Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Jon Zwicker's Farmboy

 Hello Allen

I just wanted to let you know that I finished my Farm Boy No. 1019 , this is the first engine I’ve ever built and I really enjoyed it.  Your prints are excellent.  I was a pattern maker for 30 years and it seems that there were always a few missing dimensions.  Your prints were very complete !

I thought you might like to see some pictures.  I haven’t painted it yet and maybe I won’t, having too much fun just watching it run!

I see in one of the photos of someone else’s engine that they built they had an oval Farm Boy plate made for the side of it.  Any idea where it could possibly get something similar ?

Thanks Again

Jon






Thursday, September 12, 2024

Alan Gorlick's Farmboy (and plan changes/corrections)

 Hello Allen,

Just a note to let you know that my FarmBoy engine, Serial # 1033 is finished and running well. I downloaded the plans in March this year and worked on it steadily since then. I used the buzz coil ignition with spark saver option, a standard length Rexcel plug and a 4 AA battery pack. I did depart from the plans a bit to build it as a six bolt head instead of four, just to put my own mark on the model.

The plans are excellent but I can confirm there are two errors on sheet 3. As identified by Andrew Whales in his build series on YouTube, the horizontal spacing between the crankshaft and cam shaft is 1.031" for 48DP gears, not 1.026" shown on the drawing. The other error is that the 0.325" dimension for the cam mounting pad thickness on the Rearward View should be 0.355" as confirmed by the correct  0.105" (plus 0.25") dimension for the pad shown on the Bottom View.

The engine started and ran on the very first attempt, startling me completely! The only adjustments I made was experimenting with governor spring force, initially using a rubber band to get a feel for the right tension and then making the light spring shown in the attached video link which is a short clip of the fourth run. I've raised the speed slightly with the adjusting screw in the catch lever and finished the mounting bolts with nyloc nuts etc since that clip was filmed. The only things left are the crank bearing oil cups and deciding on a paint scheme or maybe leaving it natural.

Thanks again for the quality products,

Regards

Alan Gorlick

Qld, Australia


https://www.icloud.com/photos/#/icloudlinks/09eIMdROuPz9pF8GblRNJj0Og/0



Wednesday, January 10, 2024

PowerHouse - Page 5 Correction

It has come to my attention that there appears to be a dimensional error on page 5 of the Powerhouse plans. On "Frame Side View" (upper left), the dimension of .281 for the distance from the edge of the frame to the location of the push rod bracket holes, should be ~ .210 to .213 instead.  If .281 is used, then the leftmost pushrod bracket located 2.156" away will be too close to the cam gear.

Many thanks to Jay Bolyard and his son Erik who caught this.  

I'm very surprised that this has not been brought to my (or Dad's) attention until now as the plans have been around since 2001!

Regards,

Allen