The Home Machinist!

I prefer small simple living quarters, spend all my time outside anyway, don't need much space inside. Somwhat primitive is my way of life. wood fire cooking and not much for indoor plumbing is fine by me. Convenience dosn't create happyness. My life is happiest spent between the barn the shop and t...

I'm going by the design and specs/metal grades specified in the plans sold by peter carlich. and rain water is what I have to use, as ground water here is loaded with calcium. the chlorinated water supply used to be miles away but then with some grant they ran it some 10 miles from town and came dow...

so I suppose I'm rare huh? my dad is not a fixit type. Just can't seem to understand such things. His talents lie elsewhere, (worked in printing, was a very good proofreader) but I kind of became heavily a fix it guru. I guess inheriting my mother's mother's father's family's talents who were invent...

I'm out in the woods on a mtn farm, built a shop, (still has a dirt floor, some will remain that way, dry dirt is much safer than cement when dealing with molten metal) a little over a year ago i bought off ebay an F.E. Reed lineshaft lathe with aftermarket electric adaption. 3 jaw scroll chuck, 4 j...

May be stuff ya already know, but. A 3 phase motor connected to single phase by 2 wires and all 3 going to the 3 phase equipment to be run makes a nice converter. Converter motor will need to be spun with a rope as the switch is thrown on to start it. 3 ph moter will run on 1 ph but won't start itse...

I've been told that using charcoal I'll get out of it purty much what goes in. Charcoal is a very old fuel for cupola use, isn't used any more except by hobbyists occasionally, but from what I've read it makes a nicer product than coke. I will find out when I start doing it. I will melt steel. pour ...

the truck that they used a bump valve on they drilled a hole in the bottom side of the cylinders to serve as exaust. and exausted into the chankcase. Worked same as a 2 cycle chainsaw engine. I like the valve exaust to eliminate back pressure. and I don't like the exaust going into the crankcase. Bu...

not sure whatcha mean about not pouring steel. The cupola blast furnace is the old standerd steel melter for melting with solid fuel, charcoal or coke. A good 3000 deg refractory lining and the right blast of air. can pour direct into a form but usually it's not posible to get the greensand mold und...

Been thinking about it for some time, tried to do some research and don't get very far. Little info availible. looking for more ideas. In converting an IC engine to run on steam, I can use the built in poppet valves for exaust, (modified cam) but they only hold about 200 psi max for ingoing pressure...

or go for the good stuff made for the job, they have weights for different temperature/pressure ranges. http://www.steamenginelube.com/

Hi ya'll. I was super interested in steam power when I was about 13 (late 70's) and studied it a good bit then, but then went on to other things because I had no resources to do anything. But the resource thing changes with time. Seems theres a lot of scale model steam loco interest here. That's a h...