Member postings for martin ranson 2

To Neil Wyatt please ... WOW !!! MAP from Model Aeronautical Press Ltd , 38 Clarendon Road , Watford , Herts ... that was a long time ago ... Vic Smeed was also the editor of another magazine called MODEL MAKER in the 1960`s I believe ... that time was definitely BC ... before colour pages ( apart from the cover ) and before computers.

Just looking at this thread in particular, please can you tell me why so many parts of the contributions show up in duplicate or even in triplicate ? Is it inevitable when one computer system talks to another ? Or do others prefer to have the same words repeated within the same thread ?

martin

Stephen ... I was trying to find the fastest speeds for the Proxxon ... in one section with the original motor fitted it does quote 1400 RPM ... if I remember rightly this produced a lot of vibration at speed ... I was looking through the arc euro trade catalogue ( www.arceurotrade.co.uk ) at the taper roller bearings they sell ... they do not list the maximum speed the bearings will stand but it may be quite a bit higher than 2000 RPM ... possibly a call to them would yield the information you want ... that does assume that you want to cannibalise your lathe to fit roller bearings ????

martin

Stephen ... I fitted the unit onto a Proxxon PD 400 lathe ... lovely item but not a huge machine ... the headstock bearings are 2 opposed taper roller bearings ... I tried to find out what their maximum speed should be but it is not listed anywhere ... maybe it is quoted in the literature for some of the new machines.

martin

Stephen ... I bought a Newton Tesla VFD about 13 years ago, the small size they call CL 400 ... it is rated at 400 watts putput ... definitely the best thing I ever bought ... it has been well and truly hammered over that time ... on some days it has been run for about 10 hours and has never yet got anywhere near hot ... just hand warm ... it has never hiccupped at all ... my only minor comment is that the emergency stop button is a bit near the ordinary stop button.

Its speed range is quoted as between 200 and 1800 RPM ... I made a new drive pulley from ali. bar with a diameter of 1. 75 inches ... so, along with the large pulley on the headstock my spindle top speed is about 630 RPM ... a larger pulley on the motor spindle would give corresponingly faster speeds on the lathe spindle.

I ended up fitting the motor round by 180 degrees so it ran in reverse relative to the desired rotation ... this was simplicity itself to reverse 2 of the 3 motor wires ... I did check with Newton Tesla first.

hope this is some use ... martin

Matt ... if my suggestion above is not much use, then why not try the local plumbers and the local builders merchants ... surely some of them must use similar styles of large torches.

Especially the ones who mend lead roofs or felt roofs ... I do assume that these type of roofs do exist ???

I know I could be wrong about the roofs ... but there must be some types of engineers locally who use large torches as part of their profession ??

Matt ... one of the replies above was from Brian Sweeting ... he mentions MAP gas ... these are cylinders made by ROTHENBERGER and they are absolutely FANTASTIC ... the torches are in several sizes and there are propane cylinders available as well as MAPP gas ... incidentally, Rothenberger sold MAPP gas 10 years ago and what I could purchase locally then became MAP gas over the years ( MAP gas, not MAPP gas ) ... it was not quite as hot as MAPP gas ... anyway, Rothenberger seem to have changed back to the original MAPP gas.

I have been using a small and a large Rothenberger torch for a long time ... my boilers and gas tanks are certainly not the size of 3.5" or 5" locos but for smaller jobs they are FANTASTIC ... the flame will cheerfuly melt brass and copper ... at full blast, be careful where you point it !

The address given on one of the cylinders is ... Worthington Cylinder Corporation, Columbus, Ohio ... I assume it is not too difficult to get things into Canada from there ???

martin

Maurice ... if you are ex-GPO, then do you remember 2 places called Otley and Stone ? that was a long time ago for me !

Mr Linton wedlock. what a remakably wide-ranging article on craft engineering. You have given this a lot of thought over a long time. I am surprised that no-one has commented, so far. You are echoing many of my thoughts over the years. I never found any way to change the world, unfortunately. Many of the young people I have met do not really know which end of a screwdriver is which. I totally agree that we should keep things as simple as possible. However, we are in an electronic, throw-away society and as such, many people have no idea we actually spend time on model (craft) engineering. It would be nice to spark up interest in other young people, how you do this to publicise our general interest in building "things" I would love to find out. I do not mean in a small scale, but preferably on a large scale.

As far as I can see, you must unglue a lot of people from all their phones, screens, I pads etc. whatever may be the answer it has to be something fairly rapid ... at least, initially.

loking forward to part 2 of the article ... martin

Robin

get in the "shed" with a large flask of tea ... lock the door ... grab some metal and start the lathe rolling ... you will soon get "in the zone" ... ignore the world `cos we can`t do anything about it ... only stop if the lathe motor gets too hot ... in that case refill the flask whilst the motor cools down ... hacksawing metal seems to be a better way to lose weight than going to the gym ... and it is a lot more fun.

martin

Brian, if you want to make a disp. lubricator then possibly this article from 10 years ago may be useful ... if you find MODEL ENGINEER magazine for 31 august 2007 there is a lubricator shown which is threaded 3/16 x 40 ... I think the issue was 4307, volume 199 ... please be aware there was a printing error made by some unknown gremlins in the computer ... at the top of the lubricator there is a cross-hole to be drilled ... obviously it cannot be 0. 21 inches as shown ... it should have been 0. 021 inches diameter ... the actual page number is 276 and the drawing is in the bottom right-hand corner.

