The Home Machinist!

What causes foaming in new engines? Various and sundry gloppeta on the insides of the boiler, lines and what not? Does it have to achieve a stable pH value to settle down? Our Chloe is coming together rapidly and will be ready for steam tests later this year. Just wondering what to expect... --Mike

(from the website) It turned out that even with aluminum it was going to be too heavy and throw the balance off, so I added lightening holes that are cut from underneath. Mike, That just means you needed a thicker steel deck plate on the rear. :wink: Curtis F. Heh. The pilot beam was designed when ...

While I am an environmentalist, I think some things go too far, and this is one. I recently read about somewhere on the Calif. coast where a city rough graded for some streets in a proposed subdivision. The project didn't go through. Years passed and the rough graded streets flooded during wet time...

We have two large Haas machines at work (CNC lathe and mill) and they are very nice. I used the mill to make a jumbo sized aluminum pilot for my Chloe. http://www.mojaveserver.info/gallery/main.php/v/harlock/chloe/pilot/ I cannot speak to the smaller machines' quality, but if the large ones are any ...

i have a crosshead pump on my Chloe (3/8" ram maybe 5/16"). i can feel it sometimes when coasting with high boiler pressure. i've never had to turn it off to pull a hill but i bored the cyl. to 1 3/8" rather than the 1 1/4" called for in the prints. Fred v Did you mean to say yo...

Folks, Thanks for all the input. As usual I get the many varied opinions of Chaski, all of which have merit. :) Fred, your post was interesting because this is also in reference to a Chloe. My general take on all your postings is that it doesn't matter a whole lot for 1 1/2" scale and above due...

My father has a curious question: Is there a noticable running imbalance or tail wagging from one piston running a crosshead pump and the other side not? 　I'm going to guess that since I've never seen the issue come up it's not much of a problem at scale. He was potentially suggesting oversizing the...

Horray!

Harlock: I believe you best bet is to use steel rail on plastic ties, having laid a bit of this track, you will have less maintaince. Any other track is a real headache. That seems to be the consensus. I really want to minimize the maintenance on this track. These are just suggestions. A 75' radius...

In the desert with minimum shade you will probably have more expansion and chances of sun kinks than other places. Whatever way you choose be sure and leave joints loose every so often to allow for the expansion (and contraction). Aluminum expands more than steel so steel would be a plus. Aluminum ...

Guys, wonderful information on the ballast...a friend had mentioned the aspect about the rough pieces locking together, so that all makes good sense.

If anyone has a clue as to how much they used for a particular amount of track, I'd love that nugget of information.

A local group has asked me to put together a proposal for a short loop of 7.5" track around a mini-park located on a nearby small airport. After doing some rough drawings, the total mainline trackage will be about 637 feet with a 40ft min. curve radius. This will allow us to handle most any loc...