Latest from Pop's Woodshop

[Pop]

Been sorta busy lately with son and grandson's moving back up to pa. and with the weather being cold haven't been out in the shop too much since doing the Christmas stuff. The the weather warmed up, the kids got outside more and this project came along I couldn't resist. It's not often (except for Ethel) that I can combine wood working and being a motor-head in one project but this one did it. I'm already halfway into making a second with some changes to the design of my own.

Pattern #SB-1710-P from Steebar. Took me roughly 2 weeks of 2-3 hours at a time in the shop and onthe computer redoing some of the plans since they aren't to scale as stated on the drawings.



Maple, oak, walnut and cherry. Small 1 rpm motor from Steebar ($40) I've since found quite a bit cheaper on ebay does the work of operating the piston, gears, valves, etc. Switch on lamp base is from Angelo lamp supplies #70421. It allows me to turn on the motor and lamp, turn off the motor and let the lamp on, turn off the lamp and let the motor on and then shut everything off.

In my set of plans I've changed the shape of the back board to contour more to the gears, done away with the gear shafts going all the way through the front board to a back board and added a place for a spark plug in the head by the valves. I'll post when that ones done. I'm also considering making plans for a twin-V four stroke engine.

[Mike Davis]

That would be cool if a small LED lit up on the spark plug at the right timing.

Can't wait to see your version.

[rcflyer23]

That is very cool.. I might have to undertake something like that one day.

[TracyP]

cool!!

[JackLeg]

In the words of a good friend of mine, "That's Kewl!" Nice job, Mike. How many hours in it?

[PChristy]

Nice job Mike - looking forward to seeing your version - anyway you can get some sound effects on the next one

[Pop]

Originally Posted by JackLeg

In the words of a good friend of mine, "That's Kewl!" Nice job, Mike. How many hours in it?

Probably more hours than I should have in it but the plans wound up being as much as 1/4" off on some pages. I wound up taking the shown dimensions and putting it into Adobe Illustrator and making patterns of my own from their dimensions. Because the plans were so far off in places, the push rods didn't line up inthe fins, the fins were narrower than the back board, and the holes to be drilled for the gear shafts didn't allow the gears to mesh correctly because of the difference in spacing from what they should have been.That's all fixed now for the next version.

Another thing was the drill sizes they quoted: 33/63, 9/32, 17/64, 5/32, etc. not normal sizes for brad point bits or forstner bits. More the sizes a tool and die maker would have in his supply. I wound up hand fitting a lot of the gears and shafts on the first one. On the second I'm working on now, I actually turned the shafts down on my lathe so I could use a standard 1/2' forstner for the center holes in most of the stuff. Where the gear shaft would have gone the whole way through the back, I drilled a 3/8" hols and put a screw inthe center of the shafts i turned so i could move the shaft around to line the gears up better rather than rely on a template that may/may not allow the gears to mesh correctly. It's working so far.

[Don Sorensen]

I have got to get my wood gear clock done.

Pop, that's the neatest project! and thanks for telling me about Steebar. I'll have to go have a look around.

[ScottM]

That is neat Mike. I love wooden projects that work.