Good Evening everybody
Lots to update so let's get on.
I was concerned about adequate sealing of the "y" piece exhaust pipe that comes through the smoke box floor. I made an odd horizontal stuffing box which I fixed to the smoke box floor. You cannot see, but there is a semicircular stuffing box in it with braided packing. I hope it will work as intended.
I could not resist placing the unfinished smoke box + boiler on the chassis just to see what I would eventually arrive at. Anyway, no time for daydreaming take it off and continue with all those many other small parts.
The saddle tank is held at the front end by two brackets attached to the smoke box. Machining the internal diameter of these on the rotary table ensures a snug fit.
Another job I was a bit worried about was cutting out the coupon for the chimney pipe to enter the smoke box. This is of course not a round hole but more an ellipse. However the cheap and cheerful hole saw worked perfectly.
To stop the chimney pipe being able to move up and down it needs to be anchored to the inside of the smoke box "roof"
I bored a piece of Gunmetal tube and them made a bracket with which to machine it on the face plate. The outer diameter of this spacer matches the inner diameter of the smoke box. I will then drill upwards through this spacer to trap the chimney saddle piece on the outside of the smoke box. It should work. Maybe a couple of 6BA grub screws will make absolutely certain.
The angle plate and assorted hardware opposite the spacer are to balance the face plate whilst machining.
Jumping to the steam manifold (of which much more later on in the next posting) I machined the bottom flange form the supplied Reeves casting. As you can see dear old Reeves give you a "generic" casting that will do the job but what a lot of waste. You, of course , have to pay for the whole casting, the weight of which is probably 10x that of the finished flange. Next time i will look through all the drawings very carefully.
The gaps are for the steam connectors.
The flange was then bolted to the top of the boiler flange and spotted though and tapped.
The regulator casting has what i refer to as a "tongue"
This is supposed to lie on the inner diameter of the boiler next to the rear firewall. It has to be turned to match the 6" diameter of the boiler barrel.
Once gain the time taken to get all this set up is considerable as is all the machining of this critical component.
There is one big snag though. Western Steam (WS) in their wisdom add a strengthening band on the ID of the boiler tube and thus the tongue has to be relieved to allow the said tongue to lie flush with boiler ID.
It is not possible to accurately measure this band ( one cannot see it, only feel it with bent fingers) and much fiddling with wire gauges and a dentist's mirrors are needed to get somewhere near.
The rotary valve disc is filed with Swiss files to arrive a a pear shape to allow the valve to emit steam in a progressive manner.
Note the old clock makers vice brought back into use.
At last all the items are finished. You can see the relieved tongue,
The idea being that you drill though the boiler barrel and add a couple of countersunk 4BA screws.
Question. Is it a good idea to do this ? Could you fix the regulator in another way?
After waiting 18 months and spending £1500+ on the boiler this idea ( drilling through the pressure wall) was not to my liking.
After many trial fits and a considerable amount to extra machining and filing i was not able to get the regulator anywhere near the center line that is required . In fact it would not fit, That tongue was just getting in the way. So I just cut it off and came up with another method of locating the regulator body.
So here is my finished "tongueless" regulator.
I was worried about the small shouldered screws working loose over time and noticed one of our Dutch forum contributors had the idea of wire locking them in place. Thank you Jan Erich.
Note the hex plug soldered in to the top of the regulator body, as this will feature in my retaining spacer in the next posting.
Evey time I thought that I could mount the boiler for good there was always something to finish, I thus made all the fire hole door assembly.
The eagle eyed will notice that the hinge bracket is not vertical.
My excuse for this is that the WS boiler is not to Don Young's original design. WS, instead supply two centered plugs soldered into the back head for you to drill and tap 6BA threads to fix the bracket to. DY's spacing was more generous to allow a larger bracket.
A disaster occurred whit drilling the 2.3mm dia tapping drill. It broke in the casting! I tried the previously successful Alum trick but due to the size of the boiler could not immerse in near boiling Alum solution. Don't try this yourself . I could only get 45C at most in a little BluTak bund constantly recharging it and removing the recrystallized Alum every hour. There was a reaction going with a constant stream of bubble. You need the Alum solution just below boiling or you will be there until Christmas.
In the end I ground the broken drill out with 2mm dia diamond burrs. Good value of Amazon. 60 pcs for £11.00
I made a start on the vallances/splashers, what ever they are called.
Making a cardboard template so that I would avoid any mistakes.
There is a problem if you have large fingers with the cylinder drain cock lever.
There is insufficient room between the brake column and the reversing lever to get ones digit in.. I thus made another operating rod with an additional couple of inches so that i can close the drain valves with less effort.
Here is the DY designed lever hiding away at the side of the brake lever column.
That just about brings me up to date.
I am currently on with the steam pipe into and out of the boiler as well as the super heaters.
Hope you found all this interesting.
Cheers for now.
Malcolm
Malcolm
