Birk's Place

Double Head Bolt

2012-01-26T07:38:00.001-08:00

I made a double headed bolt as seen above, and I think I got it right. The nut fits well and turns freely along the threads. The problem that I have encountered is that I cannot figure how to get the bolt in a hole. Got any ideas????

FIRST MODEL OF 2012

2012-01-06T07:18:00.000-08:00

The first model of 2012 was completed yesterday, Jan 5th. That is not quite January first, but is might still qualify as a New Year Baby. The plans were authored by Henry Frostick and published in the December 1961 issue of Popular Science Magazine. It is not a scale model of any particular prototype. The above shows it while under construction. In contrast to many of my recent models, this one was constructed mostly of steel and stainless steel. Brass was used only for the moving or wearing parts. The pattern on the block is called "engine turning" or "jeweling". It is done by pressing a spinning rubber bonded abrasive against the metal over an over again, indexing the part slightly each time.

It has already been given a spot on one of the shelves in the display room, and it seems to fit in very comfortable, just like it belongs there.

Like most open steam engines it has some interesting motion. Take a look at this short video

Cord Wood Saw

2011-12-23T13:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, December 22, a 1/10th scale model of my father in law's cord wood, or firewood saw was completed. This was a rather simple model that was under construction a day or two less than a week.
In order to make the blade a blank disc of about 20 gauge sheet metal was clamped between a couple supporting discs and 80 teeth milled in with a "V" shaped cutter bit as shown above.
As a point of interest the blank was cut from the same piece of sheet of metal as was used to make the whimsical leg that I made and put in the flower bed last year, and originally it was the bottom of an evaporator cooler. (swamp cooler) I cherish every piece of metal I can get hold of to make things out of. The material for the angle iron and flat bar in the frame work was cut from the metal from an old washing machine or drier. The brass bolts that fasten together are a tiny size"0" and were ordered from Micro Fasteners in New Jersey.
Shown below is the father in laws original old saw that is now peacefully retired in the yard and only serves as a decoration, and reminder of days gone by.

8 Pound Baby Engine

2011-12-12T07:48:00.000-08:00

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.

Cement Mixer

2011-11-05T12:12:00.000-07:00

October 30 2011 marked the completion of a model cement mixer. It was pleasant change after building several model engines. The inspiration to build it came from a plan that Rudi Kouhoupt had published some years ago. Although this model resembles Rudy's mixer. I did not follow his plan, and this one is about 25% smaller, and several construction details changed. This model ended up about 6 1/2" high as can be seen in the picture below.
Friend Mike Nay suggested that the mixer needed a companion wheel borrow to go along with it. About 4 days later it had that companion. With no prototype to copy it was built from memory, of ones seen in the distant past.
As a point of interest the ring gear was machined from brass plate and then parted off.
The bowl was machined from a solid piece of aluminum. All of the flat sheet metal parts for the mixer and also the wheel borrow were cut and formed from the sheet metal off an old washing machine .

James Watt Engine Model

2011-10-12T12:29:00.000-07:00

After being under construction for over two months a model of James Watt's first engine has just been completed. This is not an exact scale model of that first engine built in 1788, but rather a representation that displays some of the features, like the sun and planet cranking gears that were used to avoid patent infringement. The original prototype had many firsts. Like it was the first engine to use steam under pressure to move the piston. It was the first steam engine to produce rotary power. It was the first engine to be rated in "Horse Power". The first to have the speed controlled by a fly ball governor. It was actually the beginning of the industrial revolution. James watt and Matthew Boulton formed a partnership, and after building this first engine, built hundreds more that were used in the British Isles and Europe. This first engine, by the way powered polishing machinery in Mathew Boulton's factory for 70 years. That is a long time for something of that vintage. The engine is now preserved in the Science Museum in London. Look it up on the Internet, there is lots of history about it.

Shown below are a couple short videos, one showing a close up of that governor that actually controls the speed of the model, and the other more of a look around as it is running.

Ding Dong

2011-07-30T07:40:00.000-07:00

After building several model engines this year I figured it was time to work in another metal sculpture. The inspiration for this one came from one of several pictures that Guy sent me from Disney Land while he and his family were vacationing there. (Shown below) While there are some similarities it is not a copy. The bells and Friar heads were cast from bronze. Some of the small decorative pieces from aluminum, and the rest is made of steel

If the cord is pulled slowly it produces a pleasant ding dong sound.
Now being equipped with both bells and whistles, our home is a pretty snazzy place.

Spiritual Living

2011-07-10T12:36:00.001-07:00

Gardening hint of the month: Growth Stimulants

The Begonias seemed to be a little puny this year so I made a trip to the Morgue and got some fertilizer. It is cheap and they have plenty. They will give you for free, all you want of people who do not pay their bill.

The Begonias ought to really start growing now, maybe even pass up that big green flower.

Actually the inspiration for this one came from the cover picture of a book that I had ordered.
It looked like someone had been smashed by an old cast iron bath tub.
I searched for a manikin, but when I found how costly they were, I decided t cobble something together myself. It is built out of the bottom pan of an old swamp cooler.

Hopefully we a can find another hint for next month. Until then Happy gardening!

New Invention for Washing Bottles

2011-06-16T11:24:00.000-07:00

As with any New Invention the first order of business is a design, which is easiest done at the drafting table using paper. Being lazy as I am, I tried to design using existing patterns that I had already made for other machines. It worked out pretty good. All I had to make new was a pillow block bearing support and modify the lettering on the sign.
Next step in the process was melting some metal to pour in the molds. That was on Memorial day and is was raining. Not a good day to be out in it.
Normally I move out on the driveway for melting, but water and melted metal does not get along very well so I opened the garage door, but stayed under the eves to keep dry.
Did not take long till the castings were done, with a moose thrown in for good measure. Don't know how he got in there except there was a little extra room in one flask.
Work proceeded a little bit each day until yesterday when the last part was completed. It is now ready for business. However it might be a hundred years too late. They don't wash bottles much any more. Dang, that is the story of my life.
Actually the real reason for building the thing was that I seen a picture of the crank motion that intrigued me. As you can see in the video it is a smooth running machine, but as with all scale models they seem to run too fast, and so you cannot fully appreciate the combined rotation and reciprocating of the brush.

Jewel of a vice

2011-06-09T08:42:00.000-07:00

On Saturday May 7th I hosted a gathering of Home Shop Hobby Machinists, and along with the "Show and Tell" of their projects, they were invited to bring items for swapping. George brought an old milling vise. It was in good shape but rather small, and had a rather large awkward base. No one seemed interested, so George just left it in trade for a box of Micarta that I had set out. At first I thought of adding it to the antique display, but after thinking a little more about it, I decided it could be converted into a vice for the shaper. I have been trying to find a better one than the old homemade one anyway.
The first order of business was to take the base and mount it on a face plate and machine a Tee shape groove.
Then the big mounting lugs were sawed off, and the bottom of what was left machined off smooth and level. The big screw that held it together was discarded and two smaller screws with Tee nuts now take it's place.
The end result was "Jewel" of a vise for the shaper. It fits and works just like it was made for the job. It closely resembles an original Atlas shaper vise. It even has the patina to look the part. I'm really pleased with it.
Presently I'm working on a new invention that I call a bottle washer engine, but you will have to wait, because I'm not ready to disclose much information on it.

Refinements to the Mini Lathe

2011-06-09T07:29:00.000-07:00

Acquisition of the mini lathe happened at a slack time, and after building the first engine with it and getting acquainted, being spoiled as I am, I thought it needed some more refining. The square tool post that comes with the lathe is sturdy enough, but awkward to use because there is no height adjustment and no good way of changing tool bits back and forth to the exact position when changing between operations. Also the tail stock lock was by tightening a nut with a wrench. Because of such close quarters, it was difficult. I concluded it needed a quick change tool post and a cam lock on the tail stock. These things are available on the market place for money, but I was looking for something to make anyway, So I took the quick change off the big lathe and dissembled it to see how they work. Then a trip to the drafting table to sketch up a mini version.

The cam lock was built first. It was a pretty simple project, and really smoothed out the unlocking moving and re locking of the tail stock. It is almost a one move operation now.

Next came the quick change tool post. It was a little more effort, but turned out nice.
To start with 4 tool holders were made. That is about the minimum, that a person would want to get by with. I have 19 for the bigger Jet lathe. But besides tool bits, there are all sorts of attachments on them. Once the post is made, holders can be added as needed.

The mini has not been used a lot, but enough to know that the new refinements are are a worthwhile addition. Whats more I built them myself.

Mini Stuff

2011-05-03T08:49:00.000-07:00

Last month when the Home Shop Machinist magazine arrived it contained a Harbor Freight ad with some coupons for equipment at very attractive prices. One of them was a 7"x10" Mini lathe. I do not really have a need for one because my 13"x40" Jet lathe will do everything a mini will do, but I have always wanted one because they are like babies, cute, however it is hard to justify something on that basis. In a moment of weakness I went to the Harbor Freight store over in Orem and a mini lathe followed me home. When I opened the box, I found that like all brand new babies it was covered with a layer of slick icky gooey stuff, so the first order of business was a bath to clean it up.

After clean up, it was time to start getting acquainted with the new baby. I started by making a tool bit height setting gauge, as seen below.
Then a storage rack was attached to the chip guard for the tools and accessories.

All that preliminary work done, it needed to be tested, so parts for a "Mini" engine were machined on it. Oh, what fun! It was like using a toy that really works. I was quite favorably impressed with its performance. The engine was completed yesterday afternoon. The head bolts, by the way are size "0", little bigger than watch screws.

And finally here is a 3 second video to show that it runs. I had plans to attach it to a wood base, but it is so smooth and well balanced, that it does not need a larger base.

Joseph Bernays engine of 1878

2011-04-15T09:39:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I seen a picture and video of a Bernays engine on Lindsay Publishing website that has an interesting motion. I do not know anything about the engine, whether the originals were a successful design or not. On the website it indicated that the engine had been exhibited by Joseph Bernays of London at the Paris Universal Exposition in 1878. However it looked like a good canidate for a model so I built one. It was finished yesterday. It runs beautiful, and will throttle down so you can see the parts in motion other than a blur. It will be a fine exhibit for the display room.

Just in case you are wondering, that dark thing on the bottom is a "Footing". I have heard all big engines need a footing to support them.

