Subject: Aluminium end housings
From: Rotary Engine
Date: 3/31/2006, 12:49 PM
To: AAme


>  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>
>
> 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: It has been many a year ago; but, when using aluminum pump plates in
some transmissions, which, as I am sure you can guess didn't hold up too
well once a little metal got into the fluid, I solved the problem by having
thin steel plates cut to fit. Why couldn't you do that with aluminum end
plates, especially in this day of cnc stuff?
jofarr, soddy tn

I am not sure what you mean but we discussed this awhile ago.
Here are some drawings and other stuff. The main hang up getting
any of this stuff tried is the casting patterns. If I went to a patternmaker he would charge $5000 or more for each end housing.

If somebody has access to an NC machine shop I will design
the patterns and core boxes in Rhino and export them as iges for
a Solid Works file. From that... one could load it into Surfcam or somesuch NC code generator and machine the patterns out of tooling board or aluminum.

The easy way to do it is assume you are going to do a peripheral port right
from the get go. That simplifies the end and center housings greatly.

Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.


There are tons of CNC guys here in my town.  Most are pretty busy, but
I'm pretty sure I could get a quote.  Do you just want a single pattern
made, or are you talking about having a number of housings CNCd out of
solid billet?

Have you seen this site?  You can create your item in their CAD program
and they'll price it online.  It looks like you can't import files into
their CAD program, however.  I priced a flat engine mount plate a while
back and it was competitive.
http://www.emachineshop.com/indexg.htm

Scott Gettings


My plate is full money wise with the turbo compound project Scott. If you guys want
to get together and gather some money for this I will be glad to do the
casting patterns in Rhino. Or you can have them CNC'cd your choice.


BTW here is what Everett Hatch's engine
looked like with aluminum end housings. It was a p-port of course.
The openings in the center housing were for quasi parallel cooling.

emachineshop was too expensive the last time I checked.

BTW Richard Sohn is also working on two peice end housings.
How are you coming Richard?

Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.

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