Modeler’s Corner

By Staff
Published on April 1, 2007
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'Above left: Base, flywheel, cylinder and head castings. '
'Above left: Base, flywheel, cylinder and head castings. '
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'Left: Fabricated parts: oil cup, flame guard, carburetor, gas jet, camshaft and intake valve. '
'Left: Fabricated parts: oil cup, flame guard, carburetor, gas jet, camshaft and intake valve. '
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Top: The finished kit model.
Top: The finished kit model.

Last summer I found a truly unique model engine kit designed by
Nick Rowland (http://rowland.20megsfree.com). It is an internal
combustion atmospheric engine. I was apprehensive about this
project at first, because I have never done such an extensive
machining project. I’m no machining expert; I have only a little
experience, especially with a milling machine. The kit comes with
four castings, nameplate and complete instructions for building and
start-up. I made all of the remaining parts (including nuts,
springs and tubing), except for the bolts, governor drive belt and
the drain valve at the rear.

The engine is fairly small, 7/8-by-1-2/5-inch bore and stroke,
10-1/2 inches long, 5-1/2 inches wide and 6-1/2 inches high. I
learned a lot about what I can actually make in my shop.

Some parts are very small, like the intake valve with a
1/16-inch diameter stem, over 1 inch long, made without tapering. I
added a few embellishments to it. I thought an engine this nice
deserved a flyball governor. I designed it after the Hornsby Akroyd
design. (I like that particular one.) It spins and flies out, but
does not control the engine. Experiments showed that it just cut
the engine out. I made two of them: The first one I thought was too
big for this engine, so I scaled it down 25 percent. It looked
better. (Not bad for cutting spheres freehand!) The engine took
about 250 hours to make, including the parts I had to make over and
de-bugging.

One neat thing about this engine is that it has no gaskets,
except for some sealant on the carburetor parts. Yet it still has
perfect compression! I found it a very rewarding project to work on
and I got a very neat little engine out of it! I would like to
thank Nick for coming up with such a nice engine and for his
patience in answering my many questions.

Contact David Cox at: 9 Masefield Circle, London, ONT
Canada N5V 1M9.

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