This Months Feature Article.
Home Metal Caster & Engineer: Micheal White WA.

Take a close look at the photos which show a home built 12 cyl engine &  a four cylinder aero engine. They were both built by Michael White who lives in Western Australia. It is a credit to his skills as a pattern maker, sand moulder and home foundry operator.

Mike say's "the four cylinder is ongoing and that will be fitted to my unfinished aeroplane piper J3 cub of 50% scale". Now read the story about the engines.

Hi Col
The images numbered 0007s, was made in 1992, it is of 12 cylinders in two banks of 6 cylinders per side working on a  swash plate design. The carby (missing here) fits on a converted air grinder and gives about 16/1
rpm's when the belt is Installed, an intake hose from this goes to the crank case giving positive atmospheres to the intake side of the piston's (2 stroke 156cc.) So the starting procedure of this engine is simply add extra belt to flywheel, tension the belt with an electric drill, prime cylinder's with fuel, add electric to glow plug's x 12 and stand back!

(My son assisted me when this procedure took place,) The engine back fired, and the flywheel came off, lol.
From that point we discontinued trying to start the motor until we (1) keyed the flywheel to the shaft, (2) and stand behind a brick wall, and hope the flywheel misses you. As you can see the motor is covered in 13 years of dust minus a few parts, and one day when I pluck up the
courage, ill have another go.

Image no 0004 is a good view of an engine I am building using parts from a Suzuki Motorcycle engine 250cc 4 stroke, all that was salvaged were pistons, con rods, and liners.All the rest is fabricated in the home foundry, by yours truly. The crankcase took 14 goes to get it right,
(perseverance mostly) but mainly adjusting the pattern to suit the machining side of things and then finding out about shell casting sand! Wow, what a difference that  made to my castings; don't have to worry about plaster of Paris Being to damp, or green sand not having enough
bentonite, in it. Image No 0003 shows the tappets made from brass, some cleaned up and drilled out, you can see also a tappet set
still attached to the riser, the riser has changed color to a beautiful peacock blue.

Had some fun melting brass, I have never really stoked up the furnace until I had to, to get to the right melting point, and then it was guess work, because I had all types of brass fittings in the pot trying to melt at different degrees, bearings from heavy machinery, ever heard of
phosphor bronze?

Well I hadn't until the melt, and I had to add a heap more fuel to the furnace, and it seamed like forever to liquefy, I was forever looking in to see how it was doing, poking and prodding, removing the dross, it sure got hot, down there, even the ants pissed off.
 
Next is the rocker covers these have since gone back in the melting pot to make them bigger as seen in picture 0002b to accommodate the tappets, easy enough done, I just added more timber to the pattern test fit to the head, made sure it had plenty of clearance (only just) then set up in the shell casting sand, when done, light the furnace & bingo, bob's your uncle.

So now I'm fabricating the intake manifold, the 19mm pipe X 1mm thick, which will serve as the intakes are giving me grief, I made a pipe bender which was unsuccessful! So on goes the thinking cap.
Till next time, bye for now
Mike. From Kalgoorlie Western Australia.
Australia's largest outback City.

Footnote:
Hi col,
Well I guess you can tell I have been a hobby fanatic for a long time, I will even cancel work to complete a project!
It's the excitement of getting the job done, and standing back to admire the finished project, & enjoy the self satisfaction.
When I started foundry work and learning all about pattern making etc, it has only been a short time 2yrs at most, and it was a case of well here we go, diving into the unknown and see what happens.
The project I am working on requires a scale type of engine, and the engine weight ratio to the aircraft is critical.
Maybe I have not looked hard enough on the web, to purchase an  engine that looks & sounds right, has 4 cylinders and weighs about 13kgs, so I decided to build one!
This has been a very big learning curve for me. Every thing has been scratch built, expertise has been handed on to me from my father.
Ok Col that's all for now I'm back down to the shed.
Mike.