Choo Choo! My Great Aunt LaVaune recently handed down some family antiques to me. Among the treasures: A 110 lb Peter Wright anvil, a kerosene railroad lantern and a locomotive steam whistle.

By far, I’m the most excited about the whistle! I don’t have the full backstory, but understand it was one of my Great Grandpa Andrew’s favorite things in his shop. He clearly used it too, as you can tell by all of the adapters at the base, so he could hook it up to an air hose.

Here’s a video of my first time hooking it up to my air compressor:

Could you tell I was surprised? I wasn’t expecting the 100+ year old locomotive relic to burst to life the moment I hooked it up to air, but it did. The valve didn’t seem to do anything to stop the air from freely flowing through the brass instrument. Knowing little about how brass air valves work, I began by taking the thing apart.

Heads up to anyone ever attempting to crack one of these open: There’s a spring! You want to use caution when removing the valve stem otherwise the spring will fly out of there. I didn’t take any pictures of the next steps, but can tell you the valve had obvious signs of wear and tear. It was badly in need of repair.

As shown above, the brass air/steam valve works by pressing an angled ring up against an opening with another angled surface. The back side of the valve (right) has a spring, forcing the valve shut, unless pushed open by the valve stem (left) on the opposite side. At first, I thought about adding a coating of silicone, but knew I would struggle to get it perfectly smooth. Next, I thought a rubber washer was a good idea. The rubber lasted a whole 10 seconds under 50 psi, before blowing through to the other side. One video I watched online showed how to re-surface the brass using a lathe. Since I don’t have a lathe, I knew I had to find another solution. My answer came after chatting with a neighbor up the street who loves to tinker with old engines. He suggested I try valve grinding compound, which he happened to have in his garage. We applied a generous amount to the surface, then began twisting the two pieces of the valve together, by hand because there wasn’t enough room to attach it to a drill. After about 10 minutes of manual twisting, we tried the whistle again, but it still leaked. Then, eager to use a power tool, I found the solution seen in a video and photos below. I taped a drill extension to the back of the valve, which worked great! Roughly 5 minutes of spinning under gentle pressure, and re-applying valve grinding compound three times, the surface was perfectly smooth and free of leaks.

The valve grinding compound was just what the conductor of this restoration journey needed! The valve now closes tight, keeping air out of the whistle until the handle is pulled. The whistle seems to be able to tolerate air pressure anywhere between 50 and 150 psi, which is as high as my compressor goes. It may even go higher than that. The pitch of the whistle can be adjusted by twisting the bell cylinder, which goes up and down on a screw stem.

With the whistle working, my focus shifted and I hopped on the “restoration express.” After reading a lot about cleaning and polishing old brass, I started with a vinegar rinse, then cleaned every surface with Brasso. After that, I used Tripoli followed by White Rouge polishing compound with a buffing wheel attached to my drill. It’s still not a perfect mirror-finish, but it’s much better than it was before.

Finally, I used my router to fabricate a custom wall mount for the whistle from a 2×6 piece of pine and attached an old dog run to the handle.

In the future, I may find a better way to mount it to the wall and rig up a better pulley system to activate it from across the garage. I’d also like to learn more about the whistle’s history. I haven’t found any markings on the brass to help me determine its age or origins and while it has similarities to others I’ve seen online, I have yet to find a perfect match. If dimensions help with identification: From the tip of the top nut to the bottom of the base screw, the whistle measures about 16 inches. The bell cylinder itself is 9 inches tall. I’d ask anyone who knows anything about this whistle to please leave a reply to this blog post.

Thanks for reading!
-Mike

I’m starting this post with an “after” pic because we are so pleased with the results of this project! It just took WAY longer than we thought to complete (keep reading to find out why). This vanity replaces a very decorative vanity (pictured below), which was purchased by the previous homeowners. Aside from not liking the style of the original we were puzzled by how to use it properly in the space because it didn’t have any drawers. We struggled to find places to put things like toothbrushes and hair brushes, so decided it was an easy first update to this new home of ours.

This update came with several challenges: First, there is a floor vent beneath the vanity, meaning any replacement would need to be free-standing, unless we wanted to re-route the vent. Second, the space is an odd size for the most-popular sizes available at the big box stores (44″ wide would be perfect, but the most common sizes are 36″ 42″ and 48″. With these challenges in mind, we decided to piece something together on our own. We started by finding a vanity bottom that met our needs. We ended up finding exactly what we were looking for and ordered it online from Home Depot:

The vanity is part of the Cambridge collection by Ariel. It’s 42″ wide, 34.5″ tall and 21.5″ deep. We wanted something sturdy, which we got thanks to the hardwood design, and it also came with soft-closing doors and drawers, which was an added perk.

With the vanity bottom in place, we painted the walls and did a little plumbing to replace the rusty supply lines. The walls are now “Mineral” by Behr in a satin finish (we used the color in multiple rooms in our Apple Valley home). The vanity top was a granite remnant found at The Pinske Edge here in Rochester, MN. This is our second granite counter they have made for us from remnants at their business. We love the pattern, as you can tell because we used something nearly identical in a previous project at our first house. Unfortunately, the customization process meant our bathroom sink was out of commission for more than a month. The company needed the new vanity bottom in place and mounted to take accurate measurements, which is understandable. Then, after several weeks of waiting, the granite they brought out for installation had been miss-measured and the sink sat too far forward. We had to pick out another remnant, get another set of measurements taken, then wait another full week to get it installed. In the end, it was worth it, because we ended up changing our mind about the granite color and going with what you see below. We are very happy with The Pinske Edge and would hire them again without hesitation.

The faucet is Moen Lindor brushed nickel. We like the design and this may be the second time we’ve purchased this particular one.

Finally, we updated the mirror, installing a simple builder’s grade 36″x 42″ which we might frame in down the road.

With the new white cabinet, the softer grey/beige color on the walls, the space feels so much brighter and much more “us” – we’re very happy with the results. The next update you can expect to see in this space will be white doors and trim. Thanks for reading!
-Mike