Hello I am a new member from Germany

Hello,

my name is Werner and I am new in this forum. I had build at the beginning 30 years ago small Rc controlled gas fired steam locos and later I came by chance to the 5 inch gauge by an Maxitrak kit. After a few self constructed locomotives, 2 Tramway ( Chiemseebahn, a freelance Wiliam Wilkinson ) I started building a Java Mallet in compound action. The original runs in the Frankfurt Feldbahn Museum. After a few years of testing and developing it runs very good. By chance I bought on an auction in UK a vertical boiler of a De Winton quarry tea pot locomotive.

At first i thoght I build a locomotive than my mind changed to build a road engine.

After some investigation I found pictures of a Merryweather Fire King. Than I started 2014 my project.

My workshop has two lathes a small hobbymat and a Saupe or EMCO 7. In addition I have a Saupe mill and a bore mill and a self build motorised metal saw. This is the equipment I have.

with best regards

Werner Schleidt

Good morning Werner and welcome to the forum. You've made some interesting models. Any chance of a few pictures please?

Dave

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 11/06/2017 14:06:52

Hello Werner and welcome to this excellent site, I'm sure that you will find lots to interest you.

Brian

Welcome to the nuthouse Werner

Hello Werner,

Welcome to the forum.

I have embedded your video in your post, I hope you don't mind.

Neil

I did! I particularly liked the wheel slip in your garden, but the whole video is excellent. Good work.

Many thanks for sharing,

Dave

Thankyou Dave and Neil ,

for embedding the video. I did not understand the discriction for embedding the youtube videos, but I looked to other threads and now I think I got it for the next time.

Dave the wheelslip on the first test looked nice in the video ,but for the driver it was very frustating.

And that is now with compound action completly different. I start with a start valve which allows fresh steam to come to the front cylinder. The pipe to the cylinder is small so there is some throttel action for the steam.

I opened the compound tank valve and start then with the steam valve the high pressure cylinder. If all cylinders are warmed up, the Mallet starts to drive with nearly no wheel step. After 10 Meters I close the compound tank and pressure rise up in the compound tank and throttles a little bit the high pressure cylinder,because of back pressure. Between compound tank and the low pressure cylinder is non return valve.The pressure then overcomes the pressure on the low pressure cylinder . If the pressure is higher from the compound tank then the throttled fresh steam from the boiler the loco starts to run in compound. Then after some 5 to 10 meters I close the start valve and open more the steam valve.

The pressure ratio is than about 6 bar at the high pressure cylinder and 3 bar at the low pressure cylinder.

They work then nearly with the same traction force. And If Idrive with this loco on our club trak with smooth inclinations ,but narrow curve radius the loco runs nearly the same speed.

With a comparable two cylinder setup I have to control more often.

The next big step is stripping and painting the Mallet.

best regards

Werner

I have a question regarding compound driving.

In the last post I described the driving procedure of my compound mallet during the start procedure.

Can anyone describe something similar for his compound machine or something different ?

best regards

Werner