Member postings for Peter Simpson 1

Hi Julian,

Thanks for your advise. I have indeed completed the valve gear to the Don Ashton's modifications, and the piston valves are a super fit into the valve cylinders.

Thanks

Peter

Hi,

Thanks for the replies, I was aware that Speedy drawing and the description of the build in the "Building Speedy" book did leave a lot to be desired, as for the frame drawing I cannot believe the numbers of holes that are not shown.

As for the very helpful comments from the obvious expert Mr M Williams, no wonder so many projects fall by the wayside. I bet he knows how many rivets there are in an A4's tender !

I'm slowly progressing a 5" gauge Speedy. Today I ran the engine off my compressor. It's still quite tight and will need some running in. This is my first loco and the reason I went down the Speedy road was it has a book to assist the novice.

As I progress the build, one thing is starting to annoy me. I'm now having to drill / tap additional holes in the frames that were not shown in the frame diagrams. These holes are for brakes, pump supports etc. These holes have to be drilled off hand with an electric drill, so accuracy is compromised. Is this normal for other locos. Should I have identified these holes prior to constructing the frames and motion etc ?

Latest update.

I have cut down the test piece and clamped it in the vice vertically. Adjusted the clapper box to the vertical plane. Clamped all the gib strips and slowed the stroke right down.

A slot was cut with reasonable success, being very carefull the tool was brought to the work with the toolpost vernier dial. The initial "plunging" cut was chattery and gave a slightly rough finish. Once at full depth the slot was taken to full width with little problem and gave a good finish. I suppose a with a little practice it would become easier, but with the Tom Senior Light Vertical watching on, it would so much quicker to take the easy option.

Many thanks for all of your good suggestions

I have put a couple of photo's in my album to show the test piece set up.

Hi.

I'm not a total novice and own a good array of machines, lathe, vertical mill, shaping machine etc,

At the moment I'm in the process of making a 5" gauge loco "Speedy".

I have just started to fabricate the crossheads out of bright mild steel stock. I machined two rectangular blocks out of steel and would have liked to machine the slide bar slots using my excellent condition Boxford shaping machine. The two blocks were machined perfectly squre using the shaper. I then attempted to cut the slots in a test piece of steel, but the finish was horrible and on several occasions the tool dug in and shifted the vice. I aborted the Shaping machine in preference to the vertical mill and completed the job with no problem. Is it possible to cut a 1/4 x 3/8 slot with a fiarly small shaper