Member postings for Jon Lawes

Might want to check the small shuttle inside the valve chest is still moving freely. I've built one of these and I can get the steam side working fine, but the clacks don't return fast enough to stop backflow of water. I'm perservering!

Up and down the country the Badgers are currently wondering where they can get the number for a certain Alpaca's legal team....

My usual trick is to sit there trying to work out if I'm about to accidentally cut a Left hand thread rather than a right hand thread.... I get it right almost 50% of the time.

I suspect at six years old he has probably come up with a solution... pun intended!

If Alan's idea is so bad, does that mean beekeepers actively make efforts to keep down the population of wild bees?

Just scraping the barrel for clues, Martin says it was in the bottom of a crate of tooling. Where did it come from? Do we have any hints there?

The part that confuses me is that Go/ no-go gauges are usually fixed. The idea of an adjustable go/no-go gauge kind of defeats the point....

Unless of course the difference between whatever is Go and Not Go is fixed and moves with the adjustment. In what capacity, I have no idea.

The scaling I would assume is down to the inverse square law.

Edited By Jon Lawes on 24/08/2021 13:40:01

I tried to dive in deeper to the use of the word Micrograph, and even the earliest use of the term says they are to do with Photographs taken through a microscope or by similar techniques. But in the earliest editions of Merriam Webster it also lists this version which I was unaware of:

"an instrument for measuring minute movements by magnifying and recording photographically the corresponding vibrations of a diaphragm moving in unison with the original object"

http://www.antique-microscopes.com/chemistry/Leitz_hand_spectroscope.htm

The clamp on the end keeps bringing me back to spectroscopes (or even, as a tangent, a method of calibrating them with the go/no-go element), but without an optical element that's rather a bum steer. Maybe it will jog someones memory.

I did see a photo of something similar where a square clamp at the bottom held a very old looking square prism (almost crystaline rather than optical), but I can't find it again now.

I'm not clever enough to do things without google so I did pound companies house etc on the off chance it referred to something other than microscopic photography or similar, as mentioned. A few names bubbled up from the archives but nothing relevant.

I ran it through an image search as well, nothing similar came up. A real puzzler!

I notice the clip mounts on a brass (or similar) part, does that mean the clip is a part of the circuit being tested?

It's got my mental muscles flexing (both of them!).

I wonder if its something to do with lighting, like setting filaments or gaps between electrodes in an arc lamp?

Spark plug gap setting tool for some unusual plugs? (I'm aware you mentioned this earlier)

I'm thinking a variation on the theme of a gunson device, the window allowing you to see the spark. It would explain why so much of it is of an insulating material.

Just complete stabs in the dark, no background knowledge

Edited By Jon Lawes on 19/08/2021 18:51:39

One of the first things I made was a simple pen. Find a suitable insert (like a parker refill), draw up a basic drawing (a good skill in itself), then source a bit of nicely cutting brass stock. You get to practise knurling, thread cutting (with taps and dies), taper cutting (just using the compound slide), and at the end of it you have something you are proud of. It can be as simple or as complex as you like, my first was over simple. I might make another just to see how far I've come on (not as far as I would hope I reckon!).

Funnily enough, all these years I've just realised I've never used a taper reamer either, but will almost certainly need to soon. Thank you.

Some boiler inspectors don't like boilers being filled via threaded fittings (especially safeties) as it means repeated wear on a safety critical thread. I don't think its a rule or anything, but I've been discouraged from doing it myself. It makes sense to me, especially when you consider how long these locomotives will live for if looked after.

I usually fill up through a blow down valve using a cheap caravan water pump. I usually open the blower valve to allow the air to be released. (this is all on a 3.5" locomotive if that helps, I know you were talking about traction engines).

I've started a Wiki page on the SmallLiveSteamEngines site; I'll flesh it out as more information is forthcoming.

https://smalllivesteamengines.fandom.com/wiki/Ballaarat_(5_Gauge)

Edited By Jon Lawes on 04/08/2021 20:52:07

Fantastic to see a new construction series. Once it's in ME, it's a part of history!

The fact you have taken the time to let people know here does a lot of credit. Thanks.

Are you looking for an original cover or just a cover for safety and tidiness? I don't know if my Walker Turner 900 ever had one but it's got one folded up out of sheet now; it's not too hard to do.