Stirling's First

2011-02-20T09:22:00.000-08:00

Having built a number of Hot Air Engines over the years, both scale and generic, I decided it would be interesting to build a scale model patterened after Robert Stirling's first engine patented in 1816 and built in 1818. It was used to pump water out of a rock quarry. There are no pictures of the actual engine and the illustrations found in a number of books were drawn from the patent drawings. Models have been built of this engine, but I have never seen any plans of such, so I proceeded to draw up my own.
In addition to working up the linkage mechanism, I had to accommodate the materials that were on hand. Simply something that most model makers do anyway.
There were concerns if it would even run because the timing was somewhat different that most hot air engines and not not too much could be done to change it and still look like the illustration.

When it was to a point where the engine part was complete, heat was applied to the hot end with a small Butane torch, and as soon as it was heated sufficiently it ran beautifully.
Being satisfied with the initial test, construction proceeded until it was finished and placed on display, as seen in the first two pictures.

Twin Cylinder Geared Wobbler

2011-01-22T12:33:00.000-08:00

Another fun little engine has just been completed. It is not a scale model of anything that I know of, simply an interesting mechanism to watch in action. The inspiration to build it came from watching a video of a similar engine on the Internet. It is nearly all brass, and weighs in at three pounds. Construction time was about 2 weeks, considerably quicker than the last model.

Here is a short video of it in action.

Corliss Steam Engine Model

2011-01-11T14:18:00.000-08:00

Last week, after being under construction for 4 months, a scale model of a Corliss Steam engine was completed. At one time Corliss Engines were the state of the art workhorses of heavy industry. There were two of them that powered all the machinery in the sugar factory in Centerfield where I grew up. They had Manila rope drive from the flywheel to the jackshaft on the second floor, with pulleys and belts running everywhere. The engines were so dynamic with all the valve motion, etc. Is there any wonder that I was fascinated with them even as a small boy. The factory and engines are gone now. I was of the last generation to be able see them working, and to be able work in the same factory with them thumping away. My model is not a scale engine of the sugar factory engines, but still a Corliss design.

Thermo Acoustic Engine

2011-01-11T13:54:00.000-08:00

Way back on June 1 2007 I completed a Thermo Acoustic Engine that actually runs. Just don't ask me how or why, because I don't know. I had bought a book authored by Warbrooke over in New Zealand about building one, and I built it per the instructions, but that engine would not even attempt to run. I gave it up as a hoax. Then later I seen some videos on the Internet, and also acquired another book written by Roy Darlington in England. Roys book had a short 4 page chapter on them. No plans, but a good description, so I proceeded to build another one, and by golly it actually runs under its own power. Not very fast, but it does run. Here take a look.

Hand Cranked Box Organ

2010-09-05T08:17:00.000-07:00

May first 2009 marked the completion of a little crank organ, after being under construction for two months. Instructions for building were found on John Smith's web site in England. However for some reason that site seemed to vanish shortly after building the organ. The music rolls are still available from Melvin Wright, another English web site.
It was awkward to move around and find a place to place it while playing, so a stand with wheels followed a month or so later.
The top is hinged so that it can be opened up and you can look down inside and see the working mechanism. The crank operates bellows to pump air and also powers the punched paper roll that distributes the air to the 20 pipes to play the tunes. It works somewhat like a player piano.The last picture is of it being demonstrated at an antique machinery show in Huntsville Utah.
Friends Guy and Westley each videoed it and posted the videos on You Tube.

Kaleidoscope

2010-09-04T12:19:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I completed a Kaleidoscope of my own design configuration. The reason for building it was that I had some high quality front faced mirrors that had been salvaged out of some kind of copy equipment, and they needed something useful to do, rather than just laying around. The rest of the machine was built from some brass drain pipe, and the gears machined from brass valve stems, and the walnut from left over pieces. Sure, it was work, but now all these things have a useful purpose in life.
The interesting thing, was that in reading some history, I found that the Kaleidoscope was invented by David Brewster in 1816, the same year that Robert Stirling invented the hot air engine. (I've built a bunch of hot air engine models) Both men attended the university of Edinburgh in Scotland, they may have known each other. Although the Kaleidoscope is more or less a toy or object of fascination, David went on and did a lot of research and development with optics, and other fields of science. David was the inventor of the Fresnel lens that was used in light houses all over the world. A very respected gentleman.

Jackhammer

2010-08-14T17:56:00.000-07:00

I just finished building a little jackhammer a couple days ago, for no reason other than I was curious how they worked, and there is no better way to find out than to build a working model.
The display stand is a small burl from a Popular tree. It is not a bolder, but a good representation of one.
Yes, it does go Rat-a-tat-tat, or maybe more of a Putt Putt Putt, but it does work, and only requires a few pounds pressure from an Air Brush Compressor.

7" Atlas Shaper

2010-07-27T07:41:00.000-07:00

On the middle day of July I had the oportunity to acquire a couple Atlas metal shapers that were being disposed of at the local high school. Actually it was a bunch of shaper parts in various states of assembly or disassembly, which ever way you'd like to say. Although I already had a shaper that is seldom used, I simply could not pass up something like that. In their day shapers were state of the art machines. However, they, like model T Fords, have become obsolete. They are no longer manufactured and seldom used, but they are fun to play with. You can still do machining operations with them, but not near as efficiently as with a milling machine.
One looked like it was almost complete, and the other was missing many of its parts.
Having no other project to work on at the time, I immediately started working on the better of the two. Who ever had worked on it before me had left out some internal parts and had others installed incorrectly, so it was torn completely down and started over.

About 5 or 6 days later I had it back together and operational. A lot of time was spent getting all the slide ways adjusted to minimum clearance without any binding. Several parts needed repairs, and the tool post was missing completely, so a new one was machined. Everything was in excellent condition and being so complete, with guards and even the original Atlas motor, it was exchanged with the old shaper on the cabinet. I have not decided what to do with the old one yet.
Here is a little video of it in operation shaving of a block of metal.
The finish is just beautiful, as smooth as a spanked baby's bum.

That is not the end of the story. The spare parts shaper were give to my friend Lowell. He needed a table and a few of the internal parts to finish up the restoration of a machine that he has been working at for the past couple years. Needless to say he seemed quite happy too. His machine is shown below in its state of restoration as of a couple days ago.

Flutter Mill

2010-07-13T07:05:00.000-07:00

I have not been able to think up another project to work on, and to
keep from going nuts from boredom in the mean time, I made a Pantanenome
(pan-ta-nen-o-mee). I do not know why they call them that, the word is
not even in the dictionary. It means "all winds", and is supposed to
spin no matter what the direction of the wind. I tested it during
construction, and it does. It was mounted on top of the 6 foot chain link
fence that runs across the back yard separating us from the school yard.
In my research it appears that Pantanenomes originated in France, and maybe
that is why the word is not listed in an English dictionary. The inventor claims that
they will turn by wind from any direction, except perpendicular to the axis, however
that is true of most any propeller type wind mill, and all of them are more efficient
when oriented properly into the wind.
It is kind of fun to build replicas of wacky old inventions.

Miniature Punch Press

2010-07-03T08:18:00.000-07:00

The newest creation to emerge from the workshop is a miniature punch press just about 8" tall, and was completed just yesterday, July 2nd, 2010. Surprisingly it even works, quite well in fact.

Here it is shaping out dime sized pie tins. For what use? By mice, of course!

Dundee Foundry Engine

2010-05-12T09:51:00.000-07:00

Recently I became intrigued by a patent design sketch shown in a book about model Stirling engines, and ended up building a model. A 45 hp double displacer engine built in 1843 to power the machinery of the Dundee Foundry, in the UK. The original engine ran for four years before failing due to poor materials of that day that could not withstand the intense heat.

There was not much to go on in the sketch, but that provides a lot of liberty to the builder. It was necessary to modify a couple things to make a working engine, but I tried to maintain a resemblance to the sketch. I hope you like it.

ROCK CRUSHER

2010-03-24T08:34:00.000-07:00

The project for March was a model of a vintage Jaw Type Rock Crusher. It is a tough little bugger and will actually crush real rocks. However that takes more torque than the little electric motor provides, so I just use it to crush cough drops.

To prove it, these rocks were crushed during the testing stages.

Here it is munching some cough drops.

Hypocycloidal Steam Engine

2010-02-21T18:12:00.000-08:00

February was a good month to stay indoors and construct another scale model. This time it was a model of a Hypocycloidal steam engine. That is just a fancy tongue twisting word for geared crank engine. The original engine was invented in 1802 in England by a gentleman named Matthew Murray.
Building of this model was pretty simple and straight forward. The most interesting part was machining the internal toothed ring gear, I done that on the milling machine using it like a hand powered vertical shaper. Even though it is a lot of work there is a lot of satisfaction in making your own gears, especially if they need to have a special shape of some kind. When finished the engine turned out to be smooth running with an interesting motion.

Section Car

2010-01-29T14:02:00.000-08:00

January marked the completion of a scale model hand pumped antique railroad section

8 Stomp 'ore Mill

2009-12-09T07:58:00.001-08:00

Another object for the display room has just been completed. It is a whimsical facsimile of the century old stamp mill ore crushing machines.

Steeple Engine

2009-12-07T09:10:00.000-08:00

Near the end of October a model of a Steeple Engine was completed. The plan was acquired out of the book titled Historic Engines Worth Modeling, by Anthony Mount, an Englishman. The reason for picking this one was that it had a different kind of connecting rod than and that I have built so far. The design provides for a shorter engine than the usual cross head arrangement. The author stated that it was designed as a marine engine, however the only ones ever built were used on land. After studying the plans, I determined that by changing the plan slightly, all I needed to make was a steeple pattern. For all the rest I was able to use existing patterns that I had made for other models. As can be seen in the video it is a smooth running engine.

Fancy Calipers

2009-10-23T09:25:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered just how much some people have between the ears? Well, with my new fancy calipers it is not difficult to measure.
In my case, if you are wondering, it turned out to be mostly just space!

Treadle power wood turning lathe

2009-10-23T09:12:00.000-07:00

On September 28 2009 I completed the construction of a 1/12 scale model of a wood turning lathe built from a kit P M Research castings given to me by my friend Paul Kuhni. Paul is 87 and reached a point in life where he just cannot tolerate standing at his lathe anymore. Although in the past he has built many marvelous models.
This is the smallest scale that I have worked to, and there were some pretty small parts, bit I managed just fine.
Normally I do not work with kits, as I prefer to scratch build things, but I guess there are exceptions to all rules.

