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

This is my 302 Ford V-8 engine. It's 1/3 scale, pressure oiled, water cooled, electronic ignition with home made spark plugs. It's been around for a very long time but some of the new people might not have seen it. This video was taken by a good friend. I have yet to take a good one of my own.

Fantastic .... on a scale of 1 to 10 that beauty has to score just under 1000.

A truly amazing machine!!!

This will be my second offering for my table. I got my start in model engineering building steam engines, some from the old Popular Mechanics magazines and some from Stuart kits. Each class of engine has its own uniqueness, the compound or expansion marine type, the variations in the Corliss designs and the beams with their parallel links. I have built a beam but haven't built a true Corliss. I did want to build an expansion engine of the triple type so I started with the drawings for the Stuart compound marine engine. I took the displacement difference between the high pressure and low pressure cylinders then used that factor to size the low pressure cylinder for the triple. Oh and I scaled all the dimensions down to 1/2 of the original Stuart. The cylinders and chests are made of iron. The crank is a two piece affair to get the center bearing and eccentrics installed. I used pictures of other triples to create the base and links.

Fantastic craftsmanship George - a tribute to your skill!  Well done!

Next up to my table is my 1/3 scale Fordillac flathead V-8 engine. It's named this because in trying to create a true Ford flathead from bar stock I couldn't come up with a way to route the exhaust through the block ala the prototype engine. Cadillac of that era, late 40's early 50's, also had a flathead V-8 engine. The one glaring difference was the Cadillac had the exhaust coming out of the top of the block and not out of the side. The major components of my engine are machined from 6061 T-6 aluminum, block, heads, manifold etc. The crank and cam are steel. It has a full pressure oil system like the original engine. The heads and water pumps are made in two pieces to form the water jackets. It has a Hall trigger ignition with 1/4-32 Rimfire plugs. It runs on pump gasoline (87 octane)
 https://youtu.be/694CKZlDyzg?si=FioQ_ekr1cxU5jFD

Love the gas pedal George!   ;c)

George ,this kind of masterful execution of something that you thought up , drafted up & then built, then improved it yet a few more times is something that I stand in awe of. You have a unique talent that is rarely seen these days. Thank you for showing these again ( I know you have many more).

I thought I would finish off with my collection of small and miniature steam engines. Some were made from scaled down Stuart drawings. The small beam was made from the Mary beam for the Sherline contest at NAMES many years ago. The last two, the Maudslay and the Benson were made from available drawings and scaled down. The Maudslay I modified a little by adding later supports to the upper part of the trellis frames and a reversed valve. The Benson I added a governor with my own helical gears.