Stuart No 9

[ron]

Hi All
I fancy building a Stuart No9 as a winter project, however nobody can supply me with a set of castings, Stuart say it will be at least 2 months and Lynx don't have them, any suggestions as to any other suppliers.
Ron

[baggo]

Hi Ron,

There's a complete kit for the No. 9 along with governor and feed pump on Ebay at the moment. Present price is £75 with 8 days to go.

John

[ron]

Hi John
Thanks for that, I usually search under Stuart Turner rather than just Stuart that's why I hadn't seen it. If the price doesn't get beyond a joke I'm for it.
It's quite amazing, I said to the wife a couple of days ago I've never seen a No9 kit on Ebay and there it is.
Ron

[lancelot]

Hi Ron,
congratulations are in order, good luck on the ''9''
All the best,
John.

[baggo]

Hi Ron,

I thought that was you sneaking a bid in at the last minute!
Have fun building it,

John

[ron]

Thanks chaps, I was quite pleased to win it for what seems like a very reasonable price considering there is the governor and feedpump parts included, only slight worry is he hasn't much feedback so I'll wait till it actually arrives before getting into smug mode ;D
Ron

[ron]

Well it arrived this morning and all is well, most of it is still in the original shrink wrap and there are a few parts included that are cost extra nowadays like drain cocks and a lubricator. There's even a set of BA open enders with it!
The crankshaft is a forging rather than a built up one which I've no idea how to turn so I better start reading up and any hints and tips are very welcome.
Thanks again John, thats worth a few pints if you can catch me in a pub.
Ron [in smug mode ;D]

[baggo]

I'll hold you to that if I'm ever up your way! Glad everything is ok.

John

[ron]

Just thought I'd add a picture of the current progress on the No9 seeing as this part of the board is a bit quiet just now, it's going to be an impressive engine when it's finished.

[Tel]

coming along very nicely indeed Ron

[ron]

Finally completed the No9 to the stage of a half hour run today on air, it ticks over nicely on less than 20 psi, I've still to clad the cylinder, I think I'll use wood slats plus I've got the governor to make, I've also got the castings for the feed pump, not sure whether to make it or not?
The second photo shows it with a 10V to give an idea of scale, the green colour hasn't reproduced very well, it's actually darker.
Ron

[Laurie_B]

Excellent Ron!Lovely pieces of work.The wooden cladding would look very good.

[lancelot]

Great work, Ron, maybe it's my eyes or did you key the skaft for the flywheel and if so how did you cut keyway in flywheel, also what paint did you use on engines?
All the best for now,
John.

[Tel]

Well done that man!!!! ;D

[ron]

Thankyou chaps, ;D and many thanks to Baggo for spotting it in the first place.
John, the keyway was cut using a small cutter ground out of an old tap and held in a chuck in the milling machine and worked up and down taking light cuts, a bit like a shaper or slotter or even a broach, it produced a keyway that got slightly shallower as it went through the flywheel due to the tool flexing so I fitted the key to suit [had plenty of practice at that for real years ago!]
The paint is Smoothrite, I'm not all that happy with the black baseplate, I think it might look better if it was all black rather than leaving the top surface bare metal? I've used Smoothrite before on the Victoria and it seems to stand up quite well to heat and oil but it does chip rather easily, a bit brittle perhaps.
The No9 required quite a lot more of what I would describe as hand fitting skills compared to other ST engines I've built, possibly due to it being a very old design, I think it originated before WW1 whereas the Victoria etc were the 70s.
Ron

[Myford Matt]

Great work, a really handsome model.

Pat yourself on the back!

MM

[paul]

Ron - that's fantastic, well done!!

What is the arrangement with the cross-head/slide? It seems to have a piece of brass underneath that mirrors the cross-head itself.

Can I ask a stupid question? When running on steam how would you know if and when to open the drain-cocks?

Can we have some more close-up pictures please?

[Tel]

Udually that type of crossead has a flat 'foot' on the bottom, than slides along within the confines of the guide bars.

Drain cocks are only used to clear condensate, ie starting a cold engine - crack the cocks, set 'er runnin', wait till she warms a bit, close 'em and forget 'em

paul said:

Ron - that's fantastic, well done!!

What is the arrangement with the cross-head/slide? It seems to have a piece of brass underneath that mirrors the cross-head itself.

Can I ask a stupid question? When running on steam how would you know if and when to open the drain-cocks?

Can we have some more close-up pictures please?

[ron]

Hi Paul
The crosshead slides in a T slot similar to a minature version of a milling table slot, this was one of the hardest parts of the engine to get right as it required very accurate alignment in both planes.
Hopefully you can see the detail in the enclosed pic. The unfinished looking valve spindle support is where the governor will go.
Further to what Tel posted about the drain valves they are not absolutely necessary on a slide valve engine, you can drain the condensate via the exhaust but it's much better to be able to do it with drain valves. I modified the original design as it showed the drain valves coming out the side of the cylinder rather than underneath, which I think looks better [probably works better as well]
Any piece of steam driven equipment from a small model to a large generating turbine must have all the condensate drained and be thoroughly warmed up before it can run. The turbines in the power station I used to work in were barred over and drained for 4 hours before being very gently run up to speed in stages.
Ron

[Tel]

Congratulations again Ron, nice work.

Just one question - have you got a 'waisted' section in that top big-end bolt or are you just relying on the oil working down thru the threads?