Today i would like to present you a steam powered machine shop like they used to exist before electric power was widespread. It includes a powered up medium motor hidden in the side building and a train hub for powering the line shaft and making everything move. But without further talking here are the pics:

as you can see it is still in the wip phase but you get the idea

here is a view of the inside. you can see the powered up motor + hub in the small side building. there is a steam engine, its boiler, the line shafts to transmit the rotary power throughout the entire shop,a drill press, a workbench table complete with a benchvise and a lathe. i am planning to add more tools like a vertical mill and/or a shaper to it.

a closeup of the steam engine: it features a moving piston rod and crank/flywheel, a flyweight governour and the various oilers necessary to keep the engine running.

a closeup of the drillpress: it also has an oiler to oil the bottom bearing and it features an arrangement of belts (not shown here) to get the power to the head of the drillpress to get the drill spinnnign

a closeup of the lathe: this one was inspired by nwbricks on rebrickable but was modified to work and look like a belt driven lathe with its two pulleys for selecting different speeds for turning various diameters and the obligatory oilers that these early bearings needed to keep running smoothly.

the  build was heavily inspired by Dave Richards from youtube who has built himself a workshop just like back in the steam era days complete with various steam powered metal working machines.

Hope you like my model(s)!

Edited January 4, 20223 yr by XG BC

How many minifigs will have to lose a limb before you put safety guards on your belts and pulleys!? Seriously though, great job capturing the essence of a pre-electric machine shop.

5 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

How many minifigs will have to lose a limb before you put safety guards on your belts and pulleys!? Seriously though, great job capturing the essence of a pre-electric machine shop.

safety wasnt a priority back then so i guess a lot of them.

UPDATE:

Finished the shop building. i made it look like it is someones shop who likes to use steam era tools to make stuff so the building looks a bit more modern than historically accurate. i even added an old sign.

 

aside from finishing the building i now added a milling machine to the shop and removed the door. it just felt out of place and uneccessary. also the guy is now doing some lathe work since his steam engine is working turning something down to the correct diameter

detailed view of the milling machine:

i just based this off of the drillpress and beefed it up/added the stuff at the table because thats what a mill basically is: a drillpress on steroids!

Edited January 4, 20223 yr by XG BC

and another new machine arrived at the workshop: a steam powered shaper. these where used before milling machines became the norm. they shaved off material by moving a slide back and forth over the workpiece.

the moving slide on this one actually works (just felt the shop needed more movement)

here is it fit into the shop:

had to add some new pulleys and lineshafts to get power to the machine

Edited January 4, 20223 yr by XG BC

Hey @XG BC , I just came across this post and i love what you've done with the lathe and shaper models. Nice job man

thank you!