Product Description

In this book Rudy shows us detailed plans for the Walking Beam Engine, Model Marine Engine, Open Column Steam Engine, Model Mill Engine, Enclosed Crank Steam Engine and a Model Horizontal Steam Engine. This book contains only the drawings to guide you through the building of the various engines.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #925055 in Books
• Published on: 2006
• Binding: Spiral-bound
• 98 pages

Customer Reviews

WORKING STEAM ENGINES
The book title should be changes to toy or model steam engines since there are no plans for anything but tiny engines.If you are looking for plans to build a steam engine that can actually do some work this book is not for you.If you are looking for plans to build a toy engine, these plans are not complete but a real machinist should be able to fill in the blanks and finish the design work and make something that will run for a little while.

Great set of plans! Novices may need more directions.
This is an excellent set of steam engine plans, especially for novice engine builders who have even a little bit of experience. They are well drawn, and the drawings are large enough to be easily read and used (important for someone with my aging eyes!)

For anyone just starting to build engines, you need to be aware that this is a set of plans (measured drawings.) While they are excellent plans, they do not contain a detailed, step-by-step set of instructions for how to machine and assemble the engines. If you first build a couple of engines using plans that have instructions, or even assemble an engine or two from kits, then you can easily figure these out for yourself.

The engines built from these plans are also large enough in size (and/or scale) to make them easier for beginners to build. Up to a point, the larger the size of the finished engine, the more forgiving the dimensions are for new machinists. If you get much larger than the engines in this book, however, it becomes more difficult and expensive to find or buy the raw materials, and you may need larger tools to machine the parts. So...size-wise, these are a really good designs for models.

Finally, the designs have been simplified somewhat, i.e., they don't have all the tiny bells and whistles of a full size steam engine, like governors, etc. These are nice but add to the complexity of getting your engine assembled and running. However, if you know how to build these extras, you could easily add them to these designs. For example, some of the photos in the book show lubricators on the engines, however, the lubricators are not shown in the plans. Once you know how to make a simple lubricator, they are easy enough to build and add to your engine.

So, as long as you've at least assembled an engine or two and know how the parts go together, you should enjoy building the engines in this book. As I said, it's an excellent book, and I believe it is one of the better sets of steam engine plans that I have ever found at any price. Good luck!