P.S. I have always used this type of lubricator on non-superheated steam ... hope this is of some use.

Martin ranson

Edited By JasonB on 28/08/2017 07:56:05

To Norm Norton ... as well as possible problems with wiring and/or diode connections there is another problem and that could be the actual transformer itself ... you are the only one who can physically see and touch the charger ... is the unit getting hot ? ... far hotter then it usually does ? ... is there any smoke coming out of anywhere ? ... any smell of burning ? ... if any of the windings have gone short circuit they will mess up the output power drastically ... does the charger get hot even with no load ? ... a dodgy transformer can give some very peculiar symptoms whether it is the input mains side or the output 12 V side ... if the answer is yes to any of these symptoms then it is probably R. I. P.

martin

John ... according to the editor, the details for the tender and all the other bits and pieces will be published in the magazine "after a short break" this was on page 17 of issue 4524 ... hopefully they will be published as space permits

martin

Roger ... an interesting question ... I assume you have dozens, or even maybe more than a hundred small twist drills in your "shed" ... take the range from 1.5mm up to about 2.5mm ... try putting the shanks of 2 nearly similar bits in line with each other and touching end to end ... with a good light and a light background you may surprise yourself ... you may be able to differentiate "one thou" difference in diameter.

martin

Phil ... try a pressure sprayer from JACKSONS MINIATURES in Gillingham ... web- site is www.jacksonsminiatures.com ... called a SUPERIOR water top-up bottle ... 2 sizes available.

The silicone tubing might be a special type ... at the moment I am using ordinary fuel tubing available from the local model shop ... so far it seems to work ... my own home-made valve is outside the boiler, so the tubing is not sizzling merrily INSIDE the boiler ... I assume there is an exact size for the metal valve middle to match any particular size of silicone tubing ... hopefully I will discover if there is an optimum size, but I am also learning about railways.

I was recommended to try a large size garden pressure sprayer with a capacity of 1. 5 litres ... not much use because it ran out of pressure too quickly.

hope some of this may be useful ... martin

To anyone building IDRIS ... in part 8 of the series, on page 829, there are 2 errors ... at the top of fig 34 there are 2 7 BA clearance holes shown ... their distance from the top edge is given as 0. 350 inches ... this measurement of 0. 350 should refer to the vertical support distance from the top edge of the plate as shown ... the 2 holes are placed roughly between the 2 so as to straddle the centre of the 1/4 x 1/2 brass bar shown in part 3, fig 12, page 746.

The other error is also shown on page 829 just above the top of fig 35 ... the melting temperature of Silver flo 24 is obviously not 8000 degrees ... it is 800 degrees.

martin

Dear diane ... having read the replies listed above I would be curious to know what the BBC 2 programme producers are likely to think about us. The replies seem to be all negative as regards the capabilities of the BBC.

How do you get the BBC to read everything listed above, is there any way to let them read what is printed ? Their thoughts would be most interesting.

martin

To Steambuff ... thanks for your reply ... "Yes" to both of your suggestions ... I`m afraid it is not that.

A request for help please ... in part 5 of the IDRIS article, on page 218, I showed a photo of a commercial gas valve ... very neat and very tiny ... it is a combined fill and vent valve all in one... whenever I try to use it to fill a gas tank the flow of liquid gas slows right down ... it takes 4 or 5 tries to fill the gas tank with a maximum volume of 54 cc ... has anyone any ideas how to speed up the process please ? judging by the amount of condensation on the valve body I assume it is starting to freeze up ... my old method which I have used for more than 20 years uses 3 separate valves for fill, vent and supply ... they take up a lot of space and need a lot of work to produce them ... however, they will reliably fill a gas tank to the correct level in one operation.

Has anyone any suggestions for what I am doing wrong please ??

martin.

To anyone building the IDRIS ... there is an error in the sketch shown on page 661 in the latest copy of M.E. ...

In the middle at the top, there are 2 joints shown using high temp. silver solder ... only the end-ring joint on the left hand side needs to be high temp. silver solder ( SF 24 ) ... the smaller tube on the right hand side can be fastened with ordinary silver solder ( SF 55 )

To John and Alex ... as far as I know the next part of the IDRIS series is coming up in issue 4520 ... that should be around the 29th. of October.

P. S. to my entry on the 2nd. of October ... something else that may be useful ... I discovered that the check valve on the side of the boiler needed to have a lift of no more than about 0. 028 inches ... also the spring pushing the ball onto its seat needs to have a minimum pressure exerted on the ball when the valve is shut.

When everything has worked as per plan I have managed to get a run time of 30 minutes from the gas tank.

martin