Category: radial engine

Random stuff…

I have a little bit of time so I thought I would post some random things.

First off, most of you know that I have been growing my coffee plants for around 5 years. I have only had blossoms on them twice and earlier this year was the one of them. I was really happy to see blossoms, since its a good indicator that I’ve finally gotten close to making them happy. I was watering them a couple days ago and almost didn’t notice these…

Those are coffee beans! The very first time in years of growing I have had coffee beans! They are hard to notice because they really blend in with plant. As proof, see how many beans you can count in the next photo..

Hint: there are 5 beans in that photo, but I bet you counted 3. I’ll post more pics if they get to the ripe phase and turn red. Overall, I’m just happy to see any beans, ripe or not.

Switching gears…… Some of you know I enjoy making small engines and I have met many wonderful people going to miniature engine meets and forums. One of the great men I got to meet was Bruce Satra. He revived a model engine from the 1940’s called the Morton M5. The Morton model engine is actually based on the LeBlond engines in the previous post. Here is a pic of the Morton Bruce built in the ’80’s.

I started a Satra M5 from castings that Bruce sold several years back, but I didn’t buy a complete kit, just a few to get me started. When I ran into a couple machining questions I emailed Bruce and he was always super helpful. Unfortunately Bruce passed away several years ago and many of us were left without parts. A friend of Bruce, whom I will not name but is an easy Goggle search to find, was supposed to keep the Satra Morton M5 going in memory of Bruce. Alas, he has completely dropped the ball, even going so far as not keeping VernalEngineering.com (Bruce’s M5 webpage) running. Here is a pic of the fantastic castings Bruce used to sell…

So, left without a source of parts after several attempts over several years to contact Mike (oops, wasn’t going to name drop) I am left with my usual answer. I will make my own castings based on Bruce’s notes and conversations we had. (As if some of you out there couldn’t guess I was going to say that)

I’ve started the process and here is a little info on progress. I started by modeling the parts in CAD software and then printing out the parts to verify dimensional accuracy…

Those quick and rough prints checked out, so now I am making my wax molds. I’m a couple revisions in on the rod and piston molds, and have found a wax suitable to injecting into the small lines and cavities. Now I am just refining the molds to help with the last small imperfections in the wax parts. I’ll post more pics and info when I have some final wax parts before attempting the first metal castings.

New things happening this month….

Well, the heat is finally here and I haven’t been spending too much time up on the property. Mostly I go up in the morning and take care of the things I need to do like watering the plants and checking on stuff. I purchased two new raised beds made from corrugated Gavalume, with some kind of paint on them to help with corrosion. I plan on putting one together this weekend and getting some pictures of it. I probably won’t install them this weekend since I want to level a spot and put some gravel under them. I also plan on trying Youtuber ‘Self Sufficient Me” way of doing Hugelkulture planting. It’s interesting and sounds like something that may work. He lives in Australia and has a pretty nice set up in an arid hot land.

I also worked out a deal with a gentleman in Massachusetts for some antique engines. Yes, I know…. how many antique engines does one person need? I already have a turn of the century Half-a-Horse, 5 Model A engines, a ’20s Fairbank Morse Z 3hp, and others. And yes, they all need a little bit more attention than I have been giving them. But how could I not rescue what looks to be four 1930’s LeBlond 5 cylinder radials? After all, not only are they fairly rare antique engines, but they are also radial airplane engines! The only downside is that they are in pieces… and in Massachusetts.

This is one of several pictures full of parts for the engines. The gentleman I am purchasing them from didn’t want to ship, but after talking over things came to an agreement that he will ship some parts to me now and then bring the rest out to Cali later this year. He has been packing things this week and plans on shipping them next week. It’s a good thing I am building a shop.

Or am I……..

*Sigh* So, I have no pics of shop construction yet because the person who has the bulldozer to start cutting the pad broke his hand. He seems to be healing up fine from what I am told, but no date yet when I can expect some dirt to be moved. In the mean time, I do have the permit for the shop and the metal parts are in production. I should have a truck of parts heading my way in about a months time and hopefully some dirt moved by then.

That’s the update for now. I will post more when there is anything interesting to see.

Airplane Porn…….

Working at an international airport has some advantages when it comes to seeing cool shit….

 

 

Want to see the start up?…..