Hay Fork

2009-09-18T07:15:00.000-07:00

In 1986 a small building in the shape of an old gambrel roof barn was built in the back yard for storage and display of models and collected things. This was a common shape of a barn used a century ago to store hay. Although this barn will never be used to store hay, I thought that it would be neat to have a miniature Jackson type hay fork hanging from a trolley under the gable end like there would have been on the original barns, used to hoist loose hay up off the wagons through a big door and into the barn.
Last weekend that desire was fulfilled when I got a miniature fork hung up. The use of this type of hay handling was discontinued about 60 years ago when farmers switched over from putting hay up loose to bailing it.

Panther Pup Gasoline Engine

2009-08-27T07:27:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, August 21st, I completed another little engine to put on display. It is called a Panther Pup. It is fully functional four cylinder engine, although not a scale model of of any particular prototype. Just another fun little thing to build.

Pedal Grinder

2009-06-01T19:05:00.000-07:00

A hundred years ago very worthwhile piece of equipment for a farmer to own was a pedal grinder. It could be use to sharpen everything needing sharpening from sickle blades to butcher knives. When my grandfather Sorenson passed away, I was fortunate enough to inherit his grinder. He use to keep it out in the yard under the apple tree, and all us kids use to take turns pedaling it. It seemed worthy to build a model of, and so just yesterday I completed a 1/8th scale model of it.

Wooden Lock

2009-06-01T18:56:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I completed a working lock, built entirely out of wood and glue, for no reason other than just doing it.

Fill In Engine

2009-06-01T18:28:00.000-07:00

I had a desire for some kind of different project, and I happened across a web site in England that had instructions for building a little hand cranked box organ. After watching and listening to a number of videos of various ones playing, I placed an order for a set of instructions. But as anyone knows who has ordered anything from across the ocean, it takes time to get here. So while I was waiting I put together this little vertical engine. It did not take much because I was able to use a left over steam cylinder from the steam shovel and the flywheel is a spare belt pulley from the sawmill. It is intriguing, because it has rather different straight line motion linkage that eliminates the need for a cross head guide. The timing was perfect, I completed it march 4th just as my package from England arrived.
The organ was finished about the first of May, but that is another story, and hopefully a video of it will get posted one of these days.

"Fancy Calipers"

2009-06-01T18:13:00.000-07:00

One day while looking through an 1897 issue of the Sears Roebuck catalog I ran across a listing for some fancy calipers. They looked pretty handy and the price seemed very reasonable at 8 cents, but Sears, for some reason would not honor the order. Perhaps that catalog was too far out of date. Rather than go without I proceeded to make a pair of my own. I finished them February 22, and I was pleasantly surprised how well they work. Those "old timers" knew what they were doing!

Tool Post Grinder

2009-06-01T17:51:00.000-07:00

When building the Gator gun in January I took an old 3/8" worn reamer and ground it down to .360 diameter so I could ream the barrel to 36 caliber. To grind it down I rigged a die grinder to the lathe tool post. It got the job done, but the setup was a little less than satisfactory, so that prompted building a solid tool post grinder of my own design. It was constructed almost entirely of on hand materials, except I did salvage a motor and speed control from a little Harbor Freight grinder. It was completed February 4th.

January was a busy month

2009-06-01T17:15:00.000-07:00

After being under construction for 10 weeks, on January 9th 2009, a half scale model of a Winchester Model 1892 was completed. It is fully functional, just like a full sized one, except it cannot be shot because there are no bullets commercially available that will work in it. This is the same model as so often was used in John Wayne and Chuck Connors movies.

On January 21 a rather whimsical under hammer muzzle loading pistol was completed. I call it my Gator Gun, and by golly it has proved to be pretty effective. I have not seen a single Gator in the whole county since it was finished

The month was finished up on the 29th of January by completing a mini .22 caliber revolver. It is fully functional, but it was decommissioned so that it will not shoot bullets. I did not want to take a chance of someone getting hurt with it.

Bimba Too

2008-11-16T09:32:00.000-08:00

After building so many engines a person starts to look for something different and unusual. A geared engine seemed to fit the bill. I have only seen one actual model, plus pictures of a couple others. I understand that they were patented by a fellow named Murray in 1908, but I have no knowledge if they were ever manufactured.
The engine employs a planetary gearing system. A point on the pitch line of the small hear generates a perfectly straight line from side to side, this eliminating the need for a cross head and connecting rod. The piston rod connects directly at that point.
This is just one of several model engines that I have built using surplus Bimba Brand pneumatic cylinders, and that is where the name came from. To add interest, it is equipped with a chain driven rotary valve and painted gaudy contrasting colors. Hope you like it.

Watch it in Action.

Paddle Wheel Engine

2008-11-16T08:49:00.000-08:00

The reason for building this model is that it has a valve operating mechanism that is a little different than the usual for a steam engine. The cam is forward, operated from linkages fastened to the connecting rod which keeps it out of the splash area of the wheel. Also it incorporates a triangular shaped cam, that provides a rather quick motion to the valve at each end of the stroke. Another peculiar thing about the cam is that it has such a shape that it maintains contact with both sides of the cam follower at all times.
The first 2 pictures show the cams in the process of being machined. The third picture is the finished cams in their followers prior to installation. The forth picture shows the finished model. This is not a scale model of an actual engine, it is just to demonstrate the valve motion.

And here is a little video of it running

Oil Field Pump Video

2008-11-01T14:36:00.000-07:00

Oil Field Pump

2008-11-01T14:17:00.000-07:00

In this day of high energy costs, I thought it no more that appropriate for me to build an oil field pump, and pump out old cesspools and convert the contents to racing and jet engine fuel. What do you think of that idea?

South Facing Chariot

2008-08-08T07:20:00.001-07:00

This afternoon I finished the little Chinese Chariot and everything works just beautiful, so smooth and easy. Just not very accurately. If it headed down a fairly straight road that turned only slightly right and left, it would maintain an accurate pointing of south. But when I designed the gear train I had my brain turned off, and put a 3 to 1 reduction in the gear train thinking they would not have to turn so fast, and that ratio fit real good. Therefore the little pointing man only compensates 1/3rd as much as he should. If the Chariot makes a complete 360 degree turn around, he only turns 120 degrees, so the Chariot would have to turn three complete turns to get him pointing south again. Talk about confusion!
Anyway it makes a good static display and all the principal parts are there. If I wanted it to work accurately, I suppose I could put some 1/3 size wheels on it, but then it would look pretty funny, and probably high center on a rock.
By the way the pointer man is a genuine Chinaman. It says "Made in China" on the bottom of one foot.
Birk

Here are some pictures of the build.

Ride in the Wind

2008-07-13T10:42:00.000-07:00

A long time ago, somewhere around 500 years, some guy by the name of Leonardo was inventing all sorts of unheard of (at that time) things. In his illustrations he used peg toothed gears. They looked so intriguing, and I've wanted to try building some for as long time. I finally got around to doing it a couple weeks ago. For the body I used 3/8" aluminum, and in one I put 1/4" brass pegs and in the other stainless. Dissimilar metals usually wear better. Shown below are the results.

As with all new things, there are things to be learned, and I learned they need to be properly meshed. In some positions they would hardly run against each other, and in other positions they ran almost as smooth as machine cut gears.
The final use for the gears was in another wind sculpture for the yard to amuse people, as can be seen below.

It is simply an assemblage of used parts, painted some gaudy colors. The rotor turns a shaft that extends down and operates the peg gears, that in turn operate the pedals. The head is fastened to the shaft so it turns with the rotor, and it has a face on both sides so it does a lot of looking around. It is not very normal, but then not much else around here is either, so what the heck.

Birk

Birk BBQ

2008-06-27T07:39:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago I put up a post about casting aluminum with Birk. Well, he fired up the furnace once again, but for a totally different purpose. Birk heard that one of my 5 year old sons "fun" ideas for summer was to have the whole family visit Birk. Sounds fun to me. So, Birk thought he would invite us over for a little BBQ. He told Max, my son, that he could cook them on the furnace. Max was thrilled and said we could cast stuff and cook hot dogs at the same time. Here are some photos of the fun. The forge was a little hot at first. The dogs were cooking fast-- almost like putting them into a jet engine, but he dialed back the heat and it worked great. If you're looking for a new use for your furnace, I highly recomend it. Maybe next time we'll do rotisserie chicken on the lathe.

Guy

Fathers Day

2008-06-15T07:38:00.001-07:00

Here it is Father's Day again. Perhaps You would like to see a picture of my Father's Day Fishing Pole?

It was stuck on the side of the barn, and before long a flying fish got hooked. Now that might sound like a "fish story" but here is a picture to prove it!

All you fathers and prospective fathers have a good Father's Day, OK.

Day of casting

2008-06-15T07:21:00.000-07:00

One of my nephews and my kids and I got to visit Birk the other day and he showed us the ropes of casting aluminum. It was a great afternoon. Here are some photos and video of the day.

Thanks Birk!!
Guy

You can also see the final results of one of the castings here: http://maxbuilds.blogspot.com/2008/06/little-engine.html

Out of work

2008-06-15T07:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I completed an automaton of a little shoemaker, so now I'm out of work AGAIN! That is the hard part of life, thinking up something new to do.

The helical cam that moves the arms and head back and forth, was machined using my homemade helical attachment.

Here he is in action.

Wrong Color

2008-05-18T20:22:00.000-07:00

After taking a year, the model Bucyrus steam shovel finally took it's display place in the showroom this weekend. I'm almost certain it is the wrong color, but at least it is photogenic. I would suspect that the originals were dull black or something like that, but I'm not worried because there are not too many people around that can remember that far back.
Several days ago my little friend, Max, "Kactiguy's" 5 year old son, was here visiting. He told me that I should put pieces of candy and brass in the bucket, so when he came I could pull the trip rope and dump them out for him. Even at his age he knows that brass is good material to build neat things out of. Who said that the younger generation is not taking an interest in our hobby?

And yes I do have some candy and brass in the bucket for the next time Max comes to visit!
Birk

Antique Clock Replica

2008-04-29T10:17:00.000-07:00

Sooner or later it seems that most hobby machinists have to fulfill a need to build a clock. Not because they need one, but because need to satisfy the desire to prove to themselves that they can do it.
Over the years I had accumulated numerous plans that were available, but somehow I do not get much satisfaction from building something from someone else's plan, I'd rather do my own thing. That is not saying that I do not glean ideas from others, because I do that a lot, and sometimes modify them to fit my own needs.
For the clock, I finally went to the library and got a book on old clocks. I picked a small one with a picture that showed a good representation of the working parts and went from there.

