As mentioned on York Paul's thread about Christmas indulgences, My Son and Daughter In Law bought me a Stuart Models 10V kit for my Birthday/Christmas last year. They visited yesterday so I got my hands on it. Kit in the sense that most of us know, is perhaps a little strong a description for what you get. Raw Steel Castings Raw Brass castings Assorted bar stock Hardware and sundries, which are nut's, bolts, gaskets etc. You also get (but I didn't take photo's of), an A3 instruction sheet which has all the finished sizes of the parts which are all printed out at full size to help with the build. There is also an accompanying book "Building a Vertical Steam Engine" which I will invest in prior to starting the build. Another plus of this 'kit' is that all the parts are available individually in case I stuff one up. And perhaps more importantly for me, there are lot of of YouTube videos of builds that I can watch to learn from before I start machining anything of my own.
Rob you will have loads of fun building this kit, the tricky but is getting the piston timing right. Here is a picture of my engine I built 4 years ago.
Rob, You love a challenge don't you. I bet as always it will come out looking prefect and smelling of Roses.
I admit I have hung my nose over one of these engines. Lack of any machine tools means I would not know where to start though I believe the castings etc are available for home assembly, at a cost... I look forward to seeing how you get on mate! Wow what a beautifully finished engine Alfie . Pete.
Hi Pete, Machined castings are available but they are a bit eye watering... Replacement unmachined ones are not too bad but I can have a machined replacement carriage for the lathe. At a similar cost to some of the larger raw castings. The difference between one being made here in the UK and the lathe bits made/machined in China.
Nice one, looks like hours worth of er fun I'm sure you'll enjoy the challenge, and once you've gotten the machining castings bug, it'll be wheel castings next with you being a Yorkshireman and Slaters upping the price of wheels Paul
Funny you should mention that, I have here a complete set of Walsall castings for an A3/A4 that I have had for a number of years. I was going to have them turned but the guy who had done wheel turning for me previously, put his prices up to £40 per axle. With 10 axles on an A3 it was too rich for me on top of the cost of the castings, so they will hit the lathe at some point when I have a bit more experience.
