Model Engine Gallery Page 2

Click on the images to view them larger size.

 
Charlie Mynhier sent thes pics of his home-brew single cylinder glo engine. He says:

The Cylinder and Crankcase are integral with each other and machined from a bar of AISI 4340 Ht 38-42 Rc. The Cylinder Head was machined from Aluminum Bronze. The piston is made in 2 pieces of bronze pressed together capturing the Ring which I made from Cast Iron. (TOO HEAVY) The Crank Shaft is fabricated by pressing a Stainless Steel Crank Disk onto a polished and ground 1/4" Dia. HSS Drill Blank, the Crank Pin is long to drive the rear Rotary Valve.

This Engine started out to be a 2 Cylinder thing, but I was having so much fun drilling and reaming holes that I drilled 2 of them in the wrong place and was unable to use one of the cylinders. That turned out to my advantage as I like to have never got the one good cylinder smooth enough to get enough compression to start. After many hours of spinning the thing, it started to sound like it was running and finally it would continue to run when I quit spinning it. I made a Poor Boy Hone, also poor in quality and intended purpose and got the Cylinder smooth enough to run.

It will now Scream and Viberate all over the place.

Just when I though I was doing well making a pair of Morton M5 radials, Ken Croft sends along this pic suggesting it as my next project! We don't know a lot about it except that it was photographed at a show in Sweden. It's a dual bank, 14 cylinder "freestyle" engine build by Dennis Fadden of Vancouver, BC. It's based on Vernal Engineering (Bruce Satra) M5 cylinders and rockers; probably distributors as well. That would make it 2.576 cuin. Differences from "standard" (apart from just about everything) are the use of separate inlet and exhaust cams evident from the staggered push rods. Now spare a moment of admiration for the builder: it's hard enough to assemble the inlet pipes of a 5 cylinder M5 where you have clear access. How this one got assembled when all the inlets disappear between the cylinder banks (apparently) has me beat!
This is an example of the Chenery Aero-Twin built by Phil Coleman of Sydney Australia, more of whose work appears below. The twin, designed by Les Chenery (UK) is an ohv 90 degree V, air-cooled 4 stroke. Bore is 13/16" giving a capacity of 15cc. The construction series was serialized in Engineering in Miniature beginning with the Dec 1983 issue. Castings, drawings and special parts are available from Woking Precision (see links page).

Below the AeroTwin is the man himself, Phil Coleman, doing, as he describes it, what he does best: making chips; occasionally also making a part for himself. That sounds familiar... By the way Phil, I love the lack of belt guards on the lathe—you're a man after my own heart!

A beautiful Elf "Goose Egg 4" made from Art DeKalb castings by Les Stone. You really need to study the original plans to see how faithfully this reproduction follows the original: for instance, the "springs" that form the rear spark plug leads and the exposed, artfully curved piece of piano wire leading the the forward plugs. Great buff job on the sand-cast cylinders too!
Here is the extremely rare Elf 0.10 cuin, rear exhaust, Schnurle port diesel. Only one is known to exist in the hands of Mr Stan Pilgrim, mostly because he made it! Click on the pic to read the story in Stan's own words.
Eric Offen continues to make progress on his Elfs (from Art Dekalb's castings). This time, he's attacking crankshafts. All Elf shafts follow "full-size" practice with fore and aft shaft journals. The difference being how many throws get put in between. The first photos show the parts bins for his Elf twins and six cylinder engines.

In the next shot, we see one of the shafts for the 6 which has, in Eric's words, ..popped out for a quick trip round the workshop and came back the worst for it, see picture (sob sob). I often wonder why things like this happen on the last operation instead of the first? Further validation of the law of perversity of inanimate objects, I suppose...

Eric has some nice, large (rigid) equipment. This allows him to use some setups that are beyond the capability of the typical "hobbyist" lathes like the excellent Myford. This, plus the fact that Eric actually knows what he's doing, allowed him to turn the crankpin throws using power cross feed! The shaft is held in a 5C collet held in a normal 5C fixture attached to the lathe faceplate. These fixtures are massive, so you get some idea of the lathe size and rigidity.

For the full story, see Eric's Elfs.

