Remember your first?

[Dan Rowe]

Tel,
Is that a model stamp mill being driven in the second photo? A few of my favorite Shays were used to supply ore to a bank of similar stamp mills.

Dan

[tel]

Yes Dan - another early effort, built especially for the Stuart to drive.

We had 3 Shays not far from here - at Burraga Mines - they were used to bring in firewood for the boilers one the timber had got too scarce for the horse drawn wagons to reach easily. One was destroyed in a fire and I believe the other two went for scrap when the mines closed around 1912.

[pgp001]

This was my first, my dad was given the patterns by an old chap when he was an apprentice in the 1940's.
Dad never did anything with them and gave them to me many years ago, all I had were four patterns and no drawings.
So got some castings made and designed the engine around what I had.







Strangely enough the patterns were thought to have been lost in our house move over five years ago, but I found them in a tin box of nuts and bolts when looking for something else last night.

Phil

[swilliams]

This is a great thread. Loving all the first engine builds

I built my first at school in engineering workshop class back in 85, but I don't have a photo unfortunately. It was an oscillator with a boiler and metho burner. The teacher silver soldered the boiler together, we weren't allowed. I remember using the shaping machine alot because the budget didn't extend to keeping sharp end mills in sufficient stock. Was a really great class with teachers that were qualified fitters and turners. Shame how under appreciated it was by most of the kids.

Steve

[Maryak]

Mine was a mill engine



Bob

[Captain Jerry]

My first was this.  My own design built with a Unimat SL1000 and a pencil torch in 2008.  Ten opposed pistons and a pair of swash plates.



Jerry

[Don1966]

My first engine I built three years ago. Didn't know much about maching still don't, but I hope to get there. I built Little Machine Shops Pip Squeak engine.


Don

[gary hart]

Philip Duclos Blazer made using a old 18" Sebastion lathe with top speed of something like 495 rpm.

[arnoldb]

'T was but a bit over four years ago - made entirely on the lathe.  A weekend very well spent:



Regularly gets picked up and given a blow to make it run 

Kind regards, Arnold

[waggle]

My first model was a joint project with my father - another Stuart 10V. After that he went on to make some tooling and I did a Brunell Grasshopper Beam engine. We then each went on to tackle a bigger project. I started  a 5" Speedy and he chose an Allchin traction engine. We made some progress on these, but after he passed away in 2002 I lost interest in all things engineering and I am now trying to get back into the shop to finish the 2 ongoing projects. I also have lots of new plans to keep me going for years to come. I am finding it very difficult to get started due to depression and monetary restrictions but reading all of the wonderful posts on here is making it harder to stay away.
Sorry, I have no photos, but when I do finally get started again I will do lots of photos.

Tony

[b.lindsey]

Tony, thanks for posting. I do hope that the friendly and supportive environment here on MEM will help ease that transition back into the shop and model engineering.

Regards,
Bill

[Alan Haisley]

"3 sisters" circa 1996, from plans found on the internet, when I first went on-line. The site is still up;  http://npmccabe.tripod.com/3sisters.htm

-Kevin

If you go to http://npmccabe.tripod.com/ you can find Professor McCabe's home page with links to several plans ranging from low-tech to CAM produced. Professor McCabe is associated with the County College of Morris Engineering Tech Department in Randolph, N.J.
Alan
 

[Alan Haisley]

This was my first:

About four years ago. It's kinda my own design of a wobbler. I made brass swash plates because I figured that brass on brass would work better. The plates are each held on by countersunk 2-56 screws. The other thing I figured was that the port timing was where I was most likely to make a mistake. If needed I could remove the plates and remake them with changed port placement without having to redo the cylinder or stand. The cylinder was especially hard to make because I bored a blind hole. Although it involves more parts and fitting, I'd suggest that other beginners bore through their cylinders and make an end plate.
Alan
 

[AussieJimG]

My first was a LTD Stirling "Coffee Cup" engine. I still recall the thrill.
Maybe it is not quite like giving birth but it must be close.

Jim

[zeeprogrammer]

PMR Model 2A was mine.
A complete newbie at machining and I caught a lot of flak for doing a casting first. But the kit came with a video which was a big help.
I still have the one-sheet plan pinned to a wall. It's been what? 4 years now since I started this hobby? Something like that.

As it turned out, I bought 3 kits, having screwed up the flywheel a couple of times and other parts. Not knowing I could just order the part I needed.

First steam engine anyway. I actually started with 'The Home Machinist's Handbook' (great starter book but has a couple of errors in it). I made the machinist jacks, mallet which I use quite a lot, machinist's clamp which I use a lot, and setup tool which resulted in two nice drilled dimples in my mini-mill table.

Ah those holes in the mini-mill table. For whatever reason, it's like my picture of my old 65 beetle I had in high school. A nice reminder of my first time.