Overhaul of a 9F

[don9f]

Still no 4th cylinder drain casting, so trial fitted the two LH ones and piped up the actuating steam to them. The pipes are only 1\16" diameter so are a bit delicate, however this is very close to scale for the 3/4" full size. For ease, I decided to soft solder the pipes into the cones and tees as they are so small. When the time comes, the 3mm (full size 1 1/4") discharge pipes will also be soft soldered into place....the nuts / cones on the drain valve bodies are cast-in!



Think I'll cut off those extensions to the cylinder backplates, that formed the supports for the former drains operating shaft?



I took the two engine brake pistons out of their cylinders for inspection and they need a good clean, plus checking the drip ball valves before fitting with new silicone 'o' rings. The original rings don't look bad after 30 years, but when I looked at the one on the redundant cylinder drains operating piston, it had started to degrade and broke easily when I tried to remove it.

My former society track ( Grimsby / Cleethorpes ) is ground level and running there sometimes involved "light engine" movements, so having working steam brakes on the engine & tender came in useful. I am waiting patiently for a new Graduable Steam Brake Valve to be made and look forward to modifying the cab pipework etc. to accommodate this, hopefully in the not too distant future. The one I made was just a dummy and the vacuum brake valve on top of the pedestal was actually my steam brake valve!

[steamer5]

Hi Don,
You are doing a lovely job of the overhaul.
The drain valve look very nice & the 1/16" pipes look just right. On cutting off the old brackets, if it was me I'd leave them there & put a non scale crash bar across the loco to protect your nice new drains in the event of a derailment! A recent trip away on a track that has 5 & 71/4, using the 5" track I dropped thru a set of points! Luckily Toby does have anything as delicate as your drains hanging down!

Cheers Kerrin

[don9f]

Thanks for that idea....I hadn't thought of that. It's not so easy to tell when the frames are upside down, just what will be visible down there or not when it's on the track. I've been thinking for some time of building a "manipulator" to be able to turn it over easily. Even without the boiler, the frames really are too heavy to lift/turn over single handed, so those pipes could get bent before they ever encounter track!
Today I've made and fitted the bracket that supports the actuating valve from the short section of running board in front of the cab and also made the operating handle and it's pivot that fits to the cab side....no pics today but will take some for next time.

Cheers Don

[don9f]

Here are the pics of the actuating valve linkage and operating handle. I don't have any drawings or measurements of these parts on the real thing at the moment, only recollections and photos I have of 92203, 92214 & 92220 (all Swindon built), so have made things as best I could to fit the available space etc. on the model.

The design of the 5" gauge actuating valve and the drilling of the various steam ports means that it operates in reverse to the real one....its innards are somewhat different, but this is no big deal to me....so the lever in the cab is pulled back to close the drains.
Note that the actuating valve still has its machining stub attached, in case I need to do any more to the valve face, as I'm still awaiting delivery of a miniature o ring for it.

When the model cab was built in the 1980's I didn't contemplate that one day I might fit a working cylinder drains lever, so I never created any holes in either the cab front, or the reverser gearbox supports for the operating rod to pass through. Fortunately because the cab is off the frames, it was reasonably easy to drill through about 1/8" dia. and elongate the holes a bit with a needle file. My original arrangement used the sanding valve on the pedestal to operate the drains!

Some of my photos clearly show that I have quite a bit of cleaning up & repainting to do, so the setup at the moment is only temporary. I have more holes to drill in the cab yet, as I would like to fit the lower cabside window runners that I never did years ago (did fit the upper ones), plus finally give the cab the window glass its never had either!

Cheers Don

[don9f]

The 'o' ring arrived and as I suspected, although it was listed as .031" section, it was larger than this and actually measured about .040", so I did have to deepen the recess for it in the actuating valve face, as otherwise it was too proud.

A final photo of the valve, plus another photo I found taken a few years ago on 92203 showing the operating lever hidden away, where on the model it will hardly be seen!

92203 like 92220 "Evening Star", has never been to a scrapyard and thus hasn't been "restored" from a Barry Wreck and is (within reason) still in ex BR condition. 92203 was withdrawn from my "home" shed 8H Birkenhead Mollington Street in November 1967 at the end of steam there. As is probably well known, it was bought for preservation at that time.

[mbrown]

What are those three "pots" to the right of the brake pedestal, with large union nuts and pipes leading up to them? Not something I recall seeing on any BR Standard footplate before (or am I mis-reading the picture?)

Malcolm

[Cro]

Malcolm,

These are oil pots, I think for the steam brake, but I may be wrong on that one.

