The Home Machinist!

Fred, I purchased and had two 1" scale engines and tenders shipped within the last three years, one from FL and the other from NV. I used Freightquote.com and was satisfied with the service and price, they were both shipped uninsured (that was my choice). What is absolutely essential is to crat...

I cast a few car wheels from brass and shrunk on a steel tire and they seem to work fine, never tried it with a driver.
John
P.s. RONALD you make some really fine castings!

Oops! The year was 1999.

In the Sept- Oct & Nov-Dec issues of Live Steam there was a well done build article for a 3 phase steam generator in 1" scale.

Jim B. has a boiler that was made using this technique, and I've learned that someone at NJLS also built a boiler using this method, I'm going to chase that lead and see what I can learn. Fender is right about not over expanding the tubes, Nelson warns about over doing it in his book; I was able to ...

I'm neither a good enough welder or silver solderer to attempt boiler construction, but I was intrigued by this gadget and would have bet my next paycheck that it wouldn't work...as I said, I was surprised when it did! Thank you all for your replies.
John

I was curious to see if the copper fire tube expander that Nelson describes in his book would work. So I made one from an Allen head cap screw and some soft nylon rod that I had laying around, then reamed a 5/8" hole in a piece of steel, annealed a piece of of 1/2" L copper water pipe and ...

Tom, I didn't receive your message, do you want to try again? John

Tom, attached is a photo of salvaged gibs that I have no real use for, if you want any, just pay for shipping.
John

Like Harold, I use my metal working machines for some operations, but mostly I sneak up on the dimensions by sanding on a disk or spindle sander...glue on pop sickle sticks, tooth picks, any pre-made thing to get the shape that I want, then smooth it all out with some wood filler, hand sand it smoot...

Performance update with the spring loaded heart rockers is that I didn't see much more improved performance, pulled 7 cars and still experienced some slip on start up and on grades. Much better than it was before I started making the adjustments, but It will never pull like a Pacific.
John

Bill, the sight glass turned out good and was straight forward to make. After grinding the lathe tools and making a trial piece to get the moves down and flush out the bugs I was able to make the two end pieces, including silver soldering, in an hour. Just waiting for the high temp o-rings and angle...