After a 3 month haul making my Beam engine I wanted something less demanding and finally chose Elmers #19 Standby engine which is an interesting variation on the ‘wobbler’ engine in that the cylinder doesn’t wobble ! (although it may on mine !).
Bogsie introduced me to the concept that if you are making one engine you may as well make two, three or even half a dozen as most of the time is spent on setting up and once you have done one its only a moments job to make another one (or two). Yeah, right Bogsie.
I started by cutting three ‘blanks’ of 1″ x 2″ chassis plates from 1/4″ thick aluminium and bonded them together with superglue before milling them as one down to final size.
Incidentally I found my Black and Decker jig saw ideal for hacking through aluminium plate – change blades frequently and lubricate with lashings of WD40 and save yourself the effort of using the hacksaw. I then machined down to final size on my milling machine
After using the flycutter to trim the block of three chassis plates down to size the next job was to drill the various holes. Everything was going well until I had to drill along the arm of the chassis with a 2mm airway aprox 1 1/2″ long. With care I managed the first two then on the third I snapped a drill leaving the broken bit embedded in the chassis. So, I now have to remake a third chassis plate. It was at this stage that I abandoned the workshop and sought solice in a cool beer in the warm sunshine.
More next time
Sooooo, I set to and made a third chassis plate then went and messed that up. It was at this point that I decided to cut my production run from three down to two.
