The Home Machinist!

it's a very nice model, but it has some serious shortcomings. So there you have it... A lot closer to a $10,000 model than a $100,000 model. Again I say it doesn't matter what you SPENT on it. Just because you spent X amount of dollars on it does not mean that it is worth that much. You don't alway...

Were all of these original designs made to run on Welsh coal? You can still get Pocahontas #3 coal, which isn't Welsh steam coal, but isn't too bad either. Was wondering.... this might be something all small scale builders need to keep in mind for the future.

man, that track looks nice!! Impressed with that. I believe that the old little engines catalogs said that their 3/4" scale Hudson and Northern would take a 35 ft radius curve, or was it 40 ft? Maybe I'm mis-remembering that. Somebody on here will know. I thought it was funny that the catalog l...

Why use Steel rail, unless it is for a display and you are worried about the looks of it. If you are wanting something just to store it and work in it on, then use some 1" channel, or some angle steel, and forget about it. If you are wanting it for a display, then why not make the underlying st...

The ad states that he spent $40,000 detailing the already-completed model. I'm calling BS on that. I won't believe it until I see some receipts. And please do not tell me that he spent 400 hours on it at $100/hr unless he paid for someone else to do that work. And BTW, just because you think you mig...

There was one person in North Mississippi who used to have a pretty nice track at his house. From what I can remember being told about it, one of the turnaround loops or a little piece of the track was on a neighbor's property, and had been that way for decades. The neighbor property was finally sol...

yeah.... That's just plain ol' gorgeous. Congrats to whomever built it. absolutely beautiful. I wonder is it an actual compound or are the front two cylinders simple, but made to look bigger. I've heard some people say that the compounding works if you do it right, even in this scale, and I've heard...

That's not a bad looking truck sideframe either. What bearings did you use? I assume a radial ball bearing.

And all that little stuff can take up a lot of time, and/or can cost a lot of money. Obviously this is something you needed that is not commercially available, so you have no choice but to make it yourself. It looks nice, good job on that. I was figuring it up the other night... By the time you buy ...

Looks like a Winton consolidation to me. Looks like it was built pretty well... but it also appears to have been sitting somewhere for a long time. It could have been in 'storage' since the 1980s, and that boiler may be junk. It will definitely need a lot of cleaning, inspecting, lubricating, painti...

So much of what once was... is now lost.
Love the pictures! Fascinating stuff.

So, what I got from the video was: The hobby isn't dying, but there are fewer people who are building steam locomotives, or who have the skills necessary to do so. The majority of people entering the hobby now are building diesel and electric locomotives, and are much more likely to purchase kits or...