The Home Machinist!

I bought a similar motor from ebay a few years ago, ostensibly 24 volts. No plate identifying the wattage, rpm or anything else. The rpm turned to be extremely high, leading me to believe it was actually a 12 volt motor. I ran it a few years, but eventually replaced it with a new motor with known sp...

Don’t forget to check the little washer inside the injector. It can either be stuck or inserted upside down. Many of us have been bedevilled by this problem.

I think people are missing the point. The discussion was about a crankshaft, not wheels on axles. It was stated that loctite requires more space than a thousandth of an inch between the parts to work properly. At the same time, it is important to keep the parts in proper alignment for a crankshaft. ...

After a lot of bumps in the early running season last year the last two times out were pretty much pain free. Speaking of bumps, Charlie's hefty forney has been very effective in finding and highlighting the spots on the Mid-South trackage requiring attention. Here's the outcome of one of the first...

I don’t think my explanation was understood. I said to lightly knurl and then FINISH the part. The finishing cuts down the tops of the knurls and restores the accuracy of the slip fit between the parts, so the alignment is preserved, but provides space between them for the loctite to work.

Why not make the parts to a larger clearance, followed by a light knurling and finishing of the cylindrical components? This will give more space in the joint for the loctite, while preserving the alignment/squareness of the assembly.

Another factor besides the diameter of the body of the roller is the driving arbor. The roller I bought used a #1 Morse taper. There was no hope of squeezing that into the firebox of a LE American, so I cut off the MT shank and filed it so it could be driven with socket wrench/u-joint setup.

If they measured the track, then 5 1/2 is likely the measurement over the outside of the two rails on 4 3/4” gauge track.

There shouldn’t be problems with cracking, unless the tubes are over-rolled, which reduces their thickness. I followed Marty’s recommendation of making the holes in the rear tube sheet the same size as the o.d. of the copper tubes, and the front sheet 0.005” oversize. Tubes were not annealed before ...

One possible way around the problems with trying to thread the sintered steel parts from Shapeways would be to drill and then silver solder a threaded bronze or stainless bushing into the part. Has anyone tried this? One would need to get the part hot enough to melt the silver solder, but stay below...

Those were the days. A ton of coal cost $50! H Not sure about the time period (perhaps the 1930s) but a shortline in Mississippi (a state not known for having coal deposits) would buy coal from a mine in Illinois for only $1.00 per ton! But, the freight on the coal from Illinois to Mississippi was ...

I think the idea with the top-feed check valves was to feed the water into a perforated trough above the water line, so the incoming water would be heated by steam, rather than mixing cold water into the hot water in the boiler. This tended to drive out the dissolved oxygen from the incoming water, ...