The Home Machinist!

From the ICS article - The tractive force and hence the liability for slipping decreases as the diameter of the wheels is increased if the cylinders are unchanged; for this reason lighter wheel loads can be used with wheels of larger diameter. Tractive force is determined by cylinder bore and stoke,...

Why is it that for the most part freight locos have 2 wheel leading trucks while passenger locos have 4 wheel leading trucks? I had the same question several years ago and this is the answer I found in the International Correspondence School text reprinted by Bill Fitt: "The engine truck carri...

Perhaps take another piece and anneal it before cutting? Maybe hold it at red heat for an hour or so, then cool gradually. That was my thought. This could be pretty low tech. Set it on end to keep it from squishing out of round, build a bonfire over it, roast your marshmellows, and then pull it out...

Would be a lot of work to stone a radius on the teeth of a keyway broach for cutting the drive wheel's keyway, but it can be done as well. You would only have to put a radius on the last couple of teeth. Let's see, if the prototype had a radius of 1/8", the model would have a radius of .015. I...

It is called a Throttling Calorimeter In my 1936 book, "Power Plant Testing," the index has an entry for "wire drawing calorimeters (throttling). The text doesn't include the term wire drawing, but uses "Throttling or superheating calorimeters." I didn't find the term in a ...

I have to admit, they look an awful lot like Dick's fabrication! Flat on the front and back. Actually, the exhaust port stands proud of the front surface of the rest of the cylinder block. For mine, one of the most difficult parts was getting a good seal on the passage between the piston cylinder a...

When you use an easy out to remove the thin walled remnants of a fitting you run a risk that the taper of the easy out will cause the remants to expand in the hole - not a good thing.

Here is a photo of my fabricated cylinder that has been bolted in the same place on the mill for the last six years. :( (The house remodeling is almost done and I'm going to be able to start working on the Consolidation again. :P ) I just did a quick count and the one piece weldment is made up of at...

My WAG for my 1/8 scale loco was done by dividing the prototype weight by the square of of the scale, or or 8X8X8=512. I then guessed that the actual weigh of the model fell between that number and 150% of that number. It's probably close to the later since the boiler is about five times as thick as...

My whole point here is how productive do YOU want to be. Not how productive do you think some one else should be.

Productivity in a hobby is measured by how much you enjoy it, not by how many widgets you can turn out.

I wanted a stamped metal look. I just wasn’t particular about the shape.

When a friend was adding all the finishing trim on his locomotive his contention was that that at that point much of the work was art. He was right. If it looks like it should be there, it's correct.

You might check with Gene Allen to see what he knows about it.