What is your purpose in getting into the hobby of building model engines?

Lloyd-ss said:

I am always interested in WHY people change jobs, particularly actual changes in career. Were you consciously seeking a change, did an opportunity just present itself, got a promotion, did the company have a layoff or went under, did you have to move? It seems that often changing jobs was something that we were forced to do, or just led into, not something we were thinking hard about doing. After all, who hasn't run across the person who has been whining and complaining about the same job that they have been in for 20 years, LOL?
Thanks,
Lloyd

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Ah, I like to know Why also, but as an addendum to your thots, I want to know why peeps DON"T change jobs more often. Me thimpfks that most peeps stay at crap jobs for several reasons, each person maybe even a combination of reasons.

First, it is just plain insecurity, fear of something new or meeting new peeps or unknown bosses, etc. Second might be fear of uprooting the family, moving, new schools, etc. Third , maybe a certain amount of comfort and ,
many other reasons also.

Lloyd-ss said:

I am always interested in WHY people change jobs, particularly actual changes in career. Were you consciously seeking a change, did an opportunity just present itself, got a promotion, did the company have a layoff or went under, did you have to move? It seems that often changing jobs was something that we were forced to do, or just led into, not something we were thinking hard about doing. After all, who hasn't run across the person who has been whining and complaining about the same job that they have been in for 20 years, LOL?
Thanks,
Lloyd

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I did same work for over 30. Started this type about about 1963 or 1964. It was step-by-step. First Model aircraft engines next wanting engines and parts. My father was in metal buildings so I need models aircraft part so I was iron work in High school and College. Parter in 1973.

My evolved from castings for model parts hopping for big run maybe 20 casting in bring of 1976. We ask to build a few small doors maybe 100 or 200 casting. Now thinking that would get foudry going. They up the order door leaves 3,750. That is 4 casting per door leaf
3,750 × 4 = 15,000. Will skip model engines.

Then took a hobby in rebuild old engines

Dave

FYI
Iron work paid in cash for College.
Most was trying Grant or a loan.
It more fun to watch the College salesman give me speech on getting or load. Saying you joined the army but this lot safer. I reply I have cash. Ever talk to had a different surprise

Never told them Iron was in top 3 dangerous work and army in top 10.

SmithDoor said:

..................We ask to build a few small doors maybe 100 or 200 casting. Now thinking that would get foudry going. They up the order door leaves 3,750. That is 4 casting per door leaf
3,750 × 4 = 15,000. Will skip model engines.
,................

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I love that Dave! The type of big order that every small shop dreams of. It's like: "Here it is. It is yours to run with or to drop the ball." Glad you were successful!
Lloyd

Lloyd-ss said:

I love that Dave! The type of big order that every small shop dreams of. It's like: "Here it is. It is yours to run with or to drop the ball." Glad you were successful!
Lloyd

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Thank you

I was in big doors like for Cenases
upto 747. The first order was for a tiny 16 x 12 foot opening foot opening

Dave

Before 1972 the UK waste disposal industry was unregulated (we should fear for the future because of what has been dumped at some of the landfill sites).
An incident involving dumped cyanide hardening salts encouraged me to approach a local waste disposal business and enquire as to whether they employed anyone with a knowledge of chemistry , they did not and offered me a job at twice the salary I was currently earning.
The company was also a large scrap metal reclaimer and later sold their waste business to a competitor, and rather than lose me they offered me a job as ferrous scrap buyer.
The new job involved visiting factories all over the UK industrial midlands and one of the benefits was that many factories had old machines to dispose of.
Needless to say anything that could be used for model making I bought myself.
I got several Myfords , Drumond round beds , Centec milling machines and sometimes whole production lines that were scrapped.
Before long I had quite a lucrative business on the side renovating and selling the machinery.
One purchase was a metal melting furnace from a technical college , it was too small for an industrial sale and too large for home use so I was stuck with it for a few years.
I eventually set up my own business and decided to fire up the aforementioned furnace and make some brass castings.
We knew that we could never make money sand casting so I developed my own lost wax production system which eventually led to a business relationship with a foremost English sculptor and for several years we produced his work , mainly horse and dog sculptures in bronze but also business awards.
Unfortunately the sculptor suffered a stroke and lost the use of his hands so as an alternative I joined every model making forum I could find and offered a casting service.
I have produced thousands of castings mainly for model UK locomotives but had customers from USA to New Zealand.
Now I am taking it easy and only work on my own projects ,hoping to get them finished before the workshop in the sky beckons.
Dan.

