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Another quick update for my little engine. Things are back together now after fixing various issues with the conrod and tidying up some bolts etc. It's looking nice and running well. One of the last jobs was to put some lagging on the cylinder. I am really happy with the results but I still...

That's beautiful work Mike. I would love to see some photos of the Reeves version too from some of the other guys making those. A little steam hammer is on my never ending bucket list!

Although it worked ok I was annoyed by the fact that the slide head was not quite in the middle of it's guides (longways). It was caused because the con-rod was just a bit too short. I think this might have been due to this being a Version 1 set of castings and I am using a Version 2 set of...

Thanks!, I used a radius dresser to make a round shaped grinding wheel for my surface grinder. I used that to make a very accurate concave lathe tool from HSS by holding it at 7 degrees compound angle in my sine vise. So it wasn't too bad really. Sometimes if they are large radius I just do...

Once I finished my displacement lubricator I decided that the engine also needed some kind of valve. I set about making a globe valve from scratch by using a form tool to cut the body. Once this was done I drilled it out and silver soldered in the center part which the handle connects to...

Hi Del, If you are having trouble drilling brass or bronze accurately you might want to try 'brassing off' your drill bits. This is a term that refers to flattening the front cutting face of the bit so that it does not dig in suddenly. It's a bit tricky to explain but Clickspring has a great...

The idea of the holes is so that you can loosen the screw and the liquid will flow out through the bottom of the plug. You don't have to completely remove it to let the liquid out.

Encouraged by all your recent comments here is the latest instalment in my Mill Engine build ... I've never built a displacement lubricator before so I thought I would try to make one for this engine. I had a look around for ideas and found some basic plans on the internet to work from...

Hi Del, Thankyou for your nice comments! I don't have a video of it yet. I want to add a couple of more bits of bling and then I will make a nice video. I'm currently just about finished making a displacement lubricator and then I want to make a nice steam valve for it. Definitely have a go at...

Wow, beautiful work! How long did it take to build?

I thought this engine needed some oil cups to keep the bearings and slides nice and oily. I started out by making a little form tool from HSS and proceeded to form little cups. I held them in a collet to drill the hole in the top. This was a bit tricky and as always I had to make sure I had a...

Oh yes of course!

Emma Ritson has a whole series of videos on how to build this engine. Here is a link to the full playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUNkS7pOL3zt6nKu8fzsUyypB8ueFiXQA

The time has come to paint the engine. I thought about this quite a lot and decided to try Japanning. Japanning is what used to be used on old tools such as hand planes. It is a very hard very black paint made from something called Asphaltum which is a dark brown powder. To make asphaltum...

I think you could probably get by with some loctite on the retaining nut. The keyed shaft is much nicer though and it works really well. The more of these I make the quicker and better they get. I've done about 5 now. I get a kick out of wasting days of my life to save a few dollars. I'm...

Very nice! It looks like an Elmer's wobbler? I have made one of those and they are a great project.

Things are still progressing on my little mill engine build. I decided I wanted some drain cocks for the cylinder but instead of doing the sensible thing and buying them I decided I would make my own. Well one of the trickier parts to make is a little washer at the bottom which has a square hole...

One of the last remaining jobs is to build the slide valve. Not much going on here really, just some straight forward milling with tiny end mills.

Ok now to build the eccentric! I cleaned it up a bit with the belt sander and drilled a couple of 1/8" holes in the two center points. This gave me a nice way to hold it horizontal so that I could clean up the side faces. Once the sides were nice and parallel I cleaned up the other two...

Now to build the cam. I really made a meal of this part but it got there in the end. First I turned the outside diameter to rough size before reversing it to turn the other half so that I could hold it in a fixture. I made this simple fixture to turn the eccentric sections and bore and...