Member postings for Thomas Pawley 1

Having finished all the interesting work on my Highlander loco, I now have the matter of boiler cleading to attend to. Can anyone advise on producing tapered cylinders please I have access to a set of "simple" rolls. Tom.

Thanks for the reply, yes, could be scaled up perhaps? Tom

Good afternoon. Could anyone suggest a source for drawings of a steam brake valve please. It's for a 7 1/4 loco. Tom.

I recently came across a catalogue of loco parts. Company name is Matthews Railway Models. the Cat has a number of items that I have been unable to source elsewhere, but the Cat is dated 2014, and the Phone number is unobtainable and the email address is not recognised. Has anyone knowledge of this business ?? Tom.

Thank you both for your comments. Buying from ebay was perhaps not too clever, but the cost of material from most suppliers was around £250 for the six springs, and I just couldn't justify that level of expenditure after all I have spent on this long drawn out project! ( Highlander Black five). The temperatures used were as specified by Tubal Cain in his book, and my furnace keeps the temp within 3'. I'm sufficiently encouraged to try again with a jig, the soak time by the way was based on the spring pack being 3/4 x 3/4, and since i had them firmly bolted together, I assumed that I should regard them as a solid block. As there are 180 leaves, I just couldn't face doing them all separately... Thanks again, I'll let you know what happens !! Regards, Tom

I managed to find some sensibly priced material, on ebay naturally,. It was described as "annealed spring steel strip"..I made up the springs as specified by M Evans, and to see what happened, i tried hardening and tempering with a blowtorch, on a sample!. well, the results were not good, serious distortion, due, is suspect, from uneven heating, and the end result was extreme embrittlement. I could hardly handle them without they shattered. I have been following the techniques as set out in the Tubal Caine book on the subject, and following the advice within, decided to construct a temperature controlled furnace. This completed, with a fancy temp controller, tried another sample spring. I'm hardening at 770c, and tempering at 340c. Well, it was hard alright, shattered when I bent it gently, but undeterred, went ahead and tempered it. Some success, it was a spring. Duly encouraged I put one of my finished springs in the furnace, started it from cold and took it up to 770c for the recommended 40 minutes ( 1 hour per in thickness) When it went in the spring was only slightly curved, it came out a semicircle! and, having quenched it I placed it on the bench and is i watched, the top leaf broke in three bits... Undeterred, I cooled the furnace down to tempering level and gently put the spring in. 10 min. soak and into the quench. Amazing, I had a spring!! albeit a most weird shape.. How can I prevent the initial distortion? I had thought of bending a chunk of 1/4 flat bar to the required shape and clamping the spring to that before hardening. Any comments would be appreciated..Tom.

My thanks to you all for your helpful comments. The size is as specified by the designer of Highlander, I have ordered a small amount of the thin material, enough to make one spring and see how it looks under load. There is something like 30 metres of the 1/32 material required, which equates to around £220 from the cheapest supplier found to date. I must investigate the steel strapping suggestion also. Thanks again to you all. Regards, Tom

I have to make a number of leaf springs. the material specified is 3/4 wide x 1/32. I find that this is prohibitively expensive but have sourced some reasonably prices steel which is 19mm x 0..4mm. I will need to double the amount of leaves to use this. How will this affect the springs performance ?? any advice would be much appreciated. Tom.

Has anyone any information on suppliers of roller tube expanders in small sizes. I have been searching around, bur have not found any. Tom.

Hi. I am building (slowly) Martin Evans Highlander design (7 & 1/4" black 5).

I am wanting to build the boiler in steel, and am having trouble finding someone to check the design calculations. The local club boiler inspector is happy with the design, but feels that he is not qualified to check over my calcs. I have used Evans design as a basis, he says in his description of the boiler that "it could equally well be built in steel, using the same material specifications as the copper one". I found this statement somewhat ambiguous, and, using the Austrialian Boiler code as a guide, revised the Evans design. So, what I need is someone who can check over my calculations before I go any further with this project.. Any Offers please. Regards. Tom