abby said:

Before 1972 the UK waste disposal industry was unregulated (we should fear for the future because of what has been dumped at some of the landfill sites).
An incident involving dumped cyanide hardening salts encouraged me to approach a local waste disposal business and enquire as to whether they employed anyone with a knowledge of chemistry , they did not and offered me a job at twice the salary I was currently earning.
The company was also a large scrap metal reclaimer and later sold their waste business to a competitor, and rather than lose me they offered me a job as ferrous scrap buyer.
The new job involved visiting factories all over the UK industrial midlands and one of the benefits was that many factories had old machines to dispose of.
Needless to say anything that could be used for model making I bought myself.
I got several Myfords , Drumond round beds , Centec milling machines and sometimes whole production lines that were scrapped.
Before long I had quite a lucrative business on the side renovating and selling the machinery.
One purchase was a metal melting furnace from a technical college , it was too small for an industrial sale and too large for home use so I was stuck with it for a few years.
I eventually set up my own business and decided to fire up the aforementioned furnace and make some brass castings.
We knew that we could never make money sand casting so I developed my own lost wax production system which eventually led to a business relationship with a foremost English sculptor and for several years we produced his work , mainly horse and dog sculptures in bronze but also business awards.
Unfortunately the sculptor suffered a stroke and lost the use of his hands so as an alternative I joined every model making forum I could find and offered a casting service.
I have produced thousands of castings mainly for model UK locomotives but had customers from USA to New Zealand.
Now I am taking it easy and only work on my own projects ,hoping to get them finished before the workshop in the sky beckons.
Dan.

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I point about most like Hobby Model Engines & Machinist is very good. Most do not beyond home Machinist, it does give others ideas and how it done.

Just look at what I did in my life.

1) Started model aircraft
2) Learning drafting for drawing on models.
3) Next building model engine & machine work where I learn the skills.
{ About this time working with father as a Iron worker }
4) Taking courses in engineering.
5) Starting a company manufacturing Aircraft hangar doors.
6) There others you may know like the Rutang Brothers.
There first to fly around world with on tank of fuel with out mid-air refueling. FYI (Rutang) . is missing spell They where members of Fresno Radio Model a RC group and EAA A Goup build ing full size Aircraft / Experience
the list goes on and on.

The problem I had with remaining at one design firm was that I got pigeon-holed into doing some pretty menial design work; sort of McDonalds-grade design work, like the fryer person, specialized but no room to learn anything else.
After four years, I realized I was as far along as I would ever get in the company.

Another job offer came along, and some of that design work was way over my capabilities.
I took the job, and the company proceeded to cut my salary by 30%, saying I was not as qualified as they thought.
I took the pay cut because I knew there was great potential that I could realize by staying at this company.
Within a year I had gotten my 30% back, and I got a lot more than that over the next 6 years.
Then this company lost 3 major clients, and was discussing closing.

Another company called, and had an opening, and so I moved there into a high-pressure position.
I survived for 4 years, but my health was failing from the pressure, and so I went back to the first company, which was a huge mistake.
Never go back to a company that you have left, since you are a marked individual, and the veteran/original folks there will make sure you fail.
I actually got lucky and was fired from this company after a managerial change, after about a year, and that was when I decided to start my own company, and bypass the folks who would so easily fire me.
The folks above you on the corporate ladder will often work much harder at preventing you and anyone else from advancing, and they often work much harder at this than their actual work position.

I have run my own company for 21 years, and it has been a good thing.
My only problem is that I get offered too much work, and end up having to decline many projects.
I focus on a few critical clients who pay well, and forget about the rest of the commodity projects out there.

I know some folks who have remained at the same company for many years, but many of them basically stop learning early in their career, and they start to play political games to get ahead.
I have never been a political person, so I sell expertise, not bs.
There is a real shortage of good design engineers these days, because many of the folks who know something are all retiring.

