Member postings for Nigel Graham 2

My first thought was as other have said - use a half-centre, turning the top-slide round to bring the tailstock in close, as Duncan suggests.

Also, I cut the run-out with the threading-tool itself as that gives a slightly less stress-raising groove.

Lessen the depth of cut as you go deeper, but note Martin's point about avoiding rubbing.

Also, and I do this on any material, take a spring-cut at intervals (a repeat cut at the same depth). It's surprising how much metal that sometimes removes - but again, don't overdo that on a work-hardening material.

Ronald - Yes, a mandrel handle as you describe is a well tried and trusted attachment, and quite a few designs have been published over the years, though tend mainly sized for the Myford lathes.

I am sure your right, Martin, from a purely functional angle, but may as well try to get it as near-enough perfect as possible! I use lathe tools as parallels at times though I believe it's not recommended.

One way to support a work-piece like this under the cut itself, is to use a piece of BMS or aluminium bar as a sacrificial parallel.

Chain-drilling the worst out... Having used a heck of a lot of chain-drilling to chew a two-throw crankshaft out of a foot-long piece of what had been a scrapped railway-wagon axle, I would avoid it as far as possible. Even with filing the worst of the "teeth" down it still presents a lot of horrible, irregular lumps and bumps to the cutter and could even cause it to jam.

On the crankshaft I was using a ripping-cutter along the open, drilled faces; but for cutting a small slot such as on Chris' knurling-tool, or a clevis, I would rather let the cutter do all the work, as then it is fully and smoothly supported through the cut.

Ungunged the kitchen sink waste. I am careful not to tip fat down it but some is inevitable. Loverley!!

I wonder if it would be a good tapping-compound?

Then to the real stuff. Assembling the steam-wagon's boiler and smoke-box to the chassis revealed the firebox side lugs were binding in the sub-frame. I don't know what went wrong there. I must have marked out the wrong radius on the frame parts.

Working with the wagon in the workshop is a pain because it forms a sizeable obstacle, so despite having just built a nice shiny new travelling-crane I erected a frame outside in the sunshine and rigged the lifting-tackle to that. The scaffolding incidentally, had been left in my first house and I made sure I kept it.

Ready for the lift. Note the vital equipment standing on the chassis rail. The boiler was built by Western Steam: I gave them the outline drawing and left all the shell and tube design to their professional knowledge. I was going to build the boiler and still have the parts with a lot of the machining done, but after seeing how things can go wrong (forlorn wrecks at the exhibitions, showing just that), decided the better of it! I might yet finish it to see if I can.

The "stoking short" (Hindley's own name for it) is in the top so I could make a lifting-attachment using M12 studding screwed into a steel plate on the underside of the woodwork on which the shell stands. The eye-bolt is off-centre for better balance. The pale blue device on the rope between the blocks and frame give a ratchet-action to grip the rope. it is actually an "ascender" borrowed from my caving-kit, where it is part of a system for climbing a static rope belayed down vertical drops. The marine equivalent is the jam-cleat. No, that is not a 4-inch scale barbeque oven in the background...!

Below - boiler out, chassis wheeled back so the boiler can stand safely on the staging. The parts to be modified are the grey brackets under the rule. Pause to refill that tea-mug and listen to The Listening Service, then out with the marking-blue, odd-leg calipers, hacksaw and files... The thin stretcher for'ard of the brackets, with a hardwood cradle, supports the boiler against toppling forwards or unfairly straining its mounting-lugs when the smoke-box is slid forwards. The brass shims go between the boiler's copper lugs and the steel frame. The lugs are held by hollowed-out plates bolted through those holes, outside of the lugs, which remain as Western Steam made them.

I thought I'd have a go at using the sheet-metal jenny I bought a while ago....

Anyone here able to spot my not-so-deliberate mistakes in the saga? I'd certainly appreciate advice!

