Member postings for Maurice

I was watching a film about old fairground rides on Tube, and wondered, not for the first time, how did they get the paintwork to have that lovely glister finish? It's not like a modern metallic paint, some of the rides seem to glow! I have no other reason to ask than my curiosity.

Maurice

The washer under the nut looks very thick.Substitute a thinner one and see what that looks like.

Maurice

I had an old Stuart No.1 that I was restoring. This had very poor ports, and an inclusion right next to a port. I don't know how it ever ran. After taking some advice, I milled the whole port area away to a depth of about an eighth of an inch then fitted a plate of cast iron (a spare steam chest cover) in the excavation with epoxy resin: then milled new ports. Worked very well.

MauriceIf you have soft soldered your fabrication, and there are blobs of solder where you don't want them, a glass fibre stick, as used to clean commutators, will remove the solder and not the brass. It's a slow process, but you know you are not damaging the underlying metal.

If you call Stuart Turner themselves, I am fairly certain that they will be able to tell you when it was last produced. They seem to have kept a lot of old records and drawings.

I see that I left "cylinder block" out of my post. Sorry! On this particular engine, a Robey 5ton Tractor, there is no form of support between the flywheel end of the trunk guides and the boiler, so it was trying to wag up and down all the time the engine was running. Bigger pull, more wag! It took from1918 until about 1983 to crack it, so it lasted quite well.

Mark mentions preheating the casting. Years ago I knew a man whose traction engine started to crack along the flange that holds it on the boiler. The firm he took it to put it in a muffle furnace, got it red hot, and welded it while it was still glowing! Sounds scarey. It must have worked; the engine is still about.

The old teleprinters that I used to repair had two of these; one between the motor and the main shaft, and another to drive the demountable keyboard. Originally the disc was of a brown fibre substance. By my time they were nylon. They wore out quite rapidly. Some were so worn that the two tongues were opposite each other instead of at right angles. Perhaps the tapers on your example were to eliminate backlash by advancing the disc toward each other, pushing the tapers deeper in the slots, reducing the clearance?

With the moderator's permission, I would like to draw to hot attention of the traction engine fraternity to the Robey steam tractor that I have put on eBay, item number 222569259168. From the description you will see that it is unfinished, but a great deal of the work is done. I know this not advertising space, but not everyone watches eBay, and it would be a shame if someone who would really like finish it missed out.

Maurice

I agree with Hopper, but in his original post, Andrew says that he already has a Myford dividing head; so why not use it with the aid of a simple adaptor. Once made its very quick to set up and gives a very wide range of divisions, even with only the two basic division plates.

Maurice

Sorry if my description of my dividing head on the mandrel was inadequate. The adaptor plugs into the morse taper in the dividing head, then the parallel part plugs into the rear of the lathe mandrel and is expanded by a tapered plug, pulled in with a drawbar from the extreme left of the dividing head. The chuck carrying the work to be divided is screw onto the lathe mandrel. I will post a picture tomorrow if it helps.

Maurice

I have the Myford dividing head, and have an adaptor with a No2 morse taper on one end to fit the dividing head, and an expanding parallel the other to plug into the rear end of the lathe mandrel. I originally intended to fit some sort of stay to secure the body from rotating, but in practice it just sits on the change wheel cover. This allows me to divide stuff held in the chuck or whatever, and have done numerous graduating jobs with it, with the engaging tool held in the tool post.

Maurice

I thought that perhaps the traction engine fraternity might like to see these pictures of two Robey steam tractors. They look like factory photographs. The one with the canopy is, I believe, a 5 ton example. The legend on the canopy reads"A. & R. Williams. Haulage Contractor. Hereford. On the rear of the card is written "332/26A. Robey 38556.

The other one without a canopy is a three ton version. The back of the card reads "332/25A. and 332/26A

Robey 25958. 4/12/06

later became 26805

and then 27658 "

If correct, it implies that it went through the factory twice to emerge renumbered. I would have thought that an engine kept its number for all its working life, unless I suppose it was a major rebuild. Anyway I hope they are of interest.

Maurice

Some balances of this type appeared, brand new, in our physics laboratory, when I was at school. Long time ago! We thought they were pretty neat, but our physics master wasn't impressed, and they did prove difficult to get repeatable results from. Interesting idea though.

Maurice

I have a sort of rear tool post that is fitted with a very thin slitting saw, as a cutting blade. It is rigidly fixed, with the tip of the tooth in use set at centre height. Works very well as long as I keep a stiff artists paintbrush handy to keep it clear of swarf. I started using it for some parting off where I needed minimum waste, but it does cut very nice grooves.

Maurice

The original "Stuart" burner were definatly made from brass. The wick was a bundle of loosely made cords, probably of an asbestos nature, encased in a woven tube that kept them nice and cylindrical to push into the tube. At the tank end, the case was removed, and the cords splayed out to be immersed in the meths.

Maurice

I read somewhere that it is essential that the slots in the tube must be wider than the thickness of the tube, or it will not work. Rather that wide slots, thin wall tube is to be preferred. I can't find the source at the moment, but I think it said something about lots of cold metal taking heat from the flame and quenching it. There are several designs of spirit burners in K.N. Harris's book "Model boilers and boiler making".

Maurice

When using a pen that has a tube for the "nib", surely its orientation will be different each time you pick it up. How can it wear to suit the user? Puzzled.

Maurice

If it is of any help, I recently acquired a set of old Sievert burners that screw perfectly onto my old Calor torch. My problem, the I have not properly looked into yet, is they need new sealing washers that are inside the threaded part of the torch.

Maurice

Reading this post reminds me of an incident, when I had my gutters and facials replaced. It was a two man team, one of them had just left school. At one point the older chap called down for" one and a half metres of the six inch". A short time later I said to the school lever that I realised that the other chap was his boss, but he wasn't doing him any favours by mixing metres and inches. His reply? "What's the difference?". I went indoors to cry!

Maurice