Member postings for FMES

I think one possibility is that the 'Lads' don't want to move away from their 'Dads'

Most of our apprentices come from the other ends of the country and some from as far as Europe.

I agree that the days of shipbuilding and the like have ended, but things have moved on and there are still many that want to make a career out of modern engineering.

Some of these guys (and gals) are just sixteen and to leave family and friends in search of a career must be one hell of a wrench and should be applauded.

No dole lane for them.

When I left school in 1973, the majority of jobs were going into the clerical / scientific areas, with only half a dozen of us going into the 'engineering' trades.

Some went into the Dockyard as Fitter / Turners, some went into the electronics side of things at Marconi and Plessey. I opted for an Aeronautical Apprenticship with The MoD, and qualified five years later with a TEng CEI AMSLAET set of letters to carry about.

Every year that firm took on another 25 to 30 new apprentices and I don't think more than one or two failed to complete the training.

Looking back, most of my school friends that took the option of a non-engineering career are now dead, some quite a while ago, so all the extra stress (money) didn't do them a lot of good it would appear.

The remaining few that did chose their careers wisely are all still with us. Personally I stayed with the MoD for 29 years on the Aero side until they decided that they couldn't afford to keep all the Civil Servants, so the Technician Engineers had to go.

Fortunately I was offered a training position looking after those same apprentices and now I'm part of a large company thet sees the training and education of some 400 apprentices a year in the Nuclear, Rail and other industries (Jaguar /Landrover, Volkswagen / BMW to name a couple).

So it would appear that the 'Engineer' Industry is getting stronger and I am proud to be known as one.

I do remember some while ago someone mentioning Environmental Engineers - we used to call them Gardeners

Do you have a de-humidifier running? mine seems to take loads out of the suds tanks.

The only evidence I have for that statement is that when the de-humidifier is off I don't lose any coolant.

An old colleague of mine told me that the gland was to prevent air being admitted when the level got too low in the tank, but after having built a couple without the gland the steam oil provides a good enough seal.

Hi Ron, between 5% and 10% is normally recommended for Sulphuric Acid pickles, acid added to water, never the other way round.

This is much weaker than battery acid which is around 30%.

As a chimney, possibly not, as a flue running through the boiler it supports the end flanges.

If it has got hot enough to melt then there is the possibility of de-zinctification and resultant brittleness of the brass at the copper joint.

Could possibly be because it was supposed to be soft soldered and not subjected to the temperatures of silver soldering.

I admit I refer a fair bit to boiler construction books from both Martin Evans and KN Harris and as far as I recall the use of brass in direct construction of a slver soldered boiler was not recommended by either.

What did you do, drop it?

I would say yes, many boilers are constructed this way, and the rivets if not threaded, peened over prior to the silver soldering.

Something like this **LINK** works very well Brian.

Like John F said, try one of these, **LINK** or perhaps a cheaper version from eBay.

Problem solved.

I had a little difficulty getting access to the subscriptions using Google Chrome on Windoze 8.

Changing back to W7 and Firefox cured all.

No problems on W7 and IE either.

I'd guess you'd possibly be one of the couple of dozen souls and therefore not liable?

Normally its to line up the longitudinal centerline of the cylinder with the driving axle center at mid suspension travel, to ensure that the power delivered is even on both strokes and in forward and reverse.

Of course the shorter the frame length the more steep the angle wil be.

Unfortunately Yes, and it will be mostly kids if you're on the local club track

Damn, sussed

Brian,

The safety valve itself is on the outside of the boiler and if mounted on the top, is above the water line.

Don't worry about the sprung part that is actually inside the boiler as it will mostly be in the steam space, and will not affect the operation of the valve.

Only if you overfill the boiler, say, more than two thirds capacity, will there be a chance of the valve being able to pass high temperature hot water or 'Prime'.

After all, they used to give this type of boiler for kids to play with

Hi BJ,

Mamod also do the bush for the safety valve so you could get one of these and have the correct threads for both parts.

Pic attached for info **LINK**

Really jason? I also saw that he tried to contact Midwest without success.

Only trying to be proactive.

Hi BJ,

I emailed Midwest as you had some difficulty and they advise that the boiler is SOFT SOLDERED, hope this helps

Info