New Member from New Zealand

[Thad Swarfburn III]

Gidday,

Been lurking a couple of weeks, thought since I've gained a bit from this forum that I'd find a stool to call my own and introduce myself. I'm a 4th year adult (39) apprentice at a large general engineering shop here. We do primarily large scale one offs, construction and maintenance of hydro plants, defence work for the Anzac navies, gantry cranes, plus the usual "what comes through the door".

I'm currently accumulating bits to make a horizontal mill engine to the plans of Rudy Kouhoupt (his first Shop Wisdom book). Here I've spent almost seven years trying to forget the imperial system (I'm originally from Vermont) and I jump into a project drawn in inches! The conversion charts are getting workout...

Thanks to the members who've posted their engines - very inspiring.

Great to be here.
TSIII

 

[tel]

And a hearty welcome to you Mr Swarfburn.

 

[Tin Falcon]

Thad :
welcome to the board.Rudy was a great guy. I only had the chance to talk to him a little bit at a couple shows but I miss him.Enjoy the build.
Tin

 

[Maryak]

TSIII,

Welcome to our forum.

Best Regards
Bob

 

[Tin Falcon]

The conversion charts are getting workout...

A way to get away from the conversion chart is a little bit of resizing.
If you make 1 mm = 1/32 of an inch the engine will be a bit smaller (aprox 3/4) than the original plan but the numbers will be even. If you want to go a little bigger make 1 mm = 1/16 of an inch. the engine will be about 1 and 1/4 the size of the original.
tin

 

[rake60]

Welcome to HMEM TSIII.

Rick

 

[Thad Swarfburn III]

A way to get away from the conversion chart is a little bit of resizing.
If you make 1 mm = 1/32 of an inch the engine will be a bit smaller (aprox 3/4) than the original plan but the numbers will be even. If you want to go a little bigger make 1 mm = 1/16 of an inch. the engine will be about 1 and 1/4 the size of the original.
tin

I'll try that with the next small project and see how it works out. Rudy's pretty good about using decimal rather than fractions, which drive me absolutely batty. Since I've been for the most part metrified, I can't stand the sight of the dang things. We do a bit of work for a US military subcontractor, and some of their drawings mix decimal and fraction. Drives the boys in the shop mental (not to mention adds another place for errors to creep in).

Slightly off-topic, does anyone have books 3 and 4 of Rudy's, and what's in them? The Village Press is a bit minimalistic in their descriptions on their website, which is a bit frustrating when I'm about to plonk down most of a day's pay for one of these books. Been happy with 1 and 2 though!

TSIII

 

[90LX_Notch]

Thad Swarfburn III ,

Welcome to HMEM.

 

[itowbig]

wEc1 yes WELCOME wEc1

 

[cobra428]

Welcome,
I have the books 3 and 4. If I remember tonight I'll take pics of the engines for you. Not the plans or the copyright police will come and take me away :big:
Tony

Addendum I have Rudy's plan sets .. working steam engines, model stirling engines and fun with engines and other things. So maybe we are taking about different things! Let me know

 

[Thad Swarfburn III]

Addendum I have Rudy's plan sets .. working steam engines, model stirling engines and fun with engines and other things. So maybe we are taking about different things! Let me know

Yeah, I'm interested in them, too. Can't get enough Rudy! If you could scan the Table of contents and maybe a pic of the completed engines that would be awesome.

Thanks!,
Matt

 

[cobra428]

Matt,
No problem, will do over the weekend.
Tony

 

[cobra428]

Hey Matt,
Here are the pics of the books. If you click on the vid you can scroll the pic's from the upper left of the screen (to many pics to post)



Tony

 

[Thad Swarfburn III]

Thanks, Tony. That's exactly what I was looking for. Looks like I'll have to add those plan books to my wish list. Rudy turned out some great stuff.

Matt