'

First thing was to find somewhere I could mount its a hefty column with integral clamp for the edge of a bench, but it would not clamp on my bench due to the latter's construction. A bit of ingenuity with some 50mm sq. steel tube clamped to the bench solved that, creating a sort of extension "bench".

'

Next, work out how to assemble the tool - I don't recall it coming with instructions but since it is a hand-tool made and sold by a company whose primary customers are in the trade, I don't suppose it would!

Anyway it all went together easily enough and it was pretty obvious how to mount the different profile-rollers. Now to practice, or more accurately, find out how much I don't know about these tools.

I chose to try to a real project part so that if it succeeded I would have gained both component and experience if it succeeded, whereas if I simply chopped metal blanks to practice on, I would have wasted that metal. So I thought I'd try making the cylindrical ash-pan for my steam-wagon, and duly cut a large disc from thin sheet-steel, actually a scrapped central-heating boiler panel, given to me by a friend who is a plumber.

By the time I was two-thirds of the way round I was getting quite good at steering a manual rotary shear round an 11-inch diameter circle. I cleaned the edge with a file, deburred it, flatted the odd raised bits.

'

Now, which rollers?

The machine was packed with two hefty, heavily-serrated cylindrical rollers already mounted, plus pairs of what are evidently grooving and beading profiles, and two chamfered rollers I realised are for rolling rims. If you know how...

I mounted both. May be that was my first mistake. Anyway I persevered until eventually I had something like a tin-ware dinner-plate that had had a brief encounter with a traction-engine, and come off worse.

Clearly there is more to using one of these tools than meets the eye - and gloved hand.

I could have been expecting it do what it's not designed to do - I thought it will roll a pan but I may be wrong.

I could have been expecting too much from 1mm thick steel (within the machine's limits), especially once it started to buckle randomly; or perhaps I was trying to raise a flange too deep for the process.

I could have been using the wrong rollers, or one correct roller with incorrect companion - what are those serrated ones for, for example? (I do know they are not for making imitation chequer-plate!)

'

World of its own, really, is sheet-metal work, and the field seems largely ignored in "ours" beyond relatively simple flat-plate and box work, and boiler cladding; and I have seen very little if anything on its deeper subtleties and rolled-work in the model-engineering literature. Nor have I seem much sheet-metal and profile tooling on the exhibition trade-stands, apart from small roller / folder combination machines and whatever turns up on the second-hand stalls. The latter dealers do stock sheet-metal equipment but this is generally far too bulky and heavy for exhibitions - or indeed most of our workshops.

Perhaps it reflects the more common model themes not having very much sheet-metal on them, and what there is, mainly replicates structures of flat plates and angles. Yet the Victorian and Edwardian engineers of our prototypes did use pressed, folded and rolled sheet work; and there are plenty of places for it in replicas of more modern machines, as well as non-models like workshop equipment and passenger-trucks.

'

Anyway, I packed the tool in its gleaming red paint back in its box, and concentrated on setting the smoke-box brackets so the chimney has a sporting chance of standing perpendicularly to the chassis, especially laterally. More head-scratching until I realised the tools needed:

- Milling-machine.

- Spirit-level (builders but accurate enough), Spanner, 17mm - for setting the milling-machine level.*

- Clamp, stud and appropriate nuts for holding the smoke-box to the machine table via the blast-pipe hole.

- Spirit-level, Spanner, 17mm - for adjusting the box until the chimney stood vertically from the level table.

- Vee-block + adjustable parallel (forming a 4.3 inch "slip gauge", 1/4-inch BSF Spanner - for setting the bracket heights from the table so the smoke-box centre-line height is correct.

* I found one of the four levelling-screws was not actually touching the floor.

Circlip -

Thank you for that point. I assume a sound reason, but could you explain what that is, please?

I do have some small SRBF worm-wheels with associated hardened and ground steel worms, in my "they look useful - I'll keep them" collection, and from your reminder I take it they would have been machined from sheet or even possibly moulded blanks.

'

Jeff Dayman -

With respect you are missing an important point - to the extent of descending into being rude.

