Having discovered our method of construction i then set about designing the first mold, wanting to make a bit of it before going the whole-hog and finding it wasn't as easy as it had sounded. The only component that really struck us as being the toughest to crack was the cylinder head, bits of pipe and blocks could make up most of the engine but the heads were quite a complex shape. Using the photograps and dimesion details we had taken from the engine in the museum i started to extract the information i needed to build my own component. Putting all the dimensions onto AutoCAD, enabled me to play with them and make them fit, until i ended up with a graphical model of what i was looking at on the photographs. Having made the graphical model i needed to work out how to replicate it as accurately as possible. My first idea was to use a crude method borrowed from a rapid-prototyping process, using layers of paper cut and bonded to make the shape, the fineness of each layer giving an accurate surface finish. A few quick calculation and i realised that the size of the model would involve hundreds of layers.... hmm, time for a plan 'B'. Sticking with the same idea but wanting less layers i turned to MDF, bizarrely the graphical model disected perfectly into 6mm layers, begging the question was that how the original was made? Was Antoinette's real genius in discovering MDF 50 years before the rest of the world?? Probably not, but it seemed too convenient.
MDF is great stuff to work with (especially now they have stopped making it with toxic bonding elements), its easy to work, holds a good edge and is relatively hard wearing. So i laid out each of the layers on CAD, then scaled them to allow for shrinkage, printed the layers out, cut them out and stuck them to the MDF with PVA glue. Now i had all 18 layers glued to the board, laid out like some bizarre puzzle without a picture to work to. Taking a jigsaw to each of the pieces i slowly built up the layered model to the point where it actually started to look like something.
Monday, 7 May 2007
Early anxiety
It takes a special type of thinking to put your hand up in front of a group of people you don't know and state in no uncertain terms that you can build a museum display grade replica of a 100 year old engine. After the initial, "he didn't just say that... did he?!' shock, the excitment took over and my mind went drifting in to all the details of the project, after several suggestions of a suitable method of making the replica, the reality of the task crept back in again. Making an engine isn't a daily event for many people and theres a good reason why, still worse things happen at sea...
Its a bit of cheat really that the engine will only be a statis model, so all we have to do is make an accruate visual interpretation.... thats all, just make it look like an engine. Another bit of good fortune, or not depending how you look at it, is that the engine is the only known surviving piece of that originial aircraft the Cody Flier 1a, so we can actually measure and compare against the engine in the Scienec Museum in South Kensington, London. The bad side of that is that any inaccuracies can be picked out, but hey the point is to make something to be proud of, so i'm aiming for accuracy anyway.
The first time that i went to see the engine, my initial reaction was one of relief. Although it looks very complicated, when you start to break it down into its individual components its actually a collection of simple shapes. When you think about it, the anxiety i was having about building the replica, Antoinette would have had 100 years ago building the original. When i started to break the components down to design my own parts it become obvious that alot of the measurements used were more out of convenience than any science. The length of a curve on a component was decided by its intersection with another piece, rather the need of it being a certain length.
When we started batting about construction methods, the most obvious one was wood, easy to use, no specialst tooling needed to create a good surface finish, but one nagging thought bothered me about the idea of a wooden engine, authenticity. I wanted the engine to look like the real engine, having done quite a bit of wood work previously i know how hard it can be to get 'that' finish. Sure you can spray it in 'Aluminium' coloured spray bought off the shelf of your local hardware store, but this project is going to be unveilled before the worlds avaiation press, i didn't want to be the guy that brought the duff triffle to the dinner party.
The most obvious method to recreate the engine faithfully was to cast the engine bits, this brought newer, deeper anxieties. The only thing i knew about casting was that it was possible, people had done it, so therefore it had to be able to be replicated its not like i was reinventing physics. So several hours of internet research, "homage to the Google", i had discovered it was alot easier than i had thought it might be. When i doscovered the flowerpot furnace and no thats not a type error, i realised it was very possible.
Its a bit of cheat really that the engine will only be a statis model, so all we have to do is make an accruate visual interpretation.... thats all, just make it look like an engine. Another bit of good fortune, or not depending how you look at it, is that the engine is the only known surviving piece of that originial aircraft the Cody Flier 1a, so we can actually measure and compare against the engine in the Scienec Museum in South Kensington, London. The bad side of that is that any inaccuracies can be picked out, but hey the point is to make something to be proud of, so i'm aiming for accuracy anyway.
The first time that i went to see the engine, my initial reaction was one of relief. Although it looks very complicated, when you start to break it down into its individual components its actually a collection of simple shapes. When you think about it, the anxiety i was having about building the replica, Antoinette would have had 100 years ago building the original. When i started to break the components down to design my own parts it become obvious that alot of the measurements used were more out of convenience than any science. The length of a curve on a component was decided by its intersection with another piece, rather the need of it being a certain length.
When we started batting about construction methods, the most obvious one was wood, easy to use, no specialst tooling needed to create a good surface finish, but one nagging thought bothered me about the idea of a wooden engine, authenticity. I wanted the engine to look like the real engine, having done quite a bit of wood work previously i know how hard it can be to get 'that' finish. Sure you can spray it in 'Aluminium' coloured spray bought off the shelf of your local hardware store, but this project is going to be unveilled before the worlds avaiation press, i didn't want to be the guy that brought the duff triffle to the dinner party.
The most obvious method to recreate the engine faithfully was to cast the engine bits, this brought newer, deeper anxieties. The only thing i knew about casting was that it was possible, people had done it, so therefore it had to be able to be replicated its not like i was reinventing physics. So several hours of internet research, "homage to the Google", i had discovered it was alot easier than i had thought it might be. When i doscovered the flowerpot furnace and no thats not a type error, i realised it was very possible.
Why am i doing it?
2008 is the 100th anniversary of powered flight in the UK, to celebrate this little known fact the FAST Museum in Farnborough are building a 1:1 static replica of the aircraft that made that flight. As a volunteer at the museum, in attendance at the nearby technical college and a gluton for punishment, i offered to build the engine for the aircraft.
Technically i didn't offer to build the engine specifically my father, who was in attendance at one of the meetings got a bit excited by the whole thing and put his name on the project. Still i'm glad he did as its been an adventure so far and we've got very little to show for it, so over the coming months it should prove to be a real eye-opener.
This is my running comentary on the processes and steps i've made in this project, i hope you enjoy and maybe even feel inspired enough to get involved yourselves.
Technically i didn't offer to build the engine specifically my father, who was in attendance at one of the meetings got a bit excited by the whole thing and put his name on the project. Still i'm glad he did as its been an adventure so far and we've got very little to show for it, so over the coming months it should prove to be a real eye-opener.
This is my running comentary on the processes and steps i've made in this project, i hope you enjoy and maybe even feel inspired enough to get involved yourselves.
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