|
Post by Bruce on Mar 31, 2011 21:09:13 GMT 12
That is some serious engineering and lateral thinking! Massive credit there!
|
|
|
Post by baz62 on Apr 1, 2011 15:43:15 GMT 12
Heres the final logo I managed to sneak through the mill this morning. Plus I've sourced some brass which arrives mid week! Is good master?
|
|
|
Post by Gavin Conroy on Apr 1, 2011 19:16:20 GMT 12
So Al me old mate, will you have the engine running at the airshow.
|
|
|
Post by baz62 on Apr 1, 2011 21:09:08 GMT 12
Ha ha Gav no pressure eh? Ha ha. ;D At least we can say there WILL be Bristol Hercules engines rumbling and smoking at the show!
|
|
|
Post by lumpy on Apr 1, 2011 21:15:14 GMT 12
Ha ha Gav no pressure eh? Ha ha. ;D At least we can say there WILL be Bristol Hercules engines rumbling and smoking at the show! And perhaps a " no taxi " cordon around the Dinner tent ?
|
|
|
Post by Radialicious on Apr 1, 2011 23:37:34 GMT 12
Yeah Baz, that's the business! Looks bloody good Dad did very very well to make what was in the end a very clever thingamy that will carry out four tasks in the prop shaft. The first is to block the flow of oil from the front of the crankshaft from entering the propshaft, collecting the oil that would travel from the CSU to the prop dome and diverting it back to its normal scavenge path, sealing the prop shaft from any oil that would require hard to come-by seals for on the front and rear of the prop hub and lastly to lock the prop retaining nut in place! Today he all but finished it for me. I just need to source an O-ring and machine a groove for it. That piece of gear has really saved the day for me and made to answer Gav's question, I really hope to have it at Omaka ready or not. My leave starts almost a week before the airshow so I will have time to tinker on it up there. The big big prop retaining nut on the front of the propshaft. It is torqued up to 900 foot pounds. The odd looking half round ring is one of the locking plates for the prop nut. The ring has 11 teeth on the outside and 12 on the inside. This means that there is a good chance that when the 'torquewrench goes click' or in reality the 90kg bloke is hanging off a 5 foot bar on the end of the socket, the lockplates should engage. If not, the nut is further tightened only enough to drop the plates in. The oil distributor housing had the 12 slots machined in its outer diameter for this purpose and that was one of the parts I didn't have. However, Clever Jerry was able to come up with this... Yet another piece of chassis scrap was stitch drilled into a circle, trued up and 12 point indexed on the lathe and the indexes notched with a hacksaw. This left 12 reasonably ragged notches in the OD of the disc. What he did after that was very clever. A piece of tool steel was ground to the same dimensions as the 12 teeth on the lockplate. When fitted to the tool post, Dad was able to use the saddle and crossfeed of the lathe to gently carve the dags off each slot. The chuck was stationary and as he moved the saddle left and right, the crossfeed took a sliver of steel off at a time. 25 - 30 passes were needed per slot and the result was perfect. Once this was done, the plate was fitted into the prop nut and the lockplates slid in like it was all straight from the factory. Once the lockplate was finished, it was slid onto the rest of the thingamy and welded in place. Job done! I was very lucky to have him around to nut out and construct a very elegant piece of gear that is so simple but so useful. Whilst all that was going on, I went out on a shopping trip to keep me going over the weekend. I took another trip across town to visit Damin at Transit Engineering. That was only the second trip out east for me after the February earthquake and at one point I was as near to the CBD as you could get. The damage there is staggering and I read tonight that at least 128 buildings in town will need to be demolished. Damin very kindly provided me with steel for my axles and the drop plates that I will use to keep the chassis nice and low to the ground. They are very simple bits of equipment and allow a low chassis to be supported from normal axles. Transit Engineering make very strong drop plates that don't require gusset reinforcing that others do. I'll get a photo of them when they are finally fitted. With the axles assembled but not yet welded, she finally started to look like a trailer... Sweetbix!
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Apr 2, 2011 0:25:40 GMT 12
Ingenious stuff. You and your Dad should have had a team on Scrapheap Challenge
|
|
|
Post by kb on Apr 2, 2011 8:22:41 GMT 12
This is my favourite read Al. I am absolutely in awe of what you and your Dad are achieving. When you are finished I intend to go back to the beginning and read the lot again!
|
|
|
Post by baz62 on Apr 2, 2011 9:41:55 GMT 12
This is my favourite read Al. I am absolutely in awe of what you and your Dad are achieving. When you are finished I intend to go back to the beginning and read the lot again! I reckon Al has enough here for a book, there are enough blokes who love the engineering and sheer blokiness of this sort of thing to appeal even to non aircraft nuts!
|
|
|
Post by Radialicious on Apr 9, 2011 1:24:50 GMT 12
Cheers Fullas, I'm pleased I decided to put this monster project into writing. It's a good diary for myself also. Progress in the shed is steady but not as fast as I would like it to be. I still intend to freight the whole thing back up to Omaka for Easter runnable or not. A couple of update shots. Air intake assembly in the paint shop After a visit from Mr Rattlecan Trailer axle stuff - not difficult but a slow job to get the wheels set up nice and accurate Larry being Larry... Dad's thingamy grooved to fit an O-ring and given a coat of PA-10 prior to fitment this evening. She went in beautifully by the way One of the last two axle drop plates in the CNC mill at Transit Engineering. Extremely strong bits of steel plate carved into a very useful piece of gear. Drop plates allow me to run a low chassis by putting the wheel centres above the axle. and if a picture paints a thousand words, one of these should save me an afternoon of typing...
|
|
|
Post by lesterpk on Apr 9, 2011 9:31:48 GMT 12
Woohoo, nice work Al. Bet it felt good to see that prop turning.
|
|
|
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Apr 10, 2011 17:35:15 GMT 12
Something I'm curious about in relation to Bristol Hercules 700-series engines if anyone knows.
