Member postings for John Baguley

Hi Dave ,

In the past I've bought it from RS. They have Tecapeek PVX in 10mm diameter. They don't seem to have the range of diameters that they used to have though.

**LINK**

I've also bought it from Davis Industrial Plastics when I wanted longer lengths. They have PEEK HPV:

**LINK**

Both are similar materials. It's very expensive in larger diameters but not too bad for small stuff. I'm sure there will be other suppliers if you look around.

I use it for all sorts of bushes on locos e.g. coupling and connecting rod bushes.

Mick - I haven't tried round die blocks as such but over the pond they seem to use them quite a bit, even on 7-1/4/7-1/2" gauge stuff.  I have used a round die block in the slots on the end of a radius rod with good results

John

Edited By John Baguley on 11/05/2014 09:18:18

Hi Dave,

I use bearing grade PEEK which is a harder material. I think virgin PTFE is probably too soft for such a highly loaded application and it will just deform, hence the oval hole.

John

Julian, the last lot of thin wall tubing I purchased was from Doug Hewson a couple of years back and he had 3/16".

Maidstone Engineering list 3/16" x 26swg as well.

I tend to use thin wall all the time as you can go down a size and still have the same bore as the thicker stuff.

John

The National 2½" Gauge Association is holding an Ayesha Rally/Day in conjunction with it's National Rally on June 8th at Rugby MES (10.30am to 4.30pm). We would love to get as many running and part built locos as possible to attend. There will be a marquee with displays of drawings, castings, and part built locos. There will also be a prize for the best Ayesha on the day. Hopefully, LBSC's original Ayesha, which is now in the care of the Association, will be there on display.

John

What really screws up the Pansy valve gear is the rocker drive to the valves which puts the valve motion 180° out of phase to the piston motion. The fact that the expansion link is suspended from the top rather than the middle doesn't help either. A fairly simple mod to the existing gear which makes a vast improvement to the valve events in forward gear is to extend the lifting arm on the weighshaft to 2.33". I did this on a friends 94XX which was basically a Pansy chassis. I had to put a crank in the new lifting arm to clear something (can't remember what now).

This won't be as good as a complete redesign but might be useful if you already have the gear built and don't want to start again.

John

Jo beat me to it. I've had several brass fittings snap off when I've tried to remove them from a boiler. One of them was an injector steam valve. That would have been nasty if it had happened when the boiler was in steam!

John

Many people use ordinary silicon sealer. It seems to stand up ok. There are high temperature versions if your concerned about using the ordinary stuff.

John

Hi Ron,

It shouldn't blow out - only suck air in. It's there to allow the cylinders to draw air through the superheater elements when the loco is coasting with the regulator shut. It should snap shut and seal as soon as you open the regulator again.

John

Edited By John Baguley on 19/04/2014 15:55:36

Just picked up a nice set myself

Rotagrip advertise individual slips on Ebay (trading as Fordeight) so they do sell them.

John

Hi Colin,

When I repainted my Boxford shaper and Denham lathe I used Tractol enamel and their industrial etching primer which seems to have worked well. You can use the Tractol enamel without a primer but I decided to use one anyway. The fumes from the etching primer are pretty noxious so you need plenty of ventilation and probably a face mask when you are using it.

John

Edited By John Baguley on 27/02/2014 15:06:22

Edited By John Baguley on 27/02/2014 15:07:32

Hi Dom,

It's not common to use ball/roller bearings but I do fit them. I use drawn cup needle roller bearings which run on unhardened silver steel axles. I believe Neville Evans? used this method as well. I expect the axles and bearings to outlive me and probably the next owner as well!

You can get the larger bearings with built in seals but for smaller ones you have to add your own e.g. O rings either side of the bearings.

Arc Euro sell metric bearings and imperial down to 7/16" bore but any of the bearing suppliers will have them.

As Clive suggests though, you may have trouble fitting the bearings into the standard axle boxes - the boxes may be too narrow to take them, although the drawn cup bearings are quite thin, unlike standard ball or roller bearings, and there is no need to use a hardened inner sleeve.

My 2½" gauge Helen Long has 10mm bearings on all driving axles and 8mm on all bogie axles and is very free running. The 0-6-2 Simplex I am building also has Drawn cup bearings on all the axles.

For axles near or under the firebox I make the axles fully enclosed in a tube (like a cannon box) to keep all the grit etc. out.

John

Edited By John Baguley on 19/02/2014 10:46:07

Edited By John Baguley on 19/02/2014 10:47:34

Yes, the chassis was sorted and Nigel completed the loco but has now sold it on.

Kenneth - yes, MOK was described as a dual construction series along with Minx in ME vols 97 to 101.

John

Hi Mick,

I think it's 10BA (the loco's tucked away in her box). One side of the slot is clearance and the other side tapped and the nut is just a lock nut. The bolt is just an ordinary steel one so you can't tighten it too much without shearing it. One made from a stronger material would be better. The return crank is a tight fit on the end of the crankpin to begin with.

The pin goes half in the crank and half in the crankpin and is 0.125" long (the thickness of the return crank. Actually, the end of the crankpin is reduced from 0.25" dia. to 0.1875" to take the return crank so there is no danger of drilling into the connecting rod if you are careful. The crank is made from gauge plate (I use gaugeplate for all valve gear parts as it's hard wearing) and is a similar hardness to the silver steel crankpin so the drill doesn't wander when you drill for the locking pin. The drill can wander if one material is softer than the other.

One of the cranks did come loose last year and the pin fell out when I was pulling myself and another person but it had run for 5 years with no problems until then.

The loco is a 2½" gauge Helen Long by the way.

John

I think this is what Mick means:

This is a bit bgger though. The crankpin is 0.1875" diameter and the return crank is 0.125" thick. The crank is pinned with a 0.0625" dia. silver steel pin put in after the crank was set.

John

Playing Devil's advocate here:

How much pollution and 'wastage' of the planet's resources are we model engineers causing?

Millions of pounds are spent and valuable resources are used each year producing machine tools that are of no use to anyone but us so we can produce stuff merely for our own use and personal satisfaction. We burn coal etc. running our locos, traction engines, etc. again, for our own amusement, and use tons of materials in their construction. Most of what we produce is of no real benefit to the human race and could just be considered an extravagant waste.

John

Edited By John Baguley on 24/01/2014 01:06:23

Hi Ian,

Just tried it myself with no problems. Here's a direct link to the page if you are still having problems:

**LINK**

John

Michael,

I'm pretty surprised myself. It's pretty nasty stuff at that concentration if you don't know what you are doing. I'm even more surprised that you can have it delivered.

The last lot of pure sulphuric acid I bought (still use it for pickling) was from a company selling all sorts of chemicals on the internet and that came via DHL (I think) wrapped in only a plastic bag and rattling around in a cardboard box! That was a good few years ago now and the company disappeared shortly after.

John

Edited By John Baguley on 19/01/2014 18:07:44

Edited By John Baguley on 19/01/2014 18:08:08

One Shot drain cleaner from B&Q etc. is 90% sulphuric acid. Easy to get and just dilute it to the strength required.

John

I'd go for Juliet. It's no more difficult to build than Tich and is much more forgiving to run with the larger boiler. A Tich takes a lot of skill to fire and run. Good fun though if you get the hang of it.

John

I think 1/8" x 40 ME is the same as 1/8" BSW so try looking for those instead?

John