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

Have had the honor of having this in my shop. Only doing a good cleaning and making missing parts for it. Still got a few parts to make but it's getting closer to being done.  This is a very different engine from normal. The boiler was rolled from flat sheet brass and riveted, has D slide valve made like full size steam engines, has drain valve in boiler, throttle valve is in steam line block at steam chest, vent holes in firebox and firebox was made from galvanized sheet metal. Very neat engine. Hope to have it done soon. Still got the make lamp post and relief valve for it.

Thanks. I forgot to add picture of bottom of boiler.

Randy, that sure is a rare beast...I personally have never seen one before...good it landed in your hands to bring it back to life.

Roger

I've never quite seen anything like that before, gotta be very VERY early, neat to see Randy, thanks for showing us & good luck with the work performed.

Yes it is Jack's engine. (Trying to talk he out of it). Don't think it ever had the asbestos lining in it. Talked him out of restoring it. Just doing a good cleaning, fixing and replacing missing parts. Trying to preserve what is there. It can only be original once. No matter how much you try you can't ever put it back.

The new end on cord. Don't know what it would have had originally,  but this is what was used in that time period.

I know about these holes in the firebox. The very first Jensens were built with open flame heating requiring the vent holes. At the first major toy show that Tom Sr. showed them, he received his first order for 50 engines contingent on them all being heated electrically. Rather than make new fireboxes, (remember, Tom Jensen Sr. wasted nothing), He simply added electric heating.

This engine appears in Jensen's earliest known advertising and the cut was used throughout the 1930's and into the 1940's even though all the engines sold were electrically heated.

Hope this helps,

Gil

Here are two of the early ads and both have that ultra rare Big Power Plant
with the vented firebox and slide valve engine.
Notice even the artists cuts in the ads ads have the electric cord.


[ Guests cannot view attachments ]




[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

Love this piece, thank you for sharing it with us! That boiler sure is neat, and the seam is riveted quite crudely compared to the endcap rivets (understandable since Tom Sr. had a tool for those)

Neat that Gil's ad also shows the slanted gauge and drain cock, many times toy steam ads aren't an exact match, but these look more like actual pictures.

Wise choice to not over-restore this one...

" ad also shows the slanted gauge and drain cock" good eye Nick, it also looks as if the rivets on the bottom are actually peened over & not merely soldered in place.