Member postings for John Baguley

Hello David,

I've just had a look at the drawings and they are not very clear at all for the pump!

To clarify for others - on the full size NZR Ab loco, the pump would have been an air pump for the brakes but on the model it is used as a boiler feed pump.

The two pipes teed together are the exhausts from the top and bottom of the steam cylinder and the exhaust pipe goes along behind the handrail and up behind the chimney.

The connection in the middle of the steam cylinder (marked 5/32" x 40 on the drawing) is the steam feed to the pump and should be connected to a valve in the cab via a displacement lubricator.

The outlet from the pump valve box marked 'to Air Tank' is the water feed from the pump and goes to the righthand clack on the boiler. I'm not sure why it says 'to air tank' unless the pipe goes through the dummy tank? I can't actually see any details for the air tank though.

The water inlet to the pump must be connected to the bottom of the valve block somehow but I can't see how from the drawing! I can only assume that there is some sort of fitting that attaches to the bottom of the valve box that is not shown.

I'll be very interested to know if you manage to get the pump to work as they are extremely fiddly to get going, especially in such a small size.

John

Edited By John Baguley on 24/06/2019 22:08:22

To me, they like as though they could the bottom fittings of more water gauges. The larger diameter threaded stub has a flat bottom recess which would take the bottom end of the gauge glass. The long threaded stub would thread into the boiler and have a locknut to secure in position once lined up. The tufnol? headed spindles could be shut off valves.

They seem to be lefthand and righthand fittings of a matched pair.

Could be totally wrong of course!

Have you got a photo of the other side of the fittings?

John

Hello John,

Just a thought but have you checked to see if you are indeed getting full boiler pressure to the boiler inlet of the test unit? Maybe there is a restriction somewhere that is reducing the pressure? It sounds as though there may be a problem with the test unit.

Paul - I fitted a valve to the outpipe pipe from the test unit so that I could restrict the flow produced by the injector. If you do restrict the output then the pressure should increase. I've had an injector produce double the boiler pressure before now.

John

Hello John,

I used a modified version of the Bill Carter test unit which had a simple piston fitted with an O ring. When the injector output pushed the piston against the boiler pressure side the O ring uncovered an outlet port in the bore of the test unit. It seemed simpler to make than the coned seat and coned end on the piston of the Carter design.

When testing an injector I always found that the indicated output pressure was higher than the boiler pressure, sometimes considerably so. I would have expected the Carter unit to give similar results. I am not sure why your, or rather your friends unit should indicate such low output pressures?

John

Edited By John Baguley on 22/05/2019 00:48:58

Hi Ken,

Yes, I went down the direct from China route as the cheapest option. I bought a Sinpo 2 axis for my Chester Eagle 25 mill as Sinpo seem to get good reviews.. My logic was that most of the ones that you can buy in the UK come from China anyway.

I paid £264 which included the postage and had to pay another £20 VAT when it went through customs. Took a couple of weeks to arrive but have been very pleased with it. Best thing that I have ever bought. The DRO and fitting a VFD drive to get rid of the tedious belt changing have made the mill a pleasure to use..

It's been fitted for nearly a year now and is in constant use with no problems. There were a couple of plastic end caps for the covers missing but that was no big deal.

John

Edited By John Baguley on 17/04/2019 23:42:58

Alternatively, buy 5BA and retap them 4BA.

John

Mine's 3MT. Just been and checked

John

Hi Keith,

I finished off a couple of Tich boilers for someone some years back and had the same problem. I just used ordinary thin wall copper tube and silver soldered bronze ferrules on the ends. One was threaded to screw into the blower valve and the other threaded 1/4 x 40 to screw into the bush in the front tube plate. You could also just silver solder the tube into the blower valve. I did that on my Helen Long boiler.

Not a good photo but you can see the blower stay at the bottom. You don't need the double threaded fitting on the smokebox end. The end of the ferrule is countersunk and the blower pipe just fits straight onto that.

John

Edited By John Baguley on 11/02/2019 23:44:55

Yes, definitely a Fayette but whoever built it deviated from the drawings a bit and used some Bonds castings for the trailing frame and the rear truck (the drawings call for built up items for these). The frame stretcher behind the cylinders is also a Bonds casting. Fayette is a nice loco and runs well. Hope you manage to complete it.

