3D engine parts

[Mike Bontoft]

I just had a friend 3D print a couple of carburetor bodies for an early glow engine I am building. The design is from 1968 and is unusual in it using a butterfly with fuel/ air feed holes. No castings were available so figure this was worth a try. Machining the printed aluminum went very well.

 

[LohringMiller]

Who did your printing? I used Craftcloud for some 3D printed stainless steel props props. The aluminum quotes for a pipe seemed expensive, though. I think 3D printing will replace casting for most of our parts. Some companies will do the machining as well.

Lohring Miller

 

[Wasted wages]

Wow…. Pretty incredible… nice work !

 

[Mike Bontoft]

Who did your printing? I used Craftcloud for some 3D printed stainless steel props props. The aluminum quotes for a pipe seemed expensive, though. I think 3D printing will replace casting for most of our parts. Some companies will do the machining as well.

Lohring Miller

Can't really say Lohring. An employee perk. I'm having some more parts printed for this engine at the moment.

 

[Mike Bontoft]

I now have the cylinder head 3D printed and machined for the Westbury 10cc Wombat engine. Very happy with the result but if I had it to do again I would delete the side fins and machine them in later. They needed to be cleaned up quite a bit. Maybe the print orientation could make for an improved result. Crankcase and disc housing are in the works.

 

[LohringMiller]

Are you considering printing the internals like the piston, rod, and crankshaft? By the way the files are available on Grabcad.

Lohring Miller

 

[Mike Bontoft]

Are you considering printing the internals like the piston, rod, and crankshaft? By the way the files are available on Grabcad.

Lohring Miller

The marvelous rendering by J. Riend on Grabcad is what got me initially interested in this particular engine. If you check out some of his other projects, he's very talented.
Credits to him. He also made some small, what I consider improvements to the original layout. I allowed extra material for machining and modified where I thought required.
I ordered the 1968 Model Engineer magazine articles and started working from there. The four 3D printed parts will be the main crankcase, rear disc housing, cylinder head and carburetor body. I have 2 carb bodies, 1 setup with the original plan butterfly and one machined up for a standard barrel.
All the other parts I will machine.