The Home Machinist!

Friend of mine a couple years ago shipped a 1.5" scale loco "down under". He was NOT ALLOWED to do and of the crating. Had to find an int'l shipping service. That service took care of all the paper work and they built the crate using certified materials for international transport. The receiving cou...

Glenn... "U" tube or "slack tube" is the best low tech approach if you're just looking to get an relative vacuum reading. You can ty-rap the vertical legs of tubing. Don't crimp the "U" at the bottom. To get your reading...measure the height difference between two water columns. Can add some dye if ...

Anthony...only one word to describe your work...(expletive deleted) INCREDIBLE! It's one thing to know how to do machine work...it's another to design a smaller version of the real thing. In this case, an injector and get the geometry worked out to produce the desired criteria. I tip my hat to you! ...

What's Next? In examining the old boiler, one item showed up that so far can't be explained. There's this tan'ish colored scale/residue on the inside of the boiler. In fact, inside the ENTIRE boiler with the exception of the crown sheet. With the rapid generation of steam and water boiling over the...

One conundrum about boiler wasting in our models: why do live steam steel boilers (particularly fireboxes) waste away so much faster than full-size locomotive boilers? A typical live steamer has a firebox that is 0.25” thick when new, but a 1:1 firebox is anywhere from 0.375” to 0.500”. The life of...

RK... Have a '41/'42 vintage 12" Atlas/Craftsman. Probably used by the defense department for training before WWII. Nice machine...for hobby work. Certainly wouldn't use this for production purposes. My lathe was a gift from a machinist cousin when I was in high school taking metal shop. The spindle...

End of the line for the year... You never know in the upper Midwest when you'll get that last run of the year in. The Rutland might have had that opportunity Friday, Oct. 18th. Morning temps were high 40's...with afternoon temps expect to reach 60. Decided to make the best of the situation and go f...

BigDumbDinosaur wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 13, 2019 10:51 pm

4) No crud in the new boiler to impair heat transfer into the water.

BDD...#4)...maybe so. BUT...with the crud in the old boiler firebox water legs...consider this. There was less water to heat! Carl B.

Fuel keeps going and going... One question typically asked when visitors are on the club property and they realize I'm firing the Rutland with propane is..."How long does a bottle of fuel last?" This has always been a difficult question to answer. Why? They question does not stipulate in terms of "...

The upper portion of the tube sheet is pretty much gone. It corresponds with being the hottest area of the boiler. Could be a good case for making the crown and tube sheets on the firebox end much thicker in future builds, even if one has to add a few more tubes to offset the loss in heat conductio...

Carl, have you been able to clean up the staybolts? I am curious how thick was the calcium build up around the shafts, and if you observed much staybolt deterioration ? BTw this is a really valuable thread for me. Very informative to actually see these effects - processes we all worry about but nev...

Sedimental Journey One of the puzzle pieces that I haven't described yet is in regards to the tan colored residue/sediment that's coating the boiler interior. I'll re-post the following photo... IMG_1574.JPG There is gentleman that frequents HDS Shop #2 to work on his model engineering project. We'...