Member postings for Rolster

Bill many thanks for the detailed explanation and link to the drawing.

I have an one inch imperial version back at home which has a very stiff spindle and needs to be overhauled, but without the drawing it looked a bit dicey, so now forearmed with your research and drawing, i'll give it a go.

I am not sure how the spindle got so stiff but as it was second hand when i bought it in the last century and came in a belt pouch so probably was sat on at some stage.

BR Roland

There is a product i have used in the past called Belzona bronze its an epoxy putty used for repairing bronze pump casings, its bronze colored and is available in different package sizes. It would fill that void and be able to be filed easily to form. There may be another maker that makes a similar product in modelling sized packs.

There is enough strength in the part for what it does and that will sort out the cosmetic side of things.

I don't know what the cost is these days mind you so it may be more cost effective to go the replacement route with Stuart as others have suggested if the cosmetic look is going to keep you up at nights.

BR Roland

Hi it may sound obvious, but i have seen transverse pins used between the second and third driving wheels to hold the grate and then by removal drop it out.

If you don't see one, use a small dentist mirror to check the grate and see if its a one piece or a multiple piece grate, two or three sections.

Some boilers have been designed with split grate so you reach in with your rake or other tool and upset the grate and pull a section out through the furnace door and this dumps the fire through the grate and out under the engine.

This keeps the model looking more scale but can be slower in an emergency when you need to drop the fire. For normal end of run type dumping or maintenace it makes no real difference.

BR Roland

Hi Robin welcome to France and this little area on the forum.

You'r quite away from me here in the south east of France.

I hope a few memebers more local to you will raise their heads, over time and give you some local information that may be helpful.

The OP on this thread Speedy builder 5 is about half way between us, but seems to know quite a few people scattered around the country.

BR Roland

Down in the south east of France we mainly get jumping spiders and the occasional long legged type, but the Praying Mantis in the garden seem to take care of them along with any woodlice and such.

I occasionally find some wispy webs like the OP's in the upper corners of the rooms, if i have been away a while but on a much smaller scale.

I wish they wold sort out the wasps but they dont seem to catch those.

Our biggest problem is with the lizards, they are supposed to eat the ground crawing bugs but dont want to tangle with the Ants, even the small ones. I can understand with some of the big army ants, as they are around an inch long and i am wary of them.

Stunning, simply stunning work, if only i had the patience.

Dear Simon

With a four millimeter wall thickness on that diameter of bronze sleeve any push fit will damage the sleeve and distort it. I assume you want to take the needle roller outer shell out and the bushing to rotate within the outer shells housing.

Rather than a push fit, try as suggested above a heat shrink fit.

Put the shaft in the freezer wrapped in cling film and the bushing in the oven as high as your over will go.

When ready put the shaft in your vice with copper jaws get the bushing ready and a bit of pipe just over the size of the shaft, take the cling film off and it will remove the condensation and ice with it and lower the bushing on the shaft, being bronze it will have expanded a fair bit and should just drop in place if not use the pipe section to gently help it in place and then let it all come to the same temperature.

In regards to clearance this will depend upon the heating and cooling range but as its a gearbox assume it will be less than one hundred degrees i would allow two to three thou as your interfearance fit.

For my tuppence worth i would suggest making the bronze bushing a shrink fit in the housing and then shrinking or locktighting a thin high strength steel tube over the shaft roller surface and allowing that to be the running surface within the static bushing. however that may interfear with other items going onto the shaft and thats why you have chosen your approach.

BR Rolster

As pointed out these are very basic wrenches, so the idea is just to screw one end in and out until one side of the jaws or the other fits the nut or faces you want to wrench on.

The two jaws allows a half pitch distance to be achieved so you can get close enough to the faces distance. its not meant to be a precision wrench and used to be more oftern used on agricultural machinery with square nuts rather than modern hexagon types.

Always expect to be corrected on this but was my understanding on these from a long time ago.

Hi Jerry great to see France is filling up with model engineers. I am over in Dept 83 so a little way from you over in the south west. There is quite a good modeling scene here as well as vintage cars so i hope you find some in your area.

BR Roland

Welcome Richard

Again no info for you on the whistle, but welcome to France and the small group of members here. I have made contact with several members on here after finally deciding to become a member who have a wealth of knowledge which is nice to tap into.

BR Roland

Hi RMA many thanks for the Cvdp information they have an excellent links page on model engineering and materials suppliers in france and europe which was most helpful. Simon 0362 had let me know of a track near to us in the south east of france Musee provencal des Transports which amungst other attractions seems to have a multi gauge ground level track setup. They appear to have regular running events on the lines.

