The Home Machinist!

to answer your question, there is a book called "pocket ref" by thomas j glover. isbn1-885071-00-0. starting on page 50 and going on to page 69, there are maximum floor joist span charts that cover 2x6,8,10,12 in varying lengths and covering different species of wood. however, if you are i...

i have built numerous allen moguls and ten wheelers over the years, and i use plain old crs 1/4"x1/2" for the guides. it has been working fine for years. i don't know much about all the numbers that go with the different grades of crs. when i machined the crossheads, i would machine the cr...

unwrap it and throw as far as you can. seriously, we had all kind of flat spring stock at work. it was supplied in rolls that you describe, and it was securely tied. the roll was had bailing wire tied around it in three or four places. we would slide the wire around until the end was loose, and then...

once, I found the cavity on my engine was full of steam oil.

builder 01--david to answer your question, how do you hold the ss plate to the valve face? the ss plate is held down by the screws what holds the steam chest and cover to the cylinder block. I don't think that there will be any movement of the three pieces. there are a total of 14 8-32 screws holdin...

when I made my last two allen engines, I made a valve plate out of eighth inch thick stainless steel. I duplicated the valve dimensions according to the print. made the d valve to print specs. I milled out the ports on the cylinder block a bit in order for them to align up a bit better. sandwiched i...

I believe that the flex seal people have a product that is used with a brush. might work. well, I guess if I had read caribou doug's post, I would've seen that it was already mentioned. great minds think a like. I wonder what kind of luck you would have if you used it to seal an oil tank.

I used a hand drill with a tap drill for a #8 tap. made it long with an extension. drilled the saddle first. aligned every thing up. clamped it all together. with the same hand drill, i drilled through into the smokebox. tapped said holes. then went back to the saddle and drilled the clearance holes...

I have dealt with all the above mentioned suppliers. the only one that, imho, treated me like I was an appreciated customer, was the late gene allen. he was the owner of allen models. you called him. he or his wife answered. you placed an order. I remember calling to place an order at 8am, Memphis t...

I would sure hate to be the first one in that hole. you have to wait until all the other little dauberettes hatch.

every thing looks good except for that black object toward the end of the train with the ge logo on it

this is a funny story. the late Austin barr had a track at Whitehall ar many years ago. the late bob Wilson and I debugged and ran his ic 2600 locomotive there. Austin had a converted air/ hydraulic auto lift that was used to aid in the unloading of locomotives. it also was used as a turntable. we w...