But getting back to the topic, this hobby is a very good escape for me from the madness/mayhem/stress/politics of the corporate working world, where one can focus on building something for fun, as a hobby, and not worry about the problems of the world.
I have always wanted to build things from a very early age.

.

Beyond a hobbies
Today I full of opportunities in manufacturing.
China and Large manufacturing is limited yo large or costly products. There on somethings they will get into or small-scale. Most Manufacturering can be done in a garage size build , hosre branes, pool cabana and list gose on.

A) That makes market for short runs It could a few maybe 50 to 1,000's units a year.

B) Hobby kits , supplies and tools.

C) Car and boats 🛥 parts and other special items.

D) Customize and building.

The list just goes on.

Dave

I wanted something to do with my Atlas lathe other than making an occasional bushing to fix a lawnmower wheel or something else broken around the house. I started watching Mr Pete videos and built some small engines, then PM research kits… the rest is history.
Now I volunteer at the National Capital Trolley Museum in Maryland. I make or restore Trolley car parts. I find that very rewarding. (For you UK guys, we have a Blackpool boat car which I have made controller contacts for.) I’m currently working on a PM horizontal engine as I can slide it in. When I’m done with a project I stand back and say to myself, “I did that and it will be here after I’m gone”. I hope when someone else (grandsons?) looks at it in some far, future years it will spark some memories of me.

peterl95124 said:

in 1992 the book "Strahlturbine fur flugmodelle I'm Selbstbau" by Kurt Schrekling came out, I absolutely HAD to build that engine, I didn't know a word of German, I didn't have any machine tools, but I simply HAD to.

after a year or two of researching bench-top machine tools, reading text books on turbine theory, and even visiting the Garrett / AirResearch Turbo Charger factory down in L.A. (they were kind enough to share some compressor performance maps / graphs), I started machining, and it was another year or two of "wall parts", but it did become a working engine, ran a couple times in my backyard and once at a BAEM Club meeting (there are still a couple members old enough to remember the event). I am in the process of building a new (good looking this time around) engine mount and display board/box and might even try running it again at another GGLS/BAEM meeting or open house.

and I really need to make another tail cone, in addition to heat discoloration (which will happen either way) it is a cosmetic disaster, I made this one by "metal spinning" except I didn't use a ball-bearing I used metal-on-metal and Yikes! Yeuk! Yeouch! :-( !!!

next up, a second engine based on a Borg-Warner EFR turbocharger, CNC machined from bar stock compressor rotor, cast Titanium-Aluminide turbine rotor (very light weight compared to Inconel), and ball-bearing shaft and housing. With a radial-inflow turbine it should allow a higher compression ratio than the axial flow type in existing RC airplane turbines which should translate to higher fuel efficiency. Whose with me on this, anyone ? !!!

engine number three would be the Holy Grail of turbine builders, a co-axial turbo-fan, but that seems to be a pipe dream, compressor and turbine rotors would need to be designed from the start to be large enough for the fan shaft to pass through, as that's not something you can do starting from a part that was designed for minimum size and mass, and while a 5-axis CNC machined from bar stock compressor rotor is theoretically within the grasp of a home shop machinist, a custom Titanium-Aluminide turbine rotor is simply impossible. But the pipe dream still dreams on !!!

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I've been out of the gas turbine industry for over 30 years, so perhaps there have been improvements I'm unaware of, but it's always been my understanding that Radial Inflow turbines, like the ones used on most RC model gas turbines, do not work with even small levels of back pressure, such as would be produced by driving a second radial inflow turbine, or even an axial flow hot section.

When I left the industry, both GE and Garrett were attempting to produce all ceramic axial flow blades,...I do not know if they were successful. However, given the tiny size of RC model engines, all ceramic axial blades seem within reach; blades would need to be about the same size as many of today's ceramic lathe bits, which use Silicon nitride (Si3N4).

A word of caution if you decide to pursue ceramic blades: they typically failed do to the formation of micro-fractures which often cannot be detected through visual inspection and when they fail they do so catastrophically.

I too have a soft-spot for turbine engines, both gas & steam. You've done some amazing work on your engines, both IC and gas turbines,...I wish you great success with a twin spool turbine.