Last year, we found this antique steam engine at a farm auction. It was neglected and stuck, like it had been cast aside as obsolete junk 100 years ago. I could not control myself, I had to bid on it and win.
I figured it would be a good project for my retirement years. But my son Cam took a liking to it, and began a weekly ritual of spraying every moving part with penetrating oil. A couple months ago, he got the head bolts loose and the valve body bolts, and started spraying the insides.
Yesterday day he called me at work and said he had a surprise for me when I got home. He wouldn't tell me what it was, but he was so enthusiastic, I though he had a new puppy or something. But when I got home, he showed me the steam engine, running on compressed air!
He told me that every time he sprayed it, he tried to turn the flywheel. This time it moved! So he got busy taking apart the main bearing caps, cleaning and lubricating everything, untill it spun over freely. Then he made new gaskets for it and put it together, hooked up and air hose, and voila!
I love old junk, especially if it works. Now I have try to find some tpye of a small boiler to run it. I was thinking it would be cool to hook it up to a line shaft system and run some antique ceiling fans off of it.
Here is a video of it:
http://youtu.be/DVSmPWyNaz4