That point is of matching any material's properties to intended application; be it natural (metal, wood, stone) or synthetic (plastic, resin, composite); and irrespective of its manufacturer or age.

The thread has established that Tufnol is unsuitable for steam-engine cylinders, and I would agree; but it is not made for that. Neither would many metals and non-metals, be suitable for a steam-engine. (Since you seem to suggest we must use 21C-invented materials even when replicating an 19C machine, I suppose some of the latest aerospace alloys might be technically very good for this purpose, but they might be totally unsuitable on availability, cost and machineability!)

If there are "better" metals and plastics than "Tufnol" - a trade-name for a range of composite materials - if we assume correct choice for application, "better" in what way? You inject into a constructive discussion on whether a particular material is suitable for a singular application, a blanket condemnation of its manufacturer's products, and of their users; apparently based merely on age of invention.

Yet all materials of any age obviously have their own properties making them excellent for some, but unsuitable for other, applications. You may have a basalt (not usually "granite"!) surface-plate, and basalt is melted and cast for certain modern engineering applications, but you would not use it for a steam-engine cylinder. You would use iron or bronze - and like basalt, they are far, far older than SRB-composites.

If the Tufnol range and its ilk were "worse" than their un-identified "betters", they would have gone out of use years ago. The other engineering plastics and composites developed since Tufnol invented what it still sells, only add to the total range of materials available, not replace existing ones wholesale, as you demand.

Adding to gratuitously insulting a professional-grade material and its manufacturer, you end by calling any engineers - amateur or professional - who use 'Tufnol', out-dated fool. Why? Are they foolish and out-dated if they do so from understanding all the materials available, and how to select and use the appropriate ones correctly, for their intended purposes?

Is that what you intended?

Look on TEE Publishing's web-site - they also advertise in ME but of course can only list a few books there.

Ah, but just to add to the fun... There is "Tufnol", and there is "Tufnol".

If the piece you have still has the type-label then you can find out its characteristics, but the name "Tufnol" covers a wide variety of two basic classes.

They are SRBF and SRBP: Synthetic Resin-Bonded then respectively, Fabric and Paper. The two are easy to tell apart.

The Fabric shows the weave, giving it in certain angles of section a slightly wood-grained appearance that could even pass as wood on some model-making applications. I have seen it used very effectively for the hand-wheels on miniature steam locomotive manifold valves.

The Paper variety lacks that obvious grain.

They are made in various grades to suit classes and conditions of use, including for the SRBF at any rate, mechanical components such as gears and worm-wheels, bearing bushes, etc. The grades are named, by a rather curious aquatic theme.

A quick look on't www shows the materials are still made, by the company of that name, proudly saying these composites are a British invention and made in Britain! So it should be possible to find the properties, but unless you can identify the specific sample you'd have to err on the side of caution, treat it as the nominally-least suitable for the application and see if you can compromise on working conditions to keep the cylinders made from it, happy.

Also note how you might fit the cylinder covers etc. You can machine most grades of Tufnol though the Paper types chip easily. The problem may be that threads cut in some grades might not be cope with the tightening and operational loads on studs, etc.: I would think the Fabric grades, some of which are based on cotton, would be stronger in this respect.

I should add I don't work for Tufnol, but became quite familiar with using some of the grades at work, though years ago so I cannot now name them.

'

Dave mentions the softening temperatures of plastics. Whilst SRBF / P are classed as plastics they are thermo-setting rather than thermo-plastic. The resin does not soften as polythene or Nylon would, but will still degrade if heated above its operational limit.

Regarding temperature ranges, you can find pressure / temperature tables for steam, and I would go by the boiler pressure unless the engine is to use superheated steam - which complicates the question!

Journeyman -

Thank you. In fact I had found that video - wrong edition of the car though, with a lot of detail differences, so not applicable to mine.

Anyway I took it in for its annual service and MoT today - went through no problems, and they changed that pesky filter (though I didn't think to ask where it is!)

