Member postings for clivel

I think that for many engineers, a genuine Gerstner is somewhat of a status symbol, so a Gerstner without the trademark mirror would be a bit like a Rolls Royce without the "Flying Lady" on the bonnet.

I don't recall where I originally heard about the reason for the mirror, but to confirm it, I searched the Gerstner site by Googling for "site:www.gerstnerusa.com mirror" (without the quotes). One of the first results was to **LINK** containing the text I posted above with the link, although the actual link was probably not that obvious in the prior posting.

Clive

The diagonal mirror was orignially a feature of Gerstner wooden toolboxes. The reason for the mirror given by the Gerstner Company here is:

The mirror was first installed in the early 1900’s on some of the very earliest Gerstner chest designs. In those days, very few manufacturing and/or tool & die companies had indoor plumbing. In other words, there were few companies with lavatories (with wash basins and mirrors) for toolmakers and other factory workers to use to clean up at the end of the day.
The “mirror” mounted inside a Gerstner tool chest provided the wherewithal for the chest owner to check his appearance and comb his hair before heading home (or, perhaps, going in to ask the boss for a raise). At various times over the years, we have introduced a few tool chests without including a mirror. Interestingly enough, the feedback from customers has been, “Without a mirror, the chest doesn’t look like a Gerstner.” So . . .you may notice that virtually all new model Gerstners feature a“mirror” inside the tip lid.

They don't mention why the mirror was placed diagonally, but I recall reading somewhere that it was more as a trademark feature of the Gerstner brand rather than for any practical purposes, a feature now copied by other manufactures, particularly those in the Far East.

At the risk of taking this thread even further of topic, but if only to show just how dangerous generalisations are, and why people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones - The top three countries with the highest obesity rates are the United States, Mexico and the United Kingdom.

SAR Steam who have been supplying drawings for many of the South African Railway 3'6" gauge (mainline) and 2' narrow gauge locomotives are closing down. The drawings they supply are of the full sized locos and are apparently of excellent quality.

As a closing special they are offering the whole collection of drawings (about 90 locomotives) on 3 DVDs for $100 including worldwide postage. According to the website they will be taking orders until the 31st December and then no more. So this might be the ideal opportunity for a belated Christmas pressie to oneself

Clive

The book "Simple Model Locomotive Building introducing LBSC's Tich" includes photos of a Tich locomotive as well as a part built Juliet, both by a Mrs Ruth Daltry.

The Tich would of course have had to have been completed sometime prior to the books 1968 publication.

Clive

I have a Unimat, Basic which is of a comparable size to the Sherline, and like the Sherline can be fitted with either a 4 jaw independent chuck or a 3 jaw self centring chuck. The latter, like with the Sherline, is tightened by means of two tommy bars which are an absolute pain to use.
So if anything, I find that for those of us with only two hands, the 4 jaw chuck is actually easier and faster to use when compared to juggling two tommy bars endowed by gravity with a natural predilection to head straight down into the swarf, and of course two tommy bars are twice as many things to lose and also much harder to find than a 4 jaw chuck key.

Initially when I first got the lathe which was supplied with both chucks I shied away from using the 4 jaw. But after I bough a dial indicator off eBay I decided to give it a try. I soon found that with a little practise especially on these smaller chucks with limited travel, an item can be centred very quickly, and of course the 4 jaw can hold things that would be almost impossible with the three jaw.
My three jaw has long since been relegated to paper weight duty, which has had the beneficial side effect of no more of the scraped knuckles that inevitably occurred, no matter how careful I was, almost every time I tried to open the chuck to remove a piece of work.

Clive

Edited By clivel on 06/12/2014 18:53:22

It is incredibly frustrating that they don't keep a few copies in stock for a month or two as a service to subscribers to replace the magazines that inevitably go missing in the mail.
One of the chief advantages of a subscription is an uninterrupted supply, specially important for magazines like ME (and to a lesser extent MEW) with articles spread over multiple issues.

I missed an issue of MEW last year which I only realised had gone missing once I received the following issue. I immediately contacted MyTimeMedia who informed me that only a month later they no longer had the issue in stock.

A few days later I just happened to be browsing the Reeves web site when I noticed that they carry back issues including the one I was missing, so rather then fight a losing battle with MyTimeMedia, I ordered it online from Reeves who delivered it promptly.

George, I see that they do have 4490 in-stock **LINK** which may be your best chance of getting it replaced

Clive

Edited By clivel on 16/10/2014 19:20:29

The cherry on the top would be simultaneously running a tutorial series on using the program in MEW at the same time.

Mike,
You should report the listing to eBay, they are responsible for taking down listings offering pirated products,

No doubt Mitutoyo are well aware that their products are faked. Unfortunately the scale of the piracy is so large that policing becomes impractical especially as it seems as if the Chinese government has little enthusiasm to put a stop to it at source.