There was no way of telling what size it was so I just guessed. It was pretty easy to estimate how many teeth in the gears, etc. so it was not all that difficult to make a scale drawing. According to the book the clock was built about 500 years ago, and perhaps that is before they had invented screws, because there are none in it. Everything is either riveted or fastened with tapered pins. At first I thought "how awkward", but it turned out to be every bit as easy as using screws.

There are a few changes in the design of my clock and the original. Mine has a little dragon rather than a bird to support the foliot or balance that controls the speed, which hangs by a thread. It keeps fairly accurate time, except it is different that modern clocks. There is only one hand, that takes two hours to make a revolution. My only guess is that 500 years ago they were still using hour glasses, and perhaps they had not standardized on the 12 hour dial as we now know.
Anyway it turned out to be a very satisfying project.
Birk

Mowing Season

2008-04-23T13:50:00.000-07:00

Can you believe that after a long cold winter we are fast approaching the lawn mowing season. I have been so envious of those people with riding lawn mowers. Riding lawn mowers are expensive, however I have the skills that I used to build my own "Self Powered Riding Lawn Mower".

Now, I am the envy of all those "push mower" people.
Birk

Elevator

2008-04-17T10:49:00.000-07:00

Most people as they grow older go through a period called a second childhood, But not me, I do not have to worry about anything like that. I have not grown out of my first childhood yet. When my body was little I had a toy elevator that was lots of fun, but it was cheaply built out of tin can type material and did not last. I was longing for that toy, so recently I constructed a replacement as near as I could recall. It is not exactly the same, as 70 years is a long time to remember something. The original used large glass marbles. I think they were called a taw. The reproduction uses 3/4" steel ball bearings. A release mechanism releases one at a time into the elevator car which travels to the bottom and is dumped out. Then it returns to the top for another one. There is a propeller on the pulley shaft powered by a one way clutch out of a computer printer that adds a little commotion.

It will keep running as long as there are balls on the feed chute, so it is a lot of fun for kids to keep putting them back up there.
The problem I have with it is that whenever our great-grand kids come to visit, they always want to play with the elevator, and they do not want to let me have "my" turn!

Oh, and by the way I got a corrugated roof formed and shaped for the steam shovel yesterday, although it is not fastened down yet.

I do not know if roofs were to provide protection from sun or storm, but either way I'm almost ready.
Birk

Corrugated Roofing

2008-04-11T10:36:00.001-07:00

The steam shovel model has progressed to a point where it could have its corrugated roofing installed. But where do you find "scale" roofing?
Make it of course.

Forming roll dies were machined for a hand cranked Chinese built beading machine with an 18" throat. At first it would not work very well because it was not rigid enough and flexed. However machining some of the ridges off the rolls it works much better, as can be seen by the sample tested.

The metal being formed was salvaged from the side of a discarded clothes drier. That is a good source of material. I use it all the time. Now I can proceed and form the roof, and the machine has enough throat that I believe I can do it in one piece if I start at the center and work both ways.
After I showed the sample piece to a friend, he suggested that I could start manufacturing scrubbing boards. That is real good advice, except 100 years too late.
Birk

Rearranging

2008-04-10T08:42:00.000-07:00

Last week on April 1st we took a little trip about 100 miles north to Brigham City so that we could visit with friends from Idaho who came down to pick up an almost completed melting furnace from another friend, George. For some reason when we get together we always exchange little gifts with each other. On this trip Ira brought me an antique valve grinding machine to put in my collection.

It is pretty unique, I have never seen one like it before. It has gears inside the housing that rotate the valve as it is being ground.
Upon getting it home, it sort of became like the straw that broke the camel's back. I simply did not have a space in either of my display buildings to put it. I had already had thoughts about doing it, but that triggered a rearranging frenzy. A bunch of the smaller models were moved from the buildings and put on display in our family room. Since our family has grown and moved away the room has not been needed much, so this put it back to good use again.

The whole change was for the better. It separated the models from the antiques. The family room is a much better environment for the models. There is a space for the old valve grinder out in the buildings, and the other things could be spread out a little for better viewing. A couple models were placed on service carts. On the second shelf are a few sample wood casting patterns for show and tell, and on the bottom are back issues of some of the modeling magazines. The extra weight down there made the carts more stable, and it freed up some shelf space in my library for more books. Oh, and I have one more cart, and space for it to display the model steam shovel if and when it ever gets completed.
Birk

Bucyrus Erie Model 22W

2008-03-25T13:05:00.000-07:00

The city where I live gets the majority if its water from wells, and the growing population requires more wells. Several years ago the city let a contract to drill a well in the corner of a city park just a little more than a block from our home. I have this problem of being attracted to machinery like iron to a magnet, so I had to go investigate the ruckus. It only took one trip to become acquainted with the owner operator Robert Perry. He worked alone and enjoyed having visitors like myself come every day to check the progress and chat for a while. Not only did I make a good friend, but I received one heck of an education on well drilling.
Then I have this second problem of wanting to build a model of every kind of old machine I see. So I started looking closely at the workings of the machine. Robert could see my interest, and suggested that rather than building a model of the #36-L machine that he was using that I build a model of a Bucyrus Erie #22-W, because he claimed they were the most popular well drilling machines in the world. Robert loaned me some operators manuals and parts books, and furnished me a key to his yard over in Spanish Fork City where he stored his fleet which included three 22-W machines, so that I could go measure and photograph as needed.
About 10 months later, the model was finished. That may sound quick, but you need to know that back then I did not limit myself to 8 hours a day or 5 days per week.

Right and left side views as it looks today.

Here is a view showing it erected in the driveway right after it was completed.

And another closeup looking down into the workings. The model has all the parts and functions of a full size machine. The only difference is that it is equipped with a variable speed electric motor rather than a gasoline engine. It will do everything the full size one will do. It would probably even drill a well, except the drill stem is so light it would be pretty slow going.

Oh, I need to tell you that when building the model I made double of everything and ended up with two models, one of which was given to Robert. Here is a picture of his little rig, set up next to his much bigger Bucyrus Erie #36-L that he was using to drill the well for the city.

A few pointers on the well he drilled: He started with a 30 inch casing and went down as far as he could drive it, then kept stepping down in sizes as he needed too. They stopped just short of 800 feet. It took about two years although that had not originally planned on that much time. Provo sets in the basin of lake Bonneville. An ancient lake at least equal in size to the great lakes today. Where he was drilling was close to the mountain and the material that he was going through was mostly silty stuff that over time, had washed down off the mountain into the lake. One day as I was visiting, he pulled up a soil sample from 300 feet and when he opened the sampler there was a perfect snail shell about as big as your thumb nail, except it was as soft as drywall mud. The formation had water in it, but being so fine it did not flow very fast. About all they could pump was 500 gallons per minute. So he put a 16 inch screen down the hole and started to develop it. The screen was a stainless steel pipe with very narrow slits, that would let silt through but not course sand. He put a rubber head on his drill stem that acted like a piston. It can be seen in the picture with his model. He spent several months pumping that thing up and down in the hole pushing water out and drawing silt in, and then bailing out the silt. This produced a cavern down in the hole, which provided more surface area for water to seep from. In order to keep the cavern from collapsing in he kept dumping a special processed course sand down around the screen. Would you believe three 18 wheel semi truck loads?. When he finished the well would produce 3500 gallons per minute. Just as a point of interest, the city figures they need a capacity of one gallon per minute per household. So that well should take care of 3500 homes.
Birk

Everyday a Little More Progress

2008-03-18T10:48:00.000-07:00

I'm still chipping away at the model steam shovel. I sure don't do much at a time, but every little thing, no matter how trivial is progress.

Some of the piping and a couple control levers are suspended from the roof, so I have started building a cab framework to hold them. Also some of the boiler fittings need to be coordinated with the roof line, so I'm working on the two together, so everything will fit when completed.

Yesterday My entire efforts in the workshop barely made a teaspoonful. The valve bodies for the try cocks for the boiler.

And they are not much more than half finished. They still need stems and valve handles. Oh well, my hobby is my "pass time" and it sure does!

And here they are.

Birk

Spark Plug Boot

2008-03-18T10:44:00.000-07:00

This is not my invention, I read about it a number of years ago in some publication, but it is so simple and easy and looks good.
Machine a brass cap to snug fit on the spark plug cap and solder your spark plug wire to it. Slip a small O-ring on the wire, and a larger one on the brass cap near the open end. Plug the opening in the cap and dip the thing in that rubber like compound that you dip plier handles into for grips. You can dip a couple times to build up as desired. Then with a knife trim the hardened dip around the plug and and pull it out, you have your very own custom boot.
Birk

Pistol Pete

2008-03-18T10:41:00.000-07:00

I need to make an opening statement that I'm not a gun nut. What I enjoy about them is that they are mechanical things, and machining parts for them is not different than machining parts for any other metal project, and I can express myself with a bit of art work.
When our son Mark was in high school he worked part time in a little gun store to earn some spending money, and through that experience he acquired the nick name "Pistol Pete". A name that he quite liked. In fact, at age 50 his wife still calls him "Pete". So a while ago, for a project for me, and a memento for him I built him a muzzle loading pistol. The barrel is a remnant from a rifle barrel. Patterns were carved and castings poured out of aluminum bronze. The butt cap is a casting that looks like the face of his little beagle dog. The hammer spring was hand forged out of a pitch fork tine. It has a carving of a moose, and an antelope, both of which Mark has bagged during his lifetime, plus oak and maple leaves. Although it does not show in very well in the pictures, the barrel is engraved with scroll work and the words "Pistol Pete". Ruby garnets are set in the fore end cap, the dragon's eyes and the beagle dog eyes. Although it is fully functional, it is very doubtful that it will ever be fired. It is a show piece.

