Westbury Kittiwake

[John ViettiParticipant @johnvietti39406]

30 or 40 years ago I bought the castings, plans and Westbury's building notes for the Kittiwake engine. I thought it was the most attractive of his engines. Decided I better start making the engine while still able.

Its intimidating to machine these old, irreplaceable castings.

I wonder if anyone has built this engine and has suggestions for improvements or machining ideas. Pictures would be great too.

For once I've decided to build to the plan without modifications. Well only a few, I want to make the cylinder barrel bigger and with large aluminium fins ala a Goldstar. Of course it will have a magneto too!

Comments?

John in Wyoming

[John ViettiParticipant @johnvietti39406]

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

My only comment is that ETW’s plans were all(?) based around lathe operations. With milling machines being (almost) universal these days, there are some much improved methods for machining those castings?

[John ViettiParticipant @johnvietti39406]

I was struck with the same thing, no mills. Im finding some tasks are much easier in the mill than the methods he described using a face plate and angle plates etc.

Considering their disadvantages compared to all the technology we have, mills, DROs, etc it makes their accomplishments all the more impressive.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Although titled Kiwi there is also a Kittiwake being built in this thread which may be of use

[John ViettiParticipant @johnvietti39406]

Jason, Thanks! Thats a wonderful help and it explains how to do many tricky tasks I have been pondering.

John

[John ViettiParticipant @johnvietti39406]

Well I,m ticked. The plans for the location of the tappet guide hole was off by 1/8". Thought it looked off but after checking and checking went ahead and followed plans. I think I can recover but it irks me no end esp after smelling a rat. Once the crankcases are finished the remaining parts are mostly from stock or fairly straight forward. Grrr

[John ViettiParticipant @johnvietti39406]

Jason or anyone,

Read the whole construction series, very good. It ended before he got it running and I wondered how it turned out and if there are any videos? John

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

John, Jo is a She and not a He to start you off on the right foot. Like quite a few of her other engines they seem to stall at the final hurdle, I have yet to convince her that they can be test run without a prop which she feels is too dangerous to run on her own plus some health issues, I do also seem to recall there were said to be issues with the valves or balance of the original design.

I'm sure if you ask on the thread she will be able to bring you upto date.

Edited By JasonB on 26/02/2020 07:40:25

[John ViettiParticipant @johnvietti39406]

Thanks for the heads up. Her write up is amazing.

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