Hi all,
here's the pictures of my production.
The David II was originally made with an aluminium cylinder, it lasted about four or five seconds before destroying itself. Learnt the meaning of 'galling', that day.
Here it's shown with the new cylinder, column and piston.
Next, came Elmer's #13: I had ideas I could make the bearing from solid aluminium (plans were for soldered brass): I succeded, but will never show a closeup picture of the drills below the reversing mechanism.
This is the MVDEO10x20, my fourth, which came out as #3 when I could not re-assemble the parts of the Open Column with Reverse:
a few Years later I finally replaced that temporary base
My fifth, Elmer's #17
And the sixth, Elmer's #29
A closeup of the dome
And the reason why it was made that way.
Finally, I managed to complete my 3rd, the Open Column with Reverse: it doesn't run very well, but I don't think I will spend more time into fixing that thing (I never liked much from the start).
Current projects are a coupla of Bernays (started machining the first from an aluminium block, then managed to put my hands on a lump of bronze... I really could foresee no way to recycle that thin al. around those big holes but for a Bernay block, and so it was), a slowly progressing Elmer's #33 an even slowlier #34, a Sidewheeler from E.T. Westbury (still at the scribing stage: spent days scribing and re-scribing the same parts on a steel plate before being informed there was an error into the drawings) and a double sized Elemer's #13 I will never complete (but I won't maind: I stopped giving 'numbers' to my engines the moment I started them. No more gaps to fill)
There's also a couple of "Eric" locos. But I don't have the equipment nor the skills to have parts brazed or soldered, and that will be a bit of a problem with the boilers. Will face it the day it will come.
All the above projects were started on the same day, some two weeks after completing #29: that put a clear cut on the 'what next?' dilemma.
Marcello