Member postings for Paul Kemp

Dave, that's a good wheeze, nice bit of thinking there, not keen on the idea though but I am sure you have cracked it, especially as we can now see the full note which suggests you are right. I am intrigued the side view shows a 3/4" bore, there is no apparent significant step shown in the bore of the body but the end view shows a bore size of 1/2"?

Paul.

Oh Ron! Category A SPAD, suspended immediately from footplate duties and relegated to shed cleaner!!

Seriously, glad it all went well and all enjoyed themselves, that's what it's all about at the end of the day, makes the solitary hours in the shed and the head scratching trying to solve the design and machining problems all worth while.

Paul.

But, the "Hanging is too good for them" side of the debate need to take stock and think well on such pronouncements.

Well I guess I am guilty of tending towards the above group. My frustration really originates from the 'modern' expectation that the criminal justice system is veiwed by the more liberally minded as a substitute for the inability of society to instill proper morals within itself. I am afraid my view is the penal system should provide deterrent and punishment for those that refuse to conform to the majority accepted standard of respect for others and the basic premis of right and wrong. The expectation of that function being performed by the penal system will not reduce offences. It's locking the door after the horse has gone! I have a major problem with human rights for offenders, they make a choice be it conscious or unconscious to commit these acts, when they do they should accept the normal priveledges associated with liberty and respect of their rights are removed. In carrying out the act these morons did they had no respect for the efforts or time expended by the owners of the property they destroyed. No amount of money can replace that time and effort and the psychological effect on the victims will be immense. The expectation that a short or soft response by the court attached to some love and forgiveness will turn these people around is naive. Society itself as Neil suggests needs to look in the mirror and govern itself to produce moral upstanding citizens. The courts should deliver retribution to those that fail to respond. The very way society as whole is being manoeuvred by marketing and commercialism to create the desire to have the latest fashions in clothes and gadgets is not helping!

I refuse to accept that these poor misguided individuals have not experienced at any time in ther short lives any positive examples of right and wrong, I also very much doubt they have any shred of remorse and if reading any comment on line regarding this incident they will probably be revelling in the 'fame'. They did the crime, they should be sanctioned, not rewarded.

Paul.

Well the note on the drawing has me confused. Make 1st pump to drawing, make 2nd less - looks like anchor links? Obscured by the rule. That sort of suggests the two pumps bolt together on the flange? In which case you have two opposed rams, how does that work with one handle? Drawing in isolation makes no sense to me but as per usual in model "drawings" they are hardly really drawings! If you took them to any half decent machine shop they would refuse to make it without proper detail and tolerances.

Paul.

If you are tapping your own tee nuts, use a taper tap and don't go all the way through. Easy way if you use all thread as the studs to stop the stud winding right through the nut, can keep the nuts nice and tight on the stud too if required.

Paul.

Thorplas from Thorndon plastics is an established marine bearing material, the blue grade will be fine, it's available in cored rod form so not too much waste. Quite expensive though if I recollect correctly. As already said nylon is no good as it absorbs water and will swell, which will mean your rudder stock will be well and truly stuck!

Paul.

Brian,

The eternal question! I remain unconvinced that for a 3" scale boiler blowing down hot results in a dry boiler. There is no other ventilation so even if the water is driven off the plate into the atmosphere within the boiler unless that atmosphere is subject to an air flow the moisture in the air trapped in the boiler will just re condense on the plates as the temperature equalises. Given that possibly your boiler probably doesn't have a man hole and the wash out plugs are small where will any decent air flow come from? I have a friend with a 4" scale foster boiler that is around 20 years old now and still on its original set of tubes! Annual ultrasound inspections show very little wastage and an internal endoscope inspection shows no scabbing on the tubes or evidence of pitting corrosion on the plates. The only 'repair' over the boiler's life has been welding in a new bush for the fusible plug due to wastage of the threads. His routine is to leave it full of treated water 12m of the year, during the winter it is protected by a low wattage black heater in the fire box. Whether the condition now is a result of his approach or due to exceptional quality material in the original build who knows? However I am following his example and have upped my treatment regime and certainly this year at its annual cold exam the internal condition looked much better than pervious.

