tools, materials & knowledge for model makers
This week I spent some time simplifying the oscillating engine that I made some years. The goal being to make a more elegant design that I could produce in CAD. The oscillating engine started life as a project to build on my then new Warco WM240B lathe. It ran briefly as a simple oscillating engine … Read more
Improving the Burrell Engine Flywheel from the original heavy design to a thinner elegant long spoked thin rim to match the 1890 drawing. I roughed out a flywheel yesterday, but then Steve (SGSengineering) rightly commented that the rim was heavy. So back to the workshop after some pondering of the design and options I had … Read more
The Burrell engine flywheel at 1/20th scale is a tiny 72mm in diameter and just 9mm wide. I’ve machined this from a piece of solid extruded cast iron. Firstly turning the surface profile on the lathe. Machining the Spokes The process of machining a flywheel has been discussed before. Hence I will leave you with … Read more
As with a lot of my engine designs they start with the flywheel and in this case a cast iron flywheel that was machined from solid. This flywheel was first installed on my oscillating steam engine and then moved to the transitional engine. Once I had turned the basic shape of the flywheel I mounted … Read more
Flywheel design principles, primarily the wheel on the end of the crankshaft that gives the crankshaft momentum to carry the pistons through the compression stroke. Normally constructed from a heavy steel or iron disc. A flywheel has two main functions: Moderating speed fluctuations in an engine through its inertia. Any sudden increase due to fuelling … Read more