Building a Power Model Water Pump

[Bill Shields]

If Mike V had not sent me new, non-porous heads, what Art did is exactly what I was going to do.

The MOST IMPORTANT part of working this head is that you get the large flat surface perfectly normal to the bores needed for the valves, or things just won't line up and you are headed for trouble.

Having a solder together block eliminates this...HOWEVER, since the bores for the shuttle valves must be extremely close to the shuttle valve diameter, I would recommend not finish reaming the bores until AFTER the block was soldered to the head, THEN.....

you get the point....

If I were not making 3 of these units, I might not have made the fixture, but if making more than one of anything, usually the tooling is time well spent.

[Fred_V]

the castings i have all have a VB.... part number on them. I assume these are VanBrocklin castings not Power Models. Maybe they won't be porous.

[John_S]

Not much shop time this weekend, but I did get the water piston done:



Steam piston and rod, the valve rod, and the water piston:


The biggest problem I have right now is my shop is cold in the winter. It's in the basement of my house but isn't part of the central HVAC and the previous homeowners who "finished" it didn't bother insulating against the poured concrete foundation -- they just put up stud walls and wood paneling. Hard to work on small parts when your fingers are chilled!

[Bill Shields]

the castings I had also had VB part numbers on them, but came from power models...

[Dick_Morris]

I believe that the designs and at least some of the pump patterns went from VanBrocklin to C.A. Street and Sons and then to Power Model Products. Some of them then went to Little Engines. About 10 years ago many of the PMC patterns showed up on Ebay. They had apparently been stored at the foundry and weren't involved in the fire. I purchased a few (queenposts and push pockets) and bid on others (pumps, turnbuckles, and a bell) on which I was outbid. Someone in the qwnership chain apparantly did quite a bit of research on pumps. My patterns had copies of drawings and pages from technical books for both model and prototype pumps, including one for a Westinghouse pump from France, used as packing material.

[John_S]

Did a little work in the shop tonight (I'll post pics tomorrow) finishing up the two pistons and piston rod. The passage I drilled in the steam cylinder that drifted inward toward the main bore has really FUBAR'd that casting.

What do you all think of me picking up some gray iron bar and machining a sleeve to press into the steam cylinder? I'm thinking about boring the casting out another .094 and then machining a cast iron sleeve that's 1.469 OD and 1.375 ID (which is what the drawing calls for) to press into the cylinder. After which all I would need to do is notch the steam passage through the cast iron sleeve in the lower end of the cylinder.

As it is now, the passage wall expanded the cylinder material so much the piston will not move freely inside the bore.

[Highiron]

I believe that the designs and at least some of the pump patterns went from VanBrocklin to C.A. Street and Sons and then to Power Model Products. Some of them then went to Little Engines. About 10 years ago many of the PMC patterns showed up on Ebay. They had apparently been stored at the foundry and weren't involved in the fire. .

Dick

Your are correct in your changing of hands account and yes many of the patterns were at the foundry, a couple of the patterns for the lost wax pump were at Freds place and were lost.....I got all the pumps, VB 1.5 scale duplex and the lost wax single, as well as the big 2.5/3" scale single
also got the lost wax bell, blow downs and some other misc stuff

some of the master drawings that came with the stuff were salvaged from a nfiling cabinet that was near the fire, they were smoke and water damaged but usable...sadly we lost a Good Man and alot of parts and patterns

Mike V

[Bill Shields]

If you bore the casting out, where will that put the tapped holes in the face?

What are you going to do to ensure that the mis-alignment does not occur the next time?

[John_S]

If you bore the casting out, where will that put the tapped holes in the face?

What are you going to do to ensure that the mis-alignment does not occur the next time?

The tapped holes are far enough away from the bore that they're not an issue. Also, I don't have to re-drill the steam passage. The hole will work as-is, even with a sleeve pressed in. I'll just have to notch the passage to the bore at the bottom.

Pic from earlier in the thread, before I drilled and tapped the bolt pattern:

[kvom]

If you're going to re-bore the casting, why not try just boring a couple of thou to try to true up the bulge? Or possibly hone it.

[Bill Shields]

NO, then you get a slice down the side of the bore.

[Fred_V]

why cast iron for the sleeve? why not bronze? would it work to Loctite it in?