The Home Machinist!

I think you’re correct about the plaster, I’m going to look for HydroPerm, thanks for the info.
John

Ronald, how hot do you have to get the plaster mold for pouring? I’ve been experimenting with lost wax on the cheap just to get an idea of what’s involved. Today I heated the plaster mold to bright orange and the plaster cracked, I think that was too hot. Any advice?
John

Thanks, I’ll try to accumulate as much information as I can and then decide which way to go.

I have a 1” LE Atlantic project and was thinking about substituting a Baker Valve gear for the Walschaerts. Still in the thinking stage. Making the yoke and the various components without plans may be above my pay grade, all I have is the Locomotive Cyclopedia and Nelson’s book as guides. How are yo...

Can the Baker Valve Gear be used with an outside admission D valve, if so what has to be changed from the inside admission arrangement? Thanks.

I have two 1” scale Atlantics with LE Silfos boilers, for the entire time that I owned them, up until last year, I had been firing them on charcoal to avoid damaging the boiler joints. About a year ago, after a lot of ribbing from some of the guys at the club I said what the heck and started to fire...

Holy cow, I saw devils trying to get the steam cylinder follower glands off, the steam chest glands were a piece of cake. I couldn’t get on the nuts with anything but an open end wrench and then I couldn’t get a turn on them once I did. I wound up making a swivel socket from an Allen head cap screw ...

Thanks Phil and Russ, I have a roll that I bought some time ago and used it to repack a project that I have but I never ran with PTFE packing since I didn't finish that project. It had a soft squishy feel so I never knew if I had enough packing or was tight enough. Bill thanks for the tip on removin...

There's no easy way out in this hobby:) Thanks for clearing that up Bill, I ordered the graphite tape last night and would have stuck it right on top of what was in there.

Thanks Marty, I was concerned about the old packing because it's hard as a rock and I wasn't looking
Forward to picking it all out.
John

The steam chest and cylinder packing glands on my 1"Atlantic are leaking and there is none to very little adjustment left, what would be the better choice for packing, asbestos graphite or PTFE ?

I'm going to have to take back what I said about the new batch of casting sand that I made and was bragging about in my previous post, with each successive pour the quality of the finish is getting worse. I can't explain it but the finish is now worse than that from the old overused sand that I was ...