Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

Hey it is Saturday again! time for some more Bengs engine fun for me :-)

There was some free time in the week which allowed me to machine a new governor spool, trim the crank and final fit the govenor side flywheel.  With this done the governor was finished off with the weights and spings made.





Here is the crude water hopper i made from two pieces of Aluminium angle, hopefully once the top is made and it is sanded to shape it will look a bit nicer.



I was torn whether to try to Aluminium solder the hopper to the water jacket or use some aircraft aluminium epoxy a friend gave me, in the end i went with the glue.  Keyed the surface and bonded the hopper to the jacket.



The Piston rings i ordered turned up so next step was to try and make the conrod and piston.  Making the big end halves on the lathe was OK but filing the flats on either side was a mare.  I filed one side close but the was not enough material to hold it in the vice to do the other side, after a bit of head scratching and some four letter words it ended up in the pillar drill vice and a dremel bit in the chuck as a makeshift mill.  That pillar drill has been a Godsend throughout this project.



Eventually the rod was done, and it was straight and a good tolerance on the bearings



The plans show the piston as a heavy old lump of brass screwed to a cast iron piston with no rings, obviously it works but it kinda made me feel queasy, so i set to work making a normal aluminium piston with the rings i bought, should be lighter and easier as the piston to bore tolerance is not so tight.
Piston went well, ring grooves machined, good fit in the bore, small end marked out.



Then came the hard bit, again i wished for a mill to hollow out the centre of the piston.



In the end (in desperation!) the slot was chain drilled and chewed out with a dremel, bit rough and ready but i have to make do here.  Piston done and a lovely fit in the bore and suprisingly parallel 



Hopefully tomorrow i can get the cylinder head done...maybe 

Thanks for following the rather long thread.

Ade