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

[timo_gross]

There are many interesting stories behind .
Thanks for sharing!
A little expansion ;....What did you feel when the first engine ran?
For me, after many, many failures, my first stirling engine only ran for a very short time - somewhere around 5-8 seconds and I jumped for joy...like a child

I was quite happy and showed it proudly to some people. The reactions were "what is it good for?", "what does it do?", "why did you make it?" "how much does it cost?", "why do you need it?".
I do not like to show the stuff to people anymore Forum is a "protected" space.
Making more of the engines and getting more relaxed about the "what is it?" question.

 

[michael-au]

I have found that 99.9 percent of the people that come to my place have absolutely no interest in the engines or anything else that I have made or seeing the workshop, I get mostly the same questions as timo_gross

 

[mole42]

I got into building a model engine because I’ve always been interested, I use a Drummond roundbed in my everyday work and I wanted to improve my engineering skills. A pal offered me the casting for a Monosoupape 9-cylinder rotary, and off we go. Of course, it didn’t end there…..

 

[Lloyd-ss]

I have found that 99.9 percent of the people that come to my place have absolutely no interest in the engines or anything else that I have made or seeing the workshop, I get mostly the same questions as timo_gross

Haha! Asking "why" or "what is it good for" is like asking "why do you play golf" or "why do you go out in your boat".

I realize that I am very lucky because the cul-de-sac we had lived on for 20 years had the best neighbors in the world. All DIY types who help each other out. We have since moved away but get together for dinner occasionally. My wife jokingly brought up the latest "thing" I had built: a PID control for the kitchen oven. She had complained about how bad the temperature regulation in the oven was for any "sensitive" baking. The PID now actually works beautifully and my wife loves it. It will hold the temp to +/- 1 degree F if you set the parameters that way.
So I was starting to explain about the PID control to everyone, and I stopped and hesitated, and said, "My God, this is so geeky." One of the guys looked at me and said with a smile:. "Lloyd, we lived next door to you for 20 years, , we know who you are, tell us about it."
I actually took that as one of the most understanding compliments I have ever gotten.
Lloyd

 

[peterl95124]

I have a wall where I hang parts that I ruined when trying to machine them.


All doubts of your abilities to make a functioning engine vanish with that first run.

.

Green,
most of the folks that are really good have been at it so long they've simply forgotten that phase of their life, next to my Rolls Royce Merlin V-12 I have two shoe boxes overflowing with "wall parts" just from that one engine !!!

yes, "first pop" is magical !!!

best,
Pete.

 

[GreenTwin]

Green,
most of the folks that are really good have been at it so long they've simply forgotten that phase of their life, next to my Rolls Royce Merlin V-12 I have two shoe boxes overflowing with "wall parts" just from that one engine !!!

yes, "first pop" is magical !!!

best,
Pete.

We need to see that Merlin !
Please post it here.
That would be an eye-popper/jaw dropper for sure.

.

 

[Lloyd-ss]

Peter and Green Twin. You both are true gentlemen. Thank you!

 

[minh-thanh]

Peter and Green Twin. You both are true gentlemen. Thank you!

True gentlemen !!

 

[clockworkcheval]

My great-grandfather, my grandfather and my father were mechanical engineers and worked all their lives with machines and in machineshops. So with trade school and university I became master in engineering; my son too; and my grandson just entered the mechanical engineering department at the same technical university of Delft. I found myself my whole career mostly talking about manufacturing technology and - organization. Upon retirement I got myself a small machineshop at home and started making things. I'm still discovering that doing it is quite different from talking about it. As a precaution to keep my nice Swiss and German machinetools together in the family I gave the initial toolroomtraining to my son, my daughter-in-law and to my four grandchildren. To let them not forget the basic lessons I made about 20 instruction videos, which also serve for the mandatory workshoptraining of our horological society. In Dutch! ( But I understand online translation is a standard option today.) See 'klokkenbouwen.nl'.

 

[peterl95124]

We need to see that Merlin !
Please post it here.
That would be an eye-popper/jaw dropper for sure.

.

https://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/threads/lawrence-merlin-v12.34432/

 

[GreenTwin]

https://www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/threads/lawrence-merlin-v12.34432/

Your thread seems to have slipped under my radar, and also points out that my memory is slipping a bit these days, since there is no doublt I read that thread.

I do recall seeing your video, and I remember that well.

Cool stuff !
I am going back to re-read/refresh my memory.

Edit:
After reviewing your thread, I do recall reading it word-for-word with great interest.
My memory is becoming rather like swiss cheese these days, and there is nothing I can do about it.
Next month I may have to read your thread again; such is life.
People ask me "Does it bother you that you have a memory problem", and I say "No because next week I will forget that I have a problem".

I like your very practical approach to building the engine; very smart.

.

