The Home Machinist!

Hi John Browsing Kozo's New Shay book convinced me to try to build. Before I started was into garden RR and had bought a couple of nice live 1/20 steamers. Didn't know a mill from a lathe. Anyway bought the book,mill,and a lathe and seven years later have a shay. I"ve steamed it using a torch a...

Another situation to avoid. Kozo outlines a method to check the oil pump by disconnecting the oil lines at the valve box and then using a pin vice connected to the end of the cam shaft in the oil reservoir and turning about 60 revolutions. Problem is the shaft was not long enough to attach anything....

In Kozo's New Shay book there is a section to build the shay in 1.5" scale at either 7.25 or 7.5. In the section he redesigns most of the running parts because the 3/4" design did not scale up. for other parts his comment was to just double the measurements

Hi cmitcham Good to hear someone else is building the shay. Don't think there are many of us. This was my first machining project. Below is the finished product ready to go. Last year I steamed it using a torch to test everything out. Had a big problem when water began to overflow from the oil reser...

If anyone is building Kozo's New Shay there is an easier way to build the cylinder cock shafts. Kozo's cylinder cock assembly calls for a bunch of small parts. (photo 1). A total of 47 including 22 pins. After going through all the steps involved to build, my final assembly had a lot of play to the ...

Harold take a look at what obama did with the swine flu. Listen to something other than cnn to find out what is really happening.

Dave

I bought several sizes of supposably ss from McMaster. All were magnetic, so I'm not sure what they are.

There is a picture of Kozo with the Raritan he built in the first Shay book. Does look like the A3

You guys are making me nervous. The first time I ran the engine on air it took about 40# to get it moving and it ran in spurts. After many minutes of running it loosened up and would run on 10# or less very smoothly. If I have a problem with tolerances it would be the piston rings,right??

I have an A3 I purchased about a year ago. The first time I steamed it things went very well. It was a short run because of the track(under construction) That first run was using Welch Coal.. Since that first run I have tried steaming 4 or 5 times. Each time I had problems. First it likes Welch coal...

Hi Dave
Waushakum has a hi-line duel gauge 4 3/4 and 3 1/2 about 2500' along with a ground line of 7 1/4 about 4000'. I also just joined the Northeast Live steamers and have found a bunch of RR's all around the northeast.

Hi Dave
My neck tube is a Sievert tube about 8 or 9 " from Sievert. Can't find the number but length was never an issue. Can't see why you would need an 18" tube.