3" Burrell Traction Engine build.

 Welland steam Show 2023 Report..... Welland Steam Show (Upton-upon-Severn July 28th-30th  2023). The show as usual was well attended. I'm happy to report the numbers looked better than perhaps some of the traders were expecting. Maybe the cancelled years, due to Covid, have inspired the next generation of Model Engineers. It certainly looked like there was no shortage of money changing hands for tools.  The show boasted 37 miniatures and 99 full size engines, along with a huge number of commercials, cars, bikes, tanks and military vehicles and displays. This time again, like last year there was the heavy haulage arena, which was fascinating to watch, as long as you could keep the coal ash out of your eyes :-)  I can imagine the rising fuel costs to move large machines, but this has not stopped them from attending this year. Thank you to all the organisers and engine owners, both big and small another fab year!! I actually spent quite some time there wandering about,...

  3" Burrell Steering Part 3a and spectacle plate (Continued)... Background story. If you are have been following my posts, or have just landed on this page by accident here is a brief intro to what this is all about. I'm Stephen and I am currently building my second traction engine. The first engine was a 1" Minnie that I completed a few years ago, and I'm happy to say it runs well and I do steam it every month or so to make the most of it and the 12 years it took to make. I did say I wouldn't build another one, however the Minnie is small and not capable of hauling on a rally field, it is difficult to keep in steam for more than a few hours and need constant attention to the water and fire otherwise it will go out in a flash. Then a major pandemic hit, and I had been looking at various drawings to see what I could understand, what castings were available and at what cost. I finally decided, just before the 4 year Covid holiday started, to look at building a 3...

  3" Burrell Steering Part 3 and spectacle plate. If you have been following so far we still have the hot weather with us, making it difficult to focus in the workshop. However on a steam related note it was the usual Kinver Model engineering open day on fathers day, so as a tradition we normally go along and support.  Kinver Model Engineers open day 18/6/23 Back to the steering in question, the lower bracket fits where it touches, mainly all over the worm wheel. (See Photo). I've unfortunately  drilled the mounting holes without actually checking first, and the top mounting hole is not even on the steel plate. The last few week have been studying others peoples photo's and trying to work out how best to modify the bracket with as little deviation from the original design or trying to resemble something close to the real thing. (Bottom left). Also thanks to Traction Talk another builder reached out to me and sent us a photo of his modification to sort his. (Thanks Del)....

 3" Burrell Chain Drum and steering Part 2 and back head. Recent progress has been made on the back head plates, these were items I had laser cut, and just require a small amount of filing and bending the outer sides. I plan to get these TIG welded on for a neat finish.  (My Son permitting as he is the welder)   A quality finish from the Laser cut parts In other new the chain drum has been progressing well, the keyway for the worm wheel has been completed using a 1/8" key. This is because the worm and wheel as purchased were made to drawing so I've had to go with an imperial size rather than a 4mm key. As luck would have it my dad had a 1/8" woodruff cutter an a number of 1/8" end and slot mills, so no new cutters were required for this 1 off job.  Following some TIG welding  Until next month stay safe; make swarf; have fun!

 Burrell TE, Horn plates (Part 3) revisited..... Following on from a successful show/ open day with the engine the horn plates had to be stripped down of the bearings to allow the axle shaft bearings to be machined.   The setup for drilling the axle hole. Note the use of temporary fixings from the aircraft industry to hold the two horn plates together. A special Jig was made as a way of checking the distance for the gears to mesh correctly (Photo Below-Right). The Jig can be seen in position (Photo Below-Left). Once the distance of 6" has been set, the hole's can be opened up to the 30mm for the bronze bearings. It is also possible to remove the bar a leave the silver steel pegs in, then placing the gears on these shaft as a final running check.  Final 2 shots: the holes were completed, and the complete thing was reassembled for a customary photo. The bearings still have the tapped holes to complete but these shots show the size of the engine and the weight is unbelievabl...

 Box Part 1... and stuff The 2nd Shaft gear being machined with the mating finished gear for alignment.  Following the back of the casting now being fully machined, I'm working to a true datum, the previous roughing cuts can be finally machined to size. Using the previous drilled and tapped holes to hold it onto the face plate from behind, this will enable me to machine the inside without fear of catching any bolts or fixings. This part has been a tricky but well thought out machining process, mainly because of the size of it, and also the need to hold it in a chuck or face plate to make a start on it.     I have also just ordered a   Gear shaft  Bracket ,  Part Number 81153 for the Burrell. This will be cast as they do not currently have one in stock but as its not needed right away I have time for it to arrive.   << Left  is the pattern that will be used for this casting, this is from the foundry and most of the parts, I ask for ...

 Gears Part 5.... And finally the Box. Hello, if you have been following so far, thankyou. I must however apologise for my occasional bad English and grammar. It's easier to drill 80 holes than to talk about it. However we have made it thus far and a pinnacle stage has been reached. The horn plates and shaft tubes have been mated together (THE BOX) and also the bearing housings. This seems like a result because most of the other parts either fix onto this, or are associated with the horn plates. There are some other holes perhaps required, like the 200 or so dummy rivets, but these are just visual and will be completed when necessary. The coming weeks I will be considering -  The large gear for the 2nd shaft, as the dividing plate is ready for cutting the teeth. Bronze bearings to go into the bearing housings. The crank shaft. (Or a length of silver steel for alignment).  The eccentrics for mounting on the crank. The steering gear brackets (Small bronze castings I have) +...

Burrell Traction Engine, Horn Plates (Part 2) If you have read part 1 (horn plates) you will see I have been making good progress and now I'm at the stage of having a square box to hang all the other bit off, it's starting to look like something rather than just a collection of part finished bits.  Horn Plates Hornplate's - keeping the two bearing cut outs eccentric to each other posed a few problems as I clamped them together but needed to bore one out much larger presented a few problems. Also as I hadn't finished the mating gear to either the fast pinion gear or the slow one so the required meshing and the position for drilling the hole was not really known other than the dimension from the drawing.   Another issue I came across was the maximum size that my boring head would work up to, the 2-inch hole was ok but at 3 1/2 Inches for the larger bearing, I was faced with having to buy a bigger boring head.  Then I had an idea of using a stout boring bar I had and modif...

Burrell Traction Engine, Horn Plates (Part 1) If you have read the blog thus far then thanks for putting up with my bad English. Even using Grammarly is not helping me however, I'm guessing if you are reading this its because you're interested in the build rather than an English essay. Horn Plates Hornplates I did try to go down the route of getting these Lazer cut professionally however the work required to produce the drawings proved too much, and so a set of 1/8" blanks were purchased from Bridport foundry. The disappointment came when I found they supply metric 3mm for the blanks, as I guess 1/8" is difficult to obtain. Maybe they could have increased the size to 4mm which would have been a better solution to prevent flexing by the pump under load. In fact, my 1" Minnie has 2mm horn plates at (1inch: foot) and just the axle and crank was made wider to accommodate the thicker plates. Well, I started marking out some holes to pin the two plates together. It...