Building Saxonia.

I am currently building a Regner Saxonia kit for a friend. As can be seen in the movie, the chassis runs on compressed air. I've been taking pictures throughout the build: check out the gallery.
I spent a lot of time assembling the wood tender as well as the wood lagging for the boiler. My friend has asked me to add two features to the basic kit: a pressure gauge and a radio control. While I've figured out how I will add these, I have yet to get started on them. One problem that is delaying the build a bit is that several parts were missing from the kit. They should be on their way from Germany a I type this so hopefully, I can complete the engine soon.

MoAH's car show.
BayLUG was invited to display car related Lego creations at the 2008 car show fund raiser for the Museum of American Heritage (MoAH). Click on the picture to see the wide variety of cars on display. I stayed until the end of the show to hear and see all these cars drive off. There wasn't a single trailer in sight: all were driven under their own power! I stayed extra late to see the owner of the Stanley steamer pictured above fire up and start it. An unexpected bonus for me was the opportunity to ride in it around the parking lot!

The Lego walking drag-line takes its first steps.

Yes, I know, this is the most boring movie you have ever seen! For me it marks a great achievement: when I started working on this model back in 2005, I had no way to know if the walking mechanism would be able to lift and propel all the weight of the machine.
After many delays (due to lack of parts and other projects), a recent push over a weekend enabled me to install the boom, power the rotation mechanism (only one out of four slewing motors is powered in the video), add some counter weights (two transformers that will eventually power the model plus a lot of Lego weight elements) and test the walking mechanism.
The walk cycle is very slow (although almost twice as fast as a real machine!) and moves by only a few millimeters per step but it works!
Up to date pictures can be seen in the gallery.

A steamup and a new project.

Click on the picture to see a few more photos from today's steamup at Richard and Melinda's place. We had great weather and plenty of engines running.
Here is a short movie showing some of them in action:

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My newest project is a 1:20 scale Shay locomotive with a surprise twist...
It will re-use an Accucraft two cylinder Shay chassis, engine and trucks. However it will have a strait boiler (as opposed to the T-type of the stock locomotive. The first few pictures are located in the galley here.

Steam-up at Mark's

We had another fine running day at Mark's place yesterday. The weather was cold enough to have great steam plumes, but not so cold that it would be uncomfortable. I managed to forget to bring my good camera, so I don't have any movies and some of the pictures are "artistic" (i.e. shot with my mobile phone)...
I brought my portable dual gauge track to see which gauge one locomotive can pull a full size passenger: the Accucraft K28 pulled me without problem and pulled some heavier passenger with a bit of help starting up hill. The two cylinder Shay pulled a child without problem but could not manage an adult.

Pictures of the steam turbine locomotive

These pictures were taken a coule of weeks ago on Henner's layout (which is under construction). They show the structure of the Lego chassis with all its gears and shfts. Click on the picture to see the complete gallery.

The turbine locomotive.

This prototype is powered by a Jensen turbine. The boiler is a return flue type from Cheddar fired with butane by way of an Accucraft Shay burner. The chassis is built out of Lego Technic and rides on BBB wheels. This was shot on Richard and Melinda's layout in Millbrae California on October 27th, 2007.