Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

I picked up this little steam launch today because it has what I would consider a rather unusual oscillating engine.
The hull is 25” long and roughly 5” wide. The engine has a built in displacement lubricator, which is the part that looks like a knob on top. It also has a throttle valve, which is the little lever with the spring behind it. The cylinder swings from a pivot point on top of the cylinder head instead of a central pivot point like most oscillators. The engine frame and cylinder are bronze castings. There is nothing extraordinary about the boiler.
I’m hoping someone will recognize the make. There are no markings at all on anything. Thanks!

Sure has a Stuart ST or Bassett Lowke G.F. look to it... but looks shorter/fatter (maybe just the camera angle?)

Can we see more of the engine frame? Is the bracket holding the cylinder on a homemade addition? Same with where the head pivots with the engine frame?

The boiler and engine have some design elements that are similar to an early Stuart oscillating launch engine, but for some reason I suspect it could be Bassett-Lowke. If that oiler has a standpipe coming up from the bottom, than it probably is a displacement lubricator, but from your pictures I suggest that it is actually a total loss pot oiler that has no steam condensate feed, but rather just a gravity feed to the oscillator's axle and port faces.

I have no idea about the boat itself, other than the entire kit looks very nice indeed!!!

It does have a standpipe in the oiler.

Here’s some more pics of the engine. It’s mostly apart right now. I’m still working on freeing up the piston rod in the gland. It’s really putting up a fight. It’s soaking in evap-o-rust right now.

The previous owner claimed that this was a prototype made by White Motors in Cleveland, Ohio. He said a close family friend worked there and somehow acquired it in the late ‘40s or early ‘50s. He had nothing to back the story up either. Doesn’t make any sense to me that White Motors would be prototyping a toy steam boat, but who knows? It’s definitely not homemade. The hull and most of the boiler and firebox parts are steel and brass stamped parts.

The funniest part of the deal today was when he turned my offer down because it was too much and then stated a lower price that he was happy with. That doesn’t happen very often!

Thanks for the extra pics Mike, everything looks original on the engine frame, I'm stumped... 

I finally got the piston rod free from the gland only to discover that it was rusted badly. A new piston and rod had to be made and our own George Britnell came to the rescue! George and I are not very far from each other, so I ran over to his shop and he knocked the parts out for me. These are fairly simple parts, but he is an amazing craftsman, nonetheless! Thanks, George!

The engine runs perfectly now, but I still have not found another like it.

https://youtu.be/QS4P4pdSp08

Nice runner now, wish I was a short drive from George!

Quote from: Stoker on May 19, 2020, 11:14:21 am

Oh how embarrassing.

Looks like George and I are similarly equipped, ie: Atlas 618 lathe (George appears to have the Craftsman tagged version) and steel surface plate with vernier & dial height gages. Yet he makes mechanical art, while I struggle to make parts worthy of sewer drain fittings.

I have occasionally done some good work, but it is extremely slow going and certainly doesn't come naturally in any way, in spite of my many years of exposure!

George makes it looks so easy! He told me he bought that little Craftsman lathe in 1969, the year I was born!

Looking around on George's bench there, I really don't see anything in the way of "magical" tooling, that I don't have something about equivalent to, so there must be some other key ingredient that I'm missing, like  ................  TALENT!!!