I think it's one of those things where theory and practice do not always coincide and the proof is in the long term evidence / condition. Certainly when I have blown my 4" R&P hot and then removed the plugs a week later it has still been thouroughly wet inside (as viewed through a scope) hence my comments re ventilation (it has no man hole to knock in). I think with my 6" Savage boiler with a decent sized man hole and generous size washout plugs including one on the tube plate there is a greater chance of getting it dry if it is opened up while still warm but other than that I can't see how the moisture is going to get out! Certainly I wouldn't run a steel boiler without treatment. I have seen a 3" Marshal boiler run on plain water most weekends for around 7m of the year that scaled up on the inner firebox resulting in star cracking round the stays - scrap inside 8 years!

Paul.

You may have something there in terms of the shape and size of the swarf (particles) but I am not fully convinced by the harness argument. From my long ago involvement with metallurgy the HB of bog standard mild steel is in the region of 130. Pure ferrite (soft iron) is in the region of 100 - 120. Ferrite / pearlite mix around 120 - 200. Most of the castings for models will be grey iron or SG iron so a max of 200 probably. Machine slides on cast beds will have had chills in the mould on the slide surfaces to ensure they are hard or harder than the main casting (say 200 or more). Even steel bed machines will not be mild steel and often steel beds are induction hardened anyway in which case way above 200 HB.

Granted the particles may be sharp when they come off but the edges will soon get knocked off if they are grey iron unlike say carborundum which will be sharp and harder for longer. So I remain unconvinced in the grades of iron model engineers usually encounter (excluding duff castings which are not grey iron but closer to white due to poor foundry practice) will really do much damage to a decent machine. In fact I have bags of nice short curly iron chips that came from my traction engine castings that evidence they are to the softer end of the cast iron spectrum and as iron is crap in tension and not really great in shear, the properties we want are not to the hard end of the spectrum anyway. A glass hard cast iron gear for example is going to be vulnerable to shedding teeth, which is not what we are looking for!

Having a grinder close to a machine is likely to be far more detrimental from the perspective of carborundum dust than machining grey iron I would think.

Paul.

Jason may well be right. I am lead to believe my local railway has been banned from using their Kearns HBM by the HSE. True HBM's are fearsome machines that can catch the unwary in the blink of an eye but........ They have been around for a long time (including that one) and been operated quite safely with no dreadful disasters. Makes you wonder perhaps the latest generation of HSE inspectors with their main experience probably with fully enclosed CNC machines are no longer pragmatic enough to accept 'vintage' stuff?

Paul.

Can someone please explain to me why cast iron 'dust' is considered to be such an abrasive substance? Yes I can see that the outer skin of a casting will likely contain sand and chilled iron particles will be hard but once under the skin generally the iron we deal with is soft and the free graphite even softer and graphite is used as a lubricant. Yes it's messy, gets in to your skin, in your hair and up your nose but does it really lap away at your machine slides if you get rid of the first cut swarf that has sand etc embedded? All sounds a bit hysterical to me and if it's true then the slides on my mill should be completely wrecked after all the cast I have machined on it over the last year!

Paul.

Brian,

I absolutely love mine! I know Nigel McB thinks the vertical head lacks rigidity but I haven't had any issues with mine. I have had it up and running for a year now and have cut all the gears (4DP at one pass) for my 6" traction engine plus done most of the machining ops on the cylinder block (you will have seen pics on TT) and machined up a lot of the other bits too. It's not a pristine example and has some wear in all slides and quite a bit of backlash on the table screw but it's done everything I have needed it too including putting a 3/4" end mill through the brake bracket to form a round ended slot and drilling 1" holes! Mine has 3MT on both spindles which is brilliant as you can use the same tooling 2 ways (I did have to modify the shank of my 2" 4 insert face mill to get it to seat in the horizontal taper though - no big deal!). The ability to swing the vertical head means angled milling / drilling is a doddle. The belt drive is a bit of a faff on the vertical head to change speeds but I have mine on a VFD so for most jobs I can get away with adjusting the speed on the VFD. One weakness I perceive is the lack of fine feed on the quill but it hasn't caused me any issues to date. The only thing I wasn't able to do on it was the crank splines as the crank was too long for the table, could have made an extension plate but there was a long table Bridgeport available so I used that! I don't think there are any modern machines in the hobby market that come close to it.

