Member postings for Paul Kemp

Finnian,

Have a trawl around for Roche Engineering which is not a million miles from Dublin and speak to Fergal. I am sure he could knock that out in about 2 minutes for a small donation to the steam fund!

Paul.

Just be aware if you mix your flux with water and the hole is blind when the water boils off it will push the rod out. You can get over that by putting in a hole as you show or filing a small flat on the side of the rod to give the pressure a path to relieve through. I do a similar job on the canopy support for my traction engine at least once a year, soldering a 3/16" pin into some 5/16" square bar and I know the solder works its way in because I have to drill out the pin when it shears off flush! (It's a carp design but there is not another way to do it that looks good and still allows easy removal of the canopy so I accept its a consumable item and renew when it breaks!).

Paul.

The idea of a valve to isolate potential leakage from the pump is a nice one, in theory. In practice anything but a brand new boiler without its fittings is unlikely to hold pressure at a constant value without some top up. Anyone who thinks different has obviously not tried to test one on the frames or in the engine that has been round the track or field a bit or lives in la la land!

The fact pressure is lost during the test is not necessarily a reason to fail it, the important thing is identifying where the leaks are and if they are structural or have implications on the base integrity. The fact the regulator or valve glands leaks when doing a cold hydraulic is not the end of the world. So if it's a general rig that will re test boilers that have been in service I doubt the valve will get much use.

Paul.

How does the plastic stand up to blue chips? Do they bounce off or do they melt it and stick?

Paul.

The really unfortunate thing here is our gallant boys in blue are unlikely to attach any particular priority to their investigations if the theft of our track was anything to go by two years ago. All at CDMES send our thoughts and hope the perpetrators are brought to account. Incidents such as this have a big impact on those affected.

It's all very well commenting on precautions but that's not particularly helpful right now.

Paul.

I am assuming you are screwing a male fitting on the lubricator into the side of a 3mm thick pipe? That beingnthencase you would be better off silver soldering a boss with a female thread onto the pipe.

Paul.

A quick and dirty fix if you want to see the effect of a thicker gib is to superglue a shim on the back of the gib.

Paul.

Well if you don't have a valve how would you blow the glass down to verify its function? If you have no blow down facility you can't rely on the reading, so you may as well not have a gauge at all.

Paul.

Derek,

Strictly speaking theory says avoid stainless steel for boiler studs as stainless unless a particular grade is vulnerable to crevice corrosion which will be exacabated by chlorine in tap water if that's what you run on. Certainly a full size boiler inspector would 'have a baby' seeing stainless studs in a full size boiler. Normal recommendation for those is EN3B.

However in practice for your boiler being copper and considering the size, stainless would probably be accepted by club inspectors and I doubt failure through crevice corrosion is very likely. Best choice though for your application I would say is bronze.

Paul.

Derek,

Don't panic Mr Mainwaring!!! Don't panic. As the overall distance is fine the timing of inlet steam will still be OK (it does look as if the valve has quite a bit of steam lap though). The lap of the valve is the amount the valve overlaps the ports (steam or exhaust). Some engines have a positive lap on the exhaust cavity which leaves a cushion of steam in the cylinder at dead centre but many have negative lap on the exhaust (more commonly termed exhaust clearance). I am sure Jason being very CAD literate and a nice chap could knock up a drawing to asses the impact of what you have now and whether you really need to adjust anything. You will need to give him some decent dimensions though. Overall length of valve (across the ports) the distance between the outer edges of the steam ports, the width of the steam ports, the width of the exhaust port and the size of the ligaments as a check. Overall designed valve travel would be helpful too (throw of the eccentrics would be close enough). I am afraid I am a CAD dunce so it would take me a lot longer to work out than Jason. You could also mock it up in a valve simulator to get an idea of what the effect would be but I struggle with them as well lol.

Paul.

I got possibly the last large diameter fixed steady from RDG about 2 years ago, they sold it to me at reduced price as it had one finger and a couple of screws missing. It's been very good. Simple to make a new finger to replace the missing one and the clamp screws - I do remember they were an obscure thread though I can't remember what now! It goes up to about 4" in diameter and that has been really useful a couple of times. If I remember right the std myford one is quite limited in what it will hold.

Paul.

Derek,

Well done. The only 'wrong way' to do something is the way that doesn't work! We all have to make compromises at some point even with a reasonably well equipped shop! The use of hand tools and hand fitting is much under rated!

Paul.

