Other Downsizing

Aquaholic

World's Oldest Teenager
Location
San Diego, CA.
I normally refrain from posting stuff which isn't non watercraft related. I mean this is a friggin' PWC site, no?

However, we're all gear and motor heads here... and what I saw today was so mind bendingly cool, I had to share it with ya all.

Here in the north county of San Diego, is a miniature motor and craft museum. It's free to the public and has an extensive collection of some of the most intricately hand crafted and machined engines of all types, makes and models, ranging from automobile, aircraft, boating, firearms, etc.

4 stroke miniatures, with piston bores the size of a dime... that actually run!

We took the tour which included a discussion of how some of these pieces of functional art are painstakenly crafted, also a demonstration of how a few of these engines actually run.

The sound of these tiny engines was as cool as any F1 motor I've ever heard.

Words escape me as to how cool this stuff was. We spent about an hour there and only scratched the surface. I could have easily spent the whole day... GEEKING out on this stuff.

The guys running the museum were mostly retired machinists in their late 60's, 70's, and early 80's.

On with some pics!IMG_8027.JPG IMG_8029.JPG IMG_8030.JPG IMG_8031.JPG IMG_8032.JPG IMG_8035.JPG IMG_8036.JPG IMG_8037.JPG IMG_8039.JPG IMG_8042.JPG
 
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Location
Stockton
That little V-8 with blower is awesome with all it's miniature accessorys, starter and blower, the whole thing is fricken Kool! All of it! And the retired machinist are my hero's, doing by hand!!!
 

Aquaholic

World's Oldest Teenager
Location
San Diego, CA.
That radial engine looks amazing, did they start one?

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

They didn't start the 18 cylinder shown above. But, the guy giving the shop tour showed us a radial 5 cylinder that he is fabbing up. Incredible stuff. He explained the process of machining rings this tiny. It's not uncommon for the rings to snap during assembly The challenge was finding a cast iron material that was springy enough, so that they wouldn't fail during fitment. He found a micro ore material that had the properties that he was looking for. He showed us that he could twist the ring like a pretzel and it wouldn't break. Try doing that with a full size ring.

He went on to explain why the P51 Mustangs with the big Rolls Royce and Merlin engines would often fail in combat.

As capable as they were against the enemy, apparently if they were strafing a target and shrapnel blew upwards... it could esaily puncture the radiator(located in the belly), and then it was game over for the pilot. One of the Mustang's few vulnerable spots was the cooling system. A single bullet through a radiator or pipe was usually enough to down a P-51. That's why air cooled radials were preferred by many WWII combat pilots.

Fascinating SH*t!

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McDog

Other Administrator
Staff member
Location
South Florida
I wonder what the power to weight ratio is on those. I would love to see what a mini v8 the size of a toaster oven in a ski can do.
 

Quinc

Buy a Superjet
Location
California
I could see OCD doing something like this in his "golden years". Also reminds me of the guys in Russia that make the tiny functional guns:
meticulously-crafted-fully-functional-miniature-guns.w654.jpg
 
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