The Home Machinist!

What Bruce said. Unfortunately, those trades that shop skills supported are largely gone from the job market and the schools are trying to react to what is needed. I suspect that teaching the trades in high school is more expensive than teaching tech and the available pool of teachers went the same ...

Could part of the reason that steam seems to be more popular in the U.K. than the U.S. be that they retained steam on their railroads longer there and the die-off of those who lived with steam is delayed by a few years compared to the U.S?

Nice!

I noticed a contact for Accucraft in the goose post in the for sale section.

Resin printers give a lot smoother finish, but a side frame is way too big for most of the printers. Filament printers that allow items that size are easier to come by.

For a speeder you could also use a flange on the axle and bolt the wheel to it like the prototype. the spacers could be used or not used, depending on the gauge for the day. A boss on the flange would locate the wheels. A nut driver on a drill would make quick work of removing and installing and rep...

It looks like you could make the one above slightly shorter by cutting the bottom off of the legs and replacing them with L brackets.

I'd make a big boring bar out of some hardened drill rod to avoid the flex from the long stick out. My understanding is that there isn't a big difference in rigidity for different types of steel. Solid carbide bars are more rigid, as are steel bars that are a larger diameter. Another option is to m...

Some locomotives have been built with cast bronze side rods and bushings wouldn't be needed until the first shopping. With steel, fit bushings. Do a search for rod bushings, I believe some have had success with some of the slippery plastics. Bronze is a good choice, but people have had poor success ...

Starting a thread to avoid hijacking the post on the marketplace. It's on the Bitter Creek Western web page - https://www.jf2.com/bcwrr/Dockstader-Valve-Gear.html Long, long ago when Charlie still had slow dial up Internet and was sending copies on disk for free to anyone who asked for a copy I put ...

Send me your email address and I'll send you the stl file that I used.

Attached.