BR Roland

Hi Raymond, that sounds like a plan to me and I’ll meet you there then. I think I can recognise you from the photo in the earlier post.

I sometimes like to go to the Bar des Ormeaux in the mornings when I have guests staying for their coffees and the pastries from the other side of the fountain. it’s very pleasant to be sat in the square under the trees.

BR Roland

Hi Simon yep not to far away so would be good to do a meet up.

My sausage fingers and eyesight are just not good enough for clocks, but have a great respect for those that have the accuracy and patience to make them.

I have never managed to do any proper CNC work myself, I just have an old school manual Myford super 7 and a manual Warco milling machine as my main machine tools, but I have allot of tooling and hand tools and quite enjoy the challenge of conversion from drawing to surface plate to machine. Not to say I don’t get envious watching the CNC machines cut out drill and tap in thirty minutes what it would take me a week to do.

I am trying to sort out my workshop and get my tooling out of their crates, but hope to complete that in the next two weeks.

BR Roland

Hi Roger, the contract was delivery inside the garage, but as it was the end of the day I could not be bothered to argue the point and between the driver and me we made it work. I was somewhat stiff the next day though.

Good to know the default for pallets is curb side, as I was not aware of that and I hope it will be of use to others reading this thread.

BR Roland

Hi Raymond, I am very glad you enjoyed the sunset on Friday, I arrived around 22:45 and all was quiet as I passed through Lourges and Tourtour.

It would be lovely to meet up, I am at Tourtour this and next week so if you fancy a meet up during the day or evening Let me know where and when and we will make it happen.

BR Roland

Hi Bob, yes you are north west of me there and many thanks for the invitation on speedy questions. Once i have the workshop fully unpacked and set up i may just take you up on that.

BR Roland

Hi John, Philip and Rita are not known to me but if our paths cross, i will be sure to pass on your regards.

BR Roland

I moved to France nearly 18 years ago but as was living in an apartment could not have a workshop here. therefore all my tools went to my father with my old workshop. Around three years ago i bought a house with land and so started to contemplate a workshop, but this has had to go on the back burner and in the short term i am changing my garage into a workshop.

At the end of last year my father deceided he was beyond working with machine tools on larger items and so we dismantled most of the machine tools into more manageable pieces and then dimensioned them so a local carpenter could build purpose built plywood crates with pallet feet and lifting handles.

These came in flat packs and were glued and screwed together as the equipment and tooling was put into them. photos and listings made as each crate was assembled and filled. I ended up with 28 crates of between 25 and 250Kg in weight and was around three cubic meters in volume. These then had to be carried up from the workshop to the driveway garage and fortunately some local weight lifters were able to assist with this.

I found a company in Bristol that were able to come and pick all the crates up with a truck and a couple of heavy lifters. They then did all the export/import paperwork with the photographs and contents lists given to them.

Around a couple of months later the crates arrived at my house on one truck with only a driver and no tail lift or pallet truck, forklift or such. I ended up lifting the crates out of the truck with the driver and had to use ladders as slides from the truck bed to my garage for the big heavy crates which i can assure you is not fun. The crates were thankfully heavily constructed and all corners reinforced with wooden battening glued and screwed together so they survived the abuse intact.

My recomendations for anyone looking to do the same is make the crates of at least 10mm plywood and use battening on all the corners and edges. Screw and bolt down anything heavy inside the crates and fill any loose space with old rags or towels and such. Put as many handles as you can on the crates so they are easily liftable as this will make your life moving them around easier. Log the contents of each crate as it goes in and make a note of its nominal value if exporting. Note the external dimensions of each crate and weigh it when filled and the lid screwd down. Number the crates so you can relate the contents log to each and finally put the current address and shipping address on each crate.

If like me a different company to the one that picked up the crates is delivering them, send them a photograph of the delivery location aspects, so they can see the slope of driveway and gap beteen driveway gates etc. Insist they bring their own forklift or pallet truck and have a taillift as these will make unloading a lot easier. Unfortunately i myself only sent them the photographs of the aspects and thought they would work the rest out for themselves but lesson learnt!

BR Roland

Hi maybe a small resurection of this thread. Another one to add for France, i am still working full time and spend my weekdays in Roquebrune cap Martin 06190.

I have lived in france now for nearly18 years but only recently bought a house big enough to bring all my workshop equipment over from storage in the U.K too.

I am in the process of setting up a small workshop in my home garage in Tourtour 83690. I have an interest in live steam models both stationary and 5 inch gauge railway engines (steam and electric).

Future plans are resurecting a 5" gauge speedy (not been run in a long time) and planning to set up some raised track in my garden.

I see Raymond is near me in Lourges which i pass through on my way to Tourtour.

BR Roland