My steam and other things

Well, now that I knew I was a Jensen man, I just had to get another one.  This time after careful consideration I decided to try an electric engine, so I wouldn’t have to mess with the fire and related smell.  The Jensen35 has the engine mounted on the boiler, which I thought had an interesting look, so I began my Internet search once again.  I found what I was looking for in my price range—well pretty close—and in about a month and a half had a 35 humming away on my workbench.  It seemed amazing, each one of my engines had it’s own unique sound when in was running.  Well, everything went pretty well for a couple of months—I was beginning to think it was time to expand my Jensen collection—when my 35 refused to get hot when plugged in because the heater had died.  So I ordered a new heater from Jensen—boy am I glad they are still in business—and got ready to try my first steam repair.  The more I looked at the 35, the more I realized I wanted to give it a total restoration as someone before me had done a poor job of painting it gray.  So began a several month careful process of taking it apart, stripping-staining-varnishing the wood board, polishing-shining-painting the metal, using new gaskets and putting it all back together again.  It was a lot of work, but when it fired up and ran so great I knew it was worth it—and I was a TRUE steamer.  Thanks again for the help and encouragement from Roger G.

P.S.—I know among steamers this can be a touchy subject about rather to restore or leave it the way you found it.  Well this time I restored, who knows what will happen the next time I have to make a choice.

This is a video of  my Jensen 35 after restoration--starting out with the juice reducer keeping it just barely running, and then opening it up.  <object width="425" height="350"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3FDD5YRPWM4"> </param> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3FDD5YRPWM4" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"> </embed> </object>