The Home Machinist!

Another case I've heard of derailing was a loco where the springs didn't put the weight in balance on the rails. The pilot truck was very light on one side and heavy on the other. It did fine on the track but came off when hitting a curve in only one direction. They adjusted the springs to get the w...

Joe T, Nice to know there is some track in the state somewhere. I hadn't heard much from over there in a while. I have a box of parts and a pile of drawings of (I think) a 3/4" scale 10 wheeler my wife's grandfather started on in the 50's. Not much more than a frame (I think there's a bend in i...

I'm watching this thread to try to see how much small scale is still 'sitting somewhere' and not finding tracks. FLLS had a highline until the mid-90's when it finally came down. I hear tell that Harold C was the only one brave enough to use it. We have some discussions about trying to find a place ...

I recall somebody had a small 4 cylinder unit, but not much else about how it worked or not. Some questioned if it was really diesel or just a gas engine. Another poster had mentioned that there is a limit to how small a diesel can be made from a thermodynamics view point. It needs a certain amount ...

I've seen people using auto steering wheel shaft parts. Because of the need to be collapsible and most cases user adjustable, you get this sort of slip action. The junk yard may be a source of useful parts.

We've been seeing the price of good ground contact treated wood was getting more expensive and the difference between that and plastic has become much closer than a year or three ago. With the expected life issues, making the change to plastic feels fully justified now.

Check valves with the reliability of the EE injectors would be great. I was running a 1.5" 0-4-0 yesterday and the only thing on that loco that was 100% was the EE injector. Everything else was one 'feature' or another, but made for a grand day anyway. On that little thing I only needed to turn...

The 1" starter valve would be nice. Keeping the controls different in the cab can help reduce bumping the wrong ones.

We gauge to 4.781 for our track to give a little on the curves yet stay within range for straights too.

Well I know 50' radius works fine as that's what the club has and many a Pacific has run miles on that track. 20' does sound kind of tight. It has been said a few times that one of the old LE catalogs listed the minimum radius for each loco in the catalog. I've never seen one of the catalogs. I came...

I have a SB 10" lathe that was used for wood. Biggest thing I had to do was take the apron off and clear it out of all the chips and dust. The the feeds started working again.

One thing to consider about motors, they can fail. If you had 'such a deal' on some great but very rare motors, it might be very hard to get the motor repaired or find a replacement. I've known a few locos sidelined due to not being able to find a replacement motor of the same specs. Size, torque, s...