The Home Machinist!

The orientation of the washer does matter, but minimally. It certainly will not make the difference between the injector working fine or not at all, unless it is altogether absent or stuck open. If one side is recessed (i.e. a counterbore), then it faces up. The outer ring is the mating surface to t...

I can't in good conscience continue to ignore the lack of availability for quality check valves in our hobby, so I will be producing the horizontal EE "Free Flow" Check Valves as quickly as I can in 3/16", 1/4" and 5/16" MTP sizes. These have larger internal passages than ot...

Just goes to show that it never hurts to ask… hoping to get it out to LALS on Sunday.

Shot in the dark here... but would really like to find an OS Krauss. Kit, assembled, or anywhere in between. Anyone have one they would part with? Or know someone that might?

Best,
Anthony

Anyone think I am off on my numbers? Maybe British ships work for a lot less? Even if they're at $75/hr once they buy their materials I doubt they have more than 170hrs left in the budget. It’s essentially a scaled up Accucraft Ruby. Very small very simple engine manufactured in Accucraft’s China f...

The prices of materials, machinery, shop space, and labor have all gone up, but the demand has not. Of course it's doable (the initial post's proposition), but without the demand for hundreds or thousands of look-alike steam locomotives it's just not practical. At a higher price point it becomes mor...

Earlier this year I had been telling people that I’ll make my 1000th injector this year, so recently I added everything up and realized I’ve actually already made just shy of 1300 injectors. With more and more injectors getting into the hands of enthusiast, I’ve had to spend more and more time on th...

I've been using those filters on my 2.5" scale 2-6-0 since before I started EE and I've never had to take an injector apart due to debris getting stuck in the nozzles. I have the version with barbed fittings but I like the NPT connections better... When I redo the plumbing on my tender I'll hav...

Unfortunately I will not make it to the TM Triennial this year. Very sorry to everyone that was planning on saying hello or buying an injector at the meet.

Looking at your setup, I don't see anything too alarming that would cause that much error. Only thing I would say is it looks like the vise doesn't have very much bite on the crossheads. Even with the bar going across, it would not take much force to move them around. But still, .03-.06 (I assume th...

I responded briefly to Hoppercar on Facebook, but I think this is a good opportunity to go into depth on why vacuum leaks prevent injectors from working, and why minor leaks can cause high starting pressures. It may not be why you think! When you're starting an injector below its maximum operating p...

Thank you all for the feedback so far. I should clarify the difference between pre-ordering and expressing interest in an item, a.k.a. "the list". This list is purely a contact list, and I don't consider the names on that list as orders. I notice a lot of people ask about their order, and ...