The Home Machinist!

Aluminum has had the most significant increase in cost over the last two months. Carbon bar products (HR bar, 1018, 1045, etc.) have been minimal but rising. Carbon sheet and plate is up over 10cent/lb since February and supply is becoming limited. If you're looking for 516-70 for boilers, you'd bet...

Are your outside rocker arms silver soldered onto the shaft, or still only held in by the roll pins (as called for on the drawings)? This was a design flaw that is known and almost everyone goes back and silver solders the arms to the shaft. The pins would wear the bronze arm casting and introduce a...

This is sad news. Doug was a member of the original North Georgia Live Steamers (1980s-1990s) in Duluth, GA, and was an authority on the Gainesville Midland railroad.

FYI, I work for Ryerson and I am intimately familiar with what's happening. Yes, there are increases happening and it's a day-to-day thing at the moment. Steel is far less affected than aluminum and the increases are much less, comparably. We're swamped at the moment due to a somewhat artificial dem...

That's great to hear Fred. I'm glad we have another supplier for this vital accessory. I'll be needing two for the (eventual) 2-10-0 build.

I was originally following the Allen design, but ditched the casting because I didn't like the hard 90deg turn the exhaust had to make. mogul44.jpg I don't have a photo of the final design I went with, but I took two 3/8 copper tubes and made an inverted "Y" with smooth radii up into a cus...

Took quite a while ... 575 photos in all.

https://www.flickr.com/gp/77603295@N05/11zn48

Ok, it took a while but I finally located the CD-R with the photos on it. About to upload them all back to FLICKR again. I'll post a link when it's done later tonight.

I know this is a very old post but do you still have these pictures of 573? I had them up on a FLICKR (I think... it was one of the photo hosting sites) but they nuked the account due to inactivity. I still have all the photos. Let me find a new place to host them and I'll follow up. Glad to see it...

Thanks, I know how to modify them, having done this before. I just haven't bought any new valves In about 10 years and now can't find the exact same type and size that I used before. There is another way to modify them too... make a sleeve (body) to be pressed around the outside of the valve and wh...

the bad thing about all of this is you generally need two taps....one to get started and one, with the end ground off, so that you can work blind holes - or 90 or 45 ells. My drawer of taps and dies agrees with this statement! I have two of all the MTP taps and a handful of the smaller (1/8 and 1/4...

I use both methods: an electric fan (furnace blower) and compressed air so I'm covered wherever I fire up. I hid a needle valve under the cab which I can screw in a standard male quick disconnect fitting. The copper line ties into the blower line to the smokebox. Some folk's fans are louder than any...