Stuart No 1 - Introduction

The Stuart No 1 steam engine is a vertical steam engine with a bore and stroke of 2". It is capable of real work when made properly.

These articles show how I made this engine on my 3.5" centre height lathe.

The image on the right shows the contents of the casting kit. It also contained all the fixings, gasket material drawings and bar stock to make the engine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This set of articles shows how I built this model but there are other ways to make the parts.

It is also worth noting the Stuart castings are very accurate which means 2 things.

  • It is possible to use a roughcast face as a datum quite easily, which makes the set-up for each part easier.
  • The castings are only just oversize and so not much metal has to be removed to make the final part. The down side of this is that there is no room for error and so the set-up of the casting is more important.

Remember when machining any casting :

  • The golden rule with castings is to datum from an un-machined outer surface.

To clarify this. If a surface is to be left un-machined and is to be in the correct place relative to the finished faces, then you must make sure this un-machined face is in the right place before you start. To put it another way, you can't change the position of the un-machined faces because they are not going to be touched, therefore you must ensure that any machining you do leaves un-machined faces in the correct place. This is done by referencing your machining from the faces which you plan to leave as un-machined on the final article.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

View the exploded diagram of the Stuart No1 click the thumbnail

 

 

 

 

 

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