I have been working on my ME Beam Engine that I purchased from Reeves in England. The castings are pretty rough and it has taken a fair amount of time to get them looking good. I have built a wooden base that will be covered with "brick" and the top will be covered with cherry wood planking to simulate flooring. Overall I am pleased with the progress, but everything takes for ever. I think the next step is to get the beam mounted and the connected to the crankshaft.
Looks like that is coming together beautifully!
Very nice engine - and a lot of labor to come
Hope to see progress...
Arnold
Nice work so far 👍 thanks for sharing your progress, looking forward to more
Excellent photos. Can't wait to see it running.
That's gonna be a very nice looking beam engine when it's finished!!!
Very well done so far...
Will be looking forward to your updates.
I thought some of you might be interested in how I am trueing up my connecting rod. The rod has a curved middle section which is always difficult on a lathe. So I made my own "sweep" cutter to replace the cross feed on my Logan lathe. It is not my idea, but I did my own implementation. I thought it came out pretty good. It turns freely as the part is spinning allowing me to select a wide range of radius' and slowly rotating the cutter. It can be reversed allowing concave or convex curves. The cutter I use is a tiny (6mm) round carbide insert which is great for cutting rounded surfaces. The next step is to clean up the "groves" on the connecting rod using a ball nose cutter on my mill.
That's a great way to accomplish that type of machining!!!
I was able to finish up the flutes in my connecting rod on my mill using a 1/2" bull nose end mill and my rotary table. Was a real pain getting it centered since the forks made it tough. Pleased with the result.
Nice work and thanks for the bringing us along for the ride!
Continuing to make progress on my ME Beam Engine. I have most of the downstream drive train done. Still quite a bit to do on the governor. I think the next task will be the parallel motion linkage which will be quite tedious. Then the cylinder side of things. I have a very short video showing the crank in motion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MN_SSxyLDg
I continue to make slow progress on my ME Beam Engine. My last post said that I would move to the parallel motion on the beam and I thought it would be challenging. I was correct. It took forever and was very hard to get it smooth and parallel Not perfect but I think it will work pretty well.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wbWJh42Fe1o
That's coming along beautifully and the machining is definitely top notch!!!
I am progressing slowly on my Beam Engine. I have completed the cylinder and steam valve assembly. Came out OK. The last major item is the valve control mechanism. Then the governor. Once that is done, complete disassembly, paint then reassembly. Still lots to do.