There's always Pay The Man, also too.

Post #445,514 by Another Scott 3/30/25 12:24:11 PM 3/30/25 12:24:12 PM Reply	There's always Pay The Man, also too. My dad loved new hobbies. He learned welding (arc and gas) too. He went overboard in almost all his projects. He designed and built an i-beam engine hoist to go around his 55 Chevy when he wanted to remove and rebuild the engine. He did all the engineering calculations to figure out how strong it needed to be, allowable deflection, etc., etc., bought the materials, cut and welded it together. It looked like it could lift a house, so was probably over-engineered, it worked well, didn't break, didn't kill him, and he was happy with it. He did a lot of practice on small projects for years before making the hoist. Welding is a skill. It takes practice. For anything that you want to work well, be square, and look good in the very near term, you're better off paying someone while you work on improving your skills. As CRC says, there are ways to have bolts hold together. There are a nearly infinite variety of bolt strenghts, etc. In auto stuff, "SAE grade 8" used to be the standard for head bolts and the like. There are ISO (metric) equivalents. You can get even stronger ones. https://www.mcmaster.com/products/grade-8-bolts/hex-head-screws-1~/high-strength-grade-8-steel-hex-head-screws/ You can get locking nuts as well. https://www.mcmaster.com/products/nuts/locknuts-2~/?s=grade+8+nuts An alternative is pop-rivets. There are high-strength SS ones - https://www.mcmaster.com/products/rivets/rivets-2~/tensile-strength~2000~or-greater~lbf/ (McMaster is spendy, but stuff is almost always in stock and at least around here they deliver via UPS the next day for very reasonable prices. They can be a good place to start to see what exists and then look for cheaper versions if that is a constraint.) Good luck! And be careful! Best wishes, Scott.
Post #445,516 by crazy 3/30/25 12:44:04 PM 3/30/25 12:44:04 PM Reply	Not in this case Absolutely not. I've engineered this to fall my lap. Simply by displaying skills and doing the tasks as required and laughing at the quotes when M came back. All sad. It's all fun and games, until I drop a board on my foot, which I have. Of course. Yes, I've learned to wear my boots. This is all good advice and good links. But try to think about my attitude here. I want to go cut up junk metal and soak it in citric acid to remove the rust and build up my inventory from whatever trash I can haul away. I will overkill everything by a factor of three when thinking about stress. Because I'm not an engineer. I'll do whatever the rough estimate is and then I'll triple it for whatever strength I'm looking for. I'll go for thickness and quantity over quality of steel. Give me a backup bar rather than a harder bar. But generally, I'm not making any structures. I'm not a mechanic and I will never play with engines from the point of thinking about getting one running. Simple as that. I'll take a car apart for pieces because it can be used so many other ways, but the actual core engine does not interest me out. Concepts within it are great. But I want steam driven turbine to spin a generator to supply all my power needs. Which in turn should also supply transportation, energy. Electric cars are simple. Car engines are not. I just reconnected with an old buddy. A favorite stoner from my childhood. He's retired now. He had a hell of a career. As a nuclear engineer who flew around the country installing parts inside nuclear reactors. Serious, Hands-On Guy. He's just agreed to be my sounding board on my generator project. This is moving along.
Post #445,519 by CRConrad 3/31/25 3:11:46 AM 3/31/25 3:11:46 AM Reply	You're living my dream. But I want steam driven turbine to spin a generator to supply all my power needs. Which in turn should also supply transportation, energy. Ah, so then you will be able to store (the fuel for making) your own eletricity for arc welding! :-) Cool! Electric cars are simple. Car engines are not. Electric cars are simple in principle; not so much in practice[1]. Combustion engines may not be very simple in practice, but in principle they are, too. A workshop (or two or three, really) is what I've dreamt of ever since I read Trustee from the Toolroom nigh on a half-century ago. Sigh... ___ [1]: See, for example, Volkswagen ID.4: Electric Motor Teardown and Analysis \| Munro Live . -- Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Apparently Still Knows Fucking Everything Mail: Same username as at the top left of this post, at iki.fi
Post #445,521 by crazy 3/31/25 12:52:27 PM 3/31/25 12:52:27 PM Reply	Interesting book Based on the guy who wrote for model engineer. And model engineer is actually available in old digitized copies online, if I'm willing to pay, maybe there are free ones out there. https://www.discountmags.com/magazine/model-engineer-february-21-2023-digital?a=gshopsurfaces&offer=gshopsurfaces&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cse&utm_term=0aafb5c7fbf7&srsltid=AfmBOophyJvHMNXrSIxvR0TOg5t-GzOfixMeV_Wvb1MXMKyt9Wq2UpAGna4 A magazine designed to educate novice engineers in the 19th century would be perfect for me. One that thinks steam engines are fun. New stuff. That's the area of structure I'm playing with, I just have better tools available now. I need to track down more of these. Thanks.

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