Member postings for BERT ASHTON

Hi Garry, Its been a month now since I made an appeal to trace the Coal Tank,

and so far nothing, not even a hint yet I feel sure that somebody, somewhere

will have seen it.

I enclose a photo of a finished Coal Tank, this engine was built by Chris Rayward

of Hotspur Designs.

Bert Ashton.

You are making excellent progress Garry, keep up the good work and your great photographs.

Bert Ashton.

Hi Gary,

I have never used the con rod casting as supplied buy Stuart in their engine kits.

I found them difficult to hold and not always straight, I think the photos should self

explanatory as I milled them out of solid bar then turned the tapered centre portion

and finished with filing buttons.

Bert Ashton.

Hi Al, the Coal Tank is not the easiest loco to build due to the amount of detail,

but help is always at hand via email or phone from the designer Chris Rayward.

I did not find any errors in his drawings.

Please take a look at his website.

**LINK**

Bert Ashton.

Still no replies to my appeal. Please, dose anybody know where I can

find this loco and its owner.

Bert Ashton.

Thanks for the support Gary, I don't think I could ever afford to buy it back but I would love to have a few pictures of the Coal Tank that I started to create.

Many years ago I started to build a 5" gauge Coal Tank with drawing and casting supplied Chris Rayward of Hotspur Designs.

Due to health problems I sold all of my machines on Ebay and the Coal Tank was sold to a well known steam dealer unfinished.

A few months later I was contacted by a new owner of the Coal Tank who said that he intended to finish it, and he sent me a photo of it on show at the Sandown ME exhibition, since then I have lost all contact with this man.

I would love to see this engine in its finished state and if anybody knows the owner I would love to hear from him.

The photographs show the engine just before I sold it and the other at Sandown.

I forgot to mention that gentle heat applied to the brass rod will soon free it.

Bert Ashton.

In the past I machined the glands thus, grip spigot in the 3 jaw chuck and take a clean up skim,

then drill and ream to size, mount on the end of a short piece of brass rod with Loctite, the diameter

and face can now be turned.

If the lathe speed is now dropped to its lowest a smooth file will clean up the ellipse edge, with care

of course, If you know your lathe centre height the gland can be set by eye and your height gauge

set at lathe centre a line can be scribed across the gland, then turning the chuck thru 180 degrees

scribe with the height gauge set to the hole centres.

I hope this helps,

Bert Ashton

Welcome back Allan, we missed you, it is nice to see you on the ME site again

with your clear text and fine photographs, I am sure they both help and inspire

many beginners.

Bert Ashton.

Nice to have you back Allan.

Neil, I ran Spybot and removed a few adware items but it did not solve the problem.

I then checked my programs and found ZOMBIE INVASION, this program had been installed

today without my knowledge, I uninstalled this program and now things are working

as they should be.

I blame Yahoo for this, very sneaky.

Bert Ashton.

Thanks Neil, I have Spybot and I will run it later.

Bert Ashton

Question for Neil, Moderator, I have recently posted a couple of threads on

this site only to find that some of the words have been highlighted in blue and double underlined, if clicked on it brings up a advert, is this necessary or has

some dark force taken over.

Bert Ashton.

Thanks Keith, I tried your link, it took me to the UPT page, I tried to sign in and re-join but both took me to the BT Yahoo page.

Dose anybody know how to sign in, I have been a member of this group since it started, now I would like to access it to look at the latest posts and photos but every time I try to sign in it takes me to the BT Yahoo home page.

I have tried the Yahoo Groups Help page but all I get is FAQ and none of them give the answer I need.

Dose anybody know the secret

Point taken Michael, but I still think that we should stick to model engineering.

This thread is not model engineering, there are websites and magazines for motorbike lovers.

Hi Maurice, nearly all the extras on my lathe are the designs of George H Thomas, in the UK kits and drawings are supplied by Hemingway Kits. www.hemingwaykits.com GHT also wrote a number of books on model engineering, well worth a read.

I agree that cleaning machine tools with compressed air is bad workshop practice, but after spending most of my working life in engineering I remember machine shops where most of the men was on piece work, time was money so everybody cleaned down with a quick blast of the air gun. how times have changed.