Current Projects

Model Hit and Miss Engine

This is a Joe Tochtrop casting kit which reproduces a modified scale version of the Sears & Roebuck "Economy" engine. I saw one of these competed and running at the Portersville Steam Show last summer and was rather impressed. Though this is ambitious as one of my first projects, I am being careful to learn about all the required machining operations on other projects before I perform them on the parts of this kit.

Shown are the base, cylinder case and one of the cast iron flywheels atop the blueprints.

Double-acting Steam Engine

Ah, yes! The original passion that got me into this metalworking madness. I am working on a fairly conventional double-acting single piston engine totally from scratch: no blueprints, no plans. So far I've made the piston, crosshead, cross-slide, steam chest and steam valve, all out of 360 brass. Next I will work on the crankshaft, crank, connecting rods and eccentric. Once I have the whole thing together and working I'll post pictures. But not before.

Six-cycle Gasoline Engine

I have a patentable(?) idea for a six cycle engine but for obvious reasons I won't go into details here. It probably won't revolutionize the world but it should be interesting to see it work.

Solar Engines

And while there's all this talk of engines, I might as well mention some projects using solar heated steam. Wouldn't it be neat if every house could have a solar steam turbine to generate electricity?

Gears and more Gears