Shop Tour

[putputman]

I belong to the Old Homestead Power Club in the Brainerd area. It is a group of guys that are interested in old tractors, cars, stationary engines, and I guess most anything old & mechanical. We have monthly meetings as well as a few special activities such as tractor parades etc.. They recently visit a couple nursing homes with the old tractors & cars and a few hit & miss engines. It was quite a hit with some of the old-timers in the nursing homes.

I hosted our monthly meeting last week. There are several collectors of old engines, but I am the only one with scale models. I took one to a meeting once and there seemed to be a lot of interest in it, so I offered to host a meeting.

The shop area of my pole shed is too small for a club meeting so I clean out part of the main building and moved my engines out there for display. Being the building was half way clean, something that doesn't happen very often, I thought I would give you a video tour.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBKusCWC9g0[/ame]

The meeting went well and all the engines run fine, surprise-surprise! Usually when I want to show someone an engine, it will act up. I think everyone enjoyed seeing them. There were about 30 members that showed up. We spent about 1 hour playing with the engines. Had a business meeting for about 45 minutes, then had coffee, lemonade, & deserts along with a lot of good friendship.

A few photos of the meeting.

Parking got a little crowded but worked out OK.
http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w10/putputman/Old%
20Homestead%20Power%20Club/Parking.jpg
Officers

Members

After the meeting

As far as I know, I am the only one in this area involved in these model engines. I certainly would welcome finding some others with this interest.

I hope you enjoyed the tour.

 

[zeeprogrammer]

Thanks for the tour Arv. It was very interesting.
I do enjoy seeing how other people are set up.

 

[rudydubya]

Nice shop Arv, enjoyed the tour, thanks for sharing. Great collection of engines. And a nice setting there in the trees.

Regards,
Rudy

 

[ttrikalin]

Nice place indeed. Thanks for showing us around.
tom

 

[deere_x475guy]

Thanks for sharing your pics..and nice setup..btw those shop stoves/ovens I have found come in really handy...what are you using yours for?

 

[doc1955]

Nice shop! wish I lived a little closer to Brainerd.
Arv do you attend the show at Rollog on labor day weekend?
I usually take my father in law to it on the second or third day we haven't missed on in a long time.

 

[4156df]

Arv,
Very nice shop and well done video.
Dennis

 

[putputman]

Thanks guys, for the kind comments.

deere, the is going to be used for a smoker this fall. I drilled a series of 3/4" holes from the oven down through to the storage drawer on the bottom. Then took one of the larger burners from the top and mounted it in the drawer. Rewired the burner back to the original control. Will put a cast iron fry pan in the drawer to hold wood chips. The smoke will go up through the 3/4 holes into the oven. when the meat is smoke for a few hours, turn the oven on to bring the meat up to at least 165F for a short time. We use an electronic thermometer placed into the meat.

We have been using this type of smoker for several years. This one hasn't been used yet.

Old stoves are cheap or free. They last several years and can be easily replaced. They provide much more temperature control than most smokers.


doc, I have been to Rollog a couple times. 1st time was 2005. Great model display with tons of models. That is the show that hooked me on I.C. engines. Before that it was all steam.

The next time I went was 2008. The model display was a total disappointment. Very few displays. I will probably attend again, but not this year.

 

[John Rudd]

Wow impressed....
Very nice setup you got there... Thm:

Wish we had space and resources over this side of the pond to have something like that

 

[gbritnell]

Hi Arv,
Thanks for the tour. You have a great looking shop and all the needed equipment.
I have a question for you. Near the end of the tour you panned by the Jerry Howell V-twin and you said you hadn't run it in a long time because it was hard to get meth (I believe) to run it. Did you ever try regular gasoline? The other builds of his engine I have seen all run well on pump gas.
George

 

[kustomkb]

Pole shed? looks more like a mansion to me. ;D You have a great, well equipped shop and a beautiful property.

Thanks for the tour.

 

[putputman]

George, when I first built it I tried reg gas, & colman fuel. I couldn't get it to even pop. I wasn't sure if it was a timing problem or fuel problem. I guess I really never did understand the ignition system that well.
Eventually I got hold of some methanol and got it running. I ran it a few times over the next few weeks and it run well. I was told that meth has a tendency to draw moisture so after each run I would blow all the fuel out of the engine to dry it out.

I didn't like the way he designed the fuel flow to the carbs. It was a small bowl with an overflow tube and you had to control the flow to the bowl very close or you just run the fuel into an overflow tank. It was a real PITA. I finally built a pump that would pump the fuel back up to the main tank so I could run the engine a little longer.

I never did go back & try gas again. I guess I assumed it would require different size carb jets and I guess I was ready to move on to some new engines.

Here is a short video of it.

 

[Omnimill]

Nice workshop Arv, thanks for posting!

Vic.