The Home Machinist!

Glenn, the standard slap stick method we use in the shop on such metals is to preheat them until the area near the weld will make the wood handle on a wire brush smoke a little, perform your welding, and let air cool. This should be done with a minimum ambient temp of 60*. If your welder is under po...

Good news on all the rail, you planning to start laying some track soon?

Dick, Bill is right. The speed of which the O-ring slides in the bore far exceeds the rated linear surface speed of the specs on even the best high temp O-rings out there. They also make an X-ring, but while it has better specs they are still too low, and the edge of the X shape could catch on a por...

Bill, I get that. I would be employing the same methods and materials across the valves as I would the pistons and sleeves, if I did it. I could also go with stainless pistons, and double up the rings as extra insurance against piston/wall contact. I've also got local contacts with shops that serve ...

I posted before that I was looking at aluminum pistons inside bronze sleeve bearing bores, with high temp glass filled PTFE gapless rings. My main concern was corrosion, and I felt that this setup would be able to be used, parked for several days, and used again without having to drain and oil every...

the late Pete Eggink described building his GP 35 out of wood. http://www.calvertcentral.com/CC_2014_GP35.html Dave I considered this method for the body of mine, but it's just too wet here. I have metal shop access so I went with aluminum on a steel frame. Honestly if one was proficient (even if y...

Ah here it is from my older post: "I am using two SPDT relays, so there is two + positive outputs which are switched between by relay position. The at rest relay output powers the green light indicating the next block is clear. When the first relay is energized, indicating a train in the next b...

Sounds good. Echoing the first response to this thread, make sure you isolate your Arduino. I've read of many problems for signal systems being affected by everything from nearby radio towers and power lines to lightning of course. My property is on a hill and I have at least one tree which was stru...

Been kicking this around myself, for a build that is far in the future lol. I was thinking aluminum pistons, bronze sleeve cylinders, and hi-temp PTFE "notched" rings (literally zero blow by). One thing about aluminum is that one can use acid to remove alum deposits from cylinder walls wit...

Question for you. Did you end up drilling clearance holes through your flat bar bolsters? I haven’t drill my bolsters yet. I’ll take a look, and see what kinda clearance I have. I’m using 1”dia-two hole bearing housings. Although, on this gon I have already designed it for a 1”dia pin passing throu...

Will do! We actually have had a decent sunny yet cold week, but rain is returning later Saturday and maybe even snow next week. It doesn't help that it's only light from about 7:30am-5pm right now. I have to move part of my driveway as mitigation to get my final and occupancy, and will be grading th...

Hey Ryan, yep, Washington is pretty much a lost cause, st least in an area local to us. We have a little drama from time to time here also. But the park we are in has an established live steam club, and a public designation specifically for this type of activity. So moving Forward. Our volunteer gr...