Search results

While last night's revelers dream and the faithful get ready to pray, cold and aching stiff you face your day. No time for soft bed or fine clothes. There's ashes to scrape, tubes to brush, wood to split, water to haul - before you actually even begin. As you tend your labors you can't help but...

This project is still in the "scrounging" stage, but I've managed to score 85% of what I need.... for only $8!!! What do you get when you combine a free garden tractor snow blade, a $3 bed frame, four steel wheelbarrow wheels ($5) and some scrap 3/4" pipe? Eventually (hopefully), something...

A good buddy of mine (he's not online) decided a bit over year ago that he wanted a steam butt buggy. He has a 2HP Lookout vertical boiler, and has purchased a Tiny Power M that he goes to pick up tomorrow. He also got himself a bunch of McCormick-Deering manure spreader parts and stray bits...

As I may have mentioned, I've been appointed to head the grandstand/exhibit building. The show is August 1-4 this year, so I figured I'd better get my butt off dead center and start making plans now - since things get crazy by mid-July. :fan: To do that, I could really use input from the guys...

Any idjit who still dreams of living "off the grid" with a steam powered gen-set set should have came to help us Wednesday... we'd have cured ya. Sunday of Portersville's Fall show the Kewannee boiler in the boiler house sprung a leak in a tube (minor as far as problems go, but very...

Has anybody built a kerosene burner for a long narrow firebox? Where did you find plans? How much is the operating costs? Pluses? Problems? My roller has a 8" wide x 18" long firebox. I've been thinking about changing it over from solid fuel because the 3/4" tubes will probably soot up pretty...

Since the roller is nearing completion, it's time to start thinking about (and gathering up stuff to build) things to go with it. (I've already got an idea of how to build a mini pull-type "wagon" grader: 4 steel wheelbarrow wheels, a garden tractor snowblade, a bunch of angle iron and some...

Well, you'd really think I'd have learned by now that angle grinders and body parts are a bad combination. I've needed stitches because a big 6" one caught and skipped while I was grinding auto spot welds and decided it liked my knee better. I've had little ones grab and skip and tear holes in...

Since this doesn't really fit anywhere else, I thought I'd put it here... About a decade ago our local antique machinery club was donated a collection of steam pumps from a longtime member's estate. Originally they were going to build a stepped rack (something like bleachers) to display them...

As some of you may know, the Portersville Steam Show was last weekend. Once again, mostly due to benign neglect, we had empty display cases and tables in the grandstand building. So I "volunteered" (or mebbe got drafted?):hDe: to see if this situation might be able to be remedied before next...

But worth it, I think...

I'm trying to fix a 95 year-old galvanized makeup water tank. It is (was?) riveted, painted, heavy galvanized steel. Unfortunately, the lower sides now resemble Lorraine Swiss. The many, many pinholes are bad enough, but there's also a 9" long horizontal crack about 2" above the bottom on one...

As part of rebuilding the 2/5 size oil pull, I needed to remove the factory flat belt pulley to put a vee belt sheave behind it. I managed to press the pulley back about 1/16", which SHOULD have freed the gib key -- it didn't. So, I made up a key puller, and just as the key started to break...

Way back about '97 or so I built a 2/5 size tractor based on a Rumely Oil Pull. These things are commonly called 'pups'. Like most folks I used a lot of lawn tractor parts. Unlike many, I completely scratchbuild the frame from odds n ends - including a couple bed frames and an electrical...

I clicked on yahoo weather yesterday and got this nasty bit of scamware that overran my system. It marks just about every file and program on your computer as 'hidden' and 'read only' then tells you your hard drive has failed.... and then tries to sell you a $79 'fix' It co-opts Microsoft...

About 2 years ago I picked up a broken Ertl Millennium Froelich tractor fairly cheap. It was missing a binch of details, So I decided to make something else out of it. Since I have a vertical boiler here, I decided that a Westinghouse traction engine would be just the ticket. Tonight I...

This is the coal fired version with a matching first class riding car. About 11 years old. Was tested on air but has never been fired. Very dusty from sitting on display. Probably could stand to be repainted, but quite serviceable as-is. 1/11.3 scale 4.75" gauge Bore: 17 mm Stroke: 38 mm...

Based upon an Irish recipe. Great for the lubrication of fireside bull sessions on frosty evenings, or as a nightcap. Make up ahead and refrigerate (less the whiskey which you add just before serving), and then microwave a cup at a time if you don't want to share! 3 pints boiling water 2/3 cup...

Kim and I are going over to Portersville, Pa for 3 days of wor-, err, fun. Yeah! That's it, fun! Friday we'll be firing a Kewanee stationary boiler and quite possibly a Frick portable all day (and probably half the night) so that they can cook down applebutter and press cider. Saturday and...

How does one tell someone that their idea is crap and/or unsafe without sounding like a total jerk? I tried quiet reason, and constructive suggestions... they didn't seem to work. This guy wants to make a 'steam motorcycle' out of a bicycle frame, a homebrewed inline 1x 1-1/2 single acting...