Hi Paul & all,
"Subject: More comments from Paul Lamar
As back ground info on the rotary. The bare engine block weighs
about
190 pounds with cast iron end housings. About 140 pounds with
aluminum
end housings."
Anyone flying with these aluminum end housings? Any links to
more info?
(Please excuse my ignorance if these are well known or previously
discussed items)
Thanks,
Hennie
---------------------------------------------------------
Never a problem on previously discussed items.
That is why we are here.
Not that I know of now. Allan Tolle probably flew an Everett Hatch
all aluminum engine ten years ago or so.
They are rather expensive. At about $1200 to $1500 USD
from Racing Beat. The rear and two rotor intermediate housings
in this 3 rotor engine picture are aluminum.
There is some question about the wear surface process and
durability.
Racing Beat would not tell me what the wear surface process was
so I
doubt it
was detonation gun coated. If I were building all aluminum end
housings
I would brag about using proven, expensive detonation gun coatings.
IMHO the ONLY reliable way of doing an all aluminum end
housing IMHO.
If the wear surface does not hold up on these Racing Beat aluminum
end housing you could always have them detonation gun re coated
with silicon carbide and diamond reground.
Richard Sohn is also developing a two piece end housing with
cast iron wear surface. <
unicorn@gdsys.net
<mailto:unicorn@gdsys.net> <
mailto:unicorn@gdsys.net
<mailto:unicorn@gdsys.net>>>
Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
Paul,
Have you heard anything good about the process called
Electrochemical
Metallizing? I got this off the Swain web site
(
http://www.swaintech.com/weld.html).
<snip>
Electrochemical Metallizing
Metallizing is often used to describe wire flame spr-
aying. The flame spraying process, however, should not be
confused with
electro chemical metallizing, an out-of-tank plating process
for adding
a metal coating to a metal substrate.
Electrochemical metallizing is a technological br-
eakthrough, an improvement over a process originally termed "brush
plating". Thin (0.0001 in. to 0.01 in.) metallic coatings are
applied at
low temperature. A dc power pack has two flexible leads. One
goes to the
workpiece and the other connects to one of a number of working
tools or
styli. Anodes of different sizes and shapes are connected to
the end of
the stylus and wr-
apped with an absorbent material. The covered anodes are dipped
into the
plating solutions, or the solutions are pumped to the anodes
when the
areas to be coated are large.
The positive lead from the dc power pack is connected to the
work tool
and the negative lead is connected to the workpiece. An electrical
circuit is completed when the wrapped tool and workpiece are
brought
close to one another, resulting in metal being deposited from
the liquid
solution onto the metal base.
More than 100 primary metals and alloys can be deposited by
this method,
including nickel, copper, tungsten, cobalt, gold, silver, tin,
zinc,
Babbit, cad-
mium, lead, and nickel-tungsten.
Electrochemical metallizing applications include repairing damaged
printed circuit boards, dented molds, scored or pitted
hydraulic rams,
damaged pr-
inting press rolls, and dented or cracked extrusion dies, and
resizing
pins or gates. Electrochemical met-
allizing is also used for military repairs, as it meets many
military
specifications for wear, corrosion, and resizing
<snip>
Years ago we used to use an oxy-acetylene torch setup to spray
powdered
metal onto construction equipment wear surfaces such as backhoe
buckets.
It was subjected to extraordinary conditions and survived. I
haven't
done anything along those lines since then. According to Swain
Tech,
the process has advanced considerably. I was wondering if this
could be
an economical solution to the aluminum end housings?
Mark Steitle
One thou (.001) is not very thick.
It might be but the big problem is different materials on aluminum.
There is a temperature expansion difference to contend with.
Detonation gun coating actually embeds the wear surface particles
into the
aluminum as they impact the aluminum at super sonic velocities.
The particle size can be varied to optimize the results. In a
way it is
similar, (on a microscopic level) to the SIP process Mazda uses for
rotor housings. There is a mechanical lock between the steel liner
and the aluminum. It has been proven to work on aluminum end
housings by
Mazda and others. Why risk anything else unless you are General
Motors,
Ford, Mazda, Toyoto etc. etc. ? I don't know of anybody with the
$$$$$ resources to
test 500 engines for 500 hours each to see if something new works.
Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
I've been buying airplane parts again recently.. $1200-$1500 doesn't
seem all that expensive to me when I am considering $6000 to TOH the
O470 with ECI cylinders (with a good discount). Even if I had to pay
full price to Racing Beat, and then ship the parts off to someone else
for the det-gun coating, it wouldn't be too bad. How much does the
det-gun finish cost? $1000 per item? I doubt it's that much. That
would give our power/weight numbers a really nice boost. I might
consider putting an all Aluminum P-port onto my Varieze. It's fairly
common for a Varieze to have an O-320 on it, though it causes it to
glide like a manhole cover.
Matt-
The biggest problem Matt is you will wind up with a forward CG
problem :)
--
Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
I'd be happy to have a forward CG problem..
Matt
The Rotary Engine NewsLetter. Powered by Linux.
ACRE NL web site.
http://www.rotaryeng.net
Copyright 1998-2006 All world wide rights reserved.