best way to get started?

This forum is dedicated to the Live Steam Hobbyist Community.

Moderators: cbrew, Harold_V

User avatar
JBodenmann
Posts: 3855
Joined: Sun Oct 26, 2003 1:37 pm
Location: Tehachapi, California

Re: best way to get started?

Post by JBodenmann »

Hello My Friends
The best way to get started is to just get started. I started out with a hack saw, a claw hammer, a file, a couple screwdrivers, and an $8.00 dollar electric drill from the Western Auto store. Yes, an eight dollar drill. Good ol' mom. I wore out that drill. It was my drill, my grinder, and I used it as a lathe, strapping it down to my very crude work bench with a leather strap. I was probably ten years old. I broke things, I used up a lot of bandaids. I made mistakes. I had no skills, no proper material, not much guidance, my dad was not mechanically inclined at all. But I wasn't going to let that slow me down. I learned a lot. I am still learning. If you don't learn something every day, you are not paying attention. My point is if you want to get good at making things, just make things. Your skills will improve every day. There has been a lot of good guidance, from a lot of wise folks with much experience in this thread. But there are no short cuts, you must put your time in and have desire and determination. Emphasis on determination. This is a wonderful hobby, and I can't imagine a more enjoyable one. There is no sense of satisfaction greater than running an engine that YOU built. Few will ever know this. We are all here to help. Welcome, my young friend :D
Jack the old Bozo
Last edited by JBodenmann on Sat Dec 04, 2021 10:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
pat1027
Posts: 444
Joined: Sat Oct 09, 2004 3:45 pm
Location: Michigan

Re: best way to get started?

Post by pat1027 »

gwrdriver wrote: Fri Dec 03, 2021 10:40 am I also agree with Fred, . . . ignore those who say you can't do anything without a 14" lathe and a Bridgeport. They're wrong. If you do large scale work as a matter of course then the larger machine capacity could be justified, but when the majority of someone's project work could be carried out on a 6" lathe they shouldn't be saddled with a 14" machine, just because someone else thinks they ought to have it.
My dad's first locomotive was a Clishay built on a 6" Atlas lathe. We were at a meet where someone remarked a 6" lathe wasn't a lathe and you couldn't build a locomotive with one. With a chuckle my dad pointed at his Clishay and said he was glad he hadn't know that. His second was a Pacific built with an Atlas 12" lathe, the "Flexible Flyer" as it's sometime called. The frame was built up from bar stock with all the machining done in a milling attachment on the 12" lathe. The drivers, axles, ends of the 10" boiler barrel and smoke box were turned on the 12" lathe.

His first milling machine was an Ames Triplex. http://www.lathes.co.uk/amestriplex/ In the Triplex he bored the end plates for a fabricated cylinder block, drilled and counter sunk the the stay bolt holes for the boiler along with smaller parts.

I have a 9" South Bend and finished 8-3/8" drivers between centers in it. My mill is an Index Model 40. The frame for a 2-8-2 was burned from hot rolled plate and machined in the Index. I had to relay the frame down the table three times on each side but with some care the frame came out very well.

I agree don't buy junk (worn out machines and sloppy Chinese seconds), but neither do you have to equip yourself with the power and caliber equipment a commercial operator does. It's great stuff if you have it for sure but you can enjoy live steam and model engineering hobby with smaller lighter equipment.
User avatar
gwrdriver
Posts: 3439
Joined: Mon Jan 06, 2003 10:31 am
Location: Nashville Tennessee

Re: best way to get started?

Post by gwrdriver »

Precisely the way I started!
And on a shelf built into a 2ft x 2ft exterior closet.
JBodenmann wrote: Fri Dec 03, 2021 3:45 pm Hello My Friends, The best way to get started is to just get started. I started out with a hack saw, a claw hammer, a file, a couple screwdrivers, and an $8.00 dollar electric drill from the Western Auto store. Yes, an eight dollar drill. Jack the old Bozo
GWRdriver
Nashville TN
User avatar
gwrdriver
Posts: 3439
Joined: Mon Jan 06, 2003 10:31 am
Location: Nashville Tennessee

Re: best way to get started?

Post by gwrdriver »

Greg_Lewis wrote: Fri Dec 03, 2021 2:34 pm I think the Unimat is a well-designed and well-made machine, albeit for small work.
Greg, you may not have in mind the same Unimat I had . . the original "SL" which was made with bar ways. These ran away from everything presented to them, giving me a valuable lesson on the effects of deflection and the benefits of rigidity. :)
Attachments
Unimat.jpg
Unimat.jpg (13.32 KiB) Viewed 2608 times
GWRdriver
Nashville TN
User avatar
Bill Shields
Posts: 10460
Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2007 4:57 am
Location: 39.367, -75.765
Contact:

Re: best way to get started?

Post by Bill Shields »

But jack...do you STILL HAVE any of those tools?

I still have the files and hammer and several of the screwdrivers.

I junked the unimat SL quite a few decades ago but still have some of the chucks, spacer head and live center...and the Maximat 10 that still handles the occasional metric thread work for me.

I use the live center most every week as a punsher center in tap wrenches in my big mill.
Too many things going on to bother listing them.
Post Reply