How did we start?

[Michael S.]

How did I start building engine models?
It was 1987. I was still an apprentice and had found a model building journal from the 70s that showed a small oscillating steam engine. With construction plan. I then built these. Made of sheet metal, brass pipe, pulleys from the Märklin construction kit and a bicycle spoke. The boiler was an old tin can and everything was soldered with tin.  Everything worked quite well. I no longer have the boiler. But the steam engine now stands on a wooden base. That was my personal number 1. The number two was only built in 2001. And it was a bit fancier. Between 1987 and 2001 I once built a locomotive out of wood, cardboard and tin cans. Without drive. Those were my beginnings in model making.
Do you still have your first model steam engines or other first works of art?

Michael

[crueby]

My start with machining was as a kid of around 10 or 12 when my mother gave me a little Unimat SL lathe for Christmas. At the time I was buiilding wooden ship models, and at first used it to saw and shape wood strips (it had a table saw attachment) as well as some basic metal parts. Later on got a Stuart D10 machined kit, it was basically a bolt-together kit with minimal work needed. At the time I really didn't know how a steam engine worked, and it was years later that I had a compressor to hook it up to and figure out how to properly time it to run. Still have that engine, it still runs. Eventually upgraded to a Sherline lathe, added a mill too. Went back to ship models for years, used the lathe to make banks of canons for a French ship of the line, dabbled a little more in steam engines with small scratch built and some PMR kits, before learning to build clocks. Many years later, when I retired at 50, finally dove in on Kozo's New Shay book which I had drooled on and was scared of for years. Come a long way since then!
 

[Michael S.]

Hello Chris,

You started very early too. Interesting path and today you are building such beautiful engines.
As a schoolboy, maybe around the age of 14 or 15, I had a model railway and converted a few wagons and locomotives myself. Lots of tinplate and wire. Connected to the soldering iron.

Michael