tools, materials & knowledge for model makers
Why am I bolting the saddle to the boiler when I intend to silver solder it in place? Well, silver soldering can be difficult and the last thing I want is for the cylinder to shift in position. The cylinder saddle of the Burrell miniature traction engine was machined from phosphor bronze. The 12BA bolts around … Read more
The Burrell crosshead guide or maybe the trunk guide. Must admit that I need to study the history of steam engines and the naming of parts. Anyway, back to this miniature traction engine design and make. The crosshead guide supports the joint on the two-part conrod design. It is the sliding mechanism for the conrod … Read more
Machining the miniature Burrell cylinder cavity was quite interesting. Mainly because the cylinder was flat on one side and so the machining was an incomplete circle. This meant I needed to use the rotary table. I use the Warco HV4 rotary table quite a lot. To the extent that it has developed some slight slack. … Read more
The Burrell traction engine cylinder is a complicated part, especially when at 1/20th scale. This might have been made more complicated by my design. However, this page is all about describing the design and following as I make and assembling the parts. Design Concept Ideas The design has taken me back to one of the … Read more
Looking at Burrell cylinder block ideas for the miniature Burrell traction engine. The issue is this traction engine is 1/20th scale and the cylinder bore is just 12mm with a stroke of 12mm. All of this makes it fiddly and I need to simplify the design to make it work. However, the real difficulty is … Read more
The cylinder liner of an engine is is inserted into the cylinder jacket or cylinder block and in which the piston slides. The piston and cylinder liner are normally paired in terms of materials and parts. They are cast or pressed into the block to give the required different characteristics to the block metal. The … Read more
The cylinders on steam engines need insulating and there are many ways of achieving this. On this page I’ve shared some ideas, options and a particular design of mine for the insulated steam engine cylinder for the wooden beam engine. The cast iron cylinder from my wood and metal beam engine with a number of … Read more