Interesting prototype a 5 cylinder engine.
Ray I know you didn’t ask but I have found that Romex electrical wire in 12 and 14 gauges works really well to depict the piping and conduits on a project like this.
If you use the wire be sure to cut off the clear coating that is on the black and white insulation as it won’t take paint worth a darn.
Oh yea, a couple layers of heat shrink works pretty well for fittings.
Another great project ya got going there guy.
Rick
Thanks for the tip, Rick!
BTW, I finally found out what brand of engine this is. It’s a Fairbanks-Morse.
First off, I found a pair of websites about restoring an engine almost identical to this one:
http://www.eldensengines.com/F-M%20Power%20Station/F-M%20Power%20Station.html
http://www.coolspringpowermuseum.org/Exhibits.htm
I learned a lot about the engine from from these two sites. For one thing, it’s a 300 horsepower Fairbanks Morse opposed-piston engine, probably model 38F5-1/4. This type of engine has two crankshafts, one at the top and one at the bottom. It also has two sets of pistons, which face each other in the cylinders. Also, the large thing protruding from the top front, which I’m currently working on, is a supercharger.
In addition to powering generators, these types of engines were also used in locomotives, submarines, and surface ships.
Anyway, I’ve mostly been working on adding all the details to the supercharger. The air filter was made from a short segment of 5/8" styrene tube, with a piece of 1/2" tube stuck into it. An acrylic, elliptical dome was used to make the rounded bottom of the air filter (shown bottom up in this photo):
I cut another segment of 1/2" tube and cut a slit in it, so I could wrap it around the first tube. Later I cut a piece to fill the gap:
A few years ago I bought some photoetched mesh with round holes, thinking I’d find a use for it eventually. It turned out to be perfect to replicate the mesh on the air filter:
I cut a strip of the brass mesh to the proper width, then wrapped it around a much narrower tube before installing it on the air filter. I sealed the ends together with tiny bit of thick CA, which was enough to hold it in place. Then I topped off the air filter with a styrene disk to represent the lid. I still need to add the bolt to the center of the lid:
Here’s how it looks on the supercharger. I haven’t glued it in place yet, it’s just sitting there. The other details were made from various bits of styrene tubes and strips:
Here’s the whole engine so far. The orange piece was made from the bottom of a prescription pill bottle:
That’s all for now, more later.
Here’s a video of the Generator a the Diamond Tunnel Mine. The generator is at 4:45 min.
Ray, I can almost smell the fuel oil.
OHHH, opposed piston, that would explain the 5 cylinders.
Rick Marty said:
OHHH, opposed piston, that would explain the 5 cylinders.
I don’t see the 5 cylinders he piston so why are you opposing Mr Marty?
Stellar work Ray.
It would appear that not even loose pill bottles are safe near your work area!
Have you ever looked up “Model Motorcars” for scale rivets, nuts and bolts of all types. Really a stunning collection of a wide range of scale pieces.
The web page also has displays of stunningly good car models - way above my abilities, but great inspiration.
Here’s the URL https://www.modelmotorcars.com/
Jim Kottkamp said:
Stellar work Ray.
It would appear that not even loose pill bottles are safe near your work area!
Have you ever looked up “Model Motorcars” for scale rivets, nuts and bolts of all types. Really a stunning collection of a wide range of scale pieces.
The web page also has displays of stunningly good car models - way above my abilities, but great inspiration.
Here’s the URL https://www.modelmotorcars.com/
Yeah, they acquired the line of miniature bolts, rivets, etc from Scale Hardware, when that company went out of business. Great stuff, would have been a terrible loss to hobbyists if no one had picked it up.
A few days ago I posted this photo of a styrene test piece for the covers on the engine:
My plan was to make a rubber mold and cast these things in resin. But that test piece was too rough. Well, I tried a couple more and couldn’t get it to look as good as I wanted. So I tried a different approach, making it out of 1mm Sintra and scribing the indentations. That turned out even worse:
Even if I could have created a suitable master, I had doubts about how well such thin pieces would reproduce as castings. So I scrapped the whole idea and decided to come up with a non-prototypical design that would be simple enough that I could make all 20 of them individually. My first test of this was extremely simple, just a flat piece of styrene with rounded corners and a nut/washer in the middle:
But I felt that this was TOO simple. I wanted something that looked a bit more interesting. The design I settled on was made by layering two pieces of .020" styrene. Both pieces had the corners rounded, and I beveled the edges of the smaller piece before gluing it on top of the base piece. Here’s how they turned out:
I also did some work on the base for the engine and generator:
.
That looks great Ray. I hope the building that houses it has some big windows that will allow people to get a good view of your hard work.
Shane
I can’t wait to see how this comes out !(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)
I think I’ve discovered Murphy’s Law of Model-Making: A spilled bottle of solvent will always flow towards a stack of recently completed details.
Doh!!
ouch!
Ray Dunakin said:
I think I’ve discovered Murphy’s Law of Model-Making: A spilled bottle of solvent will always flow towards a stack of recently completed details.
Doh!!
Cool a Chernobyl model (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Jim Kottkamp said:
Stellar work Ray.
It would appear that not even loose pill bottles are safe near your work area!
Have you ever looked up “Model Motorcars” for scale rivets, nuts and bolts of all types. Really a stunning collection of a wide range of scale pieces.
The web page also has displays of stunningly good car models - way above my abilities, but great inspiration.
Here’s the URL https://www.modelmotorcars.com/
I’ve used pill bottles of various size, especially the large ones that held vitamins or ibuprofen or the like, to stand in for rooftop water tanks or HVAC equipment.
Steve Featherkile said:
Jim Kottkamp said:
Stellar work Ray.
It would appear that not even loose pill bottles are safe near your work area!
I’ve used pill bottles of various size, especially the large ones that held vitamins or ibuprofen or the like, to stand in for rooftop water tanks or HVAC equipment.
Pill bottles were famously used for the engine shapes on Colin Cantwell’s concept model of the X-wing for the original Star Wars - he didn’t even paint the insides of them!
Colin Cantwell’s X-wing prototype concept models by Tom Simpson, on Flickr
After a very lengthy hiatus from modeling, I’m finally starting to get back into it a little. Currently I’m trying to finish up the two incomplete projects I’d been working on before. One of these is the Grizzly Bar saloon. I last worked on this almost a year ago. Here’s where I left off:
Since then I’ve painted and weathered the upper portion to look like old wood with faded/peeled paint. The corrugated metal was painted with two-part rust from Sophisticated Finishes. I also put corrugated metal on the roof of the patio. Signs were made by printing out the designs onto self-adhesive vinyl, which was then cut out as a stencil:
Because the roof has warped a little, I had to curve the lettering slightly:
The windows and doors were painted separately prior to installing the glass:
I added security bars to the patio door. These were made from styrene:
The building is now complete except for the lights and some interior details:
Enjoy!
Very nice job Ray! Would be fun watching folks stagger out of there at closing time. You might want to add a railing.