I haven't used any of the other machines you list so can't comment on those personally but a friend had an Alexander and he says it was a lovely machine but was limited in capacity. He has had 2 00's in the past and has recently bought a third and he intends that will replace his Bridgeport (he loves that too but frustrated with the space it takes up!).

Paul.

Hi Derek,

Good to see you are still cracking on. Notice no one answered your question re graphite yarn. On big stuff you would normally cut seperate rings of packing and chamfer the ends together at 45 degrees to the axis of the spindle. However that is not really practical on small glands and valves so yes, wind your yarn around the spindle to a big enough 'lump' to fill the stuffing box and squash it in with the follower. Don't do it too tight, you will bend the follower! A gentle nip is good enough cold, then nip up when hot if it weeps. Generally a packing gland is never 100% leak tight, a small weep allows oil entrained in the steam to get to the packing.

Paul.

Well fear not all, soon the whole of history will be digitised. Now we are officially in a state of emergency all those nasty old relics that belch smoke and steam will be locked firmly in a dark and dusty shed. We must be clean and electrickery is the future, by 2050 with zero emissions there will be not a drop of liquid or solid fuel anywhere near a spark or a flame. The industrial revolution, steam, internal combustion engines and their ilk will be a fantasy only visible on you tube and Newcomen, Trevethick, Brunel and Stephenson will be exposed as the climate criminals and planetary vandals they were.

So my friends, cast off your affinity to emissions and embrace the brave new world.

Paul.

Pete,

I have an L6 which came with all original documentation and like you in the manual I found no weight. However, I also have the seperate specification leaflet which gives the approximate weight of the 24" as 1540 lb or 698kg and for the 40" (how I would love one of those) 1708 lb or 775kg. The 24" copy version is 1736 lb or 787kg and the 40" 1932lb or 876kg. I think those weights are pretty accurate for the machines as they also give the size and additional weight of the packing cases!

Mine is the 24" and we had to extract that from a shed down a garden on a hill and then roll it out to the road on pipe roles before picking it up with an engine crane (which was on its limit) and roll a 750kg plant under it. It certainly sat the trailer down on its haunches so again I would say the above weight is pretty close to the truth.

Hope that helps.

Paul.

Lee,

John is not the only option! Boilers have been examined and retrospectively CE marked through RSA so it's not impossible. May not be cheap in terms of weld X Ray's but in terms of confirming the composition of the plate there is technology available that can do that quite cheaply. Where there is a will........ May still be cheaper than a new commercial boiler. If you know who welded it, it may be easier.

Paul.

Lee,

If you can prove your boiler was built prior to 2002, dated photo or witness statement may be sufficient you are clear of one hurdle (CE marking). There remains the issue of material certs and welder qualification but you may find a commercial inspector willing to take it on. If you have some idea who built it that may help. Where abouts in the country are you?

re TT unfortunately David does not have a reputation these days for being a fast mover! Try dropping him an email reminding him you are waiting for approval. If you offer a £10 donation as he has made a recent appeal for funds it may spur him on!

Paul.

Just a quick post to say well done to the above. I bought the original back mount pressure gauge for my traction engine from MPG Ltd and after accidentally over stressing it (off the boiler) I needed to replace it. I called them Tuesday and they were able to track my original order back to 2014. They gave me a projected delivery for the replacement of around 5 days. Wednesday lunchtime it arrived with the post!

