Member postings for Nigel Bennett

Speak to the chaps at Transwave - advert on the right somewhere. Really helpful guys who know their stuff. I've bought two VFDs off them for a S7 and a Boxford 280. I've also heard good words from Newton Tesla as Norm says above.

If the seat's not in too bad nick, you could also try a nitrile ball - Polly sell them. I've had a lot of good results with them.

What I really want on my keyboard is a fully-functional button labelled "Just Do It".

Another +1 for Nord-locks. We had a chappie in some years ago at work to demo them. He had a little vibration rig, to which he affixed a correctly torqued-up M8 nut and bolt. It loosened within seconds. So did a pair of locknuts. And a bent-beam nut, and a Nyloc. The nut & bolt fitted with Nord-Locks just sat there and took it. Since then we've used them on all sorts of critical applications with great success, provided that you fit them correctly - IN PAIRS with the coarser serrations facing each other. (We had a complaint once from a client that screws kept coming loose - despite the instructions, the twits had used just one Nord-Lock per nut and thrown the "spare" ones away...)

Possibly David T's application wasn't suited to the way they work - the hardness (or otherwise) of the mating materials can upset them. Did you try approaching Nord-Lock themselves for advice, David?

"Shear Screws" are often used in applications where fasteners are not meant to be unscrewed - areas prone to vandalism, for example. A countersunk screw can be turned from hexagon bar, with the plain head you require, but with a deep groove formed between the head of the screw and a short length of hexagon. When you tighten the screw fully, using a spanner on the hexagon, the hexagon shears off at the groove, leaving you with a small pip on the now blind head of the screw. A stroke with a file will get rid of it. It's usual to turn the groove with a tapered bottom, such that the smallest diameter is adjacent to the screw head, thus provoking it to keep the majority of the pip with the hexagon, and not sticking out of the screw head.

Some experimentation is needed to determine the groove diameter - it depends on the screw material and the torque needed to tighten the screw. Tiny variations in groove diameter will give big variations in shearing torque!

Noise on my clutch a while ago was caused by the worn-out ball bearings within the large countershaft pulley. Bit of a pain to extract and fit new ones, but it stopped the noise when I'd done it. Note that you need a really good, well-fitting pair of bent circlip pliers to remove the circlip abutting the ball thrust race. I had a new thrust race to fit at the same time as I replaced the journal bearings, but for some reason it was about ten thou too thick for me to engage the circlip. Luckily the old thrust race was still good so I refitted that with no problem.

Driving a 2" scale Clayton or similar on the road is not really practical unless you're in amongst a load of bigger models - you're just too low down, almost invisible, very slow-moving and so extremely vulnerable. I have driven mine on my local housing estate roads at quiet times (many years ago now) but it's too small anyway for practical use. There's no thermal capacity to it, so you're always firing it and stuffing water into it as well as trying to see where you're going and steering round even the slightest of road irregularities.

It is a simple fact that I refuse now to run it anywhere other than my back garden because of the perceived need for me to take out insurance for it. How much damage can you do with a 1 foot high vehicle weighing in at about 80lb and only capable of about 3mph? And how does that compare with a disabled person's chariot, which as far as I understand doesn't need insurance? I wouldn't mind if I had a 6" scale Foden, or something - fair enough, you can do some damage with one of those!

If you're serious about running it on the road, build something big and visible. My late friend David Beale built a steam wagon based on Ray Prime's Atkinson, but about three times the size. The trick was to read up all the Construction & Use regulations, and refer to the end of each chapter where it says "This does not apply if...." and making sure all the "Does not apply" get-outs were adhered to!

I found a 1 - 13mm Albrecht chuck in the scrap bin at work yesterday, and when I got it home I found that it was seized solid. Hence the reason for it being in the bin. Years ago, having need of the knowledge, I looked up on the Interweb Thingy as to how to dismantle Albrecht Chucks, and so knowing already How To Do It, it was with me the work of a moment to dig out my aluminium split holder and strap wrench and unscrew the top. More applied battering removed further bits, until with a rush the last two components released their intimate hold..... and sprayed 4mm balls all over the workshop. Oh tut, tut, I didn't say.

Scrabbling about on the floor and the bench revealed all but three of the balls. 4mm... a relatively odd size... got plenty of 5/32" in the garage, perhaps they'd do... Just a minute! What's this tin labelled "4mm balls"??? There were at least a dozen!

Taking this booty back into the workshop, I spotted another Albrecht ball hiding behind the door. Then I saw another one.. and finally the last one was coerced from its hiding place under a box.

So that's what you have to do to defeat Mr Sod. You already have to have the missing parts you need in stock, and show them to him. Then he'll relent and allow you to find the missing parts. And if I hadn't had a box of 4mm balls, I'm pretty sure he'd still be hiding those missing balls, and wouldn't let me have them back until I'd been out to the nearest bearing shop and bought some.

Yes, it's 4.5MT. It's fairly common, as the Boxford X10 series lathes (280, 330, etc) with the D1-3" camlock have them, as well as the Chipmaster and Bantam lathes. I don't think the Harrison D1-3" camlock lathes are like that.

I suppose the thinking was that 4MT was too restricting and 5MT too big for the spindle.

Those of us of a certain age may recall buying replacement Campagnolo bearing races mail order from the Whiskers Catalogue. That was when you could actually go into a bike shop and buy (say) an individual pawl for the freewheel inside your five-speed "block".