 

[timo_gross]

My great-grandfather, my grandfather and my father were mechanical engineers and worked all their lives with machines and in machineshops. So with trade school and university I became master in engineering; my son too; and my grandson just entered the mechanical engineering department at the same technical university of Delft. I found myself my whole career mostly talking about manufacturing technology and - organization. Upon retirement I got myself a small machineshop at home and started making things. I'm still discovering that doing it is quite different from talking about it. As a precaution to keep my nice Swiss and German machinetools together in the family I gave the initial toolroomtraining to my son, my daughter-in-law and to my four grandchildren. To let them not forget the basic lessons I made about 20 instruction videos, which also serve for the mandatory workshoptraining of our horological society. In Dutch! ( But I understand online translation is a standard option today.) See 'klokkenbouwen.nl'.

My dutch is quite rusty haha . ( It was never goed, maar misschien voldoende , at best ),
Watching "Bedining Aciera F3 freesmachine" quite good.

Greetings

 

[Lloyd-ss]

My great-grandfather, my grandfather and my father were mechanical engineers and worked all their lives with machines and in machineshops. So with trade school and university I became master in engineering; my son too; and my grandson just entered the mechanical engineering department at the same technical university of Delft. I found myself my whole career mostly talking about manufacturing technology and - organization. Upon retirement I got myself a small machineshop at home and started making things. I'm still discovering that doing it is quite different from talking about it. As a precaution to keep my nice Swiss and German machinetools together in the family I gave the initial toolroomtraining to my son, my daughter-in-law and to my four grandchildren. To let them not forget the basic lessons I made about 20 instruction videos, which also serve for the mandatory workshoptraining of our horological society. In Dutch! ( But I understand online translation is a standard option today.) See 'klokkenbouwen.nl'.

You have a very solid approach to the machine tool "philosophy". Much better than most people. I looked at the kokkenbouwen website and was quite impressed. Much beautiful workmanship, but the delicate nature of it is just something I look at. I do not have the patience, skills, and tools to do such work. I think I remember you saying that having the horological guild visit your shop for a meeting was a BIG incentive to have it well organized. I only have one clock, a Seth Thomas schoolhouse clock with a date stamp of February 1900. I managed to get it running fairly well, but its time varies over the 7 days. I think I need to put some bushings at some of the spindle pins on the front and back plates. I think so, but not positive. It is a nice clock and deserves to be properly repaired.
I spent a little bit of time in Den Helder for field service years ago. I loved the Dutch people and the countryside, but Amsterdam was too overwhelming for me. LOL.
Lloyd

 

[peterl95124]

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 !!!

 

[Lloyd-ss]

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 !!!

Peter, I love that engine, maybe because of it's cosmetic features. Machining has always been a design-build process for me, like your turbine. You can tell where in the design process that engine occurred with the obvious after-thoughts and mis-matched parts. I often like those projects better than the ones that were painstakingly detailed to a set of purchased plans. And those drop-dead-gorgeous engines are beautiful, too. But I do have a soft spot for those engines/projects where you can tell the prototype developer got to a certain point in the success story, and then handed it off (figuratively, anyway) to the design and engineering staff to get it into production, along with a list of the things that they needed to be sure they fixed beforehand.

A radial in-flow turbine? The spectators are lining up.

 

[Steamingandy]

I first got the engine building enthusiasm at school with a Stirling hot air engine even casting the base in aluminium, nothing special back then.
Then after spending my working life in engineering and only managing to build a Stuart D10 but assembling all the machinery I needed, retirement happened, I had always wanted to build the Stuart triple and after starting with a boiler feed pump I went for it, COVID provided months of time and it was finished but COVID continued so I built another but opposite hand,
I think once the spark of interest is ignited it’s just the opportunity that is needed, and that’s when the fun begins.
And yes I have a nice pile of mistakes/scrap, you don’t learn anything without them.

 

[timo_gross]

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.

Did you learn German for it? Now things become easy, because we can just copy text to google. (sometimes it is a horrible mess, but often enough we can guess the content).

Investment casting of turbine blades? (how hard can it be? haha)
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4701/12/5/817

 

[Richard Hed]

I have found that 99.9 percent of the people that come to my place have absolutely no interest in the engines or anything else that I have made or seeing the workshop, I get mostly the same questions as timo_gross

I tell them something I cannot repeat on this forum. But a reply like this is also good: "It's for creating a nuclear fusion plant." or "It's for peering at the interior of stars".

 

[BobsModels]

I was quite happy and showed it proudly to some people. The reactions were "what is it good for?", "what does it do?", "why did you make it?" "how much does it cost?", "why do you need it?".
I do not like to show the stuff to people anymore Forum is a "protected" space.
Making more of the engines and getting more relaxed about the "what is it?" question.

How I got started was a lot like George B, plastic models, air planes on strings and model trains, etc as a kid. Then into woodworking in my early 20's, made furniture stuff and enjoyed the end result. Then it happened, in 1974, I was taken to a live steam club and saw those engines running on coal, went out and purchased a 6” Atlas lathe from a company in Texas. I ran the wheels off of engines, went to many club tracks and the unique thing was that wives and children were engaged in the hobby also so it was a family hobby. Got into scale traction engines also and went to many Threshing Shows. In 2002 I had to stop the heavy stuff, health issue. A friend handed me a hit & miss casting kit and said you got that shop, build one of these and come out to shows to display it. Pretty soon had a table full of models and displayed at lots of public events. One show was a county fair that was 5 days long about 160,000 plus visitors – talk about questions.

