Photos: Craig Libuse
Last year it was the first time the GEARS show was held in the Kliever Armory in Portland, OR. This year the weather was perfect and the local model engineering club was even better organized than last year, so everything went off without a hitch. We would have liked to have seen more spectators come out, but perhaps the high gas prices were keeping people home.
Sherline would like to thank all of you who came by our booth to say hello. We offer a special congratulations to Larry Smith for winning "Best of Show" with his Fairbanks Morse 3-cylinder steam engine driving a dynamo. He also ended up buying one of our show lathes, so hopefully that will make his small parts a little easier to make in the future.
Our thanks to the Portland, Mid Valley and Emerald Valley Model Engineering clubs for putting on such a fun and professional show. We're already looking forward to next year's show the last weekend of September, 2006. For more information see the show web site at www.oregongears.org.
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(Click on any photo to enlarge it to 800 pixel size.) |
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Sherline's booth at the show again featured the new CNC mill system, this time with new Sherline CNC specialist Milan Marinkovic doing the demonstrations. Once again Jim Clark did demos on the lathe. Our thanks to all who came by to pick up a free catalog and turn the handwheels. |
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A cross-sectioned airplane engine was a featured exhibit, while the Mid-Valley Model Engineers table is being set up in the background. |
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Another table is almost ready for the show to open. (About the only time I have to take photos without crowds in front of each exhibit are before or after the show opens, so some items may be missing or still covered up.) |
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Gary Martin of Morrison/Martin Models prepares his booth for the opening of the show. Morrison/Martin offer some very high quality casting kits of a variety of engines. |
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Eugene Corl ran his 1/3 scale Chevy V8 for the first time last year, and was running it often at this year's show. In the foreground you can see some of the wood patterns and raw castings that make up the engine. The second photo shows the engine running as Eugene blips the throttle. |
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Eugene Corl also displayed the cam grinder and crankshaft balancing fixtures he developed in order to make his V8 engine. |
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Another table of models is almost ready for the show to open. |
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A 3-cylinder Fairbanks Morse engine by Frank Kipp. |
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Seen from the Sherline booth after the show opened, the crowd was getting pretty thick on Saturday morning. |
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New CNC representative Milan Marinkovic (left) demonstrates the Sherline CNC mill to a couple of interested show visitors. |
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Jim Moyer attracted a lot of attention with his tiny 1/6 scale Chevy V8. He has been working on it since 1995, and each year he has more parts to show. This year the engine had valve covers, a sheet metal pan and an intake manifold with tiny firing order numbers that were hand cut with a Dremel tool. The detail makes them look big, but keep in mind they are less than 1/16" tall. |
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(L) Jim Moyer also built this tiny 4-cylinder Coyotee. The three views show how small it really is. The single overhead cam engine displaces .25 cu in. (3.5 cc). Cylinder bore is .400" and piston stroke is .410". Jim started building this engine in 1964 and completed it in 1995. That's what you call a "long-term project." The front view shows all the fine work just in the radiator. |
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Larry Smith stands behind his engine that won "Best of Show." The Fairbanks Morse 3-cylinder engine is driving a scale Westinghouse generator with detailed control panel. The streetlights light up when the generator turns. |
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Gary Hart built this Sterling hot air engine powered tractor based on a design by Rudy Kouhoupt that was featured in a 1996 article in The Home Shop Machinist magazine. |
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Appropriately enough for a show called "GEARS", this demonstration of odd-shaped non-circular gears by William Bartram of Albany, Oregon shows some real creativity. Bill is a member of the Mid-Valley Model Engineers who were out in force at the show. Not done using CNC, each gear shape was calculated on a handheld calculator and cut on a Bridgeport mill. The gear sets include elliptical, hexagonal, Cardoid and triangular/octagonal, all running on the same pair of shafts. Note the constantly changing gear tooth shapes in the closeup. Nice job! |
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Train cars, riverboats, ferris wheels, steam engines...this exhibit had a great variety of items to look at. |
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Our hotel was right on the Columbia River only a few miles from the show. The early morning view out my window showed Mt. St. Helens in the distance beyond the marina and an interesting community of houseboats. (The volcano was quiet this year...) If you haven't been to Portland, it is a beautiful city and September is the perfect time to go. Start making plans to go to next year's GEARS show now. |
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