Well, after swearing I wouldn't be building any Steam Models, here I am with most of the parts for the Stuart Beam Engine. I have a copy of the manual and I will get myself the plans.

But what is missing? More importantly, what is missing that would be definitely advantageous to buy from Stuart? I think I am probably the third person who has had these bits in his possession and along the way, parts have either gone missing or been destroyed in a machining attempt (not that I will fare any better) so I am looking at what to buy.

The base was missing and I have had a Forum Member contact me and he fortunately had one so that's a start. What else?

This is what I have:

No, no egg sucking at all Chris, but you are assuming that I actually know what I am looking at

I actually don't know what some of the items are, having had zero exposure to Steam Engines of any kind, other than to admire them.

Jason mentions a "valve chest", I have no idea what one is and some of the Googling I have done to determine what one is has left me more confused than before!

graham.

Update – found a great Youtube video explaining the whole Valve Chest thing and now quite a few things are clear to me. I can easily compare quite a bit of this stuff to two stroke (and four stroke) engines. Of which I have quite a bit of experience, built a few from bits too. Not the original bits either.

Edited By Oompa Lumpa on 05/03/2014 21:21:47

Yesterday I had an opportunity to closely examine the parts that I have. I have discovered to my dismay that the shaft pressed through the centre of the beam is off square by some margin. I used slightly different terminology at the time, it all means the same thing!

I have also discovered that the two grooves milled into the top of the column are so off square it is going to cause me to scrap the present entablature arms and re-make them so I can cover up the existing screw holes and remake new. This puzzle can wait but one thing of major (to me) significance, when I removed the arms I poured out small piles of cast swarf from the screw holes. This sort of thing is totally unacceptable to me and demonstrates a lack of detail. If I am going to bush out the centre of the Beam I might as well bush out all of the points and make my own holes. At least I know they will be square.

graham.

Just makes it that much more interesting for me.

My "engineering" is usually fixing someone else's Co**ups so nothing new here.

graham.