Stuart Turner #1 on E-Bay

[A1MACH]

#170758907221 complete un opened kit. Current price is $600

 

[fltenwheeler]

It went for $1052.00 in the end.

Tim

 

[A1MACH]

wow, what does a completed running engine go for?

 

[Florian]

A reason may be that stuart stopped producing No. 1 kits...
So they are only available at some dealers which have those kits stored from now on and after they won't be available anymore...!

Cheers Florian

 

[rleete]

That's retarded. You could pay a local foundry to make one for that. Or better yet, make one from barstock cut to the same profiles.

 

[JorgensenSteam]

You would have to have the patterns to have a foundry make one, and the patterns would proably cost $1K.

You could also make one from bar stock, but it would not be a "Stewart".

You are paying for the name, which represents a lot of history and quality.

 

[Florian]

which represents a lot of
...
quality.

Though the quality of the castings got worse...

 

[tel]

Though the quality of the castings got worse...

Indeed they did! My 10V castings were superb, the Stuart Beam ones indifferent at best.

 

[rhankey]

I was in awe looking at how crisp and clean those raw Stuart No 1 castings were.

I'm currently making a Stuart triple as my first metal working project, and the though the castings aren't bad, they are like very crude blobs by comparison. My kit was purchased from Stuart about 1 year ago. Some blobs could be mistaken as the cuttoff scrap pieces that would normally be tossed back into the crucible until you look closer and can sort of make out the profile of a part. It takes me a fair bit of time filing every surface of every blob with some cheap disposable files to clean-up the surfaces to a point where I can even think of layout or machining. And I have found several of the castings barely include enough metal to make the part per the plans, and a couple times I've found there is not quite enough metal no matter how I position the part. I have also found the occasional hard spot in some of the cast iron castings, and voids in a couple of the gunmetal castings. Every surface needs a ton of work to get the finished cast pieces looking good.

With those Stuart No 1 castings, it looks like one could make each part so much quicker and more easily, and you’d hardly need to clean-up any of the non-critical surfaces.

I gotta wonder if the Stuart casting quality declined over time or if it varies by model line. Either way, the completed models will look just as good, but the effort and pleasure in making them may vary significantly.

Robin

 

[JorgensenSteam]

You can always make your own castings.

You may not come out any cheaper, but you can control the entire process, and if you use Alibre, and a 3D printer to make the patterns, you can get some very cleanly cast parts.

An example is here:

http://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/index.php?topic=12053.225

With today's technology, you can out-Stewart Stewart (but you won't save any tme or money going that route).

 

[fltenwheeler]

I am lucky in the fact that most of the Stuart castings I have are from the 60s. Very well aged.

Tim