When I gave the pistol to Mark I was telling him that the hammer was a "Fire Spitting Dragon". His little daughter Shyrel who was about 6 at the time, put her hands on her hips, looked me straight in the eye, and said "No its not Grandpa, Its a baby dragon and it is sucking on the nipple." Oh well, you cannot fool then all the time, and some you cannot fool any of the time.
Birk

Lathe Trade

2008-03-11T07:12:00.000-07:00

A few years back when I had to go to work for a living, One of the coworkers named Kip was telling me of going to a yard sale and buying a little metal cutting lathe for $40. He did not know what kind it was, but it sounded intriguing. Kip builds things by welding, but does not have much interest in machining, so I offered to buy it from him to put in my collection. I even got up to where I offered three times what he paid, but it simply was not for sale for money. However he was very willing to trade it for one of my miniature muzzle loading rifles. I don't normally do gun work for people outside my family, but Kip was almost like family and I wanted that lathe, so I agreed.
I failed to take a picture after the rifle was finished, but below is one taken during construction. There is a full size Hawken muzzle loader reproduction that I built for myself leaning against the tool cabinet for size reference. Then a half size one right below it, and the one in the vise under construction is the one that was traded for the lathe.

It took about a hundred hours to build the miniature, because every part has to be hand made from scratch. I finally finished it and delivered it to him, and then he brought the lathe for me the next day, like a mail order bride. That lathe had so much crud on it you could not even tell what it was. But some solvent and a parts washing brush fixed that. I uncovered a decal that said "Craftsman".
It was a model AA109.

Was it a fair trade? You bet! We both got what we wanted. I got more iron, and he might have got more value, but what is a few hours between good friends.
At home Kip had a 4 year old grandson pose with the rifle while they took some pictures and that kid was really "hamming" it up. When the picture taking was finished, Kip went to get the rifle and that was not an option as far as the grandson was concerned. Kip had to pry his fingers off to get it back.
Shortly after I got the AA109 set up on display, my friend George from Brigham City brought me a box of lathe parts that someone had given to him. Apparently someone had taken it apart to paint it and then never reassembled it again. The main parts were there, but so many of the little parts had vanished, like gibs, half nut, handles, etc. etc. that it was no longer serviceable. It was a model 80. Just a newer version of the AA109. Most of the working parts are interchangeable. After sitting in the nurturing atmosphere of my workshop it began to grow those missing parts until it became functional again.

Both lathes are now on display. They would do machining, but not the way my new Jet does, so they can just sit there and amuse our visitors.
Birk

Boiler Boring

2008-03-02T10:12:00.001-08:00

Several days ago I started work on the boiler for the model steam shovel. It needed to be 5" diameter to be scale size, and I was able to find a piece of 5" seamless tubing down at the plant where I use to work. Real good stuff. Only the wall was so thick it about broke my arm to pick it up. It would probably withstand several thousand pounds per square inch internal pressure which was also a bit more than I needed, so I decided to bore it out until I had a more reasonable wall thickness and get rid of some of the weight. My standard steady rest would not accommodate the 5" diameter so I rigged up a Rube Goldberg type steady rest from some pieces of flat bar stock that was laying around. I did not even cut the pieces to length. For contact supports I used skate board bearings. (Those kids will learn not to leave their skate boards laying around unattended)

The bottom ends of the bars are bolted to a 3/4" plate that is clamped to the bed, but as you can see the upper ends are just clamped together with some sturdy C-clamps. The boring bar was only long enough to reach half way through, and when this picture was taken one end had already been bored out and the boiler tube flipped end for end and a couple passes had been made in the second end. The whole operation went very smoothly from start to finish, and the thing has been tore down and put back on the metals rack.
It is such a simple thing that I hesitate even posting it, but perhaps someone will pick up and idea that they can use sometime.
Birk

Buffalo Springfield Steam Roller

2008-02-28T10:19:00.000-08:00

Setting on a display pedestal painted to look like the world, In Gibbons and Reed General Contractors yard, right next to the Freeway was a little Buffalo Springfield Steam roller. It would cause awful twisting of the necks of mechanical people like myself as we drove by. How wonderful it would be to have a steam roller to play with, but of course it was not for sale, and besides there was no way that a person like myself would have room for it, or move it to tales to shows, etc. BUT I could certainly handle a baby one. I called the company and talked with Mr. Reed and got permission to come in and take photos and measurements. Several trips were required over a period of time to acquire enough information to put a complete plan on paper.
I might mention that the front roller and water tank were not original. At some time they had been replaced, so I I followed a picture in a book as to what the originals looked like. Also the yellow paint was not the original color.
It took 10 months of construction time to complete the model.

Here are right and left side views.

Perhaps you'd be mused at looking at some close ups.

Here are some loose engine parts.

This is the engine put together.

And the engine installed on the roller.

This is the gear train. I strayed from the original, by installing Bikini type guards over the gears. I just could not stand to hide those little gears with the full covers. Some things need to be seen to be appreciated! Don't you think so?

This is the drivers seat. I never did figure out which was front and back of the machine. I think the steering roller is in front, but that makes the driver facing back. You figure it out!

And here is the whistle. All steam things need a whistle, don't they? The bell is made from an empty 30-06 cartridge case. For a miniature it has a very pleasant sound. I had to design a restriction into it to limit the pressure or else it would be too shrill.
This little roller is not a "loner", It has a twin. Some other fellow; he is listed on this site as "paulj84003" built one too. The models were built simultaneously in our respective workshops, but we shared drawings, materials, patterns, fixtures, etc, which expedited the construction. Perhaps he will post some picture of his baby roller too.
Birk

Frisbie Engine

2008-02-28T10:15:00.000-08:00

While I was looking through one of those Shire Albums #137, titled Toy Steam Engines, printed in England I noticed a rather simple little engine, that had a unique "patented" valve mechanism. The cylinder is stationary and it has a wobble valve plate actuated by a lever connected to the connecting rod. They were built in Connecticut around 1871. The name Frisbie comes from the inventor. He had invented a number of different toys and things.

It intrigued me enough that I made patterns, and castings and built one. The steam pressure gets up to the cylinder through drilled passages in the support bracket.

Here is a picture of my replica. I have never actually fired it, but I have run it on compressed air and it runs beautifully. Other pictures that I have since seen show an alcohol lamp type burner under the boiler.

After completing the model I found that they also made a walking beam version. The above image was scanned from a full page picture in a book about toys. I have not got around to building one of these yet.
Birk

Olds Engine

2008-02-28T10:13:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture of a model Olds Engine built from Breisch castings. As models go it is a fairly large model, but a real pleasure to work on. I did not have to use a magnifying glass or tweezers to pick up the parts. It has one of those 10mm Honda spark plugs, and another of those homemade buzz coils for ignition. They really seem reliable for slow speed engines. It must have been a good system, because Ford used them for the model T and the Fordson tractors. When this engine was finished and fueled up, it took off running the very first time it was pulled across compression, and it has started about that way ever since.

Striping seems to add a nice finishing touch to models, and an old draftsman's ruling pen works very well for that job. Do not try to dip the pen in the paint, but rather pick up a drop with a toothpick and place it between the blades and let it run down to the points. You will need to use a straight edge or French curve to guide the pen unless you are much steadier than myself. Be sure to block the guide up so that it does not contact your freshly painted line and smear it, otherwise you might be inclined to use some of those unmentionable words stored in the back of your vocabulary.
Birk

Oh, and the "B" on there can also stand for Birk, as well as Breisch

Plowing

2008-02-25T10:59:00.000-08:00

I'll post one more topic on model farm type equipment and then I'll get back to more engines and stuff. This model plow very closely resembles the one that my dad used in the 1940s. In fact I even used it a lot. There were no such things as child labor laws on the farm, so as soon as I was old enough to operate the tractor by myself, at about 7 or 8 years old, I was put to work. I certainly did not consider it labor, it was a chance to drive the tractor! All us farm boys took great pride in driving our dad's tractor. Whenever we would get together at school or other places we were always boasting that our dad's tractor, no matter what the make or model, was the best.

The plow is pretty well complete and functional. It has about all the parts of a real plow, except tiny. The beams were made from 1/4" keystock, and then I ran a ball mill down the length to shape them like originals. Of course the wheels are fabricated to look like real ones.
The tractor is just a generic dummy built to display with the plow. The wheels turn and the steering works, but thats it. I picked the rear tires up at a swap meet. They are solid rubber, and have the tractor tread and the Firestone trademark molded in the sides. They had real heavy duty bearings in them so I suspect that they might have once been used on a hand truck or something. The front tires are exhaust pipe hangers. The engine parts was built of square tubing, the grill was cut out of the side of a one pound propane tank, and the fenders were cut out of a pot lid from a second hand store. Tractor parts can come from lots of places.
Birk

Russell Grader

2008-02-25T10:56:00.001-08:00

We were watching the Antique Road Show on TV and some fellow had brought in a little horse drawn road grader. It had been a salesman's sample of an Adams road grader. I was quite intrigued with it and thought that would be something interesting to build a model of. My dad had an Adams grader to smooth the roads on the farm, but the farm had been sold and besides it was a hundred miles away. I did have a book about Russell Graders, so I picked one of those to model. According to the book their "Highway Patrol No. 2" was their most popular model, although perhaps not their biggest or best. It probably suited more clients needs. There were a couple photographs plus a list of specifications, which was very helpful in getting started sizing it. My model was built 1/10th scale. Same as the hay press and manure spreader.

It was so tiny that I put the lettering on freehand with a little brush. The angle frame was made by splitting 1/16" wall square tubing and then milling the legs of the angle to size. The seat was pounded out on a bench block, and the holes punched with a slotting punch made from tool steel, on the end grain of a scrap of hard wood.
Oh, I also need to mention that Russell was an aggressive company, and kept upgrading, redesigning and experimenting, using tractors etc. for power. This did not go on unnoticed. In 1928 Caterpillar Company acquired the Russell Company. So when you see one of those big old Caterpillar graders going down the road, remember the little horse drawn Russell grader was it's predecessor.
Birk

Lathe Trade

2008-02-22T09:47:00.001-08:00

One day when I was visiting with my friend George in Brigham City he offered me a box of cast iron stuff because he knew I was a collector of such things. He said he had already discarded most of it, but I could have what was left over. When I got home and sorted it out I determined that it was the clutch pulleys for an old overhead line shaft lathe, his lathe in fact. He had moved the motor down onto the bench with the lathe. What he had discarded were all the hanger bearings, etc. The next time I seen him, I told him that I really appreciated the pulleys, but what I really wanted now, was his lathe. He had already upgraded to a new 13 x 40 Grizzly lathe, so working out a trade was not too difficult. A little more than an equal amount of iron in the form of an old drill grinder and a drill press did the job.

