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Burrell Traction Engine, Happy Birthday To Me!

 Happy Birthday To Me!


Already February and 16 months since the start of the build!!.

One of the rear wheels is well underway with all the strakes now riveted on, all (112 x 1/8") copper rivets.  

The back of the strakes have been sprayed with corrosion-resistant BBQ paint, to prevent electrochemical reaction between the different metals used.

The odd holes not riveted are for attaching spuds on the full-size engine. These can be fitted to the wheels to provide extra grip in the mud.

As stated it was my birthday on the 2nd and I had a power electric file for cleaning up the Laser cut parts quick. This has proved invaluable and the belts seem to last longer than I thought. 

The paint finish is a Red-Oxide primer as this may spend a number of years under the bench before being needed. 



The picture to the right is my setup for machining the front wheel hub slots. This was made slightly easier by using EN1A steel a free-cutting type that machines nicely on smaller machines with less power. The slots are at 62 deg and so the rotary table was used to divide the 5 slots required for each side.

The slots on the opposite side are skewed by I think 31 deg as the spokes need to be alternate to each other from top to bottom.

Either way, I will find out soon as the one side has been almost finished by the end of last weekend as I'm writing this.




A close-up of the almost finished front hub on one side with the slots machined to 11mm to accept the Laser cut spokes. 

Finally, I was thinking about the running cost of the casting materials and tools purchased in order to build this engine and a quick total up to date, including all rivets, drills, etc I came up with a total cost of £1,095.  

Also, the commercial boiler price is looking between  £2000 + Vat for a steel boiler, and £2675 for a copper boiler however this may have changed since the quote in 2019 from devonsteamboilers. 

AJB I'm told are also good for steel boilers so a final decision has not been made yet!



All the best and cheers for now Stephen.
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