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Looking back, these engines seem very crude and are not shown here for their high quality craftsmanship. They simply show the starting point for my model engineering hobby and the learning process that I took. |
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This was the first steam engine I ever made. It was built from a kit that was given to me as a gift but due to the limitations of my workshop and skills at the time, it ended up quite different to the original design. The biggest difference was the engine itself which, originally was a sliding valve design. To keep things simple, I replaced this with an oscillating engine instead. The boiler was 150mm long and was fitted with a steam dome, safety valve and simple super heater. The engine had a bore of 10mm and a stroke of 20mm. The engine had a few problems, a slightly non-true flywheel and a piston which protruded from the cylinder at top-dead-centre. However it ran very well despite these problems. |
Simple horizontal steam engine plant. |
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Vertical steam engine plant. |
The second engine I made never ran. It was a vertical boiler plant with a double-acting oscillating cylinder engine. The problem was the boiler, which seemed to be incapable of producing steam. Looking at the design and materials used, I think a combination of the small heating surface and thick brass tube shell, meant that it was just too inefficient. |
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After the failure of engine No 2, a very simple model was designed, to try and regain confidence. This basic engine was built from off-cuts of material. The end result was a tatty and crude steam plant but it did at least run and the design brief was to make the engine as simple as possible, which it was. This engine had a home made spirit burner, which had 2 wicks (the previous models had been solid fuel fired). It worked well but the boiler was easily exhausted when the engine was running at full speed. |
Small Steam Plant |
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Large steam plant |
This steam plant never got finished. I got distracted by the arrival of my Stuart 10H casting kit. However I did get the engine and boiler to a working state and it ran very nicely. The engine was a twin cylinder oscillating design with a cast iron flywheel. The boiler had a super heater, 3 water tubes, a pressure gauge, water gauge, drain cock and of course a safety valve. The burner was an 8 wick home-made design fed by a 'chicken feed' type fuel system. The fuel (meths) was held in the red tank on the left of the model and gravity fed to the burner. |
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