Hello all. Saw a reference to this forum in Ray Wilkinson's article on the Alyn Foundry Sphinx in Stationary Engine magazine. Let me introduce myself.......
I have been sitting on casting sets for Alyn Foundry Gardner O and Retlas engines since 2005/6, and also castings for the R & B Gas Engine - bought them whilst available with a view to them being retirement projects. Retirement has arrived and I have relocated from West Sussex to South Norfolk where I can afford enough space for a proper workshop. Having settled in, the time has now come to get to work on the castings, so might need some advice in the weeks and months to come.
Professionally I was a scientist as my maths wasn't good enough to study my first love, mechanical engineering, to degree level. When my laboratory work got pushed into the background as I moved into middle management, I looked for an outlet for my need to work with my hands and I came back to engineering as a hobby. Over a number of years I have kitted myself out with a Myford lathe, Boxford shaper, Warco mill and a pillar drill and taught myself to use them. So far most of my work has been making parts for full size stationary engines, but as they are usually heavy and my back is getting weaker, I need to scale down. I volunteer one day a week at a local preserved windmill where I look after a 20BHP Ruston Hornsby 4YHR diesel engine - not exactly scaling down, but I don't have to move it around.
The only area my workshop is deficient is a lathe big enough to turn flywheels for the kits in hand, so I suspect I may have to contract out the machining of these.
I look forward to going back through the archives to see what has cropped up regarding the Alyn Foundry engines, and I am very pleased to note that Graham Corry is a participant here - I suspect he knows a thing or two about these engines :-)
