Stuart No 4 Steam Engine

[Hawkeye]

Hopefully, someone who's been there before can straighten us out.

[arvidj]

In a previous life I had several small block Chevy's balanced. Certainly a long way from what you are trying to balance but it made me curious as to the details of what they were doing. I do remember them weighing the big and small ends of the rod and various other bits and pieces to come up with the bob weight. There were some calculations involved so I Googled it ... Understanding Crankshaft Balancing ... I found it interesting but no where close to something useful.

A refinement of the search criteria found this ... Balancing Engines ... which seems to be (a) pretty much on point and (b) a lot of work. I thought the statement at the end of the discussion ... "Best is not fully balanced - which is simply impossible on a single cylinder. Yeah I know nothing is ever fully balanced but a single cylinder is the worst case." ... would be useful to moderate your expectations.

Arvid

[f350ca]

Thanks Arvid !!!
Thought there might be more to balancing than just looking at the rotating parts.
Will go through that thread when I have more time and a clear mind.

[TomG]

I'm thinking for a low rpm application like a steam engine, static balancing would be more than adequate. Didn't you make a static balancer a while back, Greg???

Tom

[f350ca]

Think that was the fan in the snow blower Tom. Planned to build knife edges bot never got to it. Apparently need to make a set to balance the wheel on the bike.

[f350ca]

Not the best knurl I've ever made but defiantly the smallest, thats a 6-32 screw sticking out.
This locks the handle in forward or reverse.

[arvidj]

Yes, only very marginally related to the thread (squinting helps) but I found it timely (posted two days ago) and interesting (at least to me. You need not agree. My wife seldom does so I'm use to rejection  ) ... Engine Vibration. The first part is about single cylinder engines and it then goes on from there.

I promise to not go off-topic in this thread again.

[f350ca]

Some interesting info there. My Ural uses the BMW flat engine, sure idles smooth. In the 60's OMC made a flat 2 stroke for their snow mobiles. Interestingly both cylinders fired at the same time to further cancel vibrations.

[f350ca]

Need two drain cocks for the cylinder. Finished one today


The body is 5/16 with a 1/4 hex milled for tightening and a 10-32 thread .1 inch through bore. The stem pocket is tapered with a reamer for tapered dowel pins. Made the first stem with brass but even hot the handle snapped when I tried to bend it over. Went with stainless. Can you bend brass? Have never tried before.

[Hawkeye]

Brass can be bent, but it is subject to work-hardening, like copper. It should be annealed by heating it up to a faint red glow. Then it can be air cooled or quenched in water. It won't harden with quenching. Depending on how much work you are doing on the work piece, you may have to anneal it more than once.