Tony, if you are thinking of building your own boiler, run, don't walk, to your nearest agent for Tee Publications and buy yerself a copy of K. N. Harris' book "Model Boilers & Boilermaking" and if you want it to look scale, there are several vendors of model steam fittings in Britain that are excellent. Al Messer --- Tony Wells <oaksfield@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > This message of yours prompts me to ask another > novice type question Shep. > Apart from those members who run steam railways, of > whatever guage, does > anyone actually build their own steam boilers or > merely use compressed air > from such as a electric tyre pump? Whilst I have now > got several very > interesting sets of plans for the actual engines, > running from suitably > simplistic to absolutely fabulous, I cannot seem to > find any boiler plans > for some reason. I should imagine such things as > pressure regulators are > essential and so this puzzles me. > > As I have a nice brand new piece of drawn, seemless, > copper tubing some 75mm > in diameter, plus plenty of silver solder, I do have > hopes of making my own > boilers by the way. Is such as microbore central > heating plubing fixtures OK > to use however? I have seen both solder and > compression fittings in a > variety of sizes, including 6, 8 and 10mm diameter, > which will be OK if I > stick with metric scale models. > > Tony Wells. > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "shep" <shep.28@xxxxxxxxxxxx> > To: <modeleng@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2005 10:40 AM > Subject: [modeleng] Re: Steam engine RPM? > > > > Dear Al > > > > Our hearts go out to you all at this time of a > great national calamity. > > We > > particularly think of you, whilst your eldest son > is doing search and > > rescue, and trying to control looting, in these > foul and dangerous > > conditions. > > > > To talk of more happy things - Pierre's engine > sounds interesting indeed! > > I spend most of my time making tools. > Presently, rather crazily at my > > age, I am making a small, but heavy and hopefully > precision, screw-cutting > > lathe. This is being machined from large lumps > of solid cast iron - > > producing masses of swarf and dirty carbon dust! > When visitors see my > > workshop, they ask 'What do you make?' I answer, > 'tools'. They then > > ask, > > 'what do you make then?' and I answer 'more > tools'. In order to divert > > these questions, I made a few stationary steam > engines, including one > > oscillator from scrap with a 1/16" piston. > > I was making a Stuart 10V engine from castings, > when I had the crazy idea > > of > > making one half that size, about 3 inches high. > It was easy to reduce > > the > > plans to about 48%, but from there on everything > had to be made out of the > > solid (mainly brass). The making the body of the > engine, the flywheel, > > and > > the minute slide valve, created interesting > problems. To my amazement > > the > > engine runs beautifully on compressed air, making > a noise like a > > bumble-bee! > > Looks quite pretty, too! > > > > Cheers! > > > > Hubert > > > MODEL ENGINEERING DISCUSSION LIST. > > To UNSUBSCRIBE from this list, send a blank email > to, > modeleng-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word > "unsubscribe" in the subject line. > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com MODEL ENGINEERING DISCUSSION LIST. To UNSUBSCRIBE from this list, send a blank email to, modeleng-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word "unsubscribe" in the subject line.