===

Steam Vehicles:

Still making and fitting the boiler mounting for the wagon. It's a right so-and-so of a job, but I'm beginning to see some light at the end of the tunnel. Unless it's more problems coming the other way!

I've just sent a message to Renault UK, asking two simple questions:

- Does my edition of the Kangoo have this Cabin Filter?

- If so, where, please, and is it something I can replace myself?

Actually being able to open their web-site was a pain in itself as I had to up-date my Goggle / Firefox / Mozilla browser (who owns which there?). take care to turn off all the tracking software to at least limit the so-called "personalized [sic] advertisements".

I await their reply with interest, and would not be surprised if the company refuses to answer but Issues A Statement along the lines of "Renault advise consulting one of our Approved Dealers for all servicing".

Thank you Grindstone Cowboy.

Unfortunately, those videos still show quite different Kangoos, with far more removable panels, so better accessibility. It still seems difficult and complicated to reach a filter that is itself simple to service.

In mine the entire dashboard, glovebox, air-bag compartment, consoles etc. form a one-piece moulding you can't remove. Anything behind it, is inaccessible.

If the filter is under the bonnet, it is very well hidden or disguised. I vaguely recollect an anonymous, discreet box in a corner somewhere near the engine, about the right size and shape. I'll see if that might be it.

Otherwise either the car has no such filter or servicing it is possible only in a fully-equipped garage. Replacing the engine air filter casing doesn't look much easier.

I reckon modern car designers have a priority list: 1 style and luxury, 2 performance, 3 efficiency, ... (n) annual servicing to the specifications they set, last. Do these holders of 'ologies' in fashion, stress-analysis and SolidWorks, know which end of a spanner to hold?

'

I think of the tasks I performed years ago on three Bedford CA vans. Turning bushes for badly worn accelerator links. Replacing worn king-pin bushes on the wishbone suspension, using a second jack to compress the spring against the van's weight. (Yes, with substantial timbers under the raised vehicle!) Overhauling cylinder-heads. Replacing a three-speed gearbox, with a four speed box (rear-wheel drive). All at the roadside outside the house, as I have to work now. Though lengthy, dirty and sometimes heavy tasks, these were technically relatively easy and most parts were accessible. Then I tried replacing an air filter on a 2006 Renault Kangoo!

.

I recall an electronics designer recounting he once dragged the complacent detail-designers against their snooty will, to a customer's soggy, muddy work-site one dark wet Winter evening.

"Right!" he told me he said to them, "These are the conditions they have to use this equipment in; bad weather, poor light, cold hands, thick gloves.. I want it designed to suit them, not a show-laboratory!"

They did. The customer was delighted to find a supplier who actually thought of the users!

Martin Perman -

Re Renault "cabin Filter" (Renault's name for it).

Thank you very much for the tip. I spent some time today exploring further.

'

The glove-box on my version of the Kangoo cannot be removed. It is integral with the single plastic dashboard moulding which spans the full width of the car, is installed with hidden fastenings, and holds an air-bag, the heater vents and controls and all sorts of other equipment. Removing that would be a major operation for a properly-equipped, professional garage; not an owner's roadside maintenance task.

There is a removable panel in the end of the dashboard moulding, facing the passenger door, but it hides only cables. There is no equivalent in the off-side end.

What few parts of the heating system are visible by grovelling on the floor are not identifiable; and none match what the videos suggest is a sizeable rectangular box.

'

SO.... This filter is either not inside the car anyway; or is hidden and inaccessible.

'

Under the bonnet? (Apparently, the Megan's cabin filter is accessibly in the scuttle. Clearly a mistake.) No. Nowhere under the bonnet; at least certainly not obviously so. I would expect it to be close to the blower and heater - wherever they may be. They are totally hidden and totally inaccessible.

The only two readily-removable panels that might hide this blasted filter, cover only cable-looms.