The lathe, by the way was built by Champion Blower and Forge. It looks very much like a South Bend, so that was probably the predecessor of that line. Don't know the date of manufacture, but would suspect it to be 75 to 100 years old. I welded up a stand and painted it flat black to look like the old cast iron stands. For its age it is still in pretty good shape, but of course I only use it for display purposes.

Then looking at pictures in old catalogs I made patterns and cast replica hanger bearings and supported them from a framework near the ceiling. It is nothing like a full length line shaft in a factory, but at least it gives visitors an idea of how things were powered. I have it powered with a 1908, 3/4 hp repulsion-induction motor barely visible in the picture. It is huge, probably as big as a present day 10 hp motor. It has that wonderful old whiney sound, that only old people know about.
Birk

Manure Spreader

2008-02-21T14:07:00.000-08:00

Mechanical things of all sorts fascinate me. I was born and raised out on a farm. Although seasonal, one of my first paying jobs was working a a steam powered sugar factory. Then I spent over forty years working at a steel fabricating and manufacturing plant as a facilities Engineer, which provided me an opportunity to visit and see many other facilities all over the nation. My eyeballs were exposed to viewing all sorts of mechanical contraptions, and I loved all of them.
I was thinking I'd like to build something that used drive chain. In scale size, I was thinking of using some "ladder chain", even my old Erector Set had a piece of that. Finally I decided on a Manure spreader, a humble but very essential piece of farm equipment. After months of looking I finally located one as a decorator item in a lady's flower bed, that I could get measurements from. It was of the 1930's vintage which would been state of the art about the time I was born.

The second picture shows it well under construction. I tried to follow the construction of the original, right down to each rivet and bolt. There were lots of rivets in this model, a couple hundred of them. the whole frame was riveted together, as well as the wheel lugs and beater parts, etc. For rivets I used snipped off 19 gage wire brads, and set them with my tiny rivet press (third picture)

The picture shows the size of the press. The scrap metal there, has a trial rivet set in it. The angle Iron frame of this model varied from about 1/8" x 1/8" to 1/4" x 1/4" so setting rivets would have nearly impossible with a hammer without mashing everything. It was so easy with the press. The difficult part was that rivets had to be placed in the holes with tiny needle nose pliers, and sometimes the rivet would slip and go flying off in some unknown direction. No need to even try looking for it, just get another one.

The last picture shows the finished spreader. I found the color scheme and brand name in one of Charles Wendel's books. It has turned out to be a real fun model to show. Everyone has some kind of humorous remark to make about it. Like one fellow suggested it be loaded with cinnamon sugar and raisins when making sweet rolls, or shredded cheese when making pizza. Another suggested Bull Durham tobacco because it would look and smell like the real stuff. Another suggest corn flakes because they would be easy to vacuum off the living room floor. One fellow informed me that manure spreaders never came with a warranty. That is one machine that manufactures just would not stand behind. The list goes on and on. Perhaps you will have a comment too.
Birk

Steam shovel castings

2008-02-21T14:04:00.000-08:00

There are several castings in this little model. Rather than explain, just look at a couple more pictures. I've been making castings for models for about 40 years now, so it is nothing so special, just part of the job.
By the way I been at this model since last June (About 9 months so far)
Birk

Steam shovel close-ups

2008-02-21T14:02:00.000-08:00

Ok, here are some more close up pictures. You will note that it is missing some bolts, pins, etc., because it all has to come apart someday for painting.
A question was asked about sealing riveted boilers. Yes, they needed to be sealed with solder.
I should have mentioned that I shear rivets to length, if they are small ones, say 1/8" and under with one of those electrician's crimping tools that have holes to shear threaded screws off. I drilled a couple more holes in it with a carbide drill. For larger rivets I made a shear out of a automobile leaf spring that works the same way as the electrician's tool. Sawing is so slow, and clipping them with diagonal clippers leaves a wedge shape end.

More Rivets

2008-02-20T17:58:00.000-08:00

I better bring you up to date on the model steam shovel. As of today I have the bucket complete and operational. I put lots of rivets in it. Hopefully the same number as in the original. Oh!, and it has teeth too. It is always exciting when babies get teeth.

That almost finishes the "shovel" end of the machine, Now I need to move back towards the rear and work on the "Steaming" end.

Rivets really set a model off, and I install a lot of them. There are dozens in that bucket alone. Rarely do I ever set one with a hammer. I always use a rivet press. It is so much faster, and easier, and I end up with a nice looking head on both ends. Shown below is my assortment of rivet presses.

The red one is a commercially built one that my dad once used on the farm on his mowing machines. It will easily squeeze a 3/16" rivet. The gray one is one that I made out of 3/4" plate steel to install 1/8" rivets in the frame of a model steam roller, and I also used it to rivet the frame for the Steam Shovel shown above. The tiny little press was used to install hundreds of rivets in that Hay Press and a model Manure Spreader. For those rivets, snipped off 19 gage wire brads were used. They are about .035" diameter. They have heads that look like finishing nails, until after they are pressed and then they look like rivet heads. The press with the deep throat was made just last Friday, specifically to rivet the bucket together. For that I used 3/32" rivets.
All the presses have cups in the anvil and screw the shape of the head. If it is desired to change the shape of the head, just change the shape of the cup. For screws I use square head set screws or socket head screws because they are a little harder than a regular bolt. The last two presses I used a piece of tool steel for the anvil. That makes changing the shape very simple.
If pressing rivets seems a little strange, dig out your century old history books and see how they did it. Yes, they used jack hammers sometimes, but where ever it was feasible they used a press, big ones!
Birk

Bucket's of Rivets

2008-02-17T11:16:00.000-08:00

A little more progress on the steam shovel. The rivets give it that finishing touch. This bucket sure has bite. Just look at those teeth.

Ann Arbor Hay Press

2008-02-13T10:44:00.000-08:00

There are lots of things out there to build models of that are ever bit as interesting and intriguing as engines. Over 20 years ago while attending a antique machinery show in Belgrade Montana they were demonstrating an old Ann Arbor hay press. It caught my fancy, so I took some photographs and a bunch of measurements. About a year ago I got to thinking that I had better do something about it before I miss the chance. (I do not believe I have "another" 20 years left). It was built 1/10th size, which is kind of small to work with, but I'm running out of display space.

The hay press its self is complete and functional, but the red engine is just a little dummy decorator that I cast up and put on for looks. The drive belt is a piece of satin ribbon, that I got out of the wife's sewing stuff. Sometimes you just have to do what works. For the gears I started out with 15 pounds of steel plate. When they were completed I had 15 ounces of gears. That is not very efficient use of material, but sometimes that is the way it is with model making. If you like looking at this kind of stuff I have a couple more that I could show.
Birk

Shovel Update Photos

2008-02-11T10:07:00.001-08:00

Economy Engine

2008-02-11T09:58:00.000-08:00

Below is a picture of my first attempt at building a Gasoline engine. My friend Lawrence Jordan had bought a casting kit, and before starting to work on it, he dropped it of so I could use the castings as patterns to make my own. It required making up a core box, but that was still a lot less effort than starting right from scratch.
Economy engines were built by Hercules engine company, and were sold by Sears Roebuck under the Economy name. Hercules also built the Jager engines that were put on Jager cement mixers.
For this little engine I even built my own spark plug using Coran as an insulator. People marvel at that, but the spark plug was much simpler to build than the drip oiler up on top. It is equipped with a miniature homemade buzz coil, built from the magneto out of a lawn mower type engine. It works like the old model T Ford coils. It can run off a flashlight battery. Construction details were sent in and published in both Gas Engine, and Modeltec magazines.

Lawrence Jordan, I believe would be classified as a heavy duty mechanic! He had worked at the Ironton plant between Provo and Springville. That was a facility, which is now just history, that took iron ore from southern Utah, coal from eastern Utah and locally quarried limestone and produced pig iron. The pig iron was then marketed to iron foundries. By todays standards it was ancient. It had steam engines to power the skip hoists the run the material up to be dumped into the blast furnaces. And it had huge steam powered blowing engines to provide air to the blast furnaces. Lawrence gave me a couple pictures one day.

Two engines were horizontal. To give you an idea of their size, that building is 80 feet wide. Lawrence told me of taking a manhole cover off the side of the engine, crawling inside the cylinder and sitting on the piston rod while changing the valves. Note that you cannot see the spokes in the flywheels, the engines were running as the picture was taken.

Two other engines were of the vertical type, I measured the flywheels once while at the plant, and they were 22 feet diameter. Lawrence told me of an occasion one time when the top end of one of these engines broke or blew off, and came tumbling to the floor. No one was hurt, but he said it was quite a task getting it repaired and back together again.
If some of the viewers would like an interesting challenge, here are a couple steam engine designs, that I do not remember seeing models of. Here is your chance!
Birk

Helical Machining- Gatling Gun

2008-02-04T14:43:00.000-08:00

The Model Gatling gun that I built needed two cylindrical cams. They are the things that push the bolts in and out to load and extract the cartridges as the drum is rotated. The cam surfaces were helical in nature so the helical attachment that I posted a picture of yesterday was a natural. Shown here is cylinder chucked in the device. A layout has been made on the part and pilot entry holes drilled. An end mill was used to do the cutting. The picture shows a pointer chucked in the collet while I ran through a trial run.

The cam surface ran circumferential for a ways, then a right hand helix for a ways, then circumferential for a ways, then left hand helix back to the starting place. With the reversing gears that had been built into the fixture it was "A piece of cake". Without the fixture they would probably have had to be filed out by hand.

Here is a picture of the finished cams about ready to be installed in the gun.

And here is a picture of the Model Gatling after it was finished. It is a 1/3rd size model. It is functional, and chambered for .22 shorts, which by the way are actually oversize for the 1/3 scale. But that is the smallest commercially available bullets that I know of. I have a good friend named Paul that lives in the Salt Lake area that has, over the years, built several hand crank machine guns. Not all were Gatling's. For some of his, he went all the way, and made scale size center fire cartridges. Even making them in quantity he had over $5 labor in each cartridge. Not very cost effective, but they sure are cute.
Birk

Bush Pilot

2008-02-04T14:36:00.000-08:00

After getting the Broom Pilot up watching our yard, I got thinking she might need a little reprieve so I got a Bush Pilot to help her out. As you know, bushes do not even need a motor to flutter.

