The Home Machinist!

With fewer younger folks in the hobby, I believe a lot of it has to do with the removal of trade skills teaching in the middle and high school curriculum where kids can get a taste of making something with their own two hands. Back in the 70's when I was in school, I had full access to a wood, metal...

Here's my version of the railbender I made, Mostly from odds and ends bits I had laying around. I just clamp it to the front bumber of my ATV and bring it to the work site. I can bend a 45 foot radius on aluminum rail just by pushing the rail through.

An oldie from 1975 -ish. In the forground is Ed Loomie's 4-4-0, myself on the center track with my newly finished LIttle Engines 0-4-0-T, and Ken Owens with his mostly scratch build Little Engines 0-6-0 on the far track. This was the first time I had my locomotive out at the Long Island Live Steamer...

It's very important to separate your hobby from family life. Once my wife and I were separated, I had a lot more time for my hobby

The Bottom nut should never come off. I tightened mine with an impact gun and it hasn't come loose since it was installed 20+ years ago. The trick is to NOT overtighten the bolt and put a dab of grease on the threads each time you change the filter (I change mine yearly). The trick to getting the ga...

:=) I use a board with a sliding parallel and a pencil ...lew... I wish this board had a "Like" button. I also have a large drafting table that was headed for the scrap bin when CAD took over the engineering department. This, along with a Keuffel and Esser drafting machine and a set of sc...

At one time I was making military tank periscopes and reflective gun sites. These were aluminum casting that needed to be gas tite as they were filled with inert gas after assembly. Could this same "Impregnative" sealant be used for this as well? This was appled in a vacuum to fill all of ...

Both General and Starrett have good 5 piece wiggler sets. I have both but use the pointed attachment the most to pick up scribe lines on my mill. I have never used it on my drill press but I agree that it could be used, especially with a x-y table for really fine adjustments. I'll admit, the older I...

I use 2 sheets of heavy duty aluminum foil and multiple layers of woven fiberglass fabric (depending on how thick I need it to be. Once cut to shape, I staple the edges to keep things together. The foil is easily formed around the boiler. I bind it in place with some thin wire. The foil acts as a he...

You might give drywall compond a try. It resists a good amount of heat and can be washed out with hot water. Make sure you don't use the latex based material. You want the old gypsum mix which dissolves in water. We use it to plug the holes in staybolts to keep the cinders out, and it washes out wit...

That rather simple design would be easy to machine from a slab of cast iron round stock. No complicated spokes to replicate.

Maybe, Hopefully, they will surprise us and show up at Cabin Fever next week. Especially now that they are on the east coast.