than the rear (I mis-measured the offset needed on the frame when I built it, and didn't notice until the boiler was already mounted. Lesson learned!) Since I couldn't lower the front without a LOT of reworking because of all the stuff that would need removed, I decided it would be "easier" to relocate the rear axle. All I had to do was cut about 1-1/2" reliefs into the channel frame on each side, make sure everything was square, and weld it all back together. The boiler sits within about 1/4" of level now..... Oh, the things we do just for aesthetics. LOL

While I had the welder out, I (hopefully) permanently mounted the steering gear. Since the recycled 3/4" shafting was a little sprung, I decided a center guide might be a good idea. If it LOOKS like a 3/4" bushing welded to a 3/8" bolt... it probably is. Sometimes the simplest solution is also the most elegantly functional.

I'm not sure what this old casting came off of, but I just had to use it for the upper steering bracket. And rather than peen the wheel in place, I welded a washer to the shaft. Just in case I ever need to disassemble it. (Yes, I considered cutting the seat deeper then threading the end of the shaft, but the wheel has very little dish.

I have most of the parts for the driveline (differential, pinion clutch, etc), and the drawings made for the water tanks, but those things will have to wait for another post.... Hopefully it won't be another 2 years until then.

 

[Mik]

We did a hydro to 1-1/2 x working pressure (150psi) and held that for 20 minutes. We double checked the (new) safety with the hydro pump as well. It worked properly. Satisfied?

Some of us idjits actually know what we're doing.

 

[Mik]

Touchy? Maybe. From here, I think you made ASSumptions based solely on appearances of things that DON'T matter about the safety of things that do. and deserved to be called on them.

If you had simply asked about the boiler construction, I would have told you.

That boiler cost me well over $1K in 1997 money just in all new code materials. I made 20+ pages of drawings and calculations. To do the required math properly, I acquired (and still have) used copies of the relevant ASME code books (4 sections total, NOT cheap) and did all of the calculations myself and then cross checked those answers against the others before having them all double checked by a friend who is a former Hartford Insurance boiler inspector. I'll be running 100psi max to keep under Section I part PMB (power model boiler) of the ASME code, but the "weakest" point on the boiler would still be good for 400psi in industry. Most everything else is in the 1000psi range. It's THAT overbuilt.

The MINIMUM shell thickness (except for the tubes) is .365" and ALL welds are full penetration plus.

All joint WPS (weld process sheets) conform to industry standards (as of 1997) for code boiler work and I made multiple test pieces of EVERY joint which were destructively tested by an independent weld inspector - no flaws were found. In 1997 I also held ASME welding certifications. I've since let them lapse due to health and cost.
Now you know

 

[musket the dog]

Igonoring the last few posts, what a great thread a very interesting build, good luck to getting the rest of it finished. I think it's fascinating that all of these bits and pieces can still be found

 

[Spule 4]

Looking good Mik!

 

[Mik]

I probably should explain why I'm "touchy" - to quote Ross.
You see, for over a decade, I owned a model engineering (live steam) supply business. I also own a full sized traction engine. I was in business through both the Medina Ohio incident, and the Y2K nonsense.
So not only did I have clowns calling me saying I was selling "bombs", but guys wanting me to help them BUILD one. I took a firm stand in the middle of the road - and as a result I got an earful at least weekly from the uninformed reactionaries on BOTH sides.
My patience was finite, and it ran out a loooooooong time ago. So if you still think I over-reacted, I humbly apologize.