The Home Machinist!

Carl, It's been an interesting story. Looks like you'll get a few miles in before winter. What did the interior of the boiler look like? Back to the firebox corrosion this is the firebox on the coal fired boiler my dad and I built in 2005. Below the arch I reached in with a brush and cleaned it up a...

Nothing looks amiss in the brief description. Blacksmith's prefer a low smoke coal that clumps and cokes nicely. The dealer we got all our coal from had discovered blacksmiths like fines and live steamers did not. They screened their bagged coal and added fines to "blacksmith" coal. Coal d...

My drivers are keyed, the eccentric is not.

I have a Pacific with a 10" boiler which will be roughly equal to a Mike. The grates are supported on two 1/4" stainless rods that run left to right under the fire box. The rods pass through small brackets welded to the bottom of the mud ring. The grates were made in three sections that fi...

The old HO guys always told me to wait until the smell was gone off the paint.

Harbor Freight has a cheap air brush. Stencil brushes are a few bucks at Hobby Lobby. A rattle can might spray a bit heavy for a stencil.

In the pictures of the firebox bubble test the sheets look really corroded. Marty says he's seen other propane fired locomotive with heavy corrosion on the fire side. It's indeed a curious point.

Condensation from propane as a fuel I would understand after light off and the firebox sheets are cold. But at the end of the day when you shutdown I don't see condensation occurring inside the firebox. The flame as a moisture source is no longer present. The firebox sheets will be hotter than the a...

How do the fire box sheets get wet enough to need to be dried after the locomotive is shutdown? The steel will still be hot when the burners are shutoff.

Shoes or not he's making a decent looking pot.

Fred Bouffard fabricated his cylinders. The July/August 2003 Live Steam has some good photos and a description. The LBSC article Dorin gives the gist of a fabricated block. John Pugh used fabricates cylinders and silver soldered the whole assembly. I believe Fred Bouffard silver soldered the steam p...

Not on the tender. Mine is sealed with an epoxy paint along the seam and over the rivets. As for Flex Seal I used it once on the seam in an HVAC duct. Spattered everywhere when I sprayed it.

Third time was a charm. I'm not sure why the paint didn't adhere at all on the first go-around. The paint wasn't what I usually use but it was on hand at the hardware. I switched back and had no issues. The next two sets went on fine. Crisp edges, no lifting.