Recent content by William May

Excellent suggestion. An hour spent looking at one of the books by E. T. Westbury will give good advice about the size of the engine you need, and how much steam it will require. You can size it SPECIFICALLY to drive your large boat and it will be a perfect fit!

GLR Kennions in the U.K. have plans and castings available for 2 locomotives that are virtually identical to "Rocket". Both were designed by LBSC back in the 1950's, and many have been built, and they are known to work very well. Both are in 3.5" gauge. The first one is "Rainhill" by LBSC...

I have a small Dake press that I use for my small broaches. It has a hand lever to operate it. have a larger one for bigger broaches, and then a hydraulic press for the really large ones. Once your broach and workpiece are set up, the forces really should not be that great. A broach typically...

All my broaches are push broaches, that is all I have ever used. I have guides and shims in sets for them all and have never had one break. Are you push broaching with no guide and no shims? I have from 1/16" up to 1" in slotting, hexes, and squares, and have never had a problem. Are you using...

Yes, the large radial engines,, such as the 28 cylinder "4360"'s that were used on Corsairs had oil tanks that carried many gallons of oil, and the oil consumption was measured in gallons of oil per hour flown.

You might want to check into Hasluck's "Work" series, which has a section on several versions of single cylinder motorcycle engines from 1900 to 1905 or so. The other possibility is looking into the work of T. Hyler White, who was an engineer for Daimler in the 1890's, and who designed several...

Henry Ford, due to his long friendship with Thomas Edison, equipped his plants at Piquette Ave, and then the huge Highland Park Complex, with only DC motors for every machine. I'm not sure if they put DC or alternating motors in when they built the Rouge complex. It cost him a LOT of money to do...

Welcome, Spider! I have a Barnes Lathe from 1880, but I haven't used if for anything. They guy who found it and rebuilt it wanted to get rid of it so he has more space for modern equipment. I hated to think of it going to someone who wouldn't care about it, so I bought it just to preserve it...

I used to drive by a "General Electric Heavy Apparatus" repair facility in Tucson. I think most of the motors were from the huge electric dump trucks they used at the local copper mines and some equipment from rail locomotives. I know every day when I went past, there were a couple of semis...

On the contrary, it is VERY practical to take a machine that is in TERRIBLE condition, and restore it to full operational capability. That is what antique car restorers do EVERY DAY. (I'm not talking about 1960's Mustangs. Those are just used cars.) I am talking about cars from the 1900s...

She's doing the work, yes?

yes, I am always amazed at the things she tackles. Rewinding a generator, no problem! Rebuilding a lathe, no problem! In my opinion, she could use some gentle advice on some of her techniques, but she certainly accomplishes a lot, with almost nothing as a resource!

Yeah, this little girl is not afraid to tackle ANYTHING. I am always surprised by what she does next. She must have a bunch of relatives who work as mechanics or machinists. Nothing seems to be beyond her.

Go to YOUTUBE under "Linguoer--Mechanic". She has at least 100 videos currently, and is putting up more all the time! You can't miss it. It is a MASSIVE site!

You should see if you can contact this girl through her Facebook account, and ask her to tell us her story. I'm sure it is interesting. I wish she had a hoist to move the heavy things she works on. She just muscles them around now, but when she gets older she will suffer with arthritis and back...