Timo_Gross and others who have had the question same issue - the questions that you got were just a small fraction of the kinds I and the other modelers would handle. You have to understand we loved engaging the public non-model folks in conversation, that was much of the fun of displaying. We had friendly comebacks for each type of question that would get people talking. We had signs on the tables that said “Please do not touch – but do ask questions about the models” and my favorite sign is “Don’t Wonder – Ask”.

I cannot count the number of times I explained how a hit & miss engine works, or why did they exist, same for hot air engines, steam engines, etc. Learn history about your engines, have examples of what they did. Tell them you made all the parts, just tell them you made the springs and I usually get a whole discussion out of that. I had a neat spiel during national elections at the fair. Had two plastic pipes coming out of the ground up to the table with hot air engines. There were Republican and Democrat who both had booths at the fair. I told the people that I like the fair at election time because I did not need fuel to run the hot air engines, then proceeded to see which party ran the engines the fastest. People really got a chuckle out of it and at the same time I explained how the engines worked and what they were used for. Once there were member’s of one of the political party’s in the audience. They said my talk was in poor taste, I told them they really should not take themselves so seriously its county fair have some fun, the audience clapped. The political folks left.

I have fun with the hobby, shows that have very few people get crossed off my list. No fun just sitting there watching my engines run all by myself. Next time anyone gets a question get them engaged in a discussion about the engine, ask what they do for pleasure.

To me it’s a hobby of sharing not only engineering information with fellow modelers but also engaging and educating the public to an exciting hobby. You should see the crowd my granddaughters generated when they explained how they built (machined) engines, they were pre and early teens when displaying.

Summer is coming get ready for lots of opportunity to crank up the models.

Bob

 

[timo_gross]

How I got started was a lot like George B, plastic models, air planes on strings and model trains, etc as a kid. Then into woodworking in my early 20's, made furniture stuff and enjoyed the end result. Then it happened, in 1974, I was taken to a live steam club and saw those engines running on coal, went out and purchased a 6” Atlas lathe from a company in Texas. I ran the wheels off of engines, went to many club tracks and the unique thing was that wives and children were engaged in the hobby also so it was a family hobby. Got into scale traction engines also and went to many Threshing Shows. In 2002 I had to stop the heavy stuff, health issue. A friend handed me a hit & miss casting kit and said you got that shop, build one of these and come out to shows to display it. Pretty soon had a table full of models and displayed at lots of public events. One show was a county fair that was 5 days long about 160,000 plus visitors – talk about questions.

Timo_Gross and others who have had the question same issue - the questions that you got were just a small fraction of the kinds I and the other modelers would handle. You have to understand we loved engaging the public non-model folks in conversation, that was much of the fun of displaying. We had friendly comebacks for each type of question that would get people talking. We had signs on the tables that said “Please do not touch – but do ask questions about the models” and my favorite sign is “Don’t Wonder – Ask”.

I cannot count the number of times I explained how a hit & miss engine works, or why did they exist, same for hot air engines, steam engines, etc. Learn history about your engines, have examples of what they did. Tell them you made all the parts, just tell them you made the springs and I usually get a whole discussion out of that. I had a neat spiel during national elections at the fair. Had two plastic pipes coming out of the ground up to the table with hot air engines. There were Republican and Democrat who both had booths at the fair. I told the people that I like the fair at election time because I did not need fuel to run the hot air engines, then proceeded to see which party ran the engines the fastest. People really got a chuckle out of it and at the same time I explained how the engines worked and what they were used for. Once there were member’s of one of the political party’s in the audience. They said my talk was in poor taste, I told them they really should not take themselves so seriously its county fair have some fun, the audience clapped. The political folks left.

I have fun with the hobby, shows that have very few people get crossed off my list. No fun just sitting there watching my engines run all by myself. Next time anyone gets a question get them engaged in a discussion about the engine, ask what they do for pleasure.

To me it’s a hobby of sharing not only engineering information with fellow modelers but also engaging and educating the public to an exciting hobby. You should see the crowd my granddaughters generated when they explained how they built (machined) engines, they were pre and early teens when displaying.

Summer is coming get ready for lots of opportunity to crank up the models.

Bob

Seems you had a different experience, I gave up on showing the things. (I just bore the people and will feel weird afterwards) Frustration about it, is very (or relatively?) limited.
A club or exhibition with more than yourself makes you feel less weird I guess. But I am a "one kid" club. (not feeling sorry for myself)
I like the forum for a little exchange; it makes me feel less weird.
I have neighbors and support that is very valuable, "Less than five tons? seriously? thats not a milling machine!".
It makes some things easy, because with a little help I can get so many common problems solved. (how to dispose old coolant, remove broken tap, finding special insert, emptying the chip tray and dumping the swarf on the neighbors doorstep )

Timo