Member postings for Greensands

This is my answer to a gearbox fitted Myford S7 making use of the tapped hole provided for the oiler. It has provided satsfactory service over many tears.

Hi all - Having reminded myself recently not to leave the chuck key in the chuck whilst mounted on the lathe recalled the adventures of Chuck the Muddle Engineer, one time cartoon character drawn by Terry Aspin appearing on a regular basis in earlier copes (’50s to’60s) of The Model Engineer. Always very humorous and quite often close to home so to speak. Does anyone else have memories of reading Chuck? The ME also published from time to time sketches of various workshop set ups and the reader was invited to spot various deliberate mistakes and leaving a chuck key within the chuck was one of them. Happy days.

Re last post. - Have just seen that the loco is coal fired but I would be interested to hear anyone has considered using bottled gas to fire a 5" engine and what if any potential problems might lay in wait.

That video clip of the Black Five is superb and is the one that got me interested but I had not seen the still shots of the footplate mounted servos before which is the sort of detail I have looking for showing for example how the regulator is connected to its servo motor. Question: Is the loco gas fired or coal fired? Which leads to a second question that if in fact it is gas fired, does that not result in potentially disastrous/expensive differential thermal expansion problems? So many questions.......but a very interesting possible project

Hi - I have seen a number of videos of 5" gauge steam locomotives running around garden tracks under radio control hauling scale sized rolling stock fired by bottled gas in place of the more traditional coal firing .The overall effect is quite impressive and in my opinion visually more appealing than having a full sized driver hunched up over a 1/12th sized model. Problem is that I have never been able to locate any write-ups or detailed drawings of just how these conversions are carried out. Can anyone provide me with some useful pointers to how this is achieved/

Michael - Looks good - Many thanks for that

Martin - Perhaps a simple sketch of what you have in mind would be useful.

I have attached a photo of the release valve removed from the jack. The thread mikes up at 9.70 x 1mm pitch and has a square end face whereas I might have expected a taper fitting. The thread is presumably a nominal 10x1mm. Shinning a light down into the valve body reveals a corresponding flat seating face but it was not obvious without further poking around whether or not a washer of some sort is in place.

Have attached a pic of the current set-up

Hi - I have a Clarke 2 Tonne bottle jack fitted to my 5" gauge engine building stand but the one issue I have with the device is that you do have to be very careful when operating the release valve as failure to do so results in the table coming down with quite a bump threatening the stability and safety of the whole assembly. I have got use to just cracking the valve when lowering the table but I am concerned that should it be operated by someone else, a member of the family for example in my absence, they would let it down as one would when using a standard roadside wheel jack with possible disastrous consequences all round. Has any else had this problem and come up with a means of fitting a controlled release?

The Albrecht is the one to go for.

.I have been playing around with the Ladder against the Wall problem and by following the link given for the solution to the problem using the Equation to the a Straight Line approach and solving the resulting quartic equation using an Excel utility you arrive at an answer of X=9.677. When this value is put back into an ACAD construction the resulting length of the ladder comes out at 10.0000 which is good enough for me. However, I would like to be able to generate the quartic equation from the three quadratic equations established by JA in the previous posting. Has anyone been able to do this?

A couple of photos to illustrate the radio in question and extent of the problem at the back of the case.

But why on earth one wonders should this be a problem in this day and age? Surely by now manufacturers should be aware of the problem and choose a type of plastic which is free from the problem. Is it a matter of costs perhaps, design issues or just a lack of interest? Back to the mincepies........Enjoy

Merry Christmas all - I have just been given for repair a small portable radio which is suffering from the sticky case syndrome, not the first I have had with this problem but something I have never been able to overcome. Previously I have associated this problem with he older models but this current example is a much more recent product. Has anyone come up with a solution to this problem?

Hi Julian - Many thanks for your reply. Problem now resovled following access to a more up to date set of drawings. Have a happy Christmas - Reg

Hi Jason - Thanks for that. Yes it was Julian Atkins I was searching for.

Hi - I would like to be able to send a PM to Julian, one of our experts on live steam locomotives whom I think signs-in under the username jma1009 but I am having difficulty in finding a previous post from which I can send the PM. Can anyone please help me on this matter?

This a copy of the Don Young drawing which I have used building his 5" gauge Black Five and closely follows full size practice.