Member postings for RRMBK

Thanks Julian.

My thinking was to pickle the individual boiler parts, and then flux and rivet up with a few bits of thin 2/3 thou shim adjacent to rivets between joints which is then pulled out. Leave overnight and solder up the following day, using a normal fluid flux mix to supplement the joints. I understand the need to coat the rivet heads. This isnt my first boiler but on the last one I did seem to get problems with what appeared to be lack of flux penetration.

Hi all some help please.

In preparing for silver soldering has anyone fluxed joints before riveting and allowed the flux to dry out in the right place between the joint, say overnight; before silver soldering. My boiler sections are currently fixed together with screws and I would like to be sure the flux has fully coated the surfaces before actually removing these and finally replacing them with Rivets. I presume the water in the flux mix is only there to allow the flux to flow or seep into the joints which it would not do if dry, or does it serve some deeper chemical purpose? my concern would be that the air pressure of the flame might blow the dry flux out from the joints if applied directly Hope this makes sense.

Kind regards all

BK.

I seem to recall someone saying they used a slocumbe centre drill from below. havent seen the article yet.

see you at track sometime.

BK.

DC1

One would sincerely hope not, but unfortunately that does tend to be the sort of knee jerk reaction that eventually happens. I agree wholehartedly with ADY's comments I feel that proper awareness and acknowledgement of the risks, and passing on that knowledge to teach newcomers whether they are children or adults; is beholden on all of us who did have the benfit of proper experienced tutors, often during a 4 or 5 year apprenticeship. Equally it is important that those who recieve the benefit of that learning use the information properly and in the right manner.

I put this up originally partly because of the recent protracted discussion that has taken place about plugs and sockets of differing types. whilst HSE does not apply directly in our home workshops, ultimately it is up to us as adults to shoulder responsibility for our safety and the safety of anyone we teach or influence, especially when forums such as this are such wonderful fountains of excellent practice and hard learned experience, and others tend to rely on them for their guidance.

I fully agree. I intended my inital post to refer to encouraging younger people into a hobby that appears to have an increasingly ageing membership profile, but worded it wrongly. Also if you are not already aware of it the HSE " Mythbusters section of their website makes some very interesting and occasionally entertaining reading !

Try national 2.5 Gauge association **LINK**

**LINK**

Hopefully this may provoke some intersting discussion about how we help others in the hobby to be, and stay; safe.

Thanks for initial replies, Flamefast site does not seem to have info on the older models but I intend to make contact with them by phone & see what the response is. Currently I use a variable propane regulator with my hand held torches - 1 x rothenburger and a set of Clarke hand held trigger type. I would be happy enough just to have the hearth alone and use with my hand held setup, but as the blower and solenoid valves all seem to work perfectly well it seems a shame not to get it working properly. My hoses are red for gas and blue for air. the gas has a ball valve and the thumbwheel on the torch but there does not seem to be any flow control on the air, is this normal?

Has anyone used or converted a flamefast torch & associated pipework valves to run on LPG please. If so what is involved and how difficult/ expensive was it. it is a DS100 hearth with an RF 60 ( NG ) torch, which I presume to mean natural gas.

Many thanks

BK.

Hi Clive.

Have you looked at Doug Hewsons website? This might help you in your choice. If you are building for acuracy rather than for running, have you considered getting the full size drawings from the NRM in York and scaling from those?

Kind regards

Brian

Graham. If you intend to close this post, would it be possible to PM me with a response re holding short & small drills please?

Many thanks

Brian K.

What a shame to see yet another interesting, knowledgeable helpful and well explained thread descending into poor diatribe.

Graham- thanks for the information and helpful comments and clear explanatory photographs. It has persuaded me to get my jig out and give it another try, with far greater success than I have ever achieved before. Can you please explain how you hold and set for length 3mm and smaller, particularly short length drills please. I struggle with the back end stop fouling in the vee of the front portion of the clamp casting. Also I tend to use short stub drills for most of my accurate drilling and these are a real problem with this jig. What is the smallest diameter you find practicable to sharpen please?

John - my engineering will always be, to use your words – “ badgers arse “ standard, - it doesn’t mean I don’t need and gratefully accept advice from other people whether their standard of finish is better or worse than mine. As for show and tell, recent posts on engine builds and the photographs on various profiles on this forum are an absolute gold mine of information to give me the confidence and show possible ways to approach a problem that I may not have come across before despite a lifetime of work in various categories of engineering.

Finally I strongly believe the work of the likes of Cherry Hill, Gerald Wingrove et al serve far more as an encouragement and motivation than any negative aspect. Whilst we may not be able to achieve their standards , it does show us it is achievable and so maybe we should just give that last part we made another go and see if we can get it a bit better next time. Which of us who visited Harrogate could fail to be impressed and spurred on by many of the fantastic models, especially the beautiful Patriot on show. I spent a long time leafing through the accompanying booklet in sheer amazement at the workmanship.

