This will be a repeat of my introduction on the Model Engine Maker forum, with a few updates.
For those that don't know my sardonic and hopefully amusing way of reflecting on the model machining scene, here goes.
I retired this year from about 50 years of professionally practising architecture, planning, and design. I have also been a photographer and am now concentrating on watercolor painting. I enter my paintings in open, juried national and regional shows, and am lucky to be doing well at that.
I also fly RC airplanes when the weather is nice, and I make things to repair the planes when they crash. Some 10 years ago I got the foolish notion of building a model Bleriot plane and an Anzani engine, going so far as to contact Les Chenery about buying the castings. Fortunately, I didn't go ahead with that lame-brained scheme. See my Upshur engine saga, below.
My parallel interest in tools, engines, motorcycles, and everything about making things with your hands is lifelong, inherited from my Dad, who was a professional woodworker, and Mom who was a painter and maker of fantastic dolls sewn from scratch.
My basement shop is snug as a bug in a rug, small, climate controlled, and contains a Clausing 8520 and an Aciera F1 mill, and a South Bend 10K with zero wear and a Derbyshire 750 lathe, and most of the usual ancillary small things with motors that make dirt, sparks, holes, and big things smaller. I seldom need to buy small accessories for the machines now, as I have acquired much of what is needed to make engines. Hah, who am I kidding here?
I built the shop over the years so that I could maintain my Ducati racing bikes, or did I race the bikes so I could maintain my shop? No one knows for sure.
10 years ago I built a Dick Upshure Farm Engine that wouldn't run, so I took it to Dick, who put it right for me. (corrected the numerous mistakes)
Then I started a Bob Shores Silver Bullet that is getting closer to completion after an 8 year hiatus. The fits and starts of this build are posted on HMEM and MEM forums, but when it is finished, I will post pictures here. It is in the final stages, with almost everything built, but now I have to make it all right.
I freely confess that I would rather buy a new machine than finish an engine, but I admit the disease and know it to be terminal.
Maybe if I think of something else, I will supplement it here.
I joined this forum quite awhile ago, but I guess my membership got lost, so here I am again and enjoying it. Many thanks to Bogs, who has been very generous and helpful, and is a real teacher to many.
I am flattered to be allowed into all of these forums, and I have to say that my skills have improved tremendously from listening to the guy here. (still a long way to go).
Mosey