John

I'm probably a bit biased but I get to drive LBSC's Ayesha whenever I want. It's well worn now but has no problem pulling me and heavier drivers.

LBSC was always extolling Ayesha's passenger hauling capabilities and said that he often pulled more than two passengers as well as himself. I'm sure that the old girl would still pull a couple of people given a suitable truck and some decent steel rail for adhesion.

I think of more importance than the power of the loco is having a very free running driving truck. Quite a few of us have changed to the David Hudson design with the self steering axles. These are very free running indeed, especially around curves and take very little tractive effort to pull along.

John

Hi John,

I can't find anyone who sells the drawings for Green Arrow but I can let you have a copy of the articles if that would help? All the drawings are in the articles so you don't really need the full size ones anyway.

It looks like you have most of the castings and anything missing could be fabricated.

Model Engineers Laser do some parts for Green Arrow including laser cut tender bits.

You should be able to get drawings etc. for the Project from the G1 Society. I think they do a booklet for it.

John

Just had a look at the articles. The chassis and probably the castings are for Green Arrow but unfortunately the boiler is not. Green Arrow has a wide firebox coal fired boiler whereas yours is a shorter narrow firebox boiler either gas or spirit fired. Possibly meant for something like the Gauge 1 Project?

John

I would say that it is the Gauge 1 2-6-2 Green Arrow by Martin Evans described in ME starting In October 1971. Not sure if anyone still does castings for it.

John

That's how I do mine:

The method was described by Tim Coles in ME Issue 4277.

John

It looks to me that the cylinders are actually conventional slide valves but the valves are round instead of rectangular. LBSC used round valves on his Ayesha. The last photo shows the round valves connected to the valve rods.

The round parts that I think you are thinking are the valves are actually the port faces and the ports are curved to match the circular valve. The large central hole is the exhaust port Are you sure that these rotate? It's possible that the port discs were made separately for ease of manufacture and remain stationary once in position. I can't see a reason at the moment why they would need to rotate. Are there grooves under the port face to connect the ports to the steam ports drilled in the cylinder?

The loco may well have conventional valve gear such as Stephensons.

John

Edited By John Baguley on 03/05/2018 08:23:16

Edited By John Baguley on 03/05/2018 08:25:11

I would say they are definitely for the 3½" gauge Britannia by LBSC.

John

If you want a really free running design for a driving truck or passenger car then look at the design by David Hudson that has self steering axles. He described the theory and construction in ME for 2003. His is by far the best design I've come across and used. Our club driving trucks and passenger cars are to his design and they are very free running.

Our club went to the Burton track some years ago and one of our members took his Hudson design driving truck. At the end of the day, we decided to see just how far it would go on it's own. It was given a good push and did a complete circuit of the Burton raised track and would have carried on if we hadn't stopped it!

I believe that Dave Noble still offers complete kits for the driving trucks as well as individual components.

I'm just about to convert my normal 4 wheel fixed axle truck to the Hudson design as at the moment it has too much drag for small 2½" gauge locos to pull around easily.

John

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Hi Paul,

The boiler would need to be removed and also the cladding so that it can be given a visual inspection. It would then require a hydraulic test to twice normal working pressure to make sure it is sound. This assumes that you would want to run the loco at a club or anywhere in public.

You can usually tell just by looking at a boiler and the soldering whether it has been well made or not.

John

For my screw down regulators I make the seat part from a bearing grade PEEK. This gives a perfect seal and the valve never seizes shut when the boiler cools down. I find the control to be very gradual and smooth unlike some of the regulators on locos I've driven where it's all or nothing!

The thread on the one for my Helen Long uses a 3/8" BSW thread and for normal running the regulator is barely cracked open, no more than 1/8 of a turn. Any more than a 1/4 turn and the opening makes no difference as the steam flow is controlled by the valve gear rather than the regulator. The pointy bit has an angle of 120°.

I added the spring to take up any backlash in the thread but found it wasn't necessary.

And yes, the tube is brass but it will probably outlive me! Copper would have been a better choice.

John

IMHO aluminium track is absolutely dreadfull stuff! I hate it. It soon gets a very greasy film on the top that reduces adhesion to next to nothing. Give me steel track any day!The only advantage apart from cost is that it gives quieter running than steel.

John