Search results

Celebrating too many birthday parties has started to take a toll, but I still manage a little shop time and occasionally complete a project. Some are engines and some are other things. The last engine was a Silver Angel as designed by the late Bob Shores. Before that was a little Launch engine...

Would you know I finished another model a few days ago, and while it is not an engine, it does have a reciprocating piston that goes putt putt putt quite fast. Does that count? For some reason I'm intrigued with simple everyday things that I don't know how they work. I found that building a...

Although it is not an engine, perhaps it might have some similarities in that it has a connecting rod and other moving parts. Presently it is fitted with dies to stamp out pie tins. For what?, Mice, of course. And here is a video of it in action.

Last week I finished another hot air engine, so I thought I'd post a picture for you to look at. It is not a scale model, but more of a resemblance to a patent design sketch seen in a Stirling engine book. Stirling's 4th engine built in 1843. A 45hp dual displacer, single double acting power...

My February project was completed several days ago with a whole week to spare. Now what do I do for the rest of the month? Actually it is a pretty simple straight forward model to build. The most interesting thing being the internal geared crank mechanism. and that was not difficult. I usually...

Not that anyone might care, but the end of January marked the completion of a scale model of an old hand pumped RR section car from the era before they were powered by gasoline engines. I'll show you a picture anyway. And here is a short video so that you can see to really works. The...

I had every intent to build a scale model of a century old stamp mill of the kind that was used to crush ore, and pulled a bunch of information off the internet in preparation to get started, but before it got underway my whimsy side got in the way. I have a terrible time staying serious all the...

Sorry, but I have been a little lax in post on the site. It is not that I have not been doing things, it's just that old men move slower than when they were younger. About the end of October I completed a Steeple Engine patterned after one seen in the book "Historic Engines Worth Modeling" by...

Last Friday, august 21st I completed a Panther Pup gasoline engine model. Patterns were made and castings poured about 17 or 18 years ago when the construction article was first published. Then I got side tracked and the castings were put in storage to "age". I've heard things get better with...

More years ago than I want to remember, I picked up a reprint copy of a 1897 Sears Catalog. When looking through it, I seen a pair of what they called "Fancy Calipers". Using a Xerox machine I enlarged the image, with the intent of using it for a pattern to make some calipers. Well the enlarged...

Yesterday on a post about an air operated engine, cfellows asked where I was. Just to let everyone know, I'm still around producing things as fast as I can, I'll post a picture for you to look at. It is a simple little geared engine, that is a little different than normal. It has a big hard to...

Saturday at Probasco's show and swap meet in Huntsville I acquired a new (to me) milling machine. Would you believe I had to pay $35 for it? Now I'll probably have to take in work in order to pay it off. Yesterday I had lots of other stuff I should have been doing, but every time I walked past...

Several days ago I posted a couple pictures showing the machining of a couple triangular lobed cams for a model river boat paddle wheel engine. The concept for the engine design came from Elmer Verburg's book, ELMER"S ENGINES. His model was listed as an "Educational Model" and was built to...

How do you machine triangular lobed cams for one of Elmer Verburg's Paddle Wheel Engines? Well, first you clamp a bar of metal in a wobble fixture and machine it skiwompus. Then you put it in a regular three jaw chuck, and drill and ream the bore, turn the shoulder for the hub, and part it...

A long time ago, somewhere around 500 years, some guy by the name of Leonardo was inventing all sorts of unheard of (at that time) things. In his illustrations he used peg toothed gears. They looked so intriguing, and I've wanted to try building some for as long time. I finally got around to...

Here it is Father's Day again. Perhaps You would like to see a picture of my Father's Day Fishing Pole? It was stuck on the side of the barn, and before long a flying fish got hooked. Now that might sound like a "fish story" but here is a picture to prove it! All you fathers and...

Yesterday I completed an automaton of a little shoemaker, so now I'm out of work AGAIN! That is the hard part of life, thinking up something new to do. The helical cam that moves the arms and head back and forth, was machined using my homemade helical attachment. If you'd like to see him...

After taking a year, the model Bucyrus steam shovel finally took it's display place in the showroom this weekend. I'm almost certain it is the wrong color, but at least it is photogenic. I would suspect that the originals were dull black or something like that, but I'm not worried because there...

Cotter pins down to about 1/16" are fairly common and are available at most hardware stores, but smaller than that usually requires ordering them from model supply places. Making miniature cotter pins is a fairly simple task and does not take much longer than placing an order, and there is no...

Sooner or later it seems that most hobby machinists have to fulfill a need to build a clock. Not because they need one, but because need to satisfy the desire to prove to themselves that they can do it. Over the years I had accumulated numerous plans that were available, but somehow I do not...