Thread: Finished a Poppin Flame Eater Engine

This was a little project I worked on over a few weeks. I love the look of the little engines, especially with dual flywheels. One day I hope to get my hands on a larger hit and miss engine, but until then....

Made from scrap around the shop, it went together pretty well. I'd like to make another larger one, install proper bearings etc but this one was a success and came out quite nice. These are a pretty common first engine to make and I've done a wobbler style way back when I first got my lathe.

The plans. I tried to follow as closely as possible as I haven't done a lot of making to measurements, but I made a few changes along the way to accommodate the stock I had available to me.





Milled out the frame first


Then the cylinder out a piece of hex brass I had




Flywheels were made in two components as I didn't have any brass stock large enough but I had some bronze bearings close to size that I utilised:

Mating the bronze outer to the aluminium centre:


Making the cut outs using an ER32 collet block in the mill:


A pair before final truing and cutting to final dimensions:


Mocking up as the parts start to come together:






Made a little burner, completed the last bits and assembled for the test run. It gave a few coughs on the first go, adjusted the timing a little, and then got this little thing to run:

So happy with the outcome I disassembled again to polish and paint some components:







And a final running video:


What a tremendous waste of time hahahaha

I showed a few people who all thought it was very cool, but they did ask the question why? I don't know, I just think they are neat and it was a great little project.

nice job. Curious about your fly wheels - was the aluminium a light press fit in or did you glue it to the bronze rims?

cheers

Great little engine, Where did you get the plans for this one?

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Originally Posted by Zsteve

nice job. Curious about your fly wheels - was the aluminium a light press fit in or did you glue it to the bronze rims?

cheers

Yes, a light press fit and then some loctite to make sure it didn't go anywhere. Worked out well. If I'd had some stock large enough I probably would have done them as one piece but I only had some 60mm aluminium round and I thought the two tone with the bronze/brass colour would look better than just the aluminium alone. I cut the centres out of some 3mm alu plate I had. Turned the outer rim ID's first and then cut the centre disks to fit, trying for just a light interference fit, for practice mostly.

Originally Posted by steamjunkprops

Great little engine, Where did you get the plans for this one?

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I'm just trying to find the plans now as I forget where they came from (if I can find them I'll provided the link). I have the PDF of the nice ones shown above that I can send you if you would like to PM me your email address. (Found the plans: http://www.vapeuretmodelesavapeur.co...t-05-02-05.pdf )

The engine is stated as being designed by Dr. J.R. Senft, published in the magazine Live Steam 1980. But the above plans were drawn up by JDW Draughting Services from what I can tell.

Here are some copies of the magazine version, but the plans above are much nicer.
http://www.john-tom.com/MyPlans/Stea...acum-engSm.pdf

http://www.hobbydownloads.com/pdf/05...0-%20small.pdf

That's a great job on a nice looking little engine.
The two tone flywheels are a very nice touch and the extra mass of the bronze rims probably helps a bit too.
Getting vacuum engines to run is notoriously tricky, you've done well to get it going on the second try.
Outstanding.
Cheers,
Greg.

Originally Posted by kwijibo99

That's a great job on a nice looking little engine.
The two tone flywheels are a very nice touch and the extra mass of the bronze rims probably helps a bit too.
Getting vacuum engines to run is notoriously tricky, you've done well to get it going on the second try.
Outstanding.
Cheers,
Greg.

Yeah I was quite surprised also as I expected a bit of trouble shooting but when it coughed (well, it farts really) and ticked over a few times I was fairly confident that it would run. I made the first piston out of brass and it ran ok with that but seemed to be difficult to get the right balance of lube without gumming up. As you allude to, they are very sensitive to friction. I had read that a lot of people use graphite as a piston material because you can run them dry as they are self lubricating. So I made another piston out of graphite as it also runs nicely, with the added benefit of not having to lubricate the cylinder. But both worked ok when things were clean. A good strong flame in just the right position is important and you can alter the engines rpm by small shifts in the position of the flame.

Great engine. I'm envious. Puts my vertical engines to shame. Maybe we should have a Model Engine chapter for the engines we are making.

Ben.