Don Young L and Y Aspinall Class 27 - Not Midlands

[coniston]

I think you're right Wilf, it certainly helped with the ceramic blanket inside the barrel for the 2nd and 3rd heating. At the end of the day me and Dave had an enjoyable day with what we hope to be a successful result. Assuming this one goes well we have more to do in the near future, that's if Dave is still talking to me after this one LoL.

Chris

[Midland]

Best wishes for a good build, looking profesional already!
David

[kipford]

Been on holiday so I could not get the embryonic boiler to the BI's until this morning. Coniston came along as well and we are delighted to say it was a pass and we can now proceed to fitting the boiler tubes to the firebox with an another inspection at that point. I fall is ok then we will fit the firebox backplate in and fit the firebox/tube assembly to the outer shell using the front tube plate and three sides of the foundation ring. One thing they did pick up was a drilling I had forgotten to blank off in one of the back head bushes, I can fix that now and prevent what could have been an issue later on. Due to other commitments we will not be able to do any further work for a week or so.
Dave

[melaser]

Interesting approach, I've always done tubes and firebox tubeplate to wrapper at the same time

[kipford]

Coniston and I are both new to boiler making. The assembly sequence was advised by our boiler inspectors, one of whom has built more boilers than hot dinners, but more importantly has previously built an Aspinal boiler. To me this is a very safe way of proceeding, although it adds an additional soldering step it means we can concentrate on getting the tube joints correct without having to worry about the wrapper joint.
Dave

[kipford]

A while since any update. Unfortunately Life, Holidays, COVID, babysitting and other commitments mean Coniston and I have not been able to get together for the next boiler heat up. Hopefully we should be able to do that fairly soon. I have done some work on the manifold and will post some photos when finished. This a few little gems turned up in the post. The photos shows some lost wax bronze castings I have had done for the Regulator Quadrant, Steam Valve Body and the LH and RH Clacks. All of these bits are fiddly little to make so I asked Owl Castings for a quote which was very resonable and this is the result. Owl use a similar process to Mike Jacks in that the wax is a 3D printed one. I supplied the 3D CAD model (step file) with all the machining allowances added and they adjusted it (probably just scaled it) for shrinkage. I am very pleased with the result and at an average price of £18 per part plus £10 p&p a very good deal. Dimensional check shows they are pretty good and there are not issues to prevent their use.
Dave

Backhead Castings by Dave Smith, on Flickr

[kipford]

Coniston and I found time today to do the next stage of the boiler, fitting the tubes to fire box. I machined a small shoulder on each tube to ensure they could not drop out. Then using one of my spare boiler templates made up a little fixture to support the tubes in their correct position relative to the firebox. Each small tube was fitted with two 1mm 55% solder rings and three on the superheater tubes. The  whole assembly was fluxed up and we were ready to go. The free end of the tubes was wrapped in a fire blanket and the assembly placed on the hearth with the tubes facing upwards. We used two propane torches, with Chris heating inside the firebox and myself warming up the tubes. Once the solder rings melted we ran a stick of 1.5mm diameter silver solder all around the joint. It looked good so we let it cool put it in the citric acid and went and had a cup of tea. Removing the assembly from the pickle showed 3 tubes had not taken properly. Se we refluxed every thing put the blanket back on but this time turned the assembly over so we could feed solder in from inner face of the firebox. This time we just fed solder from the stick and all seemed to go well. Back in the pickle, lunch and another cu of tea removing it from the pickle showed good penetration on all the tubes, job done. Next stop the boiler inspectors, not sure when yet as we have a load of babysitting duties over the next few weeks.

Two photos showing the fluxed assembly with the location fixture ready to go.
image6 by Dave Smith, on Flickr

image5 by Dave Smith, on Flickr

The finished product.
image3 by Dave Smith, on Flickr

image1 by Dave Smith, on Flickr

image2 by Dave Smith, on Flickr

[millman]

Nowt wrong with them, they ain’t going anywhere. Lovely job.

