The Home Machinist!

to: hammermill now that you brought up if subject of 3 phase power, several years ago someone put up an article on building a 3 phase steam powered alternator to be mounted on top of a locomotive boiler. the article included drawings and large quantity of notes. judging by the size of some of the pa...

hammermill; now that you mention 3 phase, some person, many years ago, submitted plans for building a 3 phase steam powered alternator for use on our locomotives in our live steam magazine. i think he even published plans for building a voltage regulator for said 3 phase alternator. i don't remember...

hey zach, we used to use pm motors that we bought at radio shack. they were about the size of a 35 mm film can. we would build up the housing and turbine wheel out of aluminum. they would put out enough juice to fully light several 194 type lamps. of course, you know as the speed varied so did the v...

to whom it may concern; i have visited the MOT on two occasions, both times during the summer vacation period. where i worked, they shut the plant down in the hottest part of the summertime. anyway, i told you this in order to tell about something else. when you are walking around looking at all the...

after a lot of chopping, butchering, and whacking, i fitted several sets of wcc brakes sets to the allen mogul/10 wheeler arch bar trucks. the real head scratcher was fitting the individual brake hanger to the side frame of the truck. i cobbled up something similar to the arch bar truck in "kin...

donald; the last engine i built, an allen mogul, i painted the smoke box with a spray paint called "cast blast". made by seymour of scyamore, inc. this is a high heat type of coating, good to 1200*F. it dries to a somewhat dark gray color. it kinda looks like cast iron. one word of warning...

i once had the opportunity to watch a friend of mine bore a set of cylinders for a pacific that he was building. i believe it was a little engines casting. it was a one piece casting and i am not to sure whether or not it was a piston or slide valve arrangement. this person had access to what i beli...

i ran an allen mogul for years. it was oil fired. the smokebox plumbing was made up with parker flare fittings and bits of copper tubing and copper elbows. the parker pieces held up okay, but i replaced the copper tubing several time during the time it ran. it looked and felt like the copper tubing ...

good looking rods, peter. i, too, use the hand method to cut the round ends on my rods, and yes, it gets very spooky, especially when you are nearing the end of the rounding process and your cutter is engaged for the full cut. there's really no place for the cutter to rest and you have to really hav...

to all; i used 3/16 brake line, i had to buy that, couldn't get that free at work. my pilot design came from an engine which resides in a park located in columbus, ms. it's a columbus and greenville 4-6-0. i guess it's still there, the last time i saw it was about ten years ago. it worked out pretty...

to bill c: my first engine had brass side and main rod bushings, cause i could get them free at work, but after a while, they started to wear out into an oval shape, which resulted in much slapping, banging, and clattering. i read about the black nylon in the live steam magazine; i believe it was wr...

concerning the machining of the allen side rods. while i have nothing but the best to say about the allen castings, i do not use the side and main rod castings, because i can't find a good straight line to start my measuring from. i buy what ever size of aluminum flat stock that i think i need from ...