# Steam 'engine' plans!



## Cap'nBill (Dec 27, 2008)

I got interested in the possibiity of building a live steam donkey and began looking for sources. I looked at small engines on eBay and decided the prices were too much for what looked like worn out toys listed as 'Vintage'.... I just love that description! Or, 'untested'.....'I don't know how to run these'.....! Then there were kits, with castings and some hunks of raw metal....$100 up to nearlty $300. Being both poor.., and cheap, I started looking for plans. I found a great site with plans for all the steam engines one could ever want! So here it is: http://john-tom.com/ElmersEngines/ Even if you don't want to build one, good reference material!


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## Cap'nBill (Dec 27, 2008)

Whoops, looks like that link didn't work. 

Added by Peter Bunce moderator: Here is a working link


http://john-tom.com/html/ElmersEngines.html

I think that you inadvertenly added a space in the link ID, in the second version, and missed off the end four letters on the first version


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## Mik (Jan 2, 2008)

One "interesting" thing about Elmer Verberg's plans is they were issued in book form a long time ago. Then along came evilBay and EVERY tech school copy of it was stolen over a period of about 2 years. 

A reasonably priced starting point of a LARGE donkey in Gauge 1 would be the PM Research vertical Boiler kit, and their #7BI engine kit.

Another option for a smaller one requires a bit of finagling. You want the boiler from a Wilesco D49 and the engine from their D48 (both marine engines)


If the prices of these don't make you choke, just wait till you talk to Boston Gear about the reduction gears  


Live steam is NOT cheap for many reasons. The stuff is usually low production, made from fairly expensive (compared to plastic) materials, and often hand finished. (Believe me, the sellers generally are NOT making a killing on it. They do it more for love, my margin was 10-30%...Most big retail establishments won't touch any merchandise that they can't make a 100-150% margin on)


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## Cap'nBill (Dec 27, 2008)

Glad the Moderator got the link to work, at least! The engines, I'm going to assume 'Elmer' built, are IMHO works of art. But then I guess all that 'old', handmade stuff is. Somewhere along the way in all this train stuff(that is LargeScale), I was looking for a theme that would be interesting and I somehow landed in the 'Logging' theme-strange locos, cars, rails, and donkeys. Years ago, as a kid, I had one of those small steam engines and sure enjoyed watching it run, had a neat whistle too! Didn't have the knowledge then to actually make it do anything. I'll never be able to afford a live steam locomotive, but watching a donkey winch a few logs around with some scale rigging would be fun. I'll check out the boilers, engines, mentioned for reference.


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## Mark Scrivener (Jan 7, 2008)

The most impressive, fully operational, live steam, scratch built donkeys I've ever seen were build by Eric Maschwitz, David Wegmuller, and Henner Meinhold (aka the East Devil Hills Lumber company). David has some pictures of the construction on his site:

http://wegmuller.org/v-web/gallery/EDH-Lumber-Co-1%3A20-3-scale-Donkey-Engines?page=1 



and there is a build log in the archives:


http://archive.mylargescale.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=39503&SearchTerms=donkey 


If you send a PM to Eric, David, or Henner I'm sure they could mail you a CD of all the drawings, photos, and relevant info. I know they were handing these out one year at the National Summer Steamup to all interested parties.

-Mark


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## Cap'nBill (Dec 27, 2008)

Thanks for the info. Looks like the 'old' forum pics do not come through. I have studied David Wegmuller's site/pics etc. I think I posted his site in another post. It would be nice to view some of the pics of the various builds. There may not be a lot of interest in these, but they are a fascinating piece of history.


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## rangerjoel (Jan 4, 2008)

What a great link! I was happily browsing it yesterday and came across an interesting plan for a steam engine made out of bits of scrap metal.







http://john-tom.com/MyPlans/SteamPlans2/HowToArticles/SteamEngineToy_th.JPG I am very tempted to build it because it looks like it would require minimal skill (my current level) and would be a nice change from the wobble type steam engine I have made in the past.
Thank you for the link. 
If I start this project, I will post photos in the public forum.
Joel


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## Mik (Jan 2, 2008)

That plan looks like the one from "The Boy's Book of Engines" ca 1943 or so. I'd check, but I loaned my copy to Tony at Nation Builder Books


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