allchin royal chester

Hi Guys

ive finally managed to get myself a milling machine and a lathe and hopefully very soon will start to use them

my question is the person i bought the lathe and milling machine also has a Allchin traction engine kit forsale which i belive may be 30 years old but has never been started

they suspect the kit itslef is 90% there an was originally bought from reeves 2000

this is the reason why ive bought the enginnering equipment i desperately want to start building one of these but i have no enginnering background and am a complete novice

the only think mechanical ive ever built is a kit car, with that you had a build manual from which you purchased parts then put together is this kit the same do you buy parts and put them together or do you machine the items from drawings?????

Im a bit confused with it all i have no idea what the kit is worth, i dont know as its an older kit if the rest of the kit is still availible from reeves??

am i bitting off more than i can chew i am in no rush to build the kit yet if i were to purchase it as my skill level is very basic

any advice you guys can offer will be great

Nathan

Well a good "build manual" is available in the form of Bill Hughes' book which gives a lot of guidance on how to tackle the more complex items.

The majority of parts are still available from Reeves though I think one or two you will have to find an alternative source for if they are not already in the set of bits that the chap has.

The good thing with a traction engine is it has some fairly basic parts as well as complicated ones so you could start with the easy bits and as you get a feel for things move onto the more involved parts. Most people tend to start with the front axle, perch bracket and then the front wheels.

You should be able to go through the list of items available from reeves to get a total and then compare that to what the guy is asking.

One othert thing, what do you want out of the traction engine? if its the enjoyment of the making and occasional running on a good surface then the Alchin in that scale is great. On the other hand if you want to be running around the rally fields then a larger engine would be a lot more practical They vary in size so I don't like to quote a scale but 12" rear wheels as a very minimum 18" plus much better

J

Hi JasonB

thanks for the reply, i suppose what i am currantly after is the joy of building it, the scale at the moment is convinient as at literally have hardly any room in my garage for anything much larger i want to build bigger but i first need to get a bigger place this kit my satisfy my hunger (i actually get depressed if im not making something every now and then)to start modelling for now

my son is 2 years old and is obssed with steam trains and cars etc and i would really like him to grow up with all this engineering around him, so that if that was an area he liked we could do some things together

so would this little engine be able to pull a small cart with a medium sized bloke on it when i say medium i mean 12-13 stone ish maybe a bit more by the time i build it? running on a good surface of course was thinking it probabaly wouldnt???

thanks

Yes it would pull you no problem on level tarmac and your son too provided you get it finished before he turns 18

This is Bill Hughes, photo taken from the book. The engine drivers hat is optional

brilliant

im getting a hat also

Tempting though it is to start on the traction engine you have quite a bit to learn and family commitments absorbing time. I recommend looking at "16mm railways" which are very child friendly and you can make electric locos which are safe for a small boy to operate. They can even be made from Lego while you tackle the real steam one. There is a design called Idris being serialised in Model Engineer and a thread on the forum too.