The heater water-hoses are clearly visible between the engine and bulkhead. Virtually nothing of the heating & ventilating system is visible or accessible between there and its controls and outlets

I noticed even replacing the engine air-filter might take all day, assuming you can work out how!

'

Nothing useful on-line. Just poorly-made videos about different versions of the car, and web-sites demanding "accounts", expensive open-ended subscriptions, etc. I found a free pdf manual but it covers only the engines.

My car was built in 2006, and surprisingly it still has its original Owner's Handbook and official service book. The Handbook tells you to change the cabin filter annually, but not how to find it, nor which vehicle editions carry one. The few pages completed in the service log suggest this filter (if it exists) has never been changed. I am not surprised.

I now doubt the model I own has such a filter. So why is the demister so inefficient, and why did the last MoT document "advise" it needed changing? I had booked a service too, so why had the garage not changed it?

Just one possibility remains... that the filter does exist but as a separate unit, under the bonnet, hard to identify without pictures, and nowhere logical.

' ' '

Gave up, did some gardening and finished my steam-wagon's boiler mounting to the extent I could assemble everything so far. I can now determine how to make and fit the boiler's retaining-clips, improve the smokebox mountings and think about the grate, ashpan, cladding and plumbing.

Hopefully without "designing" inaccessibility traps beloved of the professional car manufacturer.

Un filter perdu, a boiler still not yet mounted, and lights confirmed...

'

A somewhat lazy day but I cleaned the inside of the car, a wheelchair-converted Renault Kangoo, and finally replaced its broken mirror - I've booked the MoT for Wednesday. (I'd struck the mirror on an overhanging hedge-branch, losing half the glass; but enough remained, held in with lots of duct tape, to be useable.)

I remembered an "advisory" from last year (year before?) about changing or cleaning the pollen filter I never knew it had. It's not called that in the Owner's handbook, which does include things my version does not have, but of course neither is its location given!

The Internet yielded only fair to poor videos of changing the filter on the new Renault Kangoo. Still, they gave a clue as to where it might be.

Thinking about it, the ventilation system could well be clogged because it emits far more noise than hot or cold air; and in some conditions demisting necessitates using a squeegee every few minutes. This though is a modern (ish) car, so Goodness only knows where they've hidden any of the system. As a neighbour put it, it would have been designed by people who came straight from university and had never serviced a car in their lives!

'

Tidied up, locked up, had tea and as relief from being baffled by what should be easy to find and service out on a vehicle, turned to my steam-wagon. I'm still trying to mount the boiler in the chassis, and this being a vehicle...

The boiler is an odd shape, and has three rather thin-looking lugs on the vertical-cylindrical firebox of diameter is over 4 inches smaller than the distance between the chassis rails which are not parallel at that point.

Also the smoke-box is not fastened to the boiler, as is typical on a traction-engine, but separate, as on a locomotive; and has to be drawn forwards to allow removing or installing the boiler in the frame.

After a lot of experimenting, I've replaced the first version of the additional framework necessary, with one based on sculpting lengths of 50mm square steel tube to form combined channels and brackets. It will also support parts of the superstructure, and has to wiggle its way round the steering gear.

To make arcuate cut-outs in two pieces of the channel I chain-drilled and filed them closely enough to try finish-machining them by boring-head. That didn't work very well, and it soon proved easier, safer and possibly quicker to finish-file to the line, and as accurately as necessary.

Marking out those components in-situ was an intriguing exercise in placing a centre-point in the fresh air between the chassis sides. (In fact, on a length of 6mm thick strip G-clamped it to the frame, with its markings aligned to centre-punched and scribed data-points on the chassis.)

Blue marking-out fluid does not give much contrast on hot-rolled steel, so for these I wire-brushed the surface rust off and gave them a thin coat of aerosol primer.

'

So tomorrow (Sunday?) Try to find the filter allegedly hiding deep in my car's Gallic recesses; and see if I can at least clean it out.

