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

I have a vertical PM oscillator in bronze that I bought on eBay about 15 years ago, and that remains hopeless to this day. Crank crooked, ports in the wrong place, piston binding--you name it, it's wrong.

Back then, I filled the ports with brazing rod and tried to true the rest, but had no success, so to this day it sits in a box somewhere awaiting another try.

As for eBay itself, I have recently cancelled my account, after being reprimanded for attempting to complete a transaction outside of eBay. What happened was that another eBayer wrote to me suggesting that I phone him and circumvent the auction process. I wrote back saying that such an action was forbidden. eBay's software monitor picked up the correspondence and automatically reprimanded both of us. The humans at eBay refused to rescind my reprimand, despite the clear evidence of my written refusal to violate policy, so I ended a 17-year, 501-transaction association with eBay. I have not once since then re-visited the site and find that I can live quite nicely, thank you, without eBay and its attendant problems.