Inverted slide valves

Does anyone have any experience of putting a spring below an inverted slide valve to ensure its contact with the valve face?

Best wishes

John B

Not directly, but I have designed the LP valve on my compound traction engine so that it uses a simple flat leaf spring to keep the valve in contact with the valve face. The design is based on the full size valve.

Andrew

Edited By Andrew Johnston on 03/10/2023 21:31:19

Thanks Andrew. That's interesting.

How is the spring attached?

John B

Similar to Andrew, The slide valve on my Ruston TE has a slide valve on the side which kept falling off and not sealing when steam was shut off. Then bang back on when turned on.

A simple flat leaf string attached to the back of the slide valve (made from "Band-it" steel strapping) and rubs against the back of the cover plate fixed the problem. Very little force is required to hold the valve, just enough to keep it seated.

Edited By Paul Lousick on 03/10/2023 22:19:05

My only experience of this was with a 5" Pansy with valves below the cylinders. On starting, there was a short delay after opening the regulator until the steam chest pressure increased enough to lift the valves up, and you could usually hear a click when this happened. You could induce this by snapping the regulator open, then backing it off to the starting position. It really wasn't a problem once you knew about it.