Giles' misc. Work bench.

Giles

Giles

Western Thunderer
They do indeed - usually inboard of the glasses. They hold the glasses and top and bottom castings together as a unit so you can slip them off for cleaning or replacing the gauge-glass. Lift them up a bit and pull the bottom off the cock and away the protector comes...... However, I can't find any details of triangular types at all! I don't even know if they have the metal painted sheet at the back!
 
Giles

Giles

Western Thunderer
Today has been spent on the main frames. I have drilled out all the rivets and soldered in small brass brads, which is quite time consuming and fiddly so as not to unsolder previous ones, or the sandwiched frames themselves! However, it is well worth the effort, and look so much better than embossed rivets would. The last half hour was spent pondering the next sequence, and when painting would fit in. I also found that I want one cylinder casting replaced, as its a bit dodgy compared to everything else. It's beginning to look like the chassis/footplate will have to be painted in one piece, which is not what I would prefer - but we will see. I also made up and fitted the motion brackets, which fitted perfectly, like everything else so far.



I've also ordered a teeny relay which I intend to operate off the radio receiver, the outputs of which will power the steam. One output a background voltage to keep the mister 'on the boil', and the other output via a reed switch at full voltage to give the chuffs.




1704652389174.gif
 
F

Fitzroy

Western Thunderer
That looks so much better than vapourising oil... Re the gauge glasses, some went for having a backplate of a white background with a single vertical thin red line rather than the diagonal stripes, and the line looks fat where there is water in the column. But I believe it would have had something, as a gauge glass with no background is very hard to read, and therefore potentially quite dangerous. If you had a hole drilled through the gauge glass perspex from top to bottom, and if you filled the bottom half with optically clear araldite, you might be able to get a representative effect...
 
PhilH

PhilH

Western Thunderer
As far as I know these locos didn't have a backing of any kind to the gauge glasses and they were quite easy to read.


C4536B © PGH.jpg​

This is MAID MARIAN on the Bala Lake Railway, with the triangular type - i.e. with two pieces of protector glass in front of the tube. I have, or should I say had, a certain familiarity with these locos as I drove one nearly every Sunday through the summer season for 26 years on the Llanberis Lake Railway, from its opening in 1971 to 1996. In fact I've driven a total of 6 of these locos on 4 different railways. The three at Llanberis had square type protectors - i.e. with 3 pieces of glass in front of the tube, whether this was original, a modification by the quarry or when they were rebuilt for the LLR I don't know, but there was nothing behind the water tube itself. Some of these locos do have modifications after preservation, and note in the photo of MAID MARIAN the combination injectors on the firebox backhead have been replaced leaving just the water inlet on the backhead.
 
Giles

Giles

Western Thunderer
That's very useful - thank you!!! A rare view.....

One of the few things that been bugging me about the Slater's Hunslet, is that the handbrake is modelled firmly 'on'

https://flic.kr/p/2prjmkS

Whereas I would prefer to have it off. In fact it was relatively easily sorted by chopping it to bits and silver-soldering it together again in a different order!

https://flic.kr/p/2prjmkG

https://flic.kr/p/2prmtAP
 
Brian McKenzie

Brian McKenzie

Western Thunderer
Well sorted and executed.

Are you still using the Chinese oxy-hydrogen generator for silver-soldering (and any thoughts / recommendations about this equipment)?

-Brian
 
Giles

Giles

Western Thunderer
Yes - but only with nickel silver or harder..... brass is a little too prone to inconveniently melting if one is not careful enough.
Frankly, equipment-wise, a basic cheap cased unit from Ebay will do (ours was a Chinese unit for £170), but buy a torch with blow-back protection (separately) for safeties sake.
 
Brian McKenzie

Brian McKenzie

Western Thunderer
Thanks Giles. I did buy a Chinese unit quite some time ago, but have never used it - while I still have a small amount of acetylene + oxygen left in now obsolete exchange bottles.
I did fit a flashback arrestor when it arrived.
 
adrian

adrian

Flying Squad
Brian McKenzie said:
Thanks Giles. I did buy a Chinese unit quite some time ago, but have never used it - while I still have a small amount of acetylene + oxygen left in now obsolete exchange bottles.
I did fit a flashback arrestor when it arrived.
Click to expand...
For my 7mm stuff I find that my little portable Iroda PT500 with a propane/butane fill is more than adequate for silver soldering.
 
Giles

Giles

Western Thunderer
This is the circuit diagram for the loco. Strangly, I plan on having a side button or similar on a separate channel, for the steam, so one can release it when coasting (its all an experiment....)

https://flic.kr/p/2prH7bq

The dummy inside valve gear is in, and I'm getting perilously close to getting a wheelset in and being able to test a chuff.

The motor provided is a Maxon gear motor, but is far too fast, so I shall fit an N30 when it arrives (variant of the little N20's). Although teeny, it would appear to be stronger than the Maxon at 4 volts. I need to make a drive shaft thingy, with 1/8" internal hex - I think I've worked out how I can do that, but we will see.

https://flic.kr/p/2ps9rV5
 
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F

Fitzroy

Western Thunderer
I am imagining a museum with all of this in a glass case with a gasworks and a factory chimney and kids lining up to press the buttons for all the various steam and smoke emanations, plus ooze dripping into the canal.
 
simond

simond

Western Thunderer
Could you save a switch by using a centre off for the aux battery ?

Thinking of space rather than pennies, but as the nice lady said, “every little helps” :)
 
Greengiant

Greengiant

Western Thunderer
Giles said:
I have wheels..... so hopefully I can jury-rig the chuff wheel, reed switch and electrics, and see what happens!

https://flic.kr/p/2psdyqz
Click to expand...
Very nice build Giles, look forward to seeing this in the flesh one day.

Going off on a tangent I notice some of your photo links are just giving the Flickr weblink. I found this on some posts I was doing, oddly in a series of photos the last one would always be a link!

A work around I found was to start an NGRM post, put all the photos in there, copy them and paste into WT and they worked, how odd.

I have just done a post and used the BBcode instead and edited out the bits I didn't want and that worked as well. I wonder if Flickr have changed something, or the forum software does not like something.

Having said all that, it may just be my computer!

Martin
 
Greengiant

Greengiant

Western Thunderer
Very effective Giles.
Out of interest, would it be feasible to add a colouring (food colouring) to the water, thus giving coloured smoke? Thinking possible application as a diesel engine exhaust smoke.
Martin
 
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