craigclavin wrote:Smithy - im very familiar with the schenck balance machines, there are several at my work that checks the balance of a turbine wheel by weighing it at different points and comparing the measurements. And yeh, they are accurate to incredible amounts!
How far have you come with the kj? I would be tempted to contact phill at
Heward Micro-Jets
http://www.heward-microjets.co.uk/contacts.shtml
for plans of his Pheonix - its such a beautiful jet and you can buy all the parts from him! Performance wise im lead to believe the engines are far more superior to the kj66 - which is slowly becoming dated - correct me if im wrong anyone!
Hey Craig,
We have two Schenck machines here, one for the larger turbines such as the Rolls-Royce AE2100, which is the turboprop engine fitted to the "J" model Hercules, it's model number eludes me though, the other, Model # HL2B, is used primarily for the smaller rotatives such as the Rolls-Royce (Allison) 250 C20 and C30 heli engines and yes, we use the "comparative" method too, we have a "master arbor" which is regularly sent to Schenck for calibration which is used as a reference for the P&W PT6 rotatives we do here as well. Adding the tiniest piece of plasticene can throw the readings off the screen, but I digress.....sorry, I tend to ramble somewhat....!
I've heard of the Pheonix but know very little if anything about it, please tell me more!
My KJ66 project is coming along slowly, I'm in the process of gathering all the correct materials etc..I am planning to use unserviceable combustion liners as material for the KJ66 combustion chamber and tail cone, I don't think I could do much better than that, it's the right stuff!! The NGV and Tubine wheel will be puchased from "JetMax", they look to be top quality. The shaft will be spun out of a nice piece of EN36 tool steel I picked up the other day, I plan to rough it down close to size, thread the ends, then heat treat and carry out a final grind to size on our centre grinding machine, I trust it will turn out nicely, time will tell. That's all I've done so far, work keeps getting in the way. As you say the KJ66 is getting a little dated but if the correct materials are used, nice tolerances kept and the combustion chamber is up to the task, it should be a nice reliable hair dryer
Eventually I'd like to fit a fairly large thrust engine to my project scale jet car, something in the 30-35lb range and also outfit it with an afterburner, but this is a long term idea, whether if comes to fruition is another thing!!
Cheers,
Smithy
I'm in the process of building a KJ66 replica and would like to know where I can buy 66mm turbine wheels and NGV's, everything else I can pretty much do myself. I work in the aerospace industry and have a fair working knowledge of turbines and their fuel control systems, I currently work on the Rolls-Royce 250 C-20 and C-30 helicopter engines and fuels controls. 
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