I fear that remarks like yours will stem the free flow of such information and further discourage others from sharing it. Particularly so when this is seen to come from the recognised formal position of moderator.

Hi Niel and all

I think your idea of the drain pipe and piston seems excellent, Piston easily sealed with a leather or light fitting O ring . In the UK you might want to consider the yellow Gas pipe which is larger diameter and very smooth bore, to reduce friction. It would also be more stable in the suggestion I am about to make.

Consider this in the context of Michael G’s accumulator. Say 2 mtrs long, standing vertically with a weight on the piston. Initially, fill it with air at say 1 to 1.5 bar. At the start of a demonstration period this could be done quickly with a battery tyre compressor if no mains available, or slowly with a quiet aquarium pump both of which you can obtain quite cheaply.

This will give you a large volume of air which you can tap off from near the base of the cylinder as required by using an outlet valve to control flow. For an exhibition, where mains is available keep the aquarium pump feeding into the accumulator via the top of the piston through a Non return valve .

A suitable pressure gauge on the accumulator and the position of the piston will give you a good idea of how the volume of air is holding up. If it starts to get low, stop the display engines for a while or shut down a few until the output from the aquarium pump is greater than the demand and your accumulator will recharge. Alternatively accept the noise for a few minutes and quickly fill up with the noisy air compressor.

If you are really lucky one of your club members may be a diver in which case you have a perfect silent solution. Blag a couple of their diving cylinders and regulator for the day and make a suitable connection to top up your accumulator from that at 1 bar or whatever safe pressure you intend to run at.

If your tube is 150mm dia by 2 M tall that gives approx. 1000 ltr , pressurise to 1 bar - that gives a useable say 700 bar ltrs - usage of 3.5 ltrs / min at 1 bar = 200 minutes or 3.5 hours. A Divers cylinder is approx. 1000 bar litre so two cylinders will keep you going all day. As an example, I keep a fully charged diving cylinder with suitable regulator and connector on my boat and it inflates my little Avon dinghy perfectly to about 20 psi.

If you have more engines stand more accumulators up in the bank and couple them together.

Just to keep the UK safety aspect in control PSSR is intended for equipment “ at work “ so as a club using it for public display I don’t think it applies, but if you get as far as considering the design viable it might be worth taking professional advice.

However common sense tells us that the amount of stored energy is pretty small and a pressure of 1-1.5 bar extremely unlikely to result in catastrophic failure, but you will need a simple pressure relief valve on the accumulators. New gas pipe is pressure tested and certificated in a manner that drain pipe isn’t. Divers cylinders are regularly tested and certified, and your electrical aquarium pump may need to be tested and declared safe.

I think the most probable incident is the discharge going full bore and the weight/ piston making a bit of a noise when it hits the bottom of the cylinder behind you giving rise to brown trousers syndrome!

Happy Hydraulics Games – and may the force be ever in your favour.

good stuff but --

make sure you store it well away from little fingers.my tin lives at the back on the highest shelf in the workshop. I think the reason it is no longer available is because it contains cyanide!!

Best wishes to all for the festive season.

Anyone got any tips for cleaning up steel to a bright finish after silver soldering.

I dunk in pickle( drain Cleaner) and then in clean water, cleans the flux off but leaves a dull grey / black finish on BMS. Is elbow grease the only answer and if so what abrasives do you use and how do people clean such stuff as small sharp angles, radii and corners please.

Have tried citric acid also but similar dull finish after pickling.

Many thanks

B.K.

Might be worth looking at locomotive Draughting, M.E. July/ August 1989. Contains some interesting data and drawings.

Thank you all for your help. Also found details of Petrolea item as produced by LBSC from a club colleague. Think Ive got mopst of what I need for now. Once again many thanks.

Can anyone please help with either drawings or a source of castings for a single cylinder Westinghouse brake in 2 1/2 gauge. I believe one was described in the gauge 3 Dee project but that no castings were produced due to it being not commercially viable. Drawings can be from any gauge as that way I can scale down and fabricate, or make my own pattern.

Wonderful engines. smooth and effective, however they had a nasty occasional habit of bursting the water cooling hose to the top piston and showering the whole engine room with hot water. Especially awkward when you were stood at the control stand 25 ft below the one that went!!

Thanks all for the responses Gents. I have been using the 1.5/1.6 dimension for length, and annealing rivets before using them.

- Bazyle - very interested in your comment that the initial setting process isnt viable. Jason B am I right in assuming you Do use the setting process and does it work for you?

Terryd - I use ball peen for csk finish on rivets but hadn't considered it for RH. I see the logic and if I understand it you use the snap just to form the final dome shape rather than the whole rivet closing process.

Thanks again all

B K