'

Took the car for its first run for 10 weeks yesterday; after a worrying time when It had forgotten how to start. A round trip of nearly 8 miles over to Portland and back put plenty of joules back in the battery and oil around the engine's innards, and flushed the fuel system through.

I drove to the entrance to Portland Prison - there are fine views from there - and this finally nailed those pesky light you may remember had me puzzled a few weeks ago. I'd thought they might have something to do with the helicopter training base; but no, they are indeed traffic-lights at the prison's imposing main gate (from the site's original days as a fortress), and were obligingly going through their automatic cycles visible at night from my bedroom window a couple of miles to the North.

I have not seen them advertised very much but there are davit-type hoists made for precisely this kind of work; and are generally bolted to the floor, with due attention to the floor and fixings of course, behind a lathe or alongside the column of a milling-machine. The hoist itself is usually a chain-block on a runner.

One at my works had such a hoist with a square-section tube boom that contained the runner, with the attachment point hanging though a longitudinal slot. It was used with a chain-block for manipulating the heavy steel lid on a piece of laboratory equipment.

I have just completed the travelling beam on an overhead hoist I am building for tasks such as handling heavy machine-tool fittings, and designed to make best use of the limited headroom in my workshop. I have still to build the crab but can use the crane otherwise to a some extent already, and in fact was doing only a few hours ago.

Ah, I see. Thank you. I didn't realise the 5 and the 5A were that different, though my example and I think the facsimile manual are quite early versions and mine does not have a Norton gearbox..

The filler you show is the same as the one I have bought, and its position does correspond to the drain-plug on my lathe, and again we could be comparing earlier and later versions as well as model designations.

Significantly though the fitting is clearly screwed into a hefty boss on the casting, and I don't think my machine has that. Whilst it would be fairly simple to make an adaptor, I don't know if the resulting reduction in pipe diameter will matter, but more important is it being at the correct height.

I can only try it, and if it doesn't work, re-fit the existing plugI

Juts noticed another difference. Yours seems to have a cast (aluminium?) belt-guard. Mine is a sheet-steel pressing, which I have modified along with cutting the original motor plinth off, so the machine is much closer to the workshop wall. I fitted the new, 3ph, motor on a frame above the headstock, built independently of the machine and putting it well away from the muck and dust, with the inverter and controller above the tailstock. I've also screwed a sheet-steel (part of a scrapped server!) splash-back to a shelf behind the lathe so its lower edge is within the chip-tray but not touching it, to prevent annoying, noisy vibrations.

Sorry - I'm a bit confused by your use of "gearbox".

Apart from the change-wheels a Harrison L5 and 5A has 3 "gearboxes" but as far as I recall the only one under that that name is the small leadscrew / feedshaft range box below the headstock. The others of course are the headstock and the saddle.

The machine is provided with all the appropriate oiling points. You should not need to drill any holes in it!

My own L5 has no separate oil-filler on its headstock but it does have a drain-plug, round the back, so that might be some past owner's replacement for the proper fitting. I have bought a second-hand filler supposedly for a Harrison lathe but it is on a short threaded spigot bigger than the plug, so I wonder what it had actually been used on.

So I would be very grateful for the details , please.

I don't know if the headstock on the 5A differs much from that on the 5, but on mine the only way to verify and replenish the oil level is to take off the cast aluminium cover, held on with two 1/4 inch BSF cap-screws.

Mine didn't have a cork gasket but a sheet of thick greaseproof paper I took to be original, though I can't be certain. The poor thing was practically dry though, when I investigated!

Some of the Harrison lathes had a combined filler/sight-glass, but not mine. I have acquired one but not yet determined the best place to fit it. It will need me to drill and tap an appropriate hole, but the difficulty is knowing how high above the headstock floor the red line needs to be.

What may be worth doing, given that these headstocks obviously need enough oil in them for the largest gear to dip into, is going a bit further than just drilling holes to drip oil through, by making and fitting a proper oil filler-plug with combined dipstick.

