Building a Coal Mine Part II

Made a little more progress on the winding engine with the manufacture and assembly of the beam supports - these are just 6mm MDF that were cut with the jig saw and sanded to shape. They were then glued together and the beam fitted. These will eventually be planked to match the design of the full size example. The boiler is going to be made from one of those brass spray things - just the right shape for an 18th Century Haystack boiler!

The Engineer.

Building a Coal Mine Part I

Back from university and straight back out into the workshop! I decided to begin some of the scenic items for the garden railway as I have ran out of points to lay the track any further inside and have yet to come up with a firm plan for how to lay the track outside. By the way - on that topic, I am on the lookout for a left hand SM32 point - preferably Peco if anyone has one laying around?

The story behind the line is to be as if the Industrial Revolution really kicked off in Somerset rather than somewhere like Ironbridge and will have all sorts of old and interesting machinery laying around. The line however is based some time in the 1910's - 1920's and the machines are really on their last legs. I will develop a further back story at some stage!

Anyway, for the first section, I decided to start with building the coal mine. This is to use an early atmospheric winding engine to lift the coal from the depths of the mine, something like this...

After messing about for an hour trying to find the fence for my crappy band-saw, and then having various blade problems, I decided to call up my woodworking friend, popped up the road and had the wood cut in thirty seconds!

This allowed me to assemble the beam as shown below. Pretty simple in construction - a couple of bits of Beech with a few holes drilled in them in the relevant places, a couple of Meccano brackets, a chain rocker out of some MDF with a grove filed in for the chain to run in and finally a couple of bent bits of wire for the hook and beam bracing. 

In real life, the beam would have been made out of Oak and after a hundred years outside would have seen considerable weathering - I am trying to work out the best way to achieve this effect, I've heard Indian Ink is widely used for this...any suggestions?

The Engineer.

#steam

A thoroughly up to date title appropriate for today's post...some Instragramed photos of my Karsten Tornado Steam Turbine in operation.

Nothing relating to any progress or anything useful, but thought you might like to see them!

...anywho, back to revision!

The Engineer. 

Tell me of your Tellurion!

So with a maths exam looming, this week seemed like the ideal time to indulge in copious amounts of procrastination! I noticed recently that Christopher Blasius in Germany had released plans for his wooden Tellurion model which looked, and indeed as it turns out,is an excellent project.

So long story short that's what I started doing. I made some minor alterations to the design to better suit our workshop capabilities and available materials but I'll cover these in more detail in a later article, for now here's some pictures of the build! 

Christopher's excellent plans, for more details and other genius projects see, https://www.facebook.com/holzmechanik.de

My modified base design, oak and ash, with an upstand made from a part of a flugelhorn!! 

Main gear assembly progressing.

More details to follow as I progress, I cannot recommend Christopher's plans enough, go forth and buy all his projects fellow carpenters!! Clear easy to follow instructions, and inspiring design solutions! 

Bye for now,

The Carpenter.

Mainline Steam

I'm not really a railway man but I don't think you can get much more majestic than an express passenger locomotive running on the mainline. Anyway, on Sunday while revising I heard whistles down at the railway station so shot off down to the station and saw these two locomotives getting ready to take the Great Britain VII train out of Plymouth. An unusual partnership of motive power with No. 5029 'Nunney Castle' leading and No. 34046 'Braunton' behind. They sounded fantastic pulling out of the station with the 14 or so coach train on behind!

Anyway, back to revision...

The Engineer.

A Brace of Bowmans

I wonder what the actual collecting noun for a lot of Bowman steam engines is!

The product of my collecting habit, a full set of Bowman stationary engines and all bar one of the accessories (if anyone has a Bowman fretsaw, I'd be interested!)...

For the really pedantic, this is of course not exactly a full set - I don't have the metal based 'M' and wooden based 'E' versions of each engine, but I have both an M135 and an E135 as representatives of this.

I still have to complete the restoration of the M101 - I will do that when I return again from university over the summer and will keep you all updated with this.

The Engineer.

Today's Haul

The postman dropped these off today...

A Karsten Gintschel 'Tornado' steam turbine with accompanying train set and a Cheddar Models 'Pipit' steam plant. The Cheddar plant came in exchange for a Wilesco Steam Roller and the turbine came off of eBay. 

The Carpenter came around this afternoon with a bottle of meths and we ran the turbine 4 or 5 times...each run is only about 5 minutes so that's not as impressive a feat as it sounds. The sound it makes is fantastic though!

Will put a bit more information on the turbine once I have some photos and video of it running. I have yet to make my mind up about the Cheddar plant. She'll either be going into a loco, a small boat or into a replica of the Cheddar 'Pipit' generating plant...

The Engineer. 

Bowman M101 Rebuild

I am quite a fan of the old Bowman toy steam engines from the 20's and 30's. These were the engines that came before Mamod, and with their demise led to the establishment of the Mamod brand of engines. The nerdy collector in me has come out yet again and I have been after a #101 engine for some time. This M101 came up on eBay the other day and I managed to get it for a very reasonable price! It needs a bit of work, but I have most of the bits required in my spares box and comes with the nice Bowman wooden box...

The boiler stay has rustedd out and has been patched up. This needs replacing...

The lovely old Bowman box...

The Engineer.

A Load of Hot Air!

As I've been back at university, I've not actually had time to make anything (I'm doing an engineering degree after all!) but I've still been bargain hunting. I recently picked up these two hot air engines online for the very reasonable price of £20 each...

An American PM Research 'Solar 1' 

And a Chinese Maidstone Engineering Stirling Engine

They both run brilliantly, but the quality of the two engines is a world apart. The Chinese engine is out of square and wobbles about the place when running, the American engine is quiet and smooth. Both engines are still readily available with the PM Research from Forest Classics at £115 and the other from Maidstone Engineering at £95. For the money - I know what I'd have!

I'll try get a video of them in operation in the next few days - lot's of coursework on at the moment though!

The Engineer.

Roll Out the Barrel!

So the barrel bar saga continues, the back is now cut out and bands secured. The castors are now fitted to the base, and after briefly re-enacting that scene from the Hobbit on dry land, the securing plate to hold the top together is now glued in place.

Next is all the cosmetic work, I've checked the pump in place, and if I do say so myself, it looks suitably awesome.

The Carpenter.