Lisa
Statesman
Posts: 806
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Post by Lisa on Nov 18, 2015 15:28:02 GMT
I suspect that if coal becomes no longer available, I could just dig a hole; there's old and current mines all around and under me.
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Lisa
Statesman
Posts: 806
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Post by Lisa on Nov 13, 2015 5:18:41 GMT
I saw on a thread here, don't recall which, mention that a list of suppliers for plans and castings for loco's would be useful. This will also give a better idea of designs available by others than the usual suspects (LBSC, Don Young, Martin Evans, et al), and for prototypes outside of one's usual sphere. I figured this was a good idea and thought I'd make a start, please add any suppliers you know of, with a brief description of what they have. Perhaps the admins would like to pin this for ease of future reference. Reeves 2000 / A.J. Reeves www.ajreeves.com/U.K. A range of primarily British prototypes in 3½", 5", and 7¼", but with some gauge 1, 2½", and 12¼" gauge designs, as well as traction/road and stationary engines. Blackgates Engineering U.K. www.blackgates.co.uk/A range of primarily British prototypes, including Sweet Pea, in 3½", 5", and 7¼", as well as traction/road and stationary engines. E.J. Winters www.ejwinter.com.au/Australia A range of Australian prototypes in gauge 1, 2½", 3½", 5", and 7¼" gauges, as well as traction/road and stationary engines, also carries designs by LBSC, Don Young, and Martin Evans. Hobby Mechanics hobbymechanics.com.au/Australia A range of Queensland Railways (Australian) 3'6" gauge prototypes in 5" and 7¼" gauges, as well as traction/road and stationary engines, including IC and hot air designs. Live Steam Locomotives livesteamlocomotives.com/U.S.A. A range of U.S.A. prototypes in 7¼" and 7½" gauges, including the Big Boy.
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Lisa
Statesman
Posts: 806
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Post by Lisa on Nov 13, 2015 2:42:58 GMT
Speaking of forum mechanics: Is there a way to go to the first unread post in a topic/thread?
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Lisa
Statesman
Posts: 806
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Post by Lisa on Nov 12, 2015 5:40:53 GMT
Pete, Julian, thanks.
I've got half a dozen fire bricks (intended for pizza ovens, 1200°C) getting delivered next week, so as to have somewhere to do silver soldering. Plus some CIGweld Comweld General Purpose Silver Brazing Flux, and 42% silver solder rods on hand too; these are both the norm for boiler work, so I'm hoping they'll be fine for this task. Also have several burners ranging from needle to huge, so will see which feels best when experimenting on the dummies.
Pete, the rods are threaded into the bosses, so I don't imagine they'll move too much (and I won't be drilling the second crankpin hole till after they're joined properly anyway). Hopefully, anyway.
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Lisa
Statesman
Posts: 806
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Post by Lisa on Nov 11, 2015 15:15:46 GMT
After making those pins to drill the coupling rods, I went ahead and made the rod retaining collars, seeing as they're from the same material. The front retaining "collars" are finished, the rear/driving collars still need to be drilled and tapped for a grub screw to hold them in place. Unfinished coupling rod, and the boss for the connecting rod all sitting in place as well. Next I'll make up some dummy rod bosses, and try out my silver soldering by joining that to some offcut of the centre section of the rod; rather than relearning on the actual rods. It's been a while, so any tips for silver soldering biggish bits (12x7 to 25x10) of steel together?
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Lisa
Statesman
Posts: 806
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Post by Lisa on Nov 11, 2015 9:36:54 GMT
I built a 7¼" narrow gauge loco a while back, and the ride-in tender for that was designed to have an axle pump on it (I didn't fit one admittedly, opted for 2 injectors instead). So I'd say go for it if that's what you want.
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Lisa
Statesman
Posts: 806
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Post by Lisa on Nov 10, 2015 11:14:56 GMT
Pete, Not sure if this is of much use to you, as it's a screenshot of an old vhs tape, and thus not particularly good quality. But here she is in '68 (just leaving Kings Cross on the 40th anniversary non-stop run), about the best shot of the smokebox front I could find in the film with a quickish look, but it does clearly show smooth lines at that time.
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Lisa
Statesman
Posts: 806
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Post by Lisa on Nov 10, 2015 5:30:22 GMT
Just made a couple of pins for jig drilling the second crankpin hole in the coupling rods. Will also make the retaining collars, as they'll come from the same material. Still need to silver solder the three piece rods together, but am going to make up some rough test pieces to experiment on first, as it's been a while since I did any silver soldering (especially with steel). Here's the rod sitting on the loco, along with the extraordinarily rough adjustable coupling rod made from scrap. The two of these were adjusted till the wheels rotated freely, and will be used drill the actual rods to the correct hole spacing. The two pins are used to fit the adjustable rod to the coupling rod when drilling. This is the assembled drilling jig, one pin through the front crankpin hole in the coupling rod and the adjustable rod, second pin through the adjustable rod with a 5mm hole for spot drilling the coupling rod.
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Lisa
Statesman
Posts: 806
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Post by Lisa on Nov 10, 2015 4:52:06 GMT
Looks like quite a bit could be taken off that retaining collar on the coupling rods Julian. I know on my Blowfly the front crankpin has the retaining collar flush with the rod to give clearance behind the crosshead. P.S. Your build here was one of the main topics that drew me to this forum, I do love the A1X.
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Lisa
Statesman
Posts: 806
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Post by Lisa on Nov 8, 2015 11:03:50 GMT
Haven't had a rolling road for a while, but like Roger we always just ran the wheels directly on the outer race. Generally just set them to whatever the gauge was.
