I bought the kit and drawing for this engine in 1982, shiver me timbers!, that's 24 years ago. It's a A.J.Reeves and Co, Birmingham, drawing, from an original drawing of 1947.
On the drawing I thought verticle was spelt wrongly, I thought it was meant to be vertical, as meaning "in the vertical plane, upright". But I now think that verticle may be correct which means, "an axis, hinge or turning point" from Websters Revised Unabriged Dictionary 1913. The online Oxford dictionary returns no result for verticle. My rather large Websters New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged 2nd edition 1957 has no entry for verticle. I checked in a couple of other dictionaries I have and there is no entry for verticle. It would be interesting to look it up in an older unabridged Oxford dictionary. The mystery is there. So if it's a verticle motor where verticle means "an axis, hinge or turning point" then I presume that if one was specifically built in the horizontal plane then it could still legitimately be called a verticle engine. Perhaps the "axis, hinge or turning point" refers to the pivot pin on which the cylinder oscillates. We go in circles, tut tut. This might all seem like twaddle but it has caught my interest. Next time I'm at the library I'll look the two different spellings up in the big dictionaries, see if I can glean more info..
Here the main frame(stand/base) of the engine clamped to a home made true and square rectangular Aluminium block which is clamped on the mill/drill table. I have faced the two faces then marked out and drilled and reamed the two holes. All this done in one setting so the holes are parallel to each other and the faces are parallel to each other and therefore of course the faces are square to the holes.
Here is the little engine partially complete in my hand. This is the first model engine I have ever built so it feels good to get it to this stage.
Another view. The three castings on the left are for the cylinder end covers and the gland nut.
Another view.
Here are all the pieces.
All assembled again and it turns over nice and easily with no binding or tight spots. I kept all clearances nice and close and made sure faces etc were square, parallel etc, and the bore and pivoting face were parallel. The big end (con-rod) journal also has to be parallel to the crankshaft. The engine is 3/8 inch bore and 1/2 inch stroke.
A pic of the bottom cylinder cover and gland nut. This engine can be built to be single acting or double acting. I built double acting therefore there is a gland in the bottom cylinder cover. This little motor runs very nicely on compressed air, up to about 35 or 40 PSI seems about right. It really flies at higher pressure, but I doubt if it's meant to run at higher pressure. Now I have to build a boiler suitable to about 40PSI maximum.
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