Hi,

I know a few of you are handy with tools and machining. Just wondering if anyone knows of anywhere that my dad could obtain plans for clock movements and also plans for steam engines? He's made a large pendulum clock (cutting his own gears from brass) and it looks pretty awesome but as he'll be retired from August he needs some projects. He has all the tools, machines and technical know how. Its just the plans he's missing.

Free would be good. But if it has to be paid for then that'll need to do unless its silly expensive. (he's already scoured old Model Engineer magazines).

Thanks for any help!

Philip

How much detail? A quick google of "Steam engine plans" (minus quotes turns up quite a few hits - some free, some not. They don't seem totally complete but there's a fair bit of info there:

http://npmccabe.tripod.com/steam.htm
http://www.john-tom.com/html/SteamPlans.html
http://www.vintageprojects.com/machine-shop/steam-engine-hobby.html (looks fairly detailed)
http://www.modelsteamplans.com/ (not free but only 10 pounds)
http://www.geocities.com/steammodel/engineplans.html

Thanks for the links - some nice steam engines in there.

I think - for the clocks at least - that he needs full detailed plans. There's not much room for guesswork when building a clock movement

Anyone else?

You will want to google for horology and horological plans and drawings.

Here's some (not all plans, and not all free):

http://www.wrsmithclocks.com/books.htm

http://users.tpg.com.au/pgc123/Home/horologicalplans.html

http://www.lautard.com/clockpla.htm

http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/1/7/0/2/17021/17021.htm

He might enjoy designing his own escapement:

http://www.geocities.com/mvhw/TToc.htm

There's lots of room for guesswork, actually. It's only the oscillator that keeps time. Sure, it's precise work, but there's hundreds of different ways to do the escapement and gear train. Building a bunch of different escapements would be a fun project.

I have a good friend who is an accomplished amateur clock maker who designed and built his own precision clock quite a few years ago. He's working on a new all-brass clock with a perpetual-calendar complication of his own design and a roughly 2-meter pendulum. He built himself a brass foundry so he can cast the blanks and then restored a 100-year-old gear hob so he can cut them. It's quite an impressive project. He has an old textbook he swears by; I'll ask him the title and author as I've forgotten.

Jim