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

 Just picked this monster up yesterday. All the castings are lead babbitt and that includes the entire base. It is HEAVY!
The base is roughly 16” square and it has a 1-1/2” bore. The flywheel is 6” diameter and has a centrifugal governor that limits the stroke of the slide valve to throttle the engine. It has a vertical tube boiler with a gas burner underneath. It appears to be repurposed burner from a 1920s kitchen range.
This engine was built by Herman Nelson Soegaard 1889-1969. His initials are embossed on the engine main frame. I got the engine from his grandson who is around 77 years old and he remembered seeing the engine run when he was a kid.
I’m thinking this engine may have only been run once or twice. It shows no wear and appears unfinished in some aspects. It would be interesting to know if it was a scratch design by Mr Soegaard, or if he built it from a set of published plans. Seems to be a very unique design with that type of governor. What do you guys think?

What a find.  Looks heavy as heck - let us know how much it
weighs.

Hope the grandson appreciated that it was going to a good home.

And...is that kitty chow on the top of the boiler?

CleanIt, TestIt, SteamIt, VideoIt!

Good Luck,
Wayne

That thing is cast out of Babbitt, good gawd yes, it truly must be very heavy. Amazingly fine casting quality it would seem.

I think you have an incredibly unique and interesting engine there Mike!!!

Oh, it is quite heavy!

Wow, are you going to try and steam it?  That thing is cool!

I’d like to try to steam it at least once, but I’m a little concerned about the low melting point of the babbitt base. It has obviously survived being steamed in the past, so it should be ok as long as I don’t get crazy with the heat.

Hi Mike, That is a real interesting and unusual find.

Weeden comes to mind with lead cylinders however not even closely related to yours.

If you get a chance to pull the steam chest cover off, I would be very interested in photos of the internal rigging.
None I have seen have the valve rod going into the steam chest that low.

Congrats..!!!

Gil

Howdy Gil, looks to me from the first photo when magnified, that the valve rod is actually entering the steam chest at centerline height or very nearly. The second photo's perspective does make it look to be very low, but I don't think that is actually the case?!?!