Stuart No.4

[chiliviking]

I'm trying to select my next project and am looking at the Stuart No. 4 type engines. The 10V is a little smaller than what I desire. The price on the Stuart kits sends you back a bit plus without offendind my friends across the pond i'm not too keen on plans dimensioned in fractions and using BA threads. ( I know it's an evenings work at best to convert them to something more familiar). So can anyone offer suggestions on a similar model offered by another manufacturer. PM Research's website appears down and I didn.'t really see anything from Tiny Power. I'm looking for something that would be a stocking item not a long term ordering project. Thanks in advance for help in this endevour.

 

[Mcgyver]

The Start kits are compelling. They have an authentic look and the quality of the iron castings is unrivalled (that in itself is something worth popping the cork over).

Don't be too quick to dismiss BA. I'm in Canada, am mostly imperial with some metric but gladly work in BA (BA is in fact based on metric, but that’s a bit irrelevant) on a Stuart kit. First off, they look right. Weren't they were designed for model engineering? The Stuart kits come with fasteners so it’ll be a pita and $$ to replace. Another big reason to stick with BA is that the Stuart kits go together with studs vs bolts – this looks a lot better (authentic) and metric or imperial sources for small studs? Not sure there are any.

Equipping for BA is not that big a deal. The Stuart’s I’ve built need 4,5 & 7 BA sizes (check your desired engine though) and BA taps and dies in carbon are not very expensive from model engineering suppliers. Before someone jumps on me that suggesting buy carbon T&D’s is breaking my own rules on buying quality cutting tools, it is a fallacy that carbon T&D’s are no good. The vast majority are no good – for example anything you find in tool catalogue or auto supply or hardware store likely is junk, BUT there’s nothing about them being made from carbon steel that means they MUST be junk. I’ve found the carbon BA T&D’s sold by ME vendors to be very good; I’ve never broken one or needed to replace one.

My advice would be: It takes a long time to build a quality model and you have to look at it the rest of your life so don’t move away from what you want because of a minor inconvenience like getting some BA taps & dies – build what you really want to build.

 

[chiliviking]

Mcgyver you are right I should not let BA threads stand in the way of a nice project. I got all excited and called Coles to place an order and to my dismay they don't have one and were unwilling to tell me where else I might check ( understadable , but sometimes a little goodwill pays off in the future). How about othe Stuart dealers in US. Tried to call Stuart but time diff put it at night in UK. Don't know why Google has such a difficult time finding dealers, guess i'm doing something wrong.

 

[Bogstandard]

Mcgyver, good on you for standing up for the lowly carbon taps and dies.

As you say, if bought from a specialist supplier, they should be OK.

I bought two Presto carbon sets about 30 years ago, one BA, the other metric. Apart from the odd replacement from my breaking taps in my youth, they both are used regularly and still cut like new.

I have also invested in a carbon sets fairly recently, Model Engineering, both standard and special, UNC and UNF, from Tracy Tools in the UK. They are just as good as HSS, in some cases even better. They do get stumped when they come to exotic materials, but for general bits and pieces that we tend to make, they are ideal, and cut spot on size. They also cost about 1/3 of HSS. A well made carbon will always knock the spots off a cheap HSS.

With regards to the start of BA. I think it was first being used in the pioneering electrical and instrument trades, especially military, then was adopted by the model engineering groups later, after WW1, as it had a very good range of small diameters. It is still used by some electrical trades, but that is now changing over to metric, as all old houses are brought up to date, and fully rewired. I think the military changed over a few years ago, after all the old aircraft were decommisioned.

John