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Hi all, It has been many years since I last posted but I have been lurking around. I inherited an old set of castings for an air compressor but it didn’t come with any plans. I think they came from a place called Casting Specialists but, as you can see in the photo, it’s hard to tell. Can anyone...

A few weeks ago I put up a post about casting aluminum with Birk (oldmechthings). Well, he fired up the furnace once again, but for a totally different purpose. Birk heard that one of my 5 year old sons "fun" ideas for summer was to have the whole family visit Birk. Sounds fun to me. So, Birk...

My boys (and one nephew) had a great experience the other day. Birk (oldmechthings) offered to show us the casting process first hand. He has 40 years of experience so we were in good hands. He had many patterns that he had made over the years and he let us choose a few to cast. He let us make...

My son and I started a couple finger engines a while ago and I thought I'd show some of our progress. I started by building this little model out of foam core and toothpicks to get an idea of what I wanted to build. It was a lot like building a finger engine for our competition. It worked, but...

Wes asked me a question about a little soda can stove I showed him the other day and I thought I'd answer him with a post. Last year my son needed to do a science project. We found a website that showed how to make these nifty little camp stoves out of aluminum cans. I built one and was amazed...

First of all, I'm pretty much a newbie and I really don't have much of a shop to speak of. Instead, my "shop" is all spread out. This map might illustrate what Im talking about. I'm an an illustrator for a living. This is the studio where I work. It is also where think about all of the things...

I stumbled onto a interesting article on a website this morning. I thought some of you might be interested. http://www.tweaktown.com/news/9051/msi_employees_stirling_engine_theory/index.html.

Birk asked me to post this drawing he did explaining how to draw a gear template for shaping your tool bit. He says it works great and I have to believe him. Hopefully it will all show up in the scan. If I need to I can put in the download area.

I visited Birk's (Oldmechthings)place today and took a bunch of videos of a few of his many wonders. He asked if I could post them for him, so that is what I'm doing. The first few that I post will be of things he has already posted, but were only lacking video. I'll include a link to his...

I came across this video this morning. It's not an engine, but it could be hooked up to one. Besides, it has gears and machining and stuff. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w56smGCCiKI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w56smGCCiKI

My son and I just finished up our first metal project together. It is a 1/20th scale model of a 24-pounder canon from the U.S. Constitution. We got the plans from Birk (Oldmechthings). They are from an old Popular Mechanics magazine, but I don't the year or issue. For being new at this hobby, it...

Something a bit different. I work as a children's book illustrator for a living, but sometimes for fun I paint things that I enjoy, just for the heck of it. Here are a couple steam related paintings that I did a while back. Strange, I know, but that is what can happen when my imagination gets...

I've posted a few times to the forum, but I've never really introduced myself, so here goes. I am a children's book illustrator by trade, but I also love to tinker and build things. I have loved model steam engines since I was a kid and I have always wanted to be able to build them. I have...