Small Boiler

[editor@glue-it.com]

I turned the other side, filed the spokes and then tumbled it for an hour.



It's not perfect, might have to make another one, but were traction engine steering wheels perfect anyway?

[editor@glue-it.com]

I've now added a fast handle to the wheel. A complete steering wheel for the Burrell, around 6 hours of work

[editor@glue-it.com]

The cylinder block has taken some thought. The single cast iron block bolted to the boiler forming a seal felt difficult to achieve at this scale.

My solution is to create a saddle with an upright backbone that becomes the mounting plate. This part can then be silver soldered to the boiler.

This saddle part is shown with the green cross-hatching, the boiler shell with orange cross-hatching.

This is the roughed out part sat on the traction engine

[rendoman]

That project is wonderful!

[editor@glue-it.com]

That project is wonderful!

very kind, thanks

[editor@glue-it.com]

I thought it was time to just talk about the Miniature Traction Engine and show everybody how I'm approaching some of the build:

[editor@glue-it.com]

I've been machining the cavity around the Burrell cast iron cylinder.



however, my first task was adjusting the HV4 rotary table to remove any play. Not mentioned in the instructions, so I had to find out for myself:



I found I had to:

1. rotate the worm drive out of use so the table can be rotated by hand
2. loosely tighten the caphead bolts, not too tight or the table won’t rotate
3. adjust the grub screws so that you can just feel they are bottoming out
4. tighten the caphead bolts, I tighten one and then the opposite one.
5. if you cannot rotate the table then backoff slightly until you can
6. adjust the grub screws to be tighter and so back the washer off
7. you can now use the leverage to feel for play in each direction
8. go back around steps 4 to 7 until the table has no play, but can still rotate

[editor@glue-it.com]

The steering worm and wheel are quite small and so I had to make a 6mm diameter 2mm pitch hob to finish cutting the profile in the wheel.

[editor@glue-it.com]

Making the parts and assembling the steering bottom end has been quite enjoyable. The worm and wheel are working really well, a really good snug fit.



I can now turn the steering wheel and the steering drum rotates. Now I just need to add the chains and I will have a working steering system.

[editor@glue-it.com]

Here is the steering system working