New Member from Across the Pond

Hello, new member here.

I have gotten into castings in the last few years, and have enjoyed designing a steam engine in Solidworks, making patterns, and casting the engine.

It is quite fun to create your own drawings and casting kit, although there is no one to blame if things don't turn out right.

I have the steam engine bug, but would like to build a hit-and-miss also, perhaps a VJ Monitor, since I have been able to borrow most of the parts from a full sized engine to measure.

Pat J

Hi Pat, good to see your face here.

You could save yourself some trouble and buy one of these like I did

PM Sent

J

Thanks Jason, I have been following and admiring your work from afar.

I felt like I was at the point where I needed to get out more.

I did buy a ball monitor kit (those things are very hard to come by).

But its one of those things, once you buy one set of castings, you want more, an addictive personality trait I guess.

I am torn between scale factors for engines, and can't really decide what scale is best.

I am leaning toward a "workshop engine" size, which would have a 10" diameter flywheel, and a 2" bore, as a standard for everything I build, with the hopes that I could share parts across engines, such as flywheels.

From a practical standpoint, I could machine a 10" flywheel, but I am not sure about machining the frame.

As a hobby thing, I like putting engines into 3D, and the casting/pattern making thing has really been a lot of fun.

Edit:

How do I post a photo here? Do I need offsite storage?

My wife and I drove out to Colorado last year, and we hiked up one of the mountains to 10,500 ft before we had to turn back due to heavy snow towards the top.

After we hiked back down, someone asked us "Why not just ride up the ski lift that is near where you hiked?", and while that is a very logical question, I guess the answer is that we hiked up to see if we could do it.

And so I guess that is my motivation for making my own castings.

I started a VJ Monitor thread here:

http://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=114526#1954972

Edited By Pat Jorgensen on 01/02/2016 05:03:36

Hi Pat, photos: go to top of the page, in the green line you'll see a white camera and albums, just go in there and get going. I find it best to reduce the pics to 640 x 480, from there you can click on the camera above the reply box, chose the pic you want to use, that's it.

Thanks for the help Ian.