Provided the headstock is not leaking anywhere, it should not be necessary to drip oil into it regularly, but one leak path to be aware of is the threads of the screws that hold the unit to the bed. I had had to dismantle mine to move it, and I think I fitted fibre washers under the screw heads on re-assembly. Oil going down there disappears into the cavernous void below, and either oozes out into the chip-tray or seeps down the screws holding the machine to its cabinet, thence onto the floor.

If you use a moderately viscous oil enough stays on the gears for most sessions. I don't know what oils Harrisons recommended, though it may be in the manual (mine is a photocopy bought from Tony Griffiths); but the saddle on an L5 / 5A is no different from most other lathes is being open underneath.

Some people use high-pressure bearing-grease on change-wheels, though not the saddle gearing. I just use oil, but I am not running either my L5 or Myford ML 7 so fast that they spin-dry the change- wheels.

I have found my L5's headstock is not especially oil-tight - but I think most emerges through the bearings. I keep a tray under the change-wheel guard to collect the oil that would otherwise end up on the floor.

Thinking about it, it is tempting to make a sloping "draining-board" to direct the oil dripping off the change-wheels into the chip-tray; but that would make the lathe much harder to clean and is probably not ideal if your lathe has a pumped coolant system.

To help keep the lathe itself clean, I cut some left-overs of ordinary plastic down-pipe lengthways to form gutters that are a gentle push-fit, held by their own elasticity, into the bed below the ways, under both headstock and tailstock. This is so swarf and oil-drips can be swept into the chip-tray instead of accumulating in the deep bed cavities.

As a by-product the gutter at the far tail end finds itself as a "hold-this-er" of small tools or work-pieces - as long as I remember they are there when pushing the tailstock back!

Andrew -

Thank you explaining it.

The photo doesn't reveal the general engine type but I know various forms of steam admission were fitted by different makers.

At least one Overtype wagon engine (Foden's?) had a complicated "three-way valve" allowing three different modes.

I have been trying against all odds for far too long to build a 4-inch scale Hindley wagon, unusually with an enclosed, inverted-vertical engine. My source material being no more than 100+ year old advertising photos and texts, one of the first things I discovered was that E.S. Hindley & Sons didn't like too much standardising, to the extent of noticeably different details between the photographed examples in the same trade-magazine review!

Indeed my first attempts at GA drawings came out all wonky because as I realised from further material some three years later, the reviewed lorry was not that photographed for the article. Despite being fully-broadside the picture I used for the scale-data wheelbase and wheel diameters, did not match the quoted dimensions.

I do not claim mine to be any more than a representative model, as true outwardly as possible to the spirit of the variegated examples that emerged in 1908 from the factory in Bourton (near Gillingham, in North Dorset). Indeed, to overcome some of the problems in the most efficient way, I need resort to some non-prototypical practice below the superstructure that will (I hope) hide it from any but the most determined rivet-counters. Still, do you know of many full-size Britannia- or King- class locos with copper boilers and brass tenders, as necessitated in miniature?

=

Why did I choose such a seemingly-hopeless task - and oft did think thus?

I was going to build a Foden C-type, and I like the look of them; but they be common creatures! Then I was inspired as a Dorset resident by an article about the Gillingham' trades and industries, in the historical-magazine Dorset Year Book 1977, illustrated by a photograph of a locally-owned Hindley steam-wagon dressed for Gllingham Carnival c.1908-1910.

Various Hindley plant-engines exist in preservation but no model-engineers and few preservation-engineers seemed to have heard of the Hindley wagon, whose three classes are all extinct, until Richard 'Turbo' Vincent built a full-size replica to commission. Appropriately his engineering works are not far from Gillingham, too.

That rarity further inspired me.

Though I believe mine would have been first in model form had I managed to build it years ago, I know definitely on one finished example also to 4-inch scale. There is another, possibly - I do not know if actually a second vehicle or the same under new ownership.