He is a right happy little fellow, although a bit on the reckless side.
Birk

Lectric Engine

2008-02-04T14:31:00.001-08:00

If you look back through ancient issues of magazines like Popular Science, etc. you will note that electric engines have been popular hobby projects ever since electric sources became available to the public. Most were crude, being built with simple household tools, and often by people with limited skills, however they satisfied the desire to build something that would actually run.
Is it any wonder that I should want an example to include in my display. Of course I have to admit that mine, although very simple, is a more modern version. A piece of nylon was machined to wind the coil on. The steel piston slides very easily in the spool center hole. Although it can hardly be seen in the picture, it is equipped with a tiny Micro switch with a roller lever that rides against a cam on the crank shaft.

In operation the switch closes causing a magnetic field that draws the piston into the center. Just as it reaches center the switch opens and the magnet field collapses and the flywheel pulls the piston back out to where the switch closes and the cycle starts all over again.
If you are brand new at model making and would like to try making something easy----that works, perhaps this is an idea for you.

Broom Pilot

2008-02-03T17:18:00.000-08:00

Although we live in a pretty good neighborhood, as a bit of added security I posted a Broom Pilot to cruse the yard and keep an eye on things. Don't worry she is the good kind, only casts good spells.
Soon as I got her up the dear old 80 plus year old world war two air force veteran from across the street came over and informed me that the broom engine was a Kenner 5, and then he wondered why the push rods and rocker arms were not vibrating like they should. I could not tell him, I don't know much about broom engines.

For a little background, the tubing parts are conduit, and all the sheet metal was salvaged from a clothes drier. That is good stuff. It is plentiful, it is a nice thickness to work with, and it has been treated so it does not start rusting as soon as it is placed out in the weather. Everything that moves does so on ball bearings. The propeller shaft is the rear hub and axle from a 10 speed bike, and the whole thing swivels on pedal bearings, from the same bike. The face was the most difficult part. It was formed by pounding the metal on a piece of thick rubber on the anvil. The hair was a snap; I just cut strips in metal and then styled it like a beautician. Would you like your hair styled?
Birk

Machining Helical Gears

2008-02-03T17:11:00.001-08:00

A little over a year ago I built a scale model Gatling gun. For this project I needed a pair of helical gears. They could have been purchased from a bearing supply house, but there is not much satisfaction in buying something that someone else has made when you can do it yourself.
If you think about it, a helical gear is a short section of a vary course pitch screw with multiple leads; as many leads, as teeth in the gear. Theoretically you could machine a helical gear in a lathe, but actual practice and theory do not always coincide. However if you set up a work holding spindle on the mill table, that represents the lathe spindle, and gear it to the table traversing screw, that represents the lathe lead screw, the theory works great. By the way I did not invent this idea, I just adapted what others had already done to my own mill.

A bracket was built and several gears machined that will remain a permanent part of the fixture. Note that I even installed reversing gears, just like on a lathe, so it will machine both right and left hand helix. Then change gears are needed in order to get the proper ratios, and I just used the gears from an old antique lathe in my collection. It took an extra pair of reduction gears more than used on a lathe, but that was worked in too. When it was all put together the counterbalance knob on the regular mill handle hit the gears so I had to make a new different shaped handle.

To figure the ratio, you need to determine how far the mill table would have to travel for the work piece to rotate one revolution. Then divide the the table screw pitch (mine is .200") into that, and that is your ratio. Simple as that, well almost. The gear I was machining was specified as 1" pitch diameter, therefore the long travel at 45 degrees would be equal to one times pi. Now pi is not a very nice number to try and factor into a nice ratio. I had several choices. I could machine a couple more change gears of the desired ratio for a one time use. I could change the helix angle slightly so the long travel would come out to a nice even number, or I could change the pitch diameter to make the long travel come out even. I chose the latter, as it only required changing the pitch diameter by a few thousandths of an inch. (I cannot remember for sure, but it was about .015") The housing holding the gears had not been made and so when I got to that part it was only a matter of spacing the center distance of the gears a few thousandths different than what the drawing specified.

The mill head was tilted to get the cutter in the same plane as the helix. I used a hand ground one tooth cutter for this job. The big work holding spindle drive gear had a multiple number of teeth of the blank I was working on. One grove was cut, Then the gear train carefully loosened and the big gear turned the proper number of teeth and re-engaged, and the next grove cut, and so on.

The last picture shows the gears after I finished cutting all the teeth. The gears were installed in the gun and it functions beautifully.

Now I have the means to pursue one of those little side shaft engines that I have wished for, for so many years.
Give it a try, you might surprise the heck out of yourself what you can do.
Birk

Cutting Gears

2008-02-02T14:25:00.001-08:00

This morning I went out and machined the teeth on a couple pinions. This is the last two of twenty three gears required for the model steam shovel presently under construction. These two will work in unison to push the dipper stick out and in.

I do not know how many viewers of this blog machine their own gears, but it is not a difficult task. When you look at all the charts, tables, math, etc. it is scary. But I have taken the attitude that if the early settlers could make working gears for their grist mills and sawmills, etc. by pounding pegs in a log, then shame on me if I cannot make a gear on my milling machine. Over time I have collected a few commercial gear cutters, and they are nice, but most of the time I do not have the right one and end up grinding a lathe tool bit for a single tooth cutter. You can use a gear of the same pitch and very near the same number of teeth as a template to fit the cutter bit to. Most often I make a layout using the drafting table, and grind a bit to fit my layout. The small paint brush is wetted with cutting oil and held next to the cutter so the bit wipes through the brush providing a film of lubrication each round. It is a lot cleaner than a flood system, for such little jobs.
Birk

Deck gun

2008-02-02T08:59:00.001-08:00

If it were not for guys like me old man Lindsay would probably be living in the poor house, rather than in that Mansion on the hill. Another book that I bought from Lindsay Publications is reprint of a 1922 book, "Lathe Work For Beginners". It is pretty interesting if you like reading about old obsolete stuff. After it tells all about setting up and running a lathe, there is a deck gun project shown in the back. It looked interesting so I built a modified version.

It is built to be functional with a .22 barrel. It has a falling block that allows loading. The whole action slides back when it recoils just like the big ones. There are horizontal and vertical movement hand wheels. Living so far inland, I'm not exactly sure what they use deck guns for, but I believe they world work great for "Decking" dogs that poop on your lawn.
Birk

Post Drill

2008-02-02T08:31:00.000-08:00

You know, my wife and I actually have interests in common; Babies. Of course she prefers the people kind, grand babies, great grand babies, other peoples babies. Where we differ is that I prefer the mechanical kind. I seem to have this warped mind. Most often when I see a full size mechanical something or other, I have a desire to make a "baby one" of it. So I turn out babies as fast as I can work them into the schedule.

Today's baby picture is of a blacksmith post drill. The reason that they are called a post drill, is not because they were made to drill posts, but because they ware almost always mounted on a post or column the the old workshops. This one is a 2" scale model of a full size one in my collection of antiques. To give an indication of size, the base it is mounted on is 3/4" thick. I hope you like looking at it.

Bug!

2008-02-01T09:46:00.000-08:00

That is one of those dangerous West Nile varieties. If you see one of them buzzing around, you had better arm yourself with some bug spray-- quick! Because as you can see they are hungry Buggers.

Non-Identical Twins

2008-02-01T09:41:00.000-08:00

A while back Rowland Manufacturing Company in New Washington Ohio advertised model engine castings in just one issue of Home Shop Machinist magazine. Normally I do not buy castings, but these looked kind of unique and the price was reasonable. I believe it was a college student using his new computer design skills to design engines, same as POWDER KEG does. He had done a lot of work and had designs so the engine could be made into any kind of piston engine, gas, steam vacuum, etc. He sold the castings and plans separately. In order to maintain a little personal identity of my own I just ordered castings and made my own plan. When the castings arrived, in order to get more than my money's worth, I used the castings as patterns and poured a send set. One engine was fitted with an eccentric and a spool valve. The other with poppet valves. They are also timed to run on opposite directions.

Nothing spectacular, just more engines to look at.
Birk

Which Way

2008-02-01T09:36:00.001-08:00

I'm a little slow getting a post today, because the first priority of the day was to get about 4" of that famous Utah powder cleaned off the drive and walks.
That Surplus Center place in Nebraska had a "grab bag" special on pneumatic cylinders; 10 for $20, their choice. So I placed an order, I like surprises. When the package arrived it was opened and one of the Bimba cylinders had a rod sticking out both ends. I thought what will I ever use that thing for. Then all of a sudden the little light blinked on in the attic. How about a double ended engine?

I already had a flywheel pattern that would work, and being symmetrical it only required a couple new ones. It has a rotary valve that rocks through an arc of 90 degrees, operated from a crank on the right end. The wheels on the right always turn the same direction, because they are timed with the valve, but the ones on the left can rotate either direction, depending on which way they get started. What is it good for? Like most of the other stuff I build, nothing,---except perhaps a bit of amusement.
Birk

Flame Licker

2008-02-01T09:26:00.001-08:00

It seems that sooner or later almost every model engine builder makes a vacuum, or fire eater engine. I'm no exception, so here is a picture of how it turned out. The visual exterior appearance is of my own doing, but the actual working mechanics were borrowed from Phillip Duclos.

Work Bench

2008-02-01T09:15:00.001-08:00

I ordered from Lindsay Publications, one of those wonderful "Model Engineering" books written by Henry Greenly in England, and published in 1915. That century old book is as interesting today as it was when it was new. In the first chapter Mr. Greenly discusses setting up a shop for model building; space, tools, machines, etc. One of the highly recommended machines was a hand shaper. Shapers must have become obsolete cause I could not find one, so I proceeded to make my own, by looking at the picture in the book. There were no dimensions given so I just had to guess at them. Therefore I do not know if it is the right size, but here is a picture of the finished "hand" shaper.

Another very important tool was a good bench vise, so I proceeded to make one of those to go along with the shaper.

Then they were mounted on my workbench. As you can plainly see, I'm now ready to tackle any small job that comes along.

