Machining a new steam engine change gear fork 

Great work

a nice skill full job

Nice one Norman 👌you’ve bigger nuts than me putting the fork in to turn the thread shaft down🫣😆impressive what you can do on a lathe!

I want to build a modern version of the early engines to use somewhat daily. And a steam engine. To generate power to charge batteries. I want to build a gasoline/diesel engine possibly a opposed piston, or horizontally opposed engine. With possibly a 6" -8" bore, with 12"stroke. Or a small engine with 4" bore x 6"or 8" stroke, or a opposed piston engine with each piston having a 3"-4" stroke with 4"-4.5" bore. And a slide valve to reduce inlet air to effectively reduce compression to allow it to burn gasoline the pistons being similar to a modern diesel with the combustion chamber in the center of the piston(half of the chamber)with a groove to the injector, sparkplug, and heat plug. With a slide valve or sleeve valve in the intake side of the cylinder to blow off some compression in gas mode. Dropping the compression to about 10:1-11:1 from roughly 20:1 . Otherwise operating like a two stroke engine. Possibly similar to a hit and miss. By preventing the injector from firing. Over a set rpm. Store energy in a flywheel. Roughly 24"-30" with 70-80%. Of the weight in the outer 4" and both cranks having matching flywheels. And gears to connect them . I doubt a chain will work. Possibly pin a ring gear on the flywheels, made from 2" steel bar. Or use a single central crank with rockers. With 2" solid bars basically trunnions and welded 1/2" place to form the rockers and H beam rods. Hand forge and mill the rod caps and saddles from 2" sq. bar use 1/2" bolts , and seal in a crankcase. With pressurized oiling. And a simple low pressure steam engine a 6" bore x 6" stroke , hopefully capable of about 5-7 HP. Build it modular so a big bore kit can be made for it. Going to a 8"bore, and possibly a 10" stroke, if it can't produce enough power. I'm hoping I can get a higher efficiency than commonly available engines. The use of waste oils as fuel. A oil burner should make tons of steam. I was thinking about a small pot boiler with a secondary tube boiler with the steam making a final pass thru the flame to add energy and the engine being 24" or less from the boiler. And use the exhaust exiting the engine around the cylinder. To prevent it from cooling, and wrapping the exterior with header wrap as insulation. Going to a condensing system to hopefully have a sealed system. Basically only boiling a gallon or two of water at once. Sorry to ramble such craziness, have a awesome day 🎉!

nice work on the shift forks , welding together was certainly the best option for machine work , another piece of the old girl ticked off the list :)

Pretty stout milling machine you have there. Repair work is always a challenge. Pretty sketchy center (or is it centre?) get up on the lathe. However if thats what you have to work with without spending too many hours building some custom set up for two parts and it works out. Then it is brilliant in my mind. I am really enjoying this project. Interesting two sided old spanner you have there. One side to tighten and one side to loosen? 🤣

I am enjoying watching your videos as I work on my Fowler road roller 16930.

I think I would have done all the turning and threading before they were split in two.

Great stuff but that turning between centres looked a bit "flexible", don't know if you've done the other one yet? Maybe you could make a more rigid set up by turning a point on a decent sized piece of bar. Get the length right and the chuck jaw would drive the part.

great job on those shift forks. that little boring mill is slick ! looking forward to a vid with it in it. where are you in the uk ? im on the west coast of canada but have family in south wales. take care