How small???

Evening all,

Interesting browsing on "GS Supplies" website in the latest MEW, to come across the tinest of tiny model railways.

I suppose some of you loco fiends would have already seen this 1:450 gear but with a track pitch/width of 3mm , how small is that?

Apparently it's powered by 4.5v motors (using no doubt 3 x 1.5v AAAAAAAAAA Duracells)

That brings me to my question.

What would be the smallest size of steam engine cylinder that could practically be built and still shown to be working? Has anybody been there yet? (No prizes this time, or next time come to that!!)

Going back to batteries, have you seen the latest paint on batteries being developed. Check this link out **LINK**

Len. P.

P.S. This is the link for a more adult explanation http://news.rice.edu/2012/06/28/rice-researchers-develop-paintable-battery-2/

Edited By The Merry Miller on 30/06/2012 19:34:45

That looks impressive John, I would love to see a few more views.

Len.

I thought this would be of interest www.zen98812.zen.co.uk/aasherwood.html

AA sherwood a Australian engineering lecturer made a live steam locomotive in

1.240 scale which is smaller than z scale 1.220

Best wishes Martin

I think smallist CNC lathe is of the order of 1/2" loa.

I have seen model train (OO GUAGE?) 9 MM TRACK with working train layout setup on table in one of carriages...seperate control from "big" train...

smallest working stiring order of mm across..Flyshown for scale..can't find link at the mo.

Reminds me of visiting airshow with customer once..."smallest twist drill in the world"..my cutomer dops card on desk and says "sample me"...week later we post drill back with hole down it !

Here's a link to a very small steam engine. It may not have a piston, but it does have a cylinder as specified in the original post:

**LINK**

Regards,

Andrew

Iqbal Ahmed of india built the little engine in Bogs' clip, hes an ammazing model builder, not sure how to connect to the site, but put his name, and Sherline Challenge contest, its worth looking at. Ian S C

Just been looking at Iqbal's efforts, incredible stuff he has produced.

The working "thumbnail" engine shown earlier weighs only 1.72 grams.

I'm not certain about his claim (on the Sherline/craftsman website) that he produced a working tiny model lathe with chucks, gears and the whole shebang in two weeks though, even I couldn't manage that

Len. P.

Shown earlier wasn't shown earlier at all it was on Bogs' link,

http://www.craftsmanshipmuseum.com/images/Iqbal22.JPG

Sorry about that.

Len.P.

Edited By The Merry Miller on 01/07/2012 21:09:57