Here are two Australian engines from David Owen's collection. The Dooling like, dark monster is a "Vampire" .60—the other is a "Delta" .29, circa 1952. The one shown here is (obviously) a ball bearing engine, although a plain bearing version was also made.
This is the display cabinet at the home of Mr Russell Watson-Will, gentleman, modeller and engine builder. Click on his cabinet to see what's inside...
From the mighty DeHaviland Aircraft Works in Overland Park, Kansas, a brand new old DH84 Dragon for Hillman Airways, ready for delivery (and the courage to fuel it up with electricity and fly it). This is another of Roger Schroeder's lovely stick and tissue models. I wouldn't be game to fly it either!
A nicely executed Sparey 5cc from Phil Coleman in Australia. This engine was sometimes called the "Aeromodeller Research 5cc Diesel" as the construction article appeared there (in 1946, I think) attributed to the Aeromodeller Staff. For more information on Laurence Sparey's engines, have a look here.
These shots were sent to me by Alex Osovik who represents a group of amazingly talented and dedicated engineers in the Ukraine. They are marketing their products under the name PROFI Micro Engines (I don't know if they have any connection with the PROFI engines that I recall from the 1980's, or not). The members of this group are Alex Osovik (F2A), Youry Chalka (F2C), Pavel Troiono (F2A) and Alex Zajtvec (F2B). The FAI event numbers show they are all dedicated control line men and produce engines for team race, speed and stunt as well as these scale gems.

The Cirrus and V8 show their Eric Whittle heritage, but in so many different scales and variations that this can only be considered as a starting point. From top to bottom we see:

A pair of V2 "motor cycle" style air cooled four strokes based on Whittle 1:6 scale cylinders, bore 17.1mm, stroke 19mm, capacity 9cc, operating rpm 1200.
An air cooled Whittle V8 again using 1:6 scale Cirrus parts, so total capacity 36cc.
A water cooled version of the same engine, with radiator. The v8's turn at 9000 rpm.
A double overhead cam, water cooled four cylinder four stroke of PROFI design. It has a bore of 25.5mm and stroke of 25mm giving a capacity of 50cc and operates at 10000 rpm.
A lineup showing a different perspective on the wc dohc 4, followed by Whittle/Zimmerman Cirrus Mk1's in 1:6 and 1:12 scale, both air and water cooled.
Some parts for the Cirrus engine.

For historical reference, Merrit Zimmerman (USA) was responsible for the initial design of a 1:4 and 1:6th scale versions of the Cirrus Mk1 (both published in SIC). He also built and sold them for a time. Eric Whittle built the 1:6 version for the construction series in SIC and designed a 1:9 scale version that was published in Engineering in Miniature magazine (UK). Later, he designed the V8 based on his previous work and also used these assembles to produce flat two and four cylinder engines. These have been published in MEW and SIC respectively. SIC also published his "Robin" design; a miniature 4 stroke single based on his 1:9 Cirrus cylinder assembly.

While it can be hard to tell from photos, I think the quality, workmanship and attention to detail are simply outstanding—look at the finish on the Cirrus components depicted in the final shot. I don't normally include commercial work in the "Gallery" section of my site, but for these I believe an exception was warranted. Email them, or contact direct:

av I.VLSKM 63 app.128
Kharakov 61118 Ukraine
fax: Int+380572-629476
Did that get your attention? The engine is a Rolls Royce Eagle and it has been made from the solid! The photos were taken by Ken Croft at the Midlands Model Engineering Exhibition in the UK. Click on the photo to see more shots of this engine and others taken by Ken at the many shows and fun days he manages to attend while not playing music at folk festivals.
This is a genuine Movo D2 diesel from Italy. The picture was kindly sent in by Mr Suman Saripalli. I don't know how they performed, but you've got to admit, Italian designs have style! Compare the Movo with the Folgore replica. There are similarities in the sweep of the bypass, the flare of the inlet and the shape of the head. Both of these are beautiful engines.
Here's another engine from Eric Offen (UK), a Westbury "Ladybird". Eric located the original casting dies for most of the wonderful engines Edger Westbury designed and published in Model Engineer in the 1940's and early 50's. As they'd been stored outdoors all this time, some had become unusable. Neverthe less, Eric can make very nice castings from those that remain. The ladybird certainly has a period charm to it. Luckily, Eric found my web site and we traded soom of my stuff for a set of castings. Roll on retirement!
This is a Ivanko Julia F1C 2.5cc Special (photos by Ken Croft). Although it resembles the Zeiss Jenna with the venturi parallel to the crankshaft, it is not, like the Jenna, piston ported. Rather, the inlet timing is controlled by flanges on either side of the con-rod! MEW of May/June 2000 shows a plot of the path the inlet hole follows relative to the conrod. It looks like an egg, pointy bit up, offset 2mm from the rod center. This gives asymmetric open/close although as the article writer (Dr John C Dixon) notes, the inlet is never fully uncovered. Very interesting and novel, though it presents additional problems that probably outweigh any advantages.