Drawings / Artcles

I am looking for an drawings or ME articles on building a small (mamod) sized traction engine possabily useing mamod wheels.

Has an serise been run in ME covering something like this?

There is the Wells traction engine, you could fabricate the few castings that it used, bit of a build diary here I should be able to point you to online drawings in a day or two, they are down at the moment.

If you want something more realistic then Rudy Kouhoupt has a nice little case style engine that was in one of his "shop Wisdom" books again a good build on HMEM

J

Edited By JasonB on 22/07/2012 19:03:48

John, have a look at ME 4142, 32 March 2001 onwards. A 1/2in scale freelance traction engine was serialised by the name of ' Little Ben'. It could be scaled slightly to use Mamod wheels. It is a little more " model engineer " than a Mamod or the Wells traction engine and uses a single cylinder , double acting slide valve with slip eccentric. I have seen a completed model and it looks quite smart. If you look on YouTube there is a video of one running on air.

Try 23 March !! my error

Many thanks where can i find the back numbers from ME4142

Some of it is in teh digital issues if you are a subscriber, failing that e-bay

J

John,

I had a quick look at the traction engine in ME4142 and I don't know if you would like what you see. It is representative rather than realistic and is very similar to a Mamod style engine - the main difference being the "proper" slide valve cylinder. The boiler is a simple pot type and its outer sheet diameter is well over scale diameter.

I think the problem with modelling a working 1/2" scale traction engine is the boiler size - a half size Minnie would give a boiler diameter of 1.25" which doesn't give much capacity if you have an internal flue. You would probably need a very good feed pump arrangement to keep things going for a reasonable length of time.

Unfortunately I don't have all the articles in the series. i think it was around the time when the delivery of the ME was very spasmodic and I missed quite a few issues.

Jim.

Hello Jim

is it possabile to send me a copy of the article and plan so i can weigh it up, I am looking to build a "Mammod" type as this would fit in with my 7/8ths scale garden railway

John,

I'll fire the scanner up and I'll need your email address.

Interesting that your railway scale is not far off 1" scale, and a Minnie might be closer to correct, or a half size Allchin at 3/4" scale. Cherry Hinds built a half size Allchin so no pressure there.

Jim.

In his book "projects for the Unimat", Rex Tingey published drawings an building notes for a 1/16 scale traction engine "Sweet Sixteen", at large a reduced version of Minnie but the engine of his own valveless design. I did it many years ago, replacing the ugly cylinder by a plain reduced version of the minnie cylinder and valve gears, a awkward and minute job I remember..but very happy with the result. you can see a picture in my picasa album

Cheers

**LINK**

John

If you are looking for back numbers of 'M.E.', try The Toolbox at Colyton in Devon.

With regard to prototype designs of small traction engines, one starting point would be Henry Greenly's 1 inch 'Model Engineer' model. This had a boiler of 2 3/4 inch diameter, front wheels 4 inch and hind wheels about 6 inch. It was re-drawn by Greenly & Steel in 1956 and I have a feeling that someone has current rights to the Greenly & Steel designs. A search of the web may help.

Geoff

I now see that Maxitrack "Through Maidstone Engineering" supply drawings from the Greenly archive. They list the four drawings of the 1 inch engine.

I just found the original series of articles from the Model Mechanics magazine from this site. The five parts are here

**LINK**

**LINK**

**LINK**

**LINK**

**LINK**

.....and a follow up with an auxiliary hand pump

**LINK**

16mm:ft scale or, as near as dammit, 5/8" : ft.

Jim

Edited By Jim Guthrie on 26/07/2012 22:54:13

Almost a year on and I am back on this thread, the Little Ben articles - how many issues did this run to and what are the copy numbers so I can locate of ebay or elsewhere? starting with ME 4142

One of the indexes gives 4142, 4146, 4146, 4150, 4152, 4154, 5156 for the build though possibel 4148 should be included.

There is also further mention of it in 4175 and 4184

This is one that was at Sandown

Edited By JasonB on 29/06/2013 08:15:34

Hello Jason can you double check the numbers for me please;-

4142, 4146, 4146, 4150, 4152, 4154, 5156, 4148, 4175 and 4184

Is 4146 correct or should there be another one between 4146 & 4148 what about 4144 does this have Little Ben in it|?

Yessorry the duplicate 46 should have been 44

If you search for "Littel Ben" here you will get what I did.

Hello Jason

Many thanks for the info I have now found a number of issues and they should be with me shortly, BTW do you know who built Litte Jen as shown in a prevoius post, do you or anyone have any contatc details?, I belive Bruce Robertson who wrote the articles had a web site for this, anyone know what the address was and where the drawings can be sourced from?

I think the builder is given in the write up of the show in ME, I'll dig it out tonight. May also have been on the oppositions web magazine.

J

Hi Jason, my photo shows the entry card with the details on

Hope you don't mind me jumping in. There is another view of it from the front in my general photos album if anyone is interested.

Regards Nick.

Edited By JasonB on 03/07/2013 07:47:14