The Home Machinist!

As I say I have been delayed on the frame due to family and getting ready for the last two runs of the club with the Forney. I did get one lesson on the rising price of steel pipe though. I asked my local supplier to find me a piece of eight inch, seamless pipe for the boiler. the quote came back a...

Fender wrote: ↑Sat Jul 23, 2022 8:03 am Many people use drive screws, aka screw nails, in place of decorative rivets.

Thats what I used on my smokebox.

I have a mechanical lubricator for the Shay I am building, which is intended for cylinder lubrication. But recently, having completed making the connecting rods, reliable lubrication of the big-ends concerns me. Any scale size oilers on the con-rods won't have much capacity. I'm also concerned abou...

I know of an extremely effective and cheep way for a motor driven turnout to be taken manually.... Simply added a slide arm and a hole in the original operator handle connects the motor arm. To take it manual, pop the arm from the motor out of the way and swing the slide plate out of the way. The o...

Oh Chuck, you've read my mind. The design I made here works pretty well, though I will say having a manual actuation lever has created a lot of headaches with people either forcing the machines or tripping over the levers. One thought we had was include a hex socket in the shaft so the machine could...

I was interested in a duplex gauge for air pressure - reservoir pressure on one side and brake cylinder pressure on the other. I spent a bit of time trying to find someone that made them in scale or nearly scale size. The closest I came was a 2" gauge. These were made in India and I suppose av...

I believe RMI took them over, at least the large scale part. Though the arch bars I have are not brazed. There’s some welded fabricated pieces but the side frames are held together with bolts like the big ones.
Wouldn’t hurt to call RMI and ask Bill though. Afternoons Tuesday-Friday are best

I think I did something like 0.02-0.03in clearance. The piston ring does the sealing anyway and I figured a bit of extra clearance would help keep the piston away from the bore.

In my experience roughing mills are amazing, and if your machine runs fast enough or can handle a large enough cutter then carbide is worth it for steel. HSS is still better for brass and aluminum to me since it can be sharper and will last longer in soft metal anyway. Just as an example, I have som...

Glad she did good Charlie! And those injectors should do just fine up high. Both of my EE injectors are up high and they lift great till the tank runs dry. Only thing I’ve found is it helps to be able to throttle steam to them, I use an American Model Engineering ball valve for mine. If they get hot...

It shouldn't be full, maybe only 3/4 full. Need some room for the oil to expand when it gets hot.

It likely wouldn't be a problem, you would almost never work the engine hard enough to max out the boiler capacity or the power of the cylinders. Duncan Herring built an N&W class A and thats how it behaves. It also has a massive firebox, though I dont remember the exact size off hand, and a bun...