[Deleted]

Great work Dave, that's going to be a superb boiler....I haven't forgotten about Saturday...look forward to meeting you and Chris there...🙂

Pete

[kipford]

Boiler goes in for its next inspection on Friday. I have also been making the manifold complete with dummy whistle and lever mechanism. The manifold was fabricated and was an interesting little piece to make, especially the making and fitting the little lugs that locate the levers. It needs a final clean up but for now it is complete.
Dave

image1 by Dave Smith, on Flickr
image0 by Dave Smith, on Flickr

[mbrown]

Very nice indeed. I need a similar arrangement for the whistle and valve on 99 3462, so I may plagiarise your design if I may!

Malcolm

[kipford]

Malcom I let you have 3D models and 2D drawings of it if you want?
Dave

[kipford]

Jeez no posts since August last year. Well life has got in the way to certain extent, but work on the loco has been slowly progressing. Any way major milestone was reached yesterday. Coniston and I finished the assembly of the boiler. It was quite a long day we did 4 heats, Foundation ring first, then a reheat to fill some gaps, next fitted the back head and finally the front tube plate. It looks ok on a visual after coming out of the pickle. Now I have to get it ready for its 2X test. I will post some photos when I get some time to take them, why is life so busy? It is now onto decorating the kitchen, then preparing my EM gauge layout for the Bristol Model Railway exhibition the weekend after next, I also have to fit in a steam up with Coniston and other friends next week along with dog/babysitting in Bristol, which means no more work on the loco until May!
Dave

[davewoo]

Very nice work indeed, glad to hear you are making progress, know what you mean about life getting in the way!
Dave

[kipford]

In between coats of emulsion I took a couple of photos. The last photo I posted of the boiler was fitting tubes to the firebox. The next stage was to fit the firebox rear and then start to fit the stay. Fire box back was fitted first, then the crown stays and firebox front to throat plate. We then did the side stays in two heats. The result of all this was a porcupine. The photos show the extent of staying, this is one solid boiler.

image33 by Dave Smith, on Flickr

image30 by Dave Smith, on Flickr

After getting boiler inspector approval we moved to closing up the boiler. As I said above this involved 4 heats which we did in a single day, there was one extra heat to close some gaps we found in the foundation ring. The front tube plate was done last so the tubes and their joints were limited in how many heats they were subject to. We were very pleased with the result, it is not pretty but it will be cleaned up a bit Chris (Conniston) recons we should get it hall marked due to the amount of silver solder put into it. So far I recon it has cost me about £800 in materials which provided it is leak free is good value. Also as an aside Conniston and I are now apprentice boiler inspectors!

image43 by Dave Smith, on Flickr
image42 by Dave Smith, on Flickr
image40 by Dave Smith, on Flickr
image41 by Dave Smith, on Flickr

[uuu]

Wowee! That's properly going for it.

Wilf

[Midland]

Dave
That is real progress, well done. Have done little to mine while I get the No 60 running and bout of Covid has not helped!!

Looking forward to seeing it in the flesh as they say.

Cheers David

[kipford]

Long time since I posted anything. Been busy with life! I have been working away in the background and we reached a milestone today when the boiler passed its shell test, hurrah. Thanks go to Coniston for his help with the assembly of the boiler, without which it would not have been possible. Both of us are looking forward to doing some more at some time.
Dave

[kipford]

Spent this morning trimming back the stays. The bottom two rows between the frames were done very carefully on the mill to leave a 0.5mm proud witness. The boiler fit from the drawings is extremely tight especially as I was using 2.5mm material for the outer wrapper rather than the specified 2mm. Anyway it fits! Really pleased with this as it went straight in the frames and smoke box without any issue. the second photo shows how tight the fit is.
Dave

image1 by Dave Smith, on Flickr
image0 by Dave Smith, on Flickr

[uuu]

It gets bigger when hot! Hopefully not that much bigger.

Wilf