Ollie,

The Elliot 00 is quite a desirable machine for those with the space and a good workshop floor! Even if it's a fairly rough one it should fetch around £800 in a private sale if it's reasonably accessible for 'extraction' and especially if it comes with its tooling, vice etc. If you get a dealer in to clear they might give you £50 for it!

Paul.

Pete,

Well you have already found the answer - well some of them! There are multiple 'standards' as you have found and THE answer is really dependent on where you want to run the loco, what rail is fitted, the radius of the curves and whether there are any points, crossovers and check rails! If you are intending to run on a raised club track that is just a simple circuit do they have proper rail section (and there are various sizes in use) or flat bar on its side? That being the case you can choose what you want and the back to back distance and the rear profile is unimportant. If it's a ground level set up with points it's a different ball game as the back to back distance and thickness of the flange becomes important as if the back to back is too small or the flange too thick rather than passing between check rails you may ride over them and derail, conversely if too large on the back to back or the flanges too thin the check rails will not provide the guidance and you may still derail because the check rails do not give guidance but if the radius of the point curve is large that may not matter. So the real answer is dependent on where you want to run it! If it is a club it is likely they have a set of wheel standards geared to their track so worth asking. If you are just going to build your own track in the garden then you can pick any standard you like but when you build the track / points you will have to size to suit what you pick! Remember there are also differences between narrow and standard gauge standards!

If I remember correctly there is a decent set of general dimensions on the Ride on Railway's web site that will probably fit most cases.

Hope that is some help. (I did read your question yesterday but thought there would be some railway 'experts' making comment!).

Paul.

Ron,

That being the case - you have had a good finish since changing the gears then the probability is this is not related to bearings or gear material / vibration charachteristics. I think another look at tool, speed or feed is the next logical thing.

Paul.

Ron,

Can you pinpoint when the finish changed? Coüld it coincide exactly with when you changed the gears? I think you did say the lathe was slightly noiser now than previously. Could this be another effect of the gear material? Ie the steel gears giving a different / higher torsional vibration at the spindle? No idea if this would be the case, pure speculation.

Paul.

Having heated the quill and knocked it about I doubt there is a real need to fit a high precision bearing! For general drilling any old cooking spec bearing of the right sizes would do the job.

Paul.

Derek,

I don't think if you buy a kit of materials from one of the established suppliers to put together yourself it will be supplied with certificates. That said I have not bought a boiler kit since 2002 so may be wrong. Anyone else bought one that can confirm?

The issue with the commercial boiler maker using your uncertificated material is I assume because they will have to CE mark the finished product so traceability of materials will be required.

As Brian said it is unusual for an MES boiler tester to ask for material certificates for copper boilers, they could do though if they were fastidious! Things are different for steel. You could get your home built boiler certificated by an MES but they would likely want to see the boiler during construction. It would also as stated have to be built in accordance with the published design (although they could accept a design of your own accompanied by design calculations if they are competent / confident to verify them). You would also have to be a member.

There are met labs I am sure that can analyse and test the copper you have if there is enough of it in excess of what you need to make some test pieces. The certificates they issue should be acceptable to your boiler maker. Might cost you what the material is worth though!

Why not have a go at building it yourself? If you do as Brian says and join a club you might even find some members will help you with the soldering.

Paul.

Well to get the bearing off, carefully use an angle grinder to grind one side of the bearing down to the quill. As the wall gets thinner you can see how close you are getting to the quill by the temper mark developing on the thin section. You can stop just short of the inner diameter and give it a good whack which should crack the remainder. If it's still stuck run a bead of weld parallel with the quill opposite the flat you have ground, the contraction as the weld cools will pull the two sides away from the quill. I am sure you can get a bearing that will do the job for less than £90! Having gone this far and while the bearing is off you may as well get the chuck out too!

Paul.

Just a quick note, we are all quick to criticise when things go wrong but probably slower to praise when things go well!

So I would just like to thank Tracy Tools and publicise excellent customer service. I bought a couple of dies I needed at the Ally Pally show stand, or thought I had! Unfortunately when I got home I looked at them and they were not the thread I asked for. I took the view that it wasn't worth the postage considering the price to return them and would just order again, kicking myself for not checking them at the time. I called them yesterday to order the replacements and mentioned what had happened, this morning the correct ones arrived FOC.

Excellent service in my book especially as although I use them for all my tap, die, reamer and drill requirements I am not a massive customer, probably only making one or two orders a year. So well done TT and thank you very much.

Paul.