Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines
The Regular Stuff: Chat, Buy, Sell, Off Topic, etc. => General Discussion - Model & Toy Steam Engines – Stirling Cycle – Flame Lickers – Small Antique Originals => Topic started by: etdown on November 26, 2025, 09:45:00 am
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Oh that's beautiful! Very smooth and quiet. Big heavy flywheels are the way to go.
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Thanks for the nice comments.
As for the question about the steam chest being most difficult I would say no. I acquired this kit 15 years ago at an auction. It was missing lots of parts, some of which I purchased from Tiny Power, especially the two brass flywheels. I fabricated my own steam valve from a solid hunk of brass. I used the pictured cutter to carve a curved surface on the underside of the valve. I like to make it curved, rather than flat, to facilitate steam flow. Overall the steam valve was not too bad.
I think the thing that was the hardest for me was boring the hole in the little arm sticking out of the side to support the slide valve control rod. Sounds easy, but getting it aligned with the steam chest was difficult. What I ended up doing was drilling a 1/8" hole completely through the steam chest, even though there was no need for the hole on the back side. I then mounted the little arm to the frame and installed the steam chest. I then used a long 1/8" drill bit, passing through the 1/8" hole in the steam chest and drilled the hole in the support. Pretty much guaranteeing a straight line for the steam control link. I now had a 1/8" hole in the steam chest opposite the gland, so I tapped the hole installed a steam valve into it. I thought it looked pretty good. I attached a picture.
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Here is a link of my Ajax running on my vintage dentist's office air compressor:
https://youtu.be/Eh39iJGA_Y4
And here is another video of the antique air compressor running my ME Beam Engine:
https://youtu.be/PZUpzLrHuJE
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Terrific job on a very nice looking engine, I like the size of the flywheels!
I also like the massive flywheels.
They allow a well built engine to run more slowly and smoothly
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Very nice. They are great engins. I have started on a tiny power twin cylinder with a massive single flywheel. Dont know the model #. Its the same cylinders as the tiny power 104. Did you find machining the valve chest the hardest part?
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Terrific job on a very nice looking engine, I like the size of the flywheels!
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First Class with major congratulations on such a fine accomplishment!!!
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Very very nice..!!
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Nice job on that! Smooth runner!
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Today I finished my Tiny Power "Ajax". I have owned this set of castings for years, and started it about 2 months ago. Over all very pleased. It runs great. I will post a video on YouTube and you can see how slowly it can run on about 10lb of air. I have not run it on steam yet.
Not sure what project to do next. I am thinking about a Rider-Ericsson Stirling kit. I see that Myers sells a 1", 2" and a 3" bore kit. Anyone have experience making these engines?
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The YouTube video is here: https://youtu.be/Ktch-DpQlGM
Gene