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

This is a story about a number of first ones for me.

It is mainly about the first steam engine I machined from raw castings.

This is a PMR #3B that I purchased the casting set for back in 1999. This is the all bronze kit that they offered back then before they started with the 3BI bronze with iron base.  I machined the kit until it was about 95% complete, and then put it away on a shelf and kind of forgot about it.

I came across it a few days ago and decided to finish it.  I only had to drill and tap a couple of holes and make a couple of small parts (I think I put it away because I didn't have the proper size tap and die back then, I do now)  Here are a couple of pictures with the disclaimer that I didn't bother with paint and polish yet.  I wanted to see if it will run before I Paint and polish.

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You will notice that I took some liberties with the original kit to make it my own.  I never did like the largeish screws that were provided with the kit, so I replaced all of the screws with very small brass hex head bolts.  I also did not like the head design with 4 screws so I changed it up to have 6 bolts.  I also redesigned the bearing supports to make them look more like they are split bearings with the bearing caps bolted on.

After completing the parts and assembling it, I gave it a test run on air.  It ran first try on very low air pressure.  I left it hooked to my air line running at a couple of PSI for about 2 hours just to get it broken in.

For fun, after I disconnected it from the air line, I tried blowing into the hose.  I was able to run it for 10 or 15 seconds before my lungs ran out!

I know you guys like pictures, and I know that you really like video so here is another 1st for me.  I Put my 1st video up on you tube on my new you tube channel.  I started a channel which I am calling Jim's Workshop (I already have one subscriber, Thanks Nick!!) where I will hopefully put on some content on my metal working hobby.  And my Steam and Stirling addiction. 

So here is my First Video:

https://youtube.com/video/bNrHItNri6s


(Hope I did this right)

Jim in Minnesota

Very nice, I also made up some brass bolts for mine out of hex rod it really makes a difference to the overall look of the engine.

Runs and looks great Jim, well done!!!

...and you have doubled your subscriber number btw

Tripled now

Quote from: Jim on March 24, 2021, 04:38:35 pm

G'day Jim I took the liberty of embedding your video for you -

Thank You,  What is the process for imbedding the video rather then just linking it?

Jim in Minnesota

Jim really simple. Just follow the two diagrams below and post the code that you copied into your post and it will show up as the vid embedded -

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Well done now #5

Cheers
Dennis