Member postings for Greensands

Have just enjoyed watching the film “Golden Sewers” on TPTV which I thought was a good example of the typical safe-breaking genre but was taken by two things. The film, based upon a true story in France featured members of a gang breaking into an underground vault with oxygen and propane gas cylinders, the latter clearly marked as being supplied by Calor Gas, unlikely considering that the break-in took place in Nice.

Secondly, the Oxy/Propane torches employed by the characters in the film are used for cutting through steel bars and for the sealing up from the inside the large heavily plated steel door. I wonder just how practical would this arrangement would have been as surely Oxy/Acetylene would have been the more usual combination of gases for this type of work?

I have a 0-50deg alcohol thread thermometer sold for use in aquariums which I have been using as an outdoors thermometer. Problem is that despite being in a fixed location mounted on a shed wall it has suddenly developed a broken thread and traditional methods of trying to reconnect the thread by means of flicking the device has not had the desired effect. Can anyone suggest any other tricks which might be worth trying? The break in the thread is typically 1/4" in length.

I recently selected a book from my shelves and was very surprised to see that it was suffering from a bad attack of foxing along the top edge with some evidence of it spreading along the front edge of the book. The surprising thing is that this book first published in 2006 was given to me as a present some years ago and has been kept on a shelf in a well heated room where we spend much of our leisure time. Investigating further I notice that the same thing is taking place to a greater or lesser extent on a number of other books in my collection which is all rather worrying. I thought that this problem was only associated with older books. I would be interested to hear from anyone else who is suffering from the same problem and may be able to suggest some possible solutions

.My house is fitted with a Drayton Digistat 1 room stat which is hard wired into the system but which I think is no longer currently available. I gather that there was a later model Digistat RF which presumably worked on a radio signal basis. Perhaps someone could explain what is meant by the term 'mechanical' used in this context and how the two systems worked.

I have now tried the Snip option and have got it to work. Only problem is that my somewhat ancient (and small) digital photo frame has a very poor resolution and so short of looking out for a higher spec unit, I will have to give up on the idea. Thanks for all the help and I have learnt a new technique in the process..

This problem has possibly been asked before and please accept my apologies if this is the case. I have an operations instruction sheet saved as a .doc document for use in my workshop and it would be very useful to be able to display this information alongside the bench using an electronic digital picture frame in place of the usual hardcopy format. The problem is that the digital picture frame is only programmed to display .jpg files. Is it possible to convert my simple .doc files into .jpg format?

The steam versus diesel debate surely has always been driven by the economics prevailing at the current times. To be fair to the US, with their massive reserves of coal the resurgence of interest in steam as a source of motive power especially for the haulage of freight came about in the 70’s after there had been a big hike in the costs of imported oil. With the successful introduction of fracking leading to an independency from foreign energy imports the situation would be unlikely to arise in today’s world.

In the discussion of using a Garratt as the basis for modern development of steam traction David Wardale give as one of their many advantages the fact that they can be run in either direction without the need for expensive turntables or the use of ‘Y’s as used in the classic days of steam.

I don’t understand however why he goes on to say that the extra water carrying tank car to be coupled to the Garratt would still need to be shunted forward at the end of the run and then run around to the front of the Garratt for the return journey. Can anyone explain why this should be so?

I have been having another read of The Red Devil by David Wardale (2002 reprint) which gives a fascinating and interesting account of the final development of the steam locomotive with special reference to how its performance stacked up against the all conquering diesel. In some ways however I find it a difficult book to enjoy in that it has been printed in what is to me, a very small font size and in a format which presents a block effect mass of text on each page. There is probably a technical term for the use of right justified text but I find the overall effect most off putting.

On a technical level I find it intriguing that the USA did not take up the idea of a Garratt locomotive as it would appear to have been the answer to many of their problems especially when used with the 3 cylinder format. I was also expecting to see a discussion of a UK development based upon a Black Five/Class 5 chassis which I sure had been reported in the technical press at the time but could find no references to it in the David Wardle’s book.

I would be interested to hear other people’s views on the topic

Thanks for the idea of using two scrap pieces Jason it did the trick and thanks also to everyone else who contributed. Have attached a pic of the method in action. The presence of the retaining plate certainly does make the operation of the clamp a lot smoother.

I wish to make up a copy of a tool makers clamp as sold amongst others by Eclipse and have been pondering on the best way to form the joggle plate inserted under the clamping screw. Short of making up a press tool I wonder if others may be able to suggest some simpler ways of achieving the required shape.

Has anyone had any experience of using Techcote high temperature matt satin black paint sold in 400ml aerosols by Halfords and others for use by motorcyclist restorers as a finish for model locomotive smoke boxes? Information provided for the product claims that the finish is good for temperatures for up to 300 deg C which would seem to be quite adequate to me but feedback from other users would be most useful.

Hi All - Following the above threads I have installed LightShot which appeared as an option from downloading GreenShot and this has given the means of 'grabbing' the TruView drawings which have now been copied to my phone. Many thanks for all the help and assistance provided.

I am using AutoCad Truview on my desktop PC to display and print my workshop drawings but have been left wondering if there is a means of copying and saving-as the images in an alternative format in order to be able to view individual drawings on my phone. Perhaps someone could advise on the options available.

Dave - Have now ordered some P360 Mirka Mirlon Scotch Brite pads to try out on my steel smokebox.

I think the problems with going to a local concern are essentially two fold. 1) They have to be able to fit your essentially one-off job into their batch run orientated system and 2) Potential issues as they see it of your job contaminating their plant.

I have been giving some thought to painting my model locomotive and have carefully taken note of the good advice given in Christopher Vine’s book “How (not) to paint a locomotive” in which he strongly advises the use of abrasive blasting to achieve the all important paint key. Even to acquire a basic set-up however involves a fairly expensive outlay to say nothing of the demands on space and safety considerations which does make one ask if there might be cheaper alternative methods of achieving the desired results more suited to those of limited space and budget. I would be interested to hear the views of other model makers faced with similar issues and how they have tacked the problem.

Hi Julian – Very pleased you have been able to pick up once again on this one. As I understand it, Dons' arrangement for the steam side of the combined brake valve, the so called ‘Limit Valve’ is a dummy fitting with blind perforations and is simply used as a convenient means of getting steam into the brake valve as described in LLAS No.55, Pages 33/34. It does however leave unanswered the question raised in my posting of the 10 Aug relating to the partial uncovering of the steam port when the valve is in the Off position. I need to have another look at his design for E.S.Cox but am under the impression that they were essentially the same design.

I have been using a 5mm diameter round drive belt on my small bench drill made up from a length of green polyurethane drive belting with the ends bonded together in the usual way using the hot plate technique. After giving some 10 years of good service the original joint has now failed but I am having great difficulty in repeating the technique on the same length of belting hopefully to give a new (but shorter) drive belt but happily of a length which can be accommodated in the current set-up.

I am just wondering if this could be a problem with aging of the polyurethane over the 10 years of use because I never seem to have any difficulty when working with a length of new belting material. I would be interested to hear other people’s views on the matter as failing a solution of the problem I will have to resort to buying in a new stock of belting.

Possibly one for Julian but I am open to all suggestions. Having made up the brake valve to the DY drawing I have been puzzled by the fact that when the valve is in the closed position, the steam port from the ‘Limit Valve’ is left slightly open thereby admitting steam into the end cap when I would have thought it should be left shut off. A dimensional check reveals that the radius to the outer edge of the steam port = 7/32 + 1/32 = 1/4 = 0.250” whereas the radius of the steam valve = 15/64 = 0.234” which results in a 0.016 overlap all of which seems to be borne out by the drawing.