The Home Machinist!

I’ve been working on a 1” scale version of the Blomberg truck and I’m looking for information on the brake hangers and linkage. I’ve been scaling off the IBLS drawing and using photographs to supplement the drawings which has worked so far, but the drawings are not clear enough to duplicate the brak...

It looks like you’re missing the blower, the two inlet pipes carry a fuel air mix and fire simultaneously. Attached is a photo of my furnace which is an older model, but is similar in design

Johnson is still in business, they’re in Iowa, search them on the internet and contact them, their representatives are very helpful and can provide a parts list. Then check out Acme Controls in Chicago for the parts.

Climb milling is certain death on my mill. I missed a scribe mark on a side rod I was working on and figured I’d sneak up on it with a little climb milling to the mark. Bad idea, with the lost motion in the the table lead screw, the cutter grabbed the work and ruined the part, bent the arbor and chi...

‘That’s why they call them end mills’, got it! I have plenty of horizontal mill cutters, but I also have 3 milk crates of large end mills that I’ve been tripping over for the last 25 years, thought that I’d be able to use them for something, guess not.

I have end mills ranging from 1-1/4”to 3”

What I meant was to use the side flutes of the end mill as a slab mill, not to use the end mill in the conventional way.

I have a B&S #2 horizontal mill and some large end mills. Would I be able to slab mill with the end mills?

In the meantime Mike sent me a PDF of the 1” LE Baker valve gear and one of my live steam buddies bought a 1” Pacific with a Baker valve gear that I have been studying. On the LE valve gear everything is inside the frame, on my buddy’s engine the bell crank is inside the frame while the rest of the ...

Not going to go that far Keith:) A couple of 1” guys committed to making ties so we can replace rotted wood ties with concrete ties a little at a time. Actually the limiting factor in making the ties has become the scrap plastic lumber we use for the embedded blocks.

The promised follow up on how well the concrete ties held up after two winters in service is that they performed well.

Thanks for the sources Ronald, I’ll post how I make out with the proper materials