The only recourse that most manufacturers have is to report pirated products at the point of sale. For example a local woman's accessories shop that sold fake high-end, name-brand handbags, purses etc was shut down after the owners' of the affected trademarks reported the shop owners to the authorities.

Unfortunately the proliferation of pirated products cuts across all markets, I recently had an expensive torch completely ruined when the "Duracell" batteries I had fitted leaked after a few weeks. A web search soon revealed that counterfeit Duracell batteries are widely distributed. Regrettably as I had long since thrown out the packaging and receipt I couldn't recall where I had bought them.

Clive

Edited By clivel on 28/09/2014 19:08:01

Hi John and Julian,
Thanks for the information. Needless to say my friend got his information from the Reeves catalogue which is why we assumed it to be a Don Young design.

Does anyone have any thoughts as to the suitability of the design/model especially for a beginner, I tried to convince him to also build a Railmotor with me, but he seems to be sold on Dolgoch and unfortunately there don't seem to be any examples to check out in this part of Canada.

Thanks,
Clive

An acquaintance of mine is contemplating building a 5" gauge Don Young designed model of Dolgoch of the Talyllyn Railway as a first loco, using drawings and castings available from Reeves.

Does anyone perhaps know if the construction was serialised in "Locomotives Large and Small", and if so what issues?

Also if anyone is familiar with this model and has an opinion that they can share, good or bad, it would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Clive

I don't know about lemonade, but when we were kids we used citric acid, bicarb of soda, and icing sugar to make our own sherbet powder.
I guess it is safe enough as we are all still here.

Is there any reason not to use white vinegar?

A few weeks ago I needed to silver solder some copper bits together and not having any citric acid to hand I grabbed some white vinegar from the kitchen which I arbitrarily decided to dilute 50/50 with water. The parts came out spotless after about 30 minutes or so.

Clive

Edited By clivel on 11/09/2014 23:14:14

Edited By clivel on 11/09/2014 23:14:32

Thanks Neil, I can access it now.

And to think, I thought it was to receive a magazine

Clive

Neil,

Attempting to access that article displays "Subscriber only content" even though I am a subscriber to both ME and MEW with the appropriate subscription numbers entered in my profile, and anyway wouldn't of course be of too much help to Deltic if he is not a subscriber

Clive

Starting in 2001, Model Engineer ran a construction series by Neville Evans describing the Highland Railway Jones 4-6-0 and Loch 4-4-0 Locomotives.

They look to be relatively straight forward to build, I was considering the 4-4-0 Loch before scaling down my ambitions to the Railmotor, and the prototypes were much more colourful than the Black Five if you want to stick to prototypical colours. To my mind it would seem a pity to go to all the effort of building a scale model and then to not paint it in colours that at least bear a passing similarity to the original.

Castings and drawings for these locos are available from Polly Model Engineering. A photo of the full size 4-6-0 may be seen here, and here is a video of a 5" Gauge 4-4-0

Hi John,

I am currently building a 5" gauge Railmotor No1 designed by Don Young as my first loco using drawings and castings from Reeves. So far I have been very happy with their service, everything I have ordered (online) has arrived promptly to me here in Canada, but their prices are not particularly cheap.

I have never ordered anything from Blackgates so I am not able to comment first hand, but they have been in business for many years, they are also the sole supplier of castings for the very popular Sweet Pea loco, so I would assume that there are no problems with their service either.

For a first loco you may want to consider building an engine that has been described in a construction series. This was one of the reasons for me choosing the Railmotor, the construction series was published in Model Engineer between 1968 and 1969.

Some examples of completed Railmotors can be found on the Station Road Steam site here, here and here. Actually the Station Road Steam archive is a very useful place to browse when trying to decide which loco you would like to build.

Clive

Neil,
I guess it must be a typo; "Steam Locomotives Of The South African Railroads" by D.F Holland regarded as the definitive work on SAR locomotives, shows the 19D as the last of the 19 series.

Ennech,
Your 15F is coming on very nicely,, do you plan on selling drawings and castings?
When I finish my current loco, which is also my first, a 5" gauge Railmotor, and probably still a few years to completion, I am hoping to build a SAR engine.

Clive

Have you tried eBay, currently there is a copy on auction MEW issue No 8

Clive

Hi Charles,
You can get the full size drawings of many of the South African Railway locomotives from SAR Steam.
They are apparently scanned and cleaned up from the original drawings. Amongst the listed drawings I see a number of drawings for both classes 15 and 19 variants.

I have not purchased any of the drawings myself, but I have downloaded some of the sample pages and the quality seems good. At US$20 per set downloaded, considering that for example the 19D drawings comprises of 356 pages, I don't think that they are too exorbitant.

Clive