- Joined
- Dec 31, 2013
- Messages
- 327
I've been collecting Jensen model steam engines for a several years now. It's a no-brainer for me. They are great toys, extremely well built and made right here in my home state of Pennsylvania.
While it's cool to find the mint condition examples, I actually prefer finding a nice fixer-upper as that way I can make it my own and make something old new again.
A few years ago I got a great deal on this engine on Ebay. Typo in the auction title and the somewhat grubby appearance really knocked the price down. Auctions are always a gamble, but let's look at the engine as I received it.
The Good:
Fast-forward some time and I finally decided to get moving on this project. Jensen is happy to sell you parts and the extremely long production runs for their products means they usually have what you want. I actually didn't need that much stuff as I made my own gaskets from PTFE gasket martial, although I did get a new name plate and a few other small items.
And here it is all cleaned-up and running like a champ. I'm very pleased with the performance of this engine and even with all the engines I have it's already my favorite.
I still have a bit more tweaking to do until I'm satisfied but the 90 degree plus weather we are having isn't exactly conducive for playing with live steam toys. I might have to put in the box for a bit until late summer/early fall, but I'll try to get a short video up of it running before that. I've already made a pressure-gauge attachment.
You know, it's kinda funny. Making drive pulleys for these steam engines was the original reason I started looking into metal working equipment. At that time I was looking at one of those very small lathes, so I started watching MrPete's videos to see what it was all about. Well, that certainly took on a life of it's own. After a few years I ended-up with a South Bend 10K lathe, a bandsaw, belt sander, a mill, a bunch of tooling, etc-roo and etc-raa.
And I still haven't made any of those pulleys yet!
While it's cool to find the mint condition examples, I actually prefer finding a nice fixer-upper as that way I can make it my own and make something old new again.
A few years ago I got a great deal on this engine on Ebay. Typo in the auction title and the somewhat grubby appearance really knocked the price down. Auctions are always a gamble, but let's look at the engine as I received it.
The Good:
- It's a Jensen 20: a powerful, electrically-heated toy steam engine. A classic Tom Jensen design.
- Cast-iron based generator, which are now getting quite pricey.
- The boiler looks in great shape: no dents, stripped threads or other signs of abuse.
- It's dirty, but not rusty.
- Upon opening the box, got a good whiff of the distinctive smell of 3-in-1 oil. At one time, someone cared about this engine.
- The frame below the boiler it's stained black. Definitely had some leaking gaskets and leaking water is hard on the heating element (the bottom of boiler sits on a curved heater).
- General dirty, stained appearance
- Found out later that the valve chest needed a re-solder
- The power cord was cut in half and reassembled by twisting the wires together with some black tape. Yikes!
- The generator is actually at the wrong spot as it needs to be run off the main flywheel to hit the proper RPMS. I believe this was a factory 20 and someone added a generator later on.
Fast-forward some time and I finally decided to get moving on this project. Jensen is happy to sell you parts and the extremely long production runs for their products means they usually have what you want. I actually didn't need that much stuff as I made my own gaskets from PTFE gasket martial, although I did get a new name plate and a few other small items.
And here it is all cleaned-up and running like a champ. I'm very pleased with the performance of this engine and even with all the engines I have it's already my favorite.
I still have a bit more tweaking to do until I'm satisfied but the 90 degree plus weather we are having isn't exactly conducive for playing with live steam toys. I might have to put in the box for a bit until late summer/early fall, but I'll try to get a short video up of it running before that. I've already made a pressure-gauge attachment.
You know, it's kinda funny. Making drive pulleys for these steam engines was the original reason I started looking into metal working equipment. At that time I was looking at one of those very small lathes, so I started watching MrPete's videos to see what it was all about. Well, that certainly took on a life of it's own. After a few years I ended-up with a South Bend 10K lathe, a bandsaw, belt sander, a mill, a bunch of tooling, etc-roo and etc-raa.
And I still haven't made any of those pulleys yet!
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