Hi folks,
I first joined a few years ago, but drifted away. I'm back, but I've realized I never posted an "introduce yourself" topic...
My name's Mike, and I've been involved in live steam/model engineering since I was 4. I'm 50 now. We have home movies showing me riding the trains at Pioneer Valley Live Steamers and Waushakum Live steamers from the early 70s.
When I was in high school, I started building a 3.5" live steam 4-6-0, and messed up some parts (all 6 axle boxes, for starters) So I started building stationary engines to learn how to do machining before I ruined any more locomotive parts. Life has gotten in the way occasionally (marriage, kids, divorce, illnesses), but I'm still actively involved in the hobby.
A few years ago, I made a new years resolution to not start any new projects until I finished an existing one. That got me working again on a reasonably large model I had bought the castings for and started machining 20+ years ago. Its a 1.5" bore x 3.5" stroke horizontal stationary engine, flywheel is about 10.5" diameter, overall length around 21". The guy who made the castings has all but disappeared, which is a shame because they're rather nice hunks of cast iron.
The drawings were, um, basic. Hand drawn sketches with dimensions missing and/or wrong. I re-drew the plans in Draftsight before I started working on the engine again. I still need to determine the length of the connecting rod and eccentric rod from the assembly.
So, here's where I am now on this engine. Its looking like an engine, but still a lot to do (crosshead, connecting rod, and the entire valve gear (simple eccentric, no reversing gear) I also have a set of governor castings from the Coles Cretors popcorn engine that I'm planning on adding at some point.
