Thursday, June 26, 2014 --Yeah, yeah, late as usual! Next meeting tonight; hope y’all can make it! --Didn’t take notes last time; reminiscences night follow. --We missed Mike Solari; he’s been working long hours and he fell asleep! No sign of Mark J but just about everyone else was there. --First a correction to note: in some previous newsletter I mentioned that the big yellow tandem trike built by Robert and Dawn had neat big fat tires but I misunderstood them when they told me how much they weigh. I thot they were 60 lbs apiece but the correct weight is *16* lbs apiece: quite a difference! Said fatty tires are liberated from $200 kids bikes that are available at WalMart. They had to buy two bikes to get all the fixin’s they needed for their tandem but one also gets a pile of bike parts that can be used for other projects so in the long run it’s a good deal.. --Riley brought a fearsome R/C beastie he made from parts scrounged from a Make trash pile of some kind; details please? He used Roomba wheels and drive motors and a nose wheel assy made of Lego to produce an R/C robotic whatsit --Someone brought along a bare bones keyboard: nothing but a bare circuit board with a bunch of momentary on switches on top --Tom and Bruce M spent some time discussing the finer points of how to build a robot that’s propelled by bonking itself on the head. Can’t wait to see what emerges from Tom’s vision! --Ed talked to Wayne about thermite. After machining the metal parts they are run thru a vibratory tumbler for several hours. Tumbler has a pump and wash setup that allows fine metal dust to settle out in a bucket. Ed got to thinking that this residue, combined with the residue from a tumbling of aluminum parts after some other job, would be fun stuff to ignite if a means could be found to separate and purify the two metals. Wayne suggested that the iron could be captured just by suspending a super magnet in the pump bucket and Ed plans to take a whack at it. Plan B will be to fabricate a magnetic drain plug that would be placed near, but not on, the bottom of the tank. That way iron would be picked up and stone debris from the tumbling media will fall to the bottom, making a purer capture, so to speak. As for separating aluminum from media debris Ed plans to dump the water, then empty the sludge into a tub and letting the remaining water evaporate over a few hot days. Wayne said he’d have to think on it a bit but it might be possible to run a thermite reaction even though the aluminum wasn’t quite pure. In any case we’ve got some fun in store down the road. --Bruce L brought along one of two head rests he found at the junkyard. He also brought along some aluminum plate which he sawed up to make mounting brackets for them. After Ed did a bit of milling on the plates (what he calls therapy: working for fun rather than for money!) Bruce drilled and tapped the plates to make assemblies that will allow for head rest adjustment and fastening. Bruce isn’t sure yet which way to jump on the vehicle he’s thinking of building: it may become a tandem quadcycle suitable for city excursions but it may become a Playa-ready tandem quad with added complications, i.e. lighting effects, fire effects, better suspension, etc. --Ed and Richard were relaxing after a week of drilling and tapping a pile of holes in Saf-T-Blocks for friend Vern who was in a bit of a pickle. Ed’s pal Richard Castagnola has been visiting all week, working on a horribly intense metalworking project. In their turns both Big Chris and Ed have helped out as best they could and as of Wednesday morning the parts were finally finished. All ‘participants’ agree: it’s a project not to be repeated! Richard lives near Ventura, CA and works as a machinist in a shop that does a lot of punch and die work, as well as deep drawing. Richard is also an expert on steam engine valve gear and the many variations which abound in the wonderful world of steam. Richard is also the fireman on Ed’s stemaboat when it steams on the Mokelumne River, near Isleton, CA. -Of late Ed and Richard have been toying with the idea of improving the steam engine on Ed’s boat and they’ve also been trying to find what’s available in the ‘store bought’ realm of model live steam engines. Sadly the heyday of model steam seems to have ended with the last recession, which saw the demise of Cheddar Models and several other notable manufacturers of small steam engines. Saito made beautiful engines and boilers, burners and other relevant machinery. But although the company is still around they’ve never produced more steam equipment. Now the only place they can be found is on ebay and there they cost more than new ones did! -One bright light in this gloom can be found in a small Chinese operation that has opened a store on ebay. It’s called Jin Microcosm Engine and the store is here: stores.ebay/jin-microcosm-engine?_trksid=p2047675.l2563 This is where Joe acquired that nifty little single cylinder vertical steam engine that he’s planning to use to test the fruits of the tachometer project. These engines are not as sophisticated as the ones Saito and Cheddar made but Jin is promising improvements, including reversing gear. --Ed and Richard spent part of the evening dismantling a little steam turbine that Ed made several decades ago. Said turbine wasn’t quite behaving up to snuff and an ‘autopsy’ was in order. As The rotor itself was an early type which had blades cut with a special cutter made for the purpose. A manual milling machine was used too. Later Ed made rotors with a CNC machine. The case containing the rotor showed signs of wear on one end, perhaps due to the angle of the steam jet pressing that face of the rotor into its support bushing. It’s hoped that the addition of a thin Delrin washer will set things to right. Said case is also fouled with steam oil residue and no doubt this fouls the rotor when it’s run on compressed air. Both Ed and Richard have copies of the CNC-cut turbine rotor and after a bit of talking it up last night both agreed that they’d work on making complete engines in the coming months. --In between episodes of marathon machining Ed and Richard managed to escape to a couple of local events and many photos were snapped. On Sunday morning they made the trek to Peggy Sue’s All American Cruise, for Santa Rosa a very large showing of beautiful vintage cars. Photos are here: https://flickr/photos/steamboat_ed/sets/72157645273641775/ Then on Sunday afternoon Ed, Richard and Judy trekked over to Sturgeons Mill which was having a steam up. More on this now-101-year old business that has been in the same family for 5 generations can be found here: sturgeonsmill/ Sadly by this time of day everyone had dead camera batteries so photos are few!
Posted on: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 17:28:53 +0000
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