Also, if you want a cheap stock of ball bearings, stop in at an auto-electrician and ask if they'll save them for you, then go back in a week or two. When they work on alternators they usually replace the bearings whether they need it or not, so often throw out bucket loads of perfectly good ball bearings.
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Lisa
Statesman
Posts: 806
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Post by Lisa on Nov 8, 2015 8:16:58 GMT
Hi Lisa, You're doing a great job there and I reckon your dad would be delighted with the progress... He is, I snapped a shot of him when he sneaked in to the workshop this afternoon, it's great when he does; his dementia seems to noticeably recede, so it's one of the few times he can actually keep up a conversation. This pic' also shows pretty much the entirety of the workshop (other than some storage shelves/drawers/racks behind the camera) - the Taig lathe is hidden under the rag to the left, said rag being soaked with oil and is probably why a 30 year old machine is still (mostly) shiney. Been raining all day here, so took the opportunity of a cool workshop and finished off the machining for the centres of the coupling rods. Camera flash decided it hated me when I went to take a photo though.
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Lisa
Statesman
Posts: 806
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Post by Lisa on Nov 8, 2015 4:42:31 GMT
Hi Lisa, You're doing a great job there and I reckon your dad would be delighted with the progress. It's interesting to see you using a 'Diamond Cutter', they are brilliant bits of kit with the jig for sharpening guaranteeing the right cutting angle every time. I have tipped tooling but use the diamond cutter almost exclusively and with the other end sharpened in the jig for thread cutting only adds to it's usefulness. With care quite a lot of work can be done on a small lathe. A mate of mine machined a 'bent wire' crank shaft for his 3" Alchin on a Myford 7, it was pushing things to the extreme but he took his time with light cuts and produced a superb job. cheers Jim Hi Jim, I agree, the diamond tool holder really is brilliant, just a shame that the current makers of it don't seem to have the tiny one we use on the Taig II available anymore; it's rigidity has greatly improved cutting ability on such a tiny machine. A 3" Alchin sounds like a nice model, I've always liked the fine lines of the Alchin traction engines. Dad was more a Burrell fan (apparently he had a great uncle that owned one in Scotland), so we did have a 1" (I think) Burrell when I was little, was fun to chase chickens around the yard with.
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Lisa
Statesman
Posts: 806
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Post by Lisa on Nov 7, 2015 14:54:28 GMT
Pete,
The difference isn't just painted vs polished metal affecting the shadows is it? The older photo's look to have a polished metal ring on the smokebox, whereas the newer shots show a black (paint, soot, some kind of sealant?) colour to the area.
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Lisa
Statesman
Posts: 806
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Post by Lisa on Nov 5, 2015 11:03:52 GMT
...I was told that rain water now because of pollution contains acids that are detrimental to copper boilers? ... It's not just copper boilers, my dad had a steel boiler that we ran off rainwater, and at 2 years old the boiler inspector told us to start using treated town water if we didn't want to scrap it; it wouldn't have passed the next inspection if we'd stuck with rain water. With treated town water it was still good 10 years later when he sold it.
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Lisa
Statesman
Posts: 806
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Post by Lisa on Nov 4, 2015 14:30:51 GMT
Norman, ... Our existing 'Jim Crow' screw operated benders have span distances of about 320 mm and cannot get close enough to the rail ends. ... John John, If you already have a Jim Crow, have you thought of just making a shorter claw for one (or both) side(s) of it? It needn't be a permanent modification to the tool, depending on the construction of the current tool you could make a movable claw that both fits over the rail, and fits over the crow.
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Lisa
Statesman
Posts: 806
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Post by Lisa on Nov 4, 2015 13:57:49 GMT
Please post the drawing Lisa it sounds very interesting. Now that I've managed to take a picture of it without wobbling the camera about: I've shrunk the image down for posting on the forum, those who want the full size - and thus fully legible - image can see and download it here.
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Lisa
Statesman
Posts: 806
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Post by Lisa on Nov 1, 2015 12:09:15 GMT
I have a drawing for a fairly large four chime whistle here (about 10" long and 1.25" diameter), which was designed to be disguised as an air tank below the running boards of a 5" gauge loco. Having heard it on its intended loco (dad's first 5" loco) I can say it's quite an attention grabber, with a powerful tone(s). Can take a pic' of the sheet if anyone's interested.
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Lisa
Statesman
Posts: 806
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Post by Lisa on Nov 1, 2015 8:17:59 GMT
I've dabbled a bit with CAD, never done anything useful with it though, so this would be interesting to me.
I also thought we could do with a projects/builds subforum, rather than having those threads in general chat where they inevitably drop back into forgotten pages.
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Lisa
Statesman
Posts: 806
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Post by Lisa on Oct 31, 2015 10:22:03 GMT
I would also add in another factor COULD be local stockists. If building a Blowfly I assume you are in Australia so metric is possibly easier to source. But there again it's not as though BA is readily available 'down the street' for most of us anyway I can get BA taps/dies/nuts/bolts fairly easily locally from Hobby Mechanics (plus EJ Winter, and various other ME suppliers) who can also do next-day delivery if I need 'em quick. Metric on the other hand I've so far only found suppliers of small hex-headed bolts in Germany (Knupfer and Modellbauershop), the UK (Polly), and (ironically for metric) the USA (Scale Hardware). Plenty of places sell cheese head and countersunk though, I can buy them 10 minutes walk from home from jaycar electronics; but even on a simple freelance narrow gauge loco they wouldn't look right, and even then I wouldn't want to restrict myself to what I'm building now, but allow for future/other projects as well. Still, that's more places stocking/selling small metric fasteners than I knew about a few days ago, thanks to various comments here.
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