The Home Machinist!

A lot of our stuff is roughly 2in scale, but that was driven by the size of the lenses used since we use industrial push button lenses for our signal lenses. Those only come in one size so the rest of the head is scaled to suit.

Sounds like an interesting project. Only place I can think that might have some off the shelf is RMI. Otherwise sounds like a good job for a 3D printer!

My pins have a shoulder turned on them before they are pressed in, the actual bearing surface is the chrome plate. I am also using lead free nickel babbitt. Ive been running that setup for 3 years now and have not had to adjust any of the take up wedges in that time. I need to bring her home for som...

Bit late to the party here, but if you're feeling adventurous I machined my pins out of chrome plated drill rod from McMaster-Carr. I machined mine with carbide but I imagine it should be doable with hss. The steel under the chrome is not hardened so it's like peeling off the skin on cast iron. Chro...

If you are set on a dome throttle another idea you might consider rather than a ball valve is a modified globe valve. I did that in my shay and it behaves very prototypically, plus I can change the throttle response by making a simple new plug which is a very easy lathe project. Im currently on my 3...

I dont have delivery lines in the smokebox with the shay, but I had to replace my blower line not long ago. If you're burning coal, you need to be very careful with copper in the smokebox as it will erode/corrode away. I got 2-3 years out of my original copper blower before it ate through and failed...

LEDs by their nature are really good at producing narrow bands of wavelengths, most are specd in a 5-10nm window. Modern white LEDs use a bed of phosphors on top of a diode tuned for UV light to excite the phosphors. The key when looking at white LEDs is the color rendering index or CRI. A CRI of 10...

I used a double layer of composite paper insulation from McMaster Carr, 9323K21 specifically, and have been very pleased with it. It does not seem to hold on to water, and while it could just be in my head it does seem like the insulation helped a lot. It has one of the highest R values of the flexi...

Very interesting watch Anthony! I didn't realize how much effect the water valve could have on the delivery rate. Im going to have to experiment with that next time I fire up my shay. The standard injectors I have do great up in the lifting position, and couldn't agree more about using a quarter tur...

Personally I would highly recommend a 1/4 turn valve over a quick on/off valve. They are just as fast to operate, but can still be cracked open which helps with priming in less desirable scenarios, like a leaky check valve or hot feedwater. I’ll second this! I have a pair of Anthony’s injectors mou...

My procedure is a bit more involved. Luckily our water here in Atlanta is very good quality for boilers so I dont have much scale to deal with. On a normal day, if I plan to run again the next day I will run the injector till it quits while I let the fire simmer down. While thats going on, I'll give...

I wonder how much it would be to get one of Johns casting sets for the Case here in the states. 4in is a pretty big engine, and if his list weights are correct the completed model would come in at over 1200lbs.