LBSC Maisie Cylinder Drain Cock Operation

Niether LBSC's book on Maisie or the drawings show how the drain cock's are operated.

There appears to be very little room and straight-forward rods and links are baffling me.

l'm sure this must have been resolved many times over.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Many Thanks

Bruno

hi bruno,

whilst i wouldnt disagree with mark's suggestion, this size isnt commercially available (i think), and if you want to use 'off the shelf' commercial drain cocks of plug type then there is a solution.

i should add that due to Maisee's big outside cylinders drain cocks are very worthwhile fitting as when starting from cold etc there will be quite a shower of dirty oily water up the chimney.

anyway there are 2 solutions ive come across. the first is not have any drain cock linkeage apart from between the plug cock arms on each side and to manually move them from 'open' to 'closed' after running up and down the steaming bays and onto the track. 'close' after coupling up to the driving and passenger trolleys when on the track.

the second solution is to fit an operating 'plate' between bogie stretcher and bogie. this isnt easy to describe, but imagine you sort out the parts so a washer needs adding between the above parts. the 'plate' has an elongated hole in it to fit around the washer and allow for fore and aft movement. it is shaped and bent with arms to then connect with the drain cock linkage between the plug arms both sides. there is plenty of room to connect the back of this 'plate' to a traditional linkeage to the cab.

i am not a fan of bowden cable or wire in tube as a substitute for traditional linkeage.

re Maisee if you havent got to the boiler yet i would strongly advise you fit the non combustion chamber boiler as originally described in ME rather than in the book. both steam very well but the non combustion version has the edge in my opinion and is much easier to construct. i also prefer the original tube layout and superheaters.

cheers,

julian

Edited By julian atkins on 05/07/2015 00:22:19

Hi Bruno,

I built Maisie over 30 years ago and I remember that LBSC specified automatic drain cocks,

these are basically small spring loaded safety valves, I feel sure that they were mentioned

in the book and also the drawings.

Bert Ashton.

Many thanks for the replies.

A little about my Maisie, I bought her as a part built via a well known auction website with a view to a couple of winters project. She includes a builders plate dated 1942. There is no boiler but the rest is pretty well all there. After a superficial clean up and oiling of the motion she ran on air at about 30psi, pretty impresive l think. So not so much a rebuild as a recommision.

Back to the drain cocks, they are as the book, nothing on my drawings, and are simple lifting cocks so also act as automatic snifting valves. But to drain water need to be lifted. I really like Julian's suggestion and am working up a design of a bogie pivot pin that also introduces some side spring control of the bogie. A key factor is to make a post-construction fitting to avoid additional dismantling.

Regarding the boiler, l had already deduced that the combustion chamber version would offer little benefit from lots more complication. So thanks for the endorsement.

l'll keep you posted.

Bruno

Hi.

I fitted the drain cocks as the book on my Maisie ( Now sold ) they are operated from the cab by a lever on the left hand side, connected to a rod which runs on the inside of the frames which connects to a bell crank fitted to a shaft fitted across the frames and has drop arms on the outside of the frames that operate the drain cock slide rod which lifts the drain cocks open and by way of it's shape lets them drop back down to close.

In the picture you can see the drop arms and linkage for the drain cocks.

Michael.