8 Pound Baby Engine

Yesterday, December 11 2011 a new baby engine came to life at our house, and started chugging away. The engine was built from plans published in Popular Science Magazine in 1947, the year that I turned 14, but of course I did not have skills or equipment to build engines at that time.
The author of the plans was CW Woodson who was a prolific contributor of machinist articles back in the forties. He was an artiest by trade, machining was his hobby. Apparently iron castings were available for the engine at the time of the printing, but certainly not now. So I made wood patterns and poured castings in brass. This model was under construction for 5 weeks.
I worked from plans copied from original magazine pages, but believe it or not those old Popular Science magazines are still available for viewing on Google Books. To look it up if you are interested, type in Popular Science 1947, CW Woodson. You even get to see all the old ad's etc., a wonderful place to reminisce.