May 2019

National Railroad Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

I took this photograph when we were there in 2015.

You cannot be anything but impressed by the size

and complexity of these locomotives. (You might not

be so impressed if you had to do any maintenance

work on one of them!)

NAMES was discussed: Bruce and I went on the

Friday to grab some table space. Don Hayes also

came along. Tony, Stu, Kasey and Brian came for

the day on Saturday, more information later…

Bruce then talked about the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in

North Wales. This was completed in 1890 and carries

the Llangollen Canal over the River Dee. It is

basically a cast iron trough supported on stone pillars

and arches. There is a tow-path with a guard fence

on one side but on the other side of the trough there

is nothing – just a sheer drop of over 100 feet – so if

you are in a boat it is a little unnerving. I actually went

over the aqueduct ~1973 in a canal boat and can

testify to this.

Another piece of information he gave us was the

Union Pacific “Big Boy” #2014, that was being

restored, is now back in running condition:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR7Q27cIEvo

There is a sister (brother?) locomotive, #4017 in the

Show and Tell

Tony Koolen is making more progress on his Case

traction engine. He showed us a video on his I-pad of

the engine running on compressed air. (Sorry, no

pictures.)

We did talk briefly about the request that came last

month from Sara Bennell regarding Murray’s ashes.

Bruce had replied to her request but had received no

response.

Bruce has been going through his book collection and

brought along some that he no longer needed and

gave them away to anyone who wanted them.

Bruce had his 4 ½” howitzer with all the parts he has

made so far, assembled. It is now really taking

shape. He had it essentially in this condition at the

NAMES show.

Kasey Schuilenberg had been trying to repair a spot

welder that belongs to Tony. The problem appears to

be in the switch that turns on the power when the

jaws are clamped together. Unfortunately, Kasey was

not able to locate a replacement switch.

Don Hayes has been shopping again and brought

along a 0 – ½” micrometer that was made for

exclusive sale at Woolworths. I remember my father

had an expression; “as reliable as Woolworth’s watch”

when talking about a piece of equipment you really

could not trust – I wonder whether the same applies

to Woolworth’s micrometers?

I brought along the distributor parts I have completed

so far for my Sealion. The body part is made from a

piece of rigid PVC with brass terminals fixed in place

with epoxy resin (JB Weld.) A moulding for the

distributor came with the kit but with it mounted on the

front end of the camshaft the leads are left pointing

forward in the direction of the radiator (that I will

hopefully buy or make at some point.) My revised

design leaves them pointing to the side and

downwards, which makes things more compact.

The rotor is again made from brass but will have a

central carbon piece to run in contact with the brass

It was supposed to be a working model except that

the engine was a 2-stroke spark ignition gasoline

engine rather than the hot bulb ignition engine used in

the original. Although it is a very nice-looking model,

the owner did not seem to want to demonstrate it

running.

There used to be several seminars on the Saturday,

and some on the Sunday. The last couple of years

there has not been very much: I went to the only

ones they held on Saturday; one by Ron Ginger -

Adventures in Home Shop CNC and another by Rick

Chownyk - Casting In the Home Shop. Ron’s was

quite interesting with some discussion of Mach 4 and

all the interface equipment that is now available. I

have heard Rick’s before and there was really nothing

new. There was one scheduled for Sunday on

Clockmaking but we were not there.

They try to encourage people to stay for the Sunday

but those who have gone along that day have been

very disappointed in what was left to see. One

wonders whether they can really justify continuing into

the Sunday. In fact, one wonders where these

exhibitions are going generally: I was looking for

some information on the internet about NAMES and

came across a rather unkind quote by Thomas

Maher, Chief Engineer at Scottsdale Gear & Boiler.

He apparently said: “The biggest issue is that perhaps

90% of the participants are the same year after year,

and most of those guys look like they might keel over

and die any minute. The Expo needs new blood and

lots more of it.”

Being one of the exhibitors year after year I resent the

“might keel over and die” part but otherwise he has a

point. My sense is that a few new people are coming

into the hobby each year but not enough to replace

those who are no longer active anymore because of

advancing years.

Shows this Summer

Bruce puts together a list of these shows and I used

to include it in the newsletter. The arrangement now

is that Bruce just puts it on our website, so here is the

link that goes straight to the list:

https://sites.google.com/site/bluewatermes/ontarioantique-

equipment-shows

Remaining Meeting for the Season

June 10th

Our Website

https://sites.google.com/site/bluewatermes/

John Lovegrove

Todd Michel stole the show in terms of the number of

items brought along. He is preparing to pour some

iron castings for a fairly large-scale traction engine

model and has been making the patterns and core

boxes ready for the job:

stationary piece in the middle of the distributor cap. It

is designed to be balanced so that opposite the part

that “distributes” the spark there are two “wings” that

provide balance but are clear of the terminals in the

distributor cap. One feature of programs like

AutoCAD is that you can easily find key properties of

the item you have drawn (volume, centre of gravity

etc.) In this case you can adjust dimensions of the

“wings” to get the centre of gravity on the rotational

axis so that the component is balanced.

NAMES

The overall standard of the show was very much the

same as previous years and attendance seems to be

holding up fairly well. However there did not seem to

be the same rush to get in when the doors opened to

the public at 9:00 and the crowd had thinned

significantly by 4:00. Although the official closing time

was 6:00, most people, including ourselves, were

packing up by 5:00.

Bruce brought along his artillery pieces, I had my

Wyvern there and running, I also had the Sealion

there (unfortunately still not running.) Stu brought

along his beam engine and Kasey had a few small

items to show

Looking around the show, one item that did catch my

attention was a very nice model of an early Lanz

Bulldog tractor