What is the difference between the Hercules 733 fitted to TEAL's Short S.45A Solent Mk.4 flying-boats, the Hercules 734 fitted to the Mk.31 Bristol Freighters of the RNZAF and SAFE, and the Hercules 735 (I think I got that one right) fitted to the RNZAF's Handley-Page Hastings transports?
Is it merely slightly different accessories fits that distinguishes between the various models? Or are there other differences?
|
|
802gwr
Warrant Officer
Posts: 30
|
Post by 802gwr on Apr 12, 2011 12:27:38 GMT 12
Hello kiwithrottlejockey,
Regarding 700 series Hercules engines which according to my manuals include 730.31,32.33,34,35,36,37,38,39 all being 2360 cu in or 38.7 Iitres. The main difference between the Hercules 734 and 735 fitted to the NZAF, Safe Air freighters is the 734 had torque meters fitted to each engine reduction gearboxes. A gauge in the cockpit gave the pilot an indication of how much horse power each engine was putting out. The 700 series Hercules engine was fitted to many other British aircraft the only difference in the 700 numbering could only be due to the type of exhaust system, ignition type, injector carb series or engine mounting structure. The 733 series on the Shorts flying boats had movable gills for engine cooling.The Freighters have no gills, cooling air is exited through apertures in the wrapper cowling's.
|
|
|
Post by Radialicious on Apr 14, 2011 7:53:48 GMT 12
Gidday all, I'm back on deck after four days away with a visit to the simulator in Oz. I managed a reasonable amount of progress after I arrived home yesterday.... It feels wierd and quite satisfying to have her mobile again I'm on standby and hopefully the phone doesn't ring. From tomorrow, I am on leave and should be able to chop out enough jobs to get her on a truck early next week and follow her to Omaka. Again in true Kiwi airshow style her first kick in the guts should be a very last minute thing. As always, fingers crossed...
|
|
|
Post by flyjoe180 on Apr 14, 2011 9:37:08 GMT 12
Good luck Al!
|
|
|
Post by baz62 on Apr 14, 2011 10:09:47 GMT 12
Hi Al, that should work in well logo-wise! I've done the one for you and am currently polishing it to rival a Doctors name plate on Harley Street! ;D I haven't drilled any holes in it yet as I want you to put it where you want it and we can talk hole size and placement. If you are free over the weekend PM or TXT me and I can drop by with it. Cheers Baz
|
|
zaphod
Flying Officer
Posts: 58
|
Post by zaphod on Apr 14, 2011 10:15:30 GMT 12
Looking spectacular Al! I'll definitely be coming by for a look at Omaka. Not far away now... I am very impressed with the speed you have made progress on this - I have been trying to get some Bugatti steering arms made up at work and since I drew them up have made precisely no progress. Even the material I had put aside has now disappeared!
Lachlan
|
|
|
Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Apr 14, 2011 15:38:35 GMT 12
Again in true Kiwi airshow style her first kick in the guts should be a very last minute thing. As always, fingers crossed... A test run next to the beer garden at Marlborough Aero Club after the flying ceases each day could be nice! ;D
|
|
|
Post by Dave Homewood on Apr 14, 2011 18:58:15 GMT 12
Not a good idea - have you seen how much dust is around that place after the show? I stood in the dark patch outside the floodlighting last time and looked at the shaft of light from the floodlight, it was a swirling cloud of dust, and that's just from people milling around. A prop spinning would really ruin the taste of the pints.
|
|
|
Post by Radialicious on Apr 14, 2011 23:51:39 GMT 12
FlyJoe, are ya coming over for the weekend? Cheers Lachlan, yeah you chip away at things for months on end and seem to get nowhere in a hurry but suddenly everything falls into place. Today I welded the axle mounting plates into place on the chassis and chopped out a few smaller jobs. Welding the axle plates went really well until I was welding the underside and a nasty piece of slag found the hole in one of my welding gloves. The slag dribbled halfway down the length of one finger and made a munting big burn before I ripped the glove off. It looked bloody awful but should be OK. It is odd that it doesn't hurt a bit. Maybe it was bad enough to fuzz off the nerve endings or something. Never mind, I'll worry about it after the engine is on the truck to Omaka. There is still a huge list of things I need to do but most of them are small ones and in most cases, reminders of the obvious. Tonight I was wiring up the magneto switch and managed to find a short circuit in the RH switch lead. That is possibly gonna be a mongrel of a thing to sort out when the clock is ticking. I stopped at 10.30pm this evening so that I can tackle it fresh tomorrow. Throttler - I hear what you are saying about the aeroclub bar and Dave, I think I might have just the thing to deal with the dust you speak of... Wierd bit for the day was the need to chock the trailer whilst I work on it as it is no longer bolted to the floor. It was nice to roll the whole thing away and give the floor a good huckout this arvo when all the welding was finished. It was also nice to grind the dynabolts flush with the concrete floor. Not so nice was to run a finger over the bolt to check the 'flushness' and promptly burn that finger too. WTF?!? Bloody muppet I rang Jay McIntyre today after I found out that they had a successful day in (outside) their shed too - ground running the FW-190. Am looking forward to this time next week!
|
|