At the present time, like every other supplier in the throwaway society, bicycle component manufacturers will launch new products in their range quite frequently, and asking bike shops to stock spare parts for all the ranges for (say) the last ten years for several manufacturers is not on. You wear out a hub - you buy a new hub. And count yourself lucky if it can be made to fit the spokes and rim. And if you can't do that, you buy a new wheel. Oh dear - they don't do it in 8 speed any more - you have to get an 11 speed. And by the time you've finished, it's easier to buy a new bike.

That's how it works in this day and age.

Back to the OP. You need to get a really superb finish on your HARD replacement insert. You should be able to measure the old race well enough to get near if you cut it in half. It needs to be very close to the ball diameter. Ideally you'd harden the race and then grind it to suit, but that's pretty specialist.

I'd fit ceramic balls when you've made it; they (apparently) iron out the creases in your race and it should last longer.

Edited By Nigel Bennett on 23/08/2018 09:12:37

Judging by its age, the copper boiler will probably have soft-soldered and nutted stays in the firebox; the whole thing may even have been riveted up and soft-solder caulked rather than silver-soldered. It almost certainly won't conform to the latest ideas of boilermaking.

Without your boiler inspector having a good look at it, it's very likely that yes, it's scrap - but who knows?

Make your assessment of the purchase by assuming that it will need a new boiler. At least you could increase the boiler pressure with a new boiler!

I recall my late friend David Beale, who built a 9” scale Atkinson steam wagon in a cheerful yellow Hovis livery, describing how he went through the construction and use regs, referring to the end of each chapter, where it said, “This does not apply if.....” and so he was able to avoid all sorts of daft things like indicators and seat belt anchorages.

Fearsome things... I had a 5 pint one and it was awful. I think part of the problem was that even when warmed up it sprayed the job with unburned paraffin and contaminated it. I bought a Sievert 2944 as a replacement and it was superb.

I've never liked the gunmetal top to the firebox. I've seen one with porosity in it, and having a large cast part in front of your face doesn't fill me with confidence.

The full-sized boiler had a tall wrapper rather like the Hunslet quarry locos - the upper part of the firebox is cylindrical like a lot of boilers, with a dome mounted centrally. The "haystack" is merely a brass cover.

You should consider becoming a member of OLCO www.lionlocomotive.org.uk as they have a lot of information about the full-sized loco, and many members have built models.

I recall my boss, many years ago, coming out with, "Because you know, you never know, you know"

Terry

If you want a boiler certificate for it, you will have to join a club. The various Associations/Federations to which clubs are affiliated have an arrangement with Royal & Sun Alliance to certify boilers, but you must be a Club member for it to work. Even if you have a valid boiler certificate but are not a bona fide club member, the certificate and its covering insurance will be invalid.

Obtaining an independent certificate from somebody else would be nigh on impossible. Where, they would ask sternly, are your certificates of conformity for the materials used in the boiler construction? Where, they would continue, are your calculations for the design of the boiler? Etc, etc. Don't go there. It would cost you a fortune anyway.

Provided the club boiler inspector is happy with it, (and if the boiler has any brass in it he won't be), then he may be satisfied with just a small weep or else ask for it to be expanded in place (tapered drift should do it as it's annealed - but don't overdo it) or else as suggested before, run some Comsol around the joint. If you try to silver-solder it then as said previously, you'll have problems with it because a) it probably won't run as it's already got nasties in the joint and b) you'll probably start melting and cracking adjacent joints. Also c) you'll need something special in the way of torches to get into that tiny firebox to put enough heat into it. Luckily it's one of the lower tubes, so you may be OK

A good seeing-to of the affected area with a bead blaster immediately before trying any kind of soldering operation would be your best bet. But bear in mind that bead-blasting might actually remove some bits of gunge on an adjacent tube and cause that one to leak... Good luck.

I've been busy making bits for the front coupling on my LSWR O2 0-4-4T to Don Young's Fishbourne design in 5"G. I can think of a number of ways to assemble the top link to the coupling hook, involving silver-soldering bits together, but looking at photos of the real thing, how on earth did they do it when they made them? Did they forge the link ends after they'd passed it through the hole in the hook? No way would the finished link pass through the hole! Some links on Other Railways have a flat on them to pass through a slot provided above the hook hole, but not on these. A slot in this hook would weaken it too much.

This is Calbourne in full size:

I suppose they enjoyed making life difficult for themselves back in the day...

No, I'm afraid that you need a supply of steam to make a steam injector work! The whole principle of its operation is that the water feed condenses the steam, which gives up its latent heat of vaporisation, thereby imparting sufficient energy to the water to enable it to be fed into the boiler. Air has no latent heat and the injector will not work. Yes, there will be changes of velocity and pressure with an air/water arrangement due to the changes in the bore of the cone sections, but not enough to enable it to feed against boiler pressure.

You'll need a bespoke Test Boiler to do a lot of testing; DAG Brown gives some hints and tips in his book, which is well worth a read.

The late lamented David Beale in our Leeds Society built a 5"G Adams radial tank to the Kelvin Moonie design and ran it on bottled gas. David was a highly competent Engineer (with a capital E) and he eventually gave it it up as impractical and resorted to coal firing. I cannot now remember the problems that he had, but I am of the opinion that if he wasn't happy with gas firing, then it's probably best avoided.

but did it work? When do we get a write up?

I don't know, Duncan - yet - if it works. I'm still screwing up the courage to spoil the nice new paintwork. I did run it briefly with the GPCS system turned on before I dismantled it to paint it, and all I can say is that the fire didn't go out!

Yes, there'll be an article submitted to ME in due course, but only after I've done some significant comparative tests. Watch this space, as they say. And it won't be today because it's raining, and Cudyll Bach has taken Henry's correspondence course about What to do with your Nice Green Paint in the Rain...