The Home Machinist!

I found some lens material to go between the LED's and the glass that really does the trick, secured them with E6000 and I'll be ready to assemble the rest of the heads once it's cured enough to handle. I haven't been able to find anything to make the ladders from, TSC's 1x2 mesh is the only thing c...

Something about driving a train around *while* eating a big cheeseburger sounds very appealing to me!

The body was getting pretty floppy in the middle when I was working on the nose, so I had to abandon that and start framing in the inside of the body some more. I cut two pieces of 2" aluminum channel and got one of them riveted into the bottom edge of the hood on one side, I'll do the other on...

The muffler has a lot to do with the sound of the engine, the little stock can mufflers don't cut it. Building a custom one can be expensive if you can't DIY it, but a multi-pass muffler with perforated metal and packing in it, with a long large exhaust pipe going to your stack will quiet it up and ...

I am trying to keep my radius's to 40' minimum as well. In fact being I'm doing my track "train set" style, I'll probably just jig up 10' lengths of 40' radius and let that be that. I know it's not optimum, but I'm confident in my joiners that it's not going to buckle or bend at the joints...

I wanted to add as well, that to put an end to a similar post/argument on the karting forum several years ago, I wrote Mobil-1 and the Castrol guys, and BOTH responded saying NOT to use their on-road car oil in splash lubed engines. It is the nice thing about the V-twins, is once you get up past the...

http://www.sportrider.com/oils-well-ends-well-part-1 This is a good read. One can see in part 2 that these oils have lots of wear preventing additives. Base stock of the oil is also very important though, as shown here: http://www.camaros.net/forums/134-tips-tricks/210657-motor-oil-wear-test-results...

Important to note, I will be turning them afterwards, or at least fixing a grinder to something and truing them up after welding.

4140 air hardens from welding and gets very brittle, ask how I know. You'll want to use A36 or A572-G50 materials. Much of it is dual specification these days so it's easier to find. I am going to be welding the wheels up on my locomotive. They will be disks of laser cut 3/4" plate, with "...

I started on the nose tonight, it's going to be a job with all the front corners being radiused, and those compound radius hood corners will probably require some hammer persuasion and bondo for sure. I also found a piece of perforated metal via dumpster diving the scrap bin to use for my vent in th...

Looking good, I can see it starting to come together:) What kind of minimum radius are you using on your turns? I've done some research and have seen where many advise against any super-elevation on a backyard layout, FYI. Maybe that's because the 7-1/2" gage stuff is too tippy though. I've bee...

I figured I'd get up on my soapbox again regarding oil, as I've done a lot of research and a lot of learning the hard way on this one. Those of you with gas powered splash lubed engines will want to pay attention. No that long ago, the EPA mandated the removal and minimization of additives like zinc...