Member postings for John Baguley

Miss Ten to Eight has Joy valve gear so you can just scale down the dimensions of that. It looks as though you have some of the valve gear parts anyway. LBSC described Miss Ten to Eight in ME Vols 80 to 82 if you can access copies.

John

Hello Mick,

It could be a half sized version of LBSC's 'Miss Ten to Eight', his take on a North Eastern R1. The frames are the right shape.

John

Hi Jeremy,

The belt that came with the kit is 5mm dia. The wheels also came with the kit.

I ended up balancing the two large cup wheels by gluing pieces of lead onto the inside surface of the wheels.They were pretty round so truing them would not have helped the balance a great deal.

John.

Hi John,

the longer, thinner cone will be the steam cone and the fatter one the delivery cone. The delivery cone should have a pronounced flare on the inside edge (the edge inside the injector body).

John

Yes, I did put some narrow grooves in them. I used a 60° threading tool.

John

Hi John, sorry for the late reply. I've not been on the forum for a bit.

I make the PTFE valves a push fit in the bores. They will sort themselves out once they see steam.

It helps if you can make the PTFE heads as thin as possible as that helps negate the problems with the PTFE expanding. Those on my Helen Long are only 0.0625" thick and they still seal perfectly after all these years.

I've never used anything but the plain PTFE for valves or piston rings , indeed, never found the need to. The plain PTFE works fine for me.

John

We used to have 12v Halogen bulbs driven by electronic transformers fitted over the bars at my local RBL Club. I swapped all of the bulbs for LED a few years ago and they work fine with the original electronic transformers. The 'transformers' last a lot longer now as they used to regularly fail with the old halogen bulbs.

John

Our Castings Officer for the N25GA stops in his camper van. He drives into Southam and stops on a car park there that allows overnight camping. All the amenities you could want there.

It is a bit daft that you can't stop overnight on the field at the exhibition though.

John

I quite agree. If the gauge reads to within 10psi then that shouild be plenty good enough for 'our' use. The 2% called for in the boiler regs is still over the top really.

John

The subject of using Dead Weight Testers to check master gauges was addressed by the Federation of Model Engineering Socities some years ago by 'Information Sheet no. 21' for December 2015. Basically, they are considered to be a 'Primary' standard and as such do not require recalibration so long as they are not damaged etc. Any errors in their accuracy are not likely to change with use, wear or enviromental factors and considered to be insignificant for the use of calibrating master gauges used for amateur boiler testing.

Information Sheet No. 21 is available for download from the FMES website but it's only available if you are a member and logged in.

However, of course, this applies to commercially produced DWTs and not homemade ones. I would guess that homemade testers would initially require to be checked for accuracy.

I picked up a couple of Barnett DWT's for a very reasonable price a few years ago and also a third for spares so I can test and calibrate all our clubs master gauges if necessary.

John

It was described in Don's Black Five build which was published in LLAS. I tried the method described when I was experimenting with the piston valves for my Helen Long with limited success. I eventually fitted PTFE heads to the valves and never looked back.

Don's method was to use Molybdenum Disulphide powder, coat the valve bobbins with it and then drive the tightly fitting bobbin backwards and forwards in the valve liner until it became free. He suggested using Rocol Anti Scuffing grease if you didn't have any of the powder. That is what I used. The idea was that the ridges from machining the bobbin and the liner would be worn down smooth to give a mirror finish that would seal perfectly and last a long time. Also,the Molybdenum Disulphide would embed itself in the surfaces and provide good long term lubrication.

The problem with just turning the bobbins and the liners is that no matter how good a finish you think you have got, the surfaces will still have ridges that will eventually wear down and make the bobbins a poor fit.

I have a copy of the relevant article that I can send to you if you want to pursue Don's method.