Most impressed. Thought they were deserving of a mention. Wouldn't hesitate to recomend them.

Paul.

Lee,

Welcome, nice the hear of another potential traction engine builder on here. There are a few but as this is more a general model engineering forum it has a broad sphere of interests, you might find it worth signing up for traction talk as well, more dedicated to road steam and has a very active miniature section.

In terms of your questions; whatever scale you build too the engine will have roughly the same number of parts. In terms of ease of manufacture as you say it depends on tooling available but also your desire / ability in "watchmaking". It can often be easier to make larger parts because they are easier to see and hold! Trouble is as you get older while they become easier to see, they become harder to lift!!

A better way of looking at it maybe is what you intend doing with it when you have built it. If you think you would enjoy taking it to rallies and shows and running it quite a bit then 4" and upwards is easier to manage in terms of firing and water level and more capable of dragging you around on courser surfaces (a lot of rally fields are anything but flat and smooth) and capable of travelling longer distances. If you think you will just use it occasionally in the garden and keep it as a "showpiece" then smaller is more practical for storage and handling. Big engines need proper consideration of how you will move them around, you can't just pick them up.

There are a number of drawings available for Showman's engines in various scales from 2" to 6" probably all of them are not exact to detail so if you want something that is an exact scale copy then it's best to choose a model of which there are easily accessible full size versions around so you can take pictures and measurements to confirm the accuracy of the drawings. Worth also rembering that even two of the same full size engine are unlikely to be exactly the same!

The last consideration is cost. While there is not a big proportionate difference in buying a commercial steel boiler in 4" or 6", the bigger you go requires bigger bits of bronze for bushes and bearings and steel for axles, con rods etc. Bigger rivets need proportionately more force to close and obviously bigger cylinders and flywheels as you have recognised need bigger and heavier machines to finish them.

Not definitive answers I am afraid but food for thought maybe.

Paul.

Ron,

Cracking job, well done, you have every right to be pleased. I am sure you and the grandchildren will get a lot of enjoyment from running it. That looks a nice track too.

Paul.

Ian,

I too have an Elliot 00 Omnimill. I have had it running for just over a year now, and I love it! I am currently building a 6" scale traction engine and it has done everything I have asked of it. The only job I haven't done on the cylinder block on it was boring it out for the liner and facing the end flanges and fly cutting the saddle and that is because I didn't have a boring head for it at the time and also had access to a Kearns HBM so it made more sense to use that for that job. I cut all my gears on it using the horizontal spindle, I did find the three table feeds a little limiting for that as even the slowest was a bit too fast but like Nigel I have it set up with VFD's so just engaged a faster speed on the spindle and then slowed it with the VFD to suit the cutter which gave an acceptable feed rate. The feed on mine is a shaft drive to the gearbox on the table with a single speed belt reduction off the main spindle gearbox input. Later ones have a seperate motor on the feed so if you stick a VFD on that you have infinitely variable feeds too.

I haven't found any real problem with rigidity on the vertical head, I regularly use a 2" 4 insert face cutter to hog off metal. The ability to swivel the head was invaluable when drilling the steam ports and the ability to swing the head in combination with extending or retracting it also means you can get the cutter over any part of the table. Having to re-tram the head when extending or retracting it can be a slight annoyance at first but now I can set it in a minute or two. 3MT in both spindles means tooling is interchangeable. When machining the TE cylinder I was able to set it up on the table saddle down, machine the top face with the vertical head, swap the face mill to the horizontal spindle and machine the valve chest face so at one setting I had 2 reference faces flat and square. As Nigel says you can also use MT shank drills and reamers - last weekend I drilled and reamed a 7/8" hole in my cross head without having to take it off the table and transfer to the radial arm drill.

It's old (almost as old as me) has a fair bit of backlash in the table nut and the slides could benefit from a pass with a scraper but it does everything I need and I won't be getting rid of it out of choice any time soon!

Paul.