There is the Wells traction engine, you could fabricate the few castings that it used, bit of a build diary here I should be able to point you to online drawings in a day or two, they are down at the moment.
If you want something more realistic then Rudy Kouhoupt has a nice little case style engine that was in one of his "shop Wisdom" books again a good build on HMEM
John, have a look at ME 4142, 32 March 2001 onwards. A 1/2in scale freelance traction engine was serialised by the name of ' Little Ben'. It could be scaled slightly to use Mamod wheels. It is a little more " model engineer " than a Mamod or the Wells traction engine and uses a single cylinder , double acting slide valve with slip eccentric. I have seen a completed model and it looks quite smart. If you look on YouTube there is a video of one running on air.
Many thanks where can i find the back numbers from ME4142
John,
I had a quick look at the traction engine in ME4142 and I don't know if you would like what you see. It is representative rather than realistic and is very similar to a Mamod style engine – the main difference being the "proper" slide valve cylinder. The boiler is a simple pot type and its outer sheet diameter is well over scale diameter.
I think the problem with modelling a working 1/2" scale traction engine is the boiler size – a half size Minnie would give a boiler diameter of 1.25" which doesn't give much capacity if you have an internal flue. You would probably need a very good feed pump arrangement to keep things going for a reasonable length of time.
Unfortunately I don't have all the articles in the series. i think it was around the time when the delivery of the ME was very spasmodic and I missed quite a few issues.
is it possabile to send me a copy of the article and plan so i can weigh it up, I am looking to build a "Mammod" type as this would fit in with my 7/8ths scale garden railway
is it possabile to send me a copy of the article and plan so i can weigh it up, I am looking to build a "Mammod" type as this would fit in with my 7/8ths scale garden railway
John,
I'll fire the scanner up and I'll need your email address.
Interesting that your railway scale is not far off 1" scale, and a Minnie might be closer to correct, or a half size Allchin at 3/4" scale. Cherry Hinds built a half size Allchin so no pressure there.
In his book "projects for the Unimat", Rex Tingey published drawings an building notes for a 1/16 scale traction engine "Sweet Sixteen", at large a reduced version of Minnie but the engine of his own valveless design. I did it many years ago, replacing the ugly cylinder by a plain reduced version of the minnie cylinder and valve gears, a awkward and minute job I remember..but very happy with the result. you can see a picture in my picasa album
If you are looking for back numbers of 'M.E.', try The Toolbox at Colyton in Devon.
With regard to prototype designs of small traction engines, one starting point would be Henry Greenly's 1 inch 'Model Engineer' model. This had a boiler of 2 3/4 inch diameter, front wheels 4 inch and hind wheels about 6 inch. It was re-drawn by Greenly & Steel in 1956 and I have a feeling that someone has current rights to the Greenly & Steel designs. A search of the web may help.
In his book "projects for the Unimat", Rex Tingey published drawings an building notes for a 1/16 scale traction engine "Sweet Sixteen", at large a reduced version of Minnie but the engine of his own valveless design. I did it many years ago, replacing the ugly cylinder by a plain reduced version of the minnie cylinder and valve gears, a awkward and minute job I remember..but very happy with the result. you can see a picture in my picasa album.
I just found the original series of articles from the Model Mechanics magazine from this site. The five parts are here
Almost a year on and I am back on this thread, the Little Ben articles – how many issues did this run to and what are the copy numbers so I can locate of ebay or elsewhere? starting with ME 4142
Many thanks for the info I have now found a number of issues and they should be with me shortly, BTW do you know who built Litte Jen as shown in a prevoius post, do you or anyone have any contatc details?, I belive Bruce Robertson who wrote the articles had a web site for this, anyone know what the address was and where the drawings can be sourced from?
does anyone know why the postings on this topic are running right across the page behind the side bar advert on this page – can this be changed or the sidebar turned off as it cuts across the post making it impossable to read the thread.