John

Hello Alan,

The X222 is a Stuart Turner code for an O gauge driving wheel with a finished tread diameter of 35mm (1.375" ). The 220 is probably also a Stuart Turner O gauge driver and short for X220. That is for a finished tread diameter of 35.7 - 41.3mm (1.5625" - 1.325" ). The smaller wheels may be O gauge bogie or tender wheels. They could be X218.

John

Edited By John Baguley on 05/06/2022 11:22:17

When I moved my ML7 into the new workshop, I built a stand from 50mm square steel tubing. The lathe was originally in a spare bedroom on a piece of kitchen worktop on some old kitchen units. It worked fine but I wanted something better in the new shop.

I already had riser blocks and an original Myford driptray but I replaced that with a more substantial one that I picked up from a workshop clearance. That one is 3mm steel and very solid. The crosslide handle is at elbow height as has been mentioned which makes using the lathe for long periods quite comfortable.

It now has two shelves fitted on the rails which hold all the chucks etc.

John

Edited By John Baguley on 30/05/2022 16:30:45

Hello Tony,

I have a set of the original drawings as I built one from the kit some years ago. PM me with your email address and I'll let you have a copy.

John

Edited By John Baguley on 27/05/2022 00:07:03

I would agree with Duncan - go for Juliet. It's a far better beginners loco than Tich. Tich is very small and not easy to keep in steam, especially the small boiler version. Juliet will pull a couple of people with no problems.

John

Here you go:

I bought one of the kits many years ago but never used it.

John

Hi Phil,

Yes, you have got that correct

I did some work on a Rob Roy for a chap at our club and out of interest I had a look at the valve gear as very few designers seem to understand Stephensons correctly.

I put all the figures into the Don Ashton spreadsheet and calculated what the correct offset should be to equalise the events over the complete range of cut offs. I then used the Alan Wallace valve gear simulator to check that the figures were correct.

The reason for also shortening the lifting arm is to compensate for moving the suspension pin on the expansion link so that the suspension link is vertical when the piston is at mid stroke and the reverser is in mid gear. In Martin's design the lifting link does slope backwards slightly, hence the modification being larger than the increase in the offset.

I have recently inherited my late Brother's Rob Roy which was built to the original drawings so I must make the modifications to this as well

John

Edited By John Baguley on 05/04/2022 23:47:33

A Club boiler inspector is quite within his right to refuse to test any boiler, especially a steel one. Many will not feel themselves qualified to do so. To do a proper test on a steel boiler then you need an ultrasonic thickness tester so that you can check the thickness of the steel plate in various places. It's also useful if you have an endoscope so that you can examine the inside of the boiler. Most testers will not have access to that equipment. A steel boiler is a totally different animal to a copper one. Steel boilers will corrode over time, especially if not looked after properly, and reach a condition where they are getting dangerously thin, even though they may pass a simple hydraulic test. They may pass the test and then fail, perhaps catastrophically, soon after.

John

Club Boiler Tester

Edited By John Baguley on 05/04/2022 20:01:35

Hi Phil,

Although the original valve gear design isn't awful it can be improved a lot by increasing the offset of the suspension pin on the expansion link from 0.0625" to 0.160". If you haven't already made the suspension brackets for the expansion link then I would recommend making the alteration. It looks as though you have already made a start on the lifting arms but it also helps to reduce the length of those from 1.25" to 1.0625".

John

Ok, think I've found it. It's a design by Henry Greenly from the 1930's.There is a short article about the loco in ME Volume 80 Issue 1987. The author isn't named but I would say that it was by Greenly himself. He designed the loco for two gentlemen for their second loco build. If you pm me with your email address I can send you a copy of the article.

The drawings should be still available from Maxitrack as they hold the Greenly archive of his drawings. There are 10 sheets in all.

You won't be able to get any missing castings anymore unless you make patterns and get them cast your self but you should be able to get by without. You have the major castings e.g. wheels and cylinders anyway.

John

Brian just beat me to it!

Edited By John Baguley on 26/03/2022 16:49:10