November 2014

One of the reasons I bought the lathe and mill (see my Metalwork page) is so that I can do some model engineering. I decided that I would like to build a working version of a stationary steam engine. These were used mostly in the 19th century to power factories, mills and pumps (see the Wikipedia article: Stationary Steam Engine).

I love steam engines, and am always impressed by the large steam engine at the Science Museum in London.

My approach to this project was very ambitious, as I chose not buy a kit or use any existing blueprints.I designed this from scratch. It is therefore not a replica of anything that exists or existed, but I wantedit to have the same look and feel of steam engines of that period.

I want to machine most of the parts from raw metal, rather than cast parts, including the cylinders. The only parts that are impractical to create myself are the flywheels, due to the size of the steam engine I want to build (the flywheels would be 7 inches in diameter), and because of the design of wheel itself. I have therefore opted for cast iron flywheels, and got these from RGD Tools.

I will still need to machine them, but the spoke structure and centre hubs are already defined, and just need cleaning up and painting.

This project was put on hold due to other priorities.

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