The Home Machinist!

Bear with me because this is going to get tedious and obscure, but you asked for it. First I hope the difference between scale and gauge are clear. The two may or may not be related in any given piece of equipment and the only way to sort all this out is to keep the two seperate in your mind. For in...

It's too late to try to reverse a now popular misnomer but "G" scale isn't a scale at all and originally designated a single combination of scale and gauge, LGB's 1:22.5 scale on Gauge 1 track. It is very unfortunate that in minds of so many it has come to represent anything having to do w...

The steel in a model boiler shouldn't be under 1/4" no matter what, and 5/16" is even better. This isn't for strength, the .096 would have enough strength, but to provide for corrosion allowance.

Ben, IF you use Loctite, and I'm not saying you should, turn a narrow register band at each end of the pins to align them dead square to the wheel axis, and especially the main crankpin, and certainly if it has Walschearts gear. If it has Walschearts gear the main crankpins should be pinned as a pre...

I would choose "superheat", quoted because my opinion is that although any increase in steam temperature over 213degr is technically superheat in our usage it's actually more steam drying. The reason most builders I've been around over the years have chosen to superheat was to keep the loc...

Facing the group as shown in the photograph, turn the cylinder castings 180 degrees (clockwise - not end for end) and you have their actual relative positions. Push them together closely, measure from center to center of the bores, deduct 1/4" from the dimaneion and that will give you the appro...

I always have !too many! projects underway and unfinished at any given time but the ones currently getting the most attention are a 5" boiler, a redesigned TICH in 7.5" gauge, and an SECR Wainright D-class 4-4-0 (British) in Ga1.

My rig is an old Super-Range set and the new number for the Victor tip I'm using is a 6-MFA-1.

Yes Paul did come to mind and you had no way of knowing this but Paul was my first live steam mentor, taught me basic machine work, and introduced me to the concept of model engineering.

[/quote] . . . maybe I should ship it to Tennessee for completion?[/quote]

Well, I've heard tell some of the best boiler builders live in Tennessee. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/cool.gif"%20alt="[/img]

I'm having problems with a rosebud tip popping back on me and I figure it's my pressure settings. The torch is a Victor #6-T-29 shank with a #6 (or maybe it's a #9?) tip (5/8" diameter/6-holes). I wasn't having a problem until I recently refilled tanks and couldn't recall what I had my regulato...

Will, If it was me I wouldn't want just anybody with a buzzbox doing that work so I would shop around a bit (that is if you have more than once choice to shop) and get someone who really knows their stuff. You might also run into liability problems with commercial shops because first it's a "bo...