The Home Machinist!

As for the propane burner being too high in the firebox, a better burner would be with slots or holes in the horizontal tubes. But then you would need an air/fuel mixing tube, and where would that go? So just assume it will work as installed. I was very interested in this style of burner for a whil...

When I first purchased the locomotive, one of the rocker arms for the valve rod broke at the pin. When we looked closely, it appeared the slop in the gear had allowed the rocker arm to extend a bit farther in its travel, slamming into the crosshead guide yoke. Our solution at the time was to re-atta...

So last time we talk you were fighting the surface of the cylinder mating to the saddle. What did you do to fixing it? Steve Pieces of .010 stainless shim did the trick. Then it was on to the valve gear. I had a massive amount of valve rod slop when running the locomotive last year, so I knew I'd n...

20180217_195752.jpg Besides resurfacing the valve faces, I spent some time this week cleaning up each cylinder and the associated corrosion buildup between the saddle. In fact it caused the cylinders to spread apart so far on the frame that I suspect it broke the exhaust line solder joints on the b...

I agree there will be others to take up the torch left by Barry. Someone mentioned Eccentric Engineer. Anthony is a young man in his twenties who is passionate about making the highest quality injectors that in my opinion exceed the performance of Superscale. And his product line is expanding all th...

20180106_174316.jpg These cylinders looked pretty worn and rust damaged with deep pitting. We lapped them on 120 and 220 grit sandpaper taped to float glass and 3 hours later, didn't have much to show for our efforts other than sore muscles. I also noticed the valve face was wearing more on the edg...

After running the 2-4-0 quite a bit this past fall, I had a pretty lengthy wish list of fixes to the locomotive that required a full teardown: the timing was still off due to loose eccentric straps and worn valve gear, the axle pump (which I rely quite heavily on to save steam) started pumping less ...

Shorts and sandals are a safety hazard. Agreed. Here's a clip of the loco steaming around the LALS track. It's still out of time and in need of valve gear overhaul but steaming a little better. The only way we can get the fire large enough is to run rich, therefore soot is becoming a big problem an...

I remember seeing this loco featured in that online auction in Montana. Congrats! In addition to the plans and Steve Alley, you might find MetalMill52s youtube videos helpful as you begin the rebuild. https://www.youtube.com/user/metalmill52. My Allen 2-4-0 rebuild thread might be of some use as wel...

After several washouts and a vinegar bath, I spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out a way to clean the oil and grease out of the boiler. Running my fingers around the inside base of the steam dome and boiler shell revealed just how dirty it was. 20170805_152729.jpg It seemed the th...

First shakedown run with my buddy James at the controls. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz5bKhEYXxQ Sz5bKhEYXxQ As you can see its all still a little rough. Priming is still a big problem even though this is the 6th time firing up. There was a good deal of oil and other crud draining out of the boi...

Definitely looking forward to getting my hands on those prints! The back of the valve rod sheared off (I think it might have been pressed on) Managed to disassemble by desoldering the front without removing the boiler thankfully. While repairing, my friend and I noticed a good deal of slop and wear ...