Where this all began...
This project is set, to be a game of two halves, the first half started over four decades ago on the 24th Oct 1974 when my Grandfather, Phil Smith, purchased a complete set of drawings for the Allchin Traction Engine from A J Reeves, a supplier of model engineering drawings and components who are still operating today. This was a good few years before I was born, and around the time when his son and daughter had probably flown the nest, so I can only guess that his interest in engineering and new found free time motivated him to take on a small scale engineering challenge that could be completed in the small workshop facilities he had available.
Phil was diligent enough to have safely stored all the original receipts for the materials that he bought and they show that over the following two years the vast majority of the parts necessary to complete the build were purchased and from this point and into the 1980's the project was worked on to reach the stage shown below.
This project is set, to be a game of two halves, the first half started over four decades ago on the 24th Oct 1974 when my Grandfather, Phil Smith, purchased a complete set of drawings for the Allchin Traction Engine from A J Reeves, a supplier of model engineering drawings and components who are still operating today. This was a good few years before I was born, and around the time when his son and daughter had probably flown the nest, so I can only guess that his interest in engineering and new found free time motivated him to take on a small scale engineering challenge that could be completed in the small workshop facilities he had available.
Phil was diligent enough to have safely stored all the original receipts for the materials that he bought and they show that over the following two years the vast majority of the parts necessary to complete the build were purchased and from this point and into the 1980's the project was worked on to reach the stage shown below.
I can remember that as a boy the traction engine was regularly unwrapped and inspected as the parts slowly developed and my interest in engineering grew, spurred on by Phil's enthusiasm for subject. This was fuelled and regularly ignited by a small fleet of Mamod steam engines that were also regularly steamed, normally on a the kitchen table swimming with boiling water, oil and alight with misplaced meths. From here and following the death of Nan in the late 1980's, I believe that Phil lost interest in the project and focused on other less fiddly tasks and as such the engine was wrapped and lost to the back of the shed, where it would essentially remain for the next two decades. During this period sadly Phil also passed away and the contents of his workshop move to the care of my father, where it remained until Summer 2014.
I have no idea how much time and effort Phil poured into the engine however, having now completed a few parts myself I can fully appreciate that it must have been considerable, as the quality of the finish, attention to detail and precision of the parts are exceptional. The result so far is truly a credit to him and having invested the time he has it would be dishonour for the engine to remain unfinished.
The second half of the project essentially started with in 2014 when following a few considered thoughts regarding the time required to take the project on and the inevitable difficultly of picking up where someone else left off, I decided to ask my father if he would mind me taking it on. My father agreed and the decades old wrapping were slowly extracted from the boxes dotted round the garage and the identification of the parts began.
To the unprepared, as I very much was, the next few months were a challenge as all the 'made' parts had to be identified and carefully inspected against the drawings to build up the picture of how far the project had actually been taken, and where any 'engineering licence' had been taken on the dimensions requiring this to be replicated in the mating parts that still needed making. To my reckoning about 50% of the parts had been completed, including the boiler, motion, gears, compensating center, fore carriage and many more. In addition to this there was also many untouched castings bought on the original purchase.
To start next phase of this project I had to make some working principals which are:
And once I had accepted the principals I completed the audit on the parts and purchased a few castings to replace those that had been lost through the distance of time and some materials and fasteners needed to get me started. Armed with a now scanned copy of the original drawings, a workshop equipped with a significantly bigger lathe and CNC milling machine I started to make swarf - in Imperial.
So from here, and as time allows, I plan to document on this site, the progress I make on the various parts of the build and hopefully cover some of the new skills and techniques that I have to learn along the way which may help or be of interest to any follow model engineers cutting their first teeth in model engineering.
Stevosmiff - Feb 2015
I have no idea how much time and effort Phil poured into the engine however, having now completed a few parts myself I can fully appreciate that it must have been considerable, as the quality of the finish, attention to detail and precision of the parts are exceptional. The result so far is truly a credit to him and having invested the time he has it would be dishonour for the engine to remain unfinished.
The second half of the project essentially started with in 2014 when following a few considered thoughts regarding the time required to take the project on and the inevitable difficultly of picking up where someone else left off, I decided to ask my father if he would mind me taking it on. My father agreed and the decades old wrapping were slowly extracted from the boxes dotted round the garage and the identification of the parts began.
To the unprepared, as I very much was, the next few months were a challenge as all the 'made' parts had to be identified and carefully inspected against the drawings to build up the picture of how far the project had actually been taken, and where any 'engineering licence' had been taken on the dimensions requiring this to be replicated in the mating parts that still needed making. To my reckoning about 50% of the parts had been completed, including the boiler, motion, gears, compensating center, fore carriage and many more. In addition to this there was also many untouched castings bought on the original purchase.
To start next phase of this project I had to make some working principals which are:
- Use as many as the original parts of as possible
- Do not remake any components
- Try my best to match the quality of the original work
And once I had accepted the principals I completed the audit on the parts and purchased a few castings to replace those that had been lost through the distance of time and some materials and fasteners needed to get me started. Armed with a now scanned copy of the original drawings, a workshop equipped with a significantly bigger lathe and CNC milling machine I started to make swarf - in Imperial.
So from here, and as time allows, I plan to document on this site, the progress I make on the various parts of the build and hopefully cover some of the new skills and techniques that I have to learn along the way which may help or be of interest to any follow model engineers cutting their first teeth in model engineering.
Stevosmiff - Feb 2015