Yes, the tools all work! The files for instance, are tips from needle files. The tin snips will cut foils, though its just hard to get your fingers through the handles. The brace actually has a working chuck with jaws like a full size one.
Birk

Spoked Wheels

2008-01-29T08:53:00.001-08:00

Today I'm in the process of machining some spokes cable sheaves for the steam shovel. The operations are similar whether your making a sheave, a gear, or a flywheel. I thought that those new to the hobby might be interested in the process. These are fairly small being 2 1/2" diameter and 3/8" thick. First rough blanks were sawed from some plate steel, then blued and laid out. Under size pilot holes were drilled at what would end up being corners. A hole was drilled and reamed in the center. It will eventually be fitted with a brass bushing. Then the blank was put on a mandrel where the O.D. and sides were turned in the lathe. On this particular job I drilled a 3/8" hole in the center of each space after turning, just to hog out some metal. I don't always do that. Then the part is moved to a three jaw chuck on a homemade rotary table on the milling machine. The circular arcs are milled by simply turning the table and leap frogging over the spokes. The sides of the spokes are milled by traversing the mill table, and indexing the table the proper number of degrees for each spoke. Spokes are nearly always tapered from the hub out to the rim. These sheaves have a 6 degree included taper. That needs to be taken into consideration when setting up, but is easy enough to do with the rotary table.

The first picture shows a sheave in the process of milling the spokes, and the second picture shows two sheaves. One after turning, but before milling, and the other one after the spokes have been milled. The spokes come out rectangular in shape, and the could be rounded of with a radius cutting mill, but it is hard to find a cutter the right size to fit those tiny spaces. So I just use a file, and within a couple minutes can have the corners rounded enough to look ok. The rounding is cosmetic anyway, so it does not matter if it is not perfect.
Try it you might like it.
Birk

Beam Engine

2008-01-28T12:17:00.000-08:00

Although maybe not the most efficient design for a steam engine, beam engines are certainly interesting machines to watch running. Anything they lack in efficiency is more than made up in entertainment. The beam engine posted here today is a little more refined than the Coffee Engine that I posted yesterday. This engine very closely follows the Stuart Turner beam engine drawing, but I made my own patterns and castings, and that allowed me to add a few of my own embellishments.

For a simulated masonry base, I reworked a little cutter similar to a slitting saw. It was put in the mill on a extended mandrel and set at the height of a mortar joint, and then I slid the casting past the cutter by hand to scribe the joint. Then the elevation was changed to the next joint line, and so on. The vertical joints were chiseled in with a graver and a small hammer.
A flyball governor was an optional accessory on the Stuart engines and I had no drawing for that, so I simply designed my own. It works nicely, controlling the speed of the engine. I have it set a slow pace which makes it more realistic. Working from someone else's drawing is sometimes easier, but I spent over forty years working at a large metal fabrication and construction company, much of that time doing design engineering, so it comes quite naturally. The only difference between models and the real thing is simply size.

Half Beam Engine

2008-01-28T12:14:00.000-08:00

After building the Beam Engine that I posted yesterday, I built a Half Beam engine. I have no idea why they call the half beam, because they still use the full beam. They have also been referred to a grasshopper engines because the action somewhat resembles a grasshopper leg. It only required making two new patterns. One for the A frame on top the cylinder and one for the rear beam support.

The brickwork for the foundation was cut in the same was as for the beam engine, only on this one, after the brick red paint had dried, it was sprayed with an off white paint and immediately wiped off with a rag. This left some white in the grooves and smeared a bit on the face which gave it a rustic aged appearance that I rather like.
An advantage of making your own patterns and pouring your own castings, is that you can make them unique to your own workshop as seen if you look closely at the rear beam support.
This engine does not have a governor.
Till next time
Birk

Steam shovel update

2008-01-28T11:44:00.000-08:00

After setting nearly a month being dormant waiting for drawings to be made, and then followed by parts being cut and fabricated, my baby steam shovel sprouted a thing on the front late yesterday. I'm not sure just yet, but I think that means that it is going to be a boy one.

That is hardly a start on the boom, there is so much still left to do on it. In fact right it is now only being held up in place with a piece of wire. It needs to come off to be worked on some more, but I have to do things like that once in a while to spur my enthusiasm. Anyway Wes said he wanted to see a progress picture.
Birk

Ball Turner

2008-01-28T11:40:00.000-08:00

A ball turner is kind of a unique accessory for your lathe. Most every machinist at one time or another will have a need to turn spherical shapes. The easiest way is with a ball turner. You can buy one, but they are simple enough to make yourself, and there are all kinds of instructions out there on building them. Usually the cutting tool travels in a circular arc in a horizontal plane or else in vertical plane along the centerline of the workpiece. I have built a couple of them, one quite large with a capacity of about 6" diameter and the other smaller, with maybe 2" diameter. I'll just show the small one today. I need to mention this is a demonstration picture. Normally when I'm turning ball ends I hold the work in one of those 5C collet chucks. That way I do not risk having the chuck jaws strike the ball turner, and cause all sorts of commotion.

On this one I used some features of a plan that I found, but modified it so that it would work on the quick change tool post. I have found it handy for making the balls for fly ball governors, ball ends for guard rail posts for railing around models, etc. One use was to form the ball ends on a helping hands work holding fixture for silver soldering.

For this demonstration picture I just clamped three pieces of brass and positioned them together. From here it would be a simple task to daub the joints with flux and silver solder it together. To assemble that same configuration without the fixture would be a difficult task.

By the way if you do not want to build your own helping hand fixture Harbor Freight has an in store coupon sale going on right now, till Feb. 11, for $1.97. (normally $3.99) It is smaller and does not have as many joints to move and position things as my home made one, but at that price I could not pass it up, even though I already had one. They also include a magnifying lens. Take that off attach a nice handle and do a little detective work on the side.

In closing I suppose a ball turner could be compared to a bull on the farm. It is not the amount of work it does to earn his keep, it's the occasional service it performs.
Birk

Table Engine

2008-01-28T11:36:00.000-08:00

Here is a third engine that I built following Stuart guidelines for their series of models that use interchangeable parts. This one comes with several names too. Elmer Verburg built one and called it a mine engine. In the Stuart catalog it is referred to as a James Coombes engine, possibly because of the original builder or something. The table calling comes from the fact that the cylinder sets of a platform supported by four legs like a table. In the Stuart catalog it states that the original prototype engine had a 10" bore and 24" stroke, and produced 20 hp at 40 rpm. It also stated that it was used at a Bristol colliery for more than 100 years. Wow! How many machines now days last that long? A lot of people feel lucky if their car lasts long enough to get it paid off.

Most of my engines are painted gaudy contrasting colors, because it makes them so photogenic, but I figured ant engine that had spent 100 years working a a coal mine would be black. The color might be right, but it sure makes it hard to photograph so that you can see it properly.

There are at least three more engines in this series that I have not built yet. I have to compare myself with a young man on a big college campus with thousands of girls. There is simply no way that all of them can be pursued, You just have to make do with what ever number you can work into the schedule.

Birk

Unicycle Dude

2008-01-28T11:32:00.001-08:00

At our place I try to have something of interest for every size and age of people folk, so why not a Unicycle Dude. The first picture shows a close up right after he was built. The second shows him on the high wire (cord) in one of the display buildings. One end of the cord is stationary, and the other fastened to a lever that moves up and down. That action causes his little legs to pedal that cycle as fast as he can back and forth across the building. He has pretty good sense of balance. He has only fallen of a couple times when someone bumped him.

What is not shown in the pictures is the mechanism that makes him go. Down on the wall is a little crank that is within easy reach of even little people. That crank is connected to gears and then a drive shaft up the wall to more gears and another crank and finally to the lever. You know, whatever it take to keep it mechanical. I'd post a picture, but that part does not photograph very well.
Birk

Lubricating sealed bearings

2008-01-28T11:29:00.001-08:00

have devised a pretty slick way (pun intended) of lubricating sealed bearings. It is so simple and non destructive. The bearings are placed in a container just big enough to hold them. In this case, a little plastic cup. Oil is poured over them until they are completely submerged. Normally I use 90W gear oil. Then the cup is placed under the bell jar on the vacuum table, and a vacuum pulled which extracts the air. As you watch you can see the air being pulled out of the bearings and bubbling up through the oil. After a moment or so release the vacuum and oil will be sucked into the bearings to replace the missing air.

I've lubricated lots of bearings this way. Usually they get over filled so they leak a bit until the excess drains out, but that is ok. I've re-lubricated electric motor bearings that sounded like they were wore out. The bearings in my 50 plus year old table saw sounded like a grist mill until I lubed them. Now they are quiet as new ones. One time I ran onto some new-old stock bearings that had set on the shelf so long the grease had hardened rendering them useless. Some fresh oil to soften the grease and and they are ready to roll again.
Not every shop is equipped with a vacuum table and a bell jar, but something as simple as a 1/2 pint canning jar with a hose fitting soldered to the lid would work fine. There are lots of sources for vacuum, some people could even hook it up to their head. A vacuum cleaner would probably not draw enough. You need at least 15 inches. Those hand pumps that are used to bleed hydraulic brakes would work, there are aspirators available. Even condensing of steam in a closed chamber.
Play a little, you will have fun with it.
Birk

Bimba

2008-01-28T11:19:00.000-08:00

An easy quick way to build a lively little engine is by using a pneumatic cylinder. Air cylinders can often be found at flea markets and swap meets, etc. The Surplus Center in Lincoln Nebraska has bushels of them. This engine has a simple spool valve and is connected with plastic tubing. The crankshaft bearings are from roller blade wheels. Skate boards, roller blades, and those little aluminum scooters are all equipped with ball bearings, and the bearings usually outlast the treads on the wheels so they are a good source for little bearings for your engines.

Although the cylinder on this engine is not a Bimba brand, I named it that anyway. The Baby Bimba shown below does have a Bimba cylinder. In fact the factory decal is still on it

It is a real little hummer, with a 1/4" bore by 1/2" stroke. I sort of suspect that is the smallest cylinder that Bimba makes.

Grasshopper or Half Beam Engine

2008-01-16T13:13:00.001-08:00

The engine above is a Grasshopper or Half Beam engine. The one to the right is a Beam engine, and the black one in the background is a Table engine. All three were built from Stuart drawings, and they share a lot of interchangeable parts. (Castings)

more progress

2008-01-13T20:34:00.000-08:00

Here are the latest photos.

Steam shovel Platform

2008-01-06T16:13:00.000-08:00

Birk just sent me this photo and says, "The past couple days I've been extending the platform on the steam shovel. It now has three times the area of the casting that supports the machinery. It is starting to look pretty big, and I have concluded that if the digger does not work I can remove the hoisting machinery and use the thing to haul hay. An image taken day before yesterday is attached. Since then I almost have the deck plates fitted and installed, but their installation has to be worked in with cutting holes for control rods, etc, so it goes slow."