'

There was incidentally a ' Mendip ' Steam-wagon built by C.W.Harris, in Chewton Mendip. I do know from vehicle registration records and contemporary photos that Harris' bought a Hindley, and the Mendip looks so like the Hindley I suspect pirating despite Hindley having patented its distinctive boiler. Harris later built motor-cars, Mendip-badged - I don't know if any survive.

The patent boiler has a cylindrical (can be rectangular) firebox with a high top, to obviate water-level problems on steep hills; but a very similar pattern was used on the Shay locomotives and a French-made Portable Engine.

(Hindley also took out a rather cheeky patent on a wagon-wheel design. None of the steam-wagons photographed had that pattern, but mine does. So there!)

I know this is not really a competition but I could console myself by claiming mine unique by badging it ' Mendip ', and the Mendip Hills themselves mean very much to me.... Nah, that's cheating! I bain't be Dorset-born but I be Dorset-bred (since 7) and I am staying loyal to E.S. Hindley & Sons of Dorset, not their copy-cats in Somerset.

And if mine is not exactly true to the last rivet... tough!.

Andrew Johnston -

Fine work, it quality giving me a certain tinge of the green I've just painted my new workshop hoist frame.

Good to see that extra point of making a detail fitting true to original - though I am a bit puzzled by the bronze fitting in the middle. Whistle or simpling-valve control?

However, my point is that your engine reminds me of my examining a 3 or 4 -inch scale traction-engine at a major exhibition a few years ago. Some bloke alongside me complained to his mate, who agreed with him, that some detail was all wrong, etc. etc. Now, I was not familiar with the particular engine so would not have spotted that, and it was likely to a published design anyway.

Instead, what I did spot was a machine very much faithful to its original even if with the odd detail ' wrong '; and not in show-room condition but carrying the soot-lined chimney and patina of an engine clearly well-built, well-loved and well-used. Proof to me that the engine was well enough made to look right and work properly.

I did wonder what either of those critics had on display....

There were other makes of similar filler.

My dad was very practical, and highly skilled at DIY work so had a wide range of tools and building sundries at home - including both the old Rawl-drills and fibre-plugs, and modern masonry bits and plastic plugs. When we cleared their home I found a small jar of what I knew was a masonry-anchor material, and it appeared to be a mixture of asbestos fibre and a cement resembling 'Polyfilla'. I mixed it with water and let it set to an inert lump for disposal.

Interestingly, the label read 'Screwfix', making me wonder if that was co-incidence or the company we know now, did indeed make / sell this material under its own name.

'

What did they use before these new-fangled hollow plugs or fillers? Whittled slivers of wood.

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Mark Easingwood -

I am pretty sure the left-hand tool in your photo is a masonry-drill, as it closely resembles the so-called "self-drilling" anchors that are or were made by Rawl.

Those consist of a female-threaded, hollow sleeve with teeth like that too. They are inserted by screwing them onto a driver to create their own star-drill, and once to depth you withdraw the assembly, insert a truncated conical plug into the anchor's open end, then hammer it back home so the cone expands the inner end against the hole wall. The threads are arranged so that they do not bear the hammering forces. The object to be secured is then held by a standard set-screw or bolt in the anchor's open end.

Looking again at your photo makes me wonder if that is a driver and anchor assembled, because the end part is a distinctly different colour from the rest at a very well defined boundary. The slot would be to allow chips to escape. The doubt comes because the larger sizes of these anchors have part-cut break-slits that help them to expand, but not evident in the picture.

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My familiarity with that type of 'Rawl-bolt' comes from hanging from them for dear life. Literally! Caving in this country went through a technical upheaval in the 1980s when 'Single Rope Techniques' largely replaced wire-sided ladders for descending and ascending vertical drops. The ropes are tied to anchors installed in the cave wall, and before proper anchors could be developed we used small brackets set-screwed to Rawl inserts. The Rawl company was horrified when they discovered we were gleefully abseiling down blooming great deep holes, from M8-threaded fastenings intended for securing pipes and shelves to buildings! Well, we always used at least two anchors as the main belay...