Adam

[don9f]

That's correct, they are the lubricator pots for the locomotive's 3 brake cylinders....2 on the engine, 1 on the tender. I'm not certain but those in the picture may actually have something like baked beans cans over them because they don't actually look like that normally. I'll dig out a photo tomorrow of what they should look like.
They were filled with steam oil and the block they are mounted on received steam from the graduable steam brake valve (part of the handle of which can just be seen) and directed it down the 3 pipes to the cylinders.....that to the tender via an isolating cock at the base of the pedestal. All BR Standard locos had some form of oilers, but the different classes had them in different places, the 9Fs were probably the only class to have them so prominent.
Cheers Don

[don9f]

Here you go....the first photo is during the fitting out of the cab of 92214. Two of the brake oilers are fitted and can be seen, having been made as per the originals. These were simply a "pot" with a screwed cap, down which oil could be poured straight into its respective brake cylinder pipe. One of our restoration team had been a Passed Fireman at Speke Junction Shed and on his advice and being a very competent machinist, he made three replacement LMS type lubricators that supplied a few drops of oil each time the brake was applied, instead of just a single "shot" during loco preparation on shed. During my involvement with the operation of the loco, we never had any problems at all with braking of this 9F, despite various doom & gloom merchants who claimed the brakes were poor on this class.....not my experience at all!
These modified oilers can be seen in the second photo, taken when the loco was nearly complete.

[mbrown]

Thanks - interesting. I am not really familiar with the 9Fs in full size and the only location I had seen previously for BR Standard steam brake lubricators was low down on the brake pedestal. You learn something new every day! I must say the pipes leading from the lubricators look pretty big-bore for oil.

Malcolm

[don9f]

Hi Malcolm, the pipes are 1" dia 10g wall thickness copper, as they carry the steam, plus the oil, to the brake cylinders and thus can be pressurised to 250 psi. The lubricators are mounted on a "manifold block" that receives the steam from the brake valve through a 1 1/4" dia pipe. See the white looking pipe in the second photo above, it's been lagged as per the drawings that say "pipes to be lagged where they may come into contact with a man's hands"....always chuckled at that wording!

I couldn't just find a better digital photo of this, I do have earlier prints but would have to scan them to my laptop etc. I can do this if there's anything of interest anyone wants to see....

Cheers Don

[masterdrain]

"...the pipes are 1" dia 10g wall thickness copper, as they carry the steam, plus the oil, to the brake cylinders and thus can be pressurised to 250 psi"

A bit off topic, but before I 'retired' I was a plumbing tutor at the local college. One of the exercises was to fit a pressed steel radiator and pipe it up in barrel. This particular student had done this and called me over. Sticking out of the vertical flow pipework was a length of 22mm copper pipe with a push-fit stop end on it. His reason was that there were no more iron fitting of the right type in the store so he used this one. Fair enough, so I told him to pressure test it to 3Bar for ten minutes and then come back to me to get it signed off. Back he came - a bit quick - to say that he had set it all up but where was 3bar on the dial! I was busy so I told him to find a 3 on the gauge and pump it up to that.

Ten minutes later he re-appeared, soaking wet, having pumped this up to 30Bar (450 psi). This had blown a couple of spot welds in the radiator across the workshop followed by two high pressuer jets of water. His only comment was that he thought it was getting a bit hard to push the pump lever down!

The push-fit stop-ends? I thought that they would have blown a hole through the workshop roof, but they were still there!

[don9f]

Hi, after a bit of a holiday, carried on with the overhaul by making up some oil swab boxes I had bought....they're only dummies but are quite prominent around the front of the engine. One single feed for each piston rod and a double & triple for either side of the frames, immediately behind the front valance....four feeds for the pony truck slides and one for its centre pivot.

The full size uses 3/8 copper pipes for these feeds, which to scale would be about .033". The only single strand copper wire I have to hand is from 1mm twin & earth cable and is about .044" so will suffice.

Following the Photobucket thing, am trying Imgur and so far have only got this one photo ready, showing the boxes and the little brackets (unpainted yet) for the single feed ones which have to fit on the non-scale LW's design of rear cylinder cover piston rod gland arrangement.

Am also progressing with the long awaited cab windows / runners  etc. and hope to have more photos soon.

Cheers   Don

[Jim]

Those oil boxes look very neat indeed Don, it's the little details like that that really make a model in my view. Very nice.

Jim

[springcrocus]

Don, if you want to wait a few days, I could send you a metre or so length of 7/.029 - 3/.036, the old imperial cable from the 70's. It would be closer to scale if you felt it important enough. PM if you're interested. Not sure if it's tinned or not.

Regards, Steve

[don9f]

Yes I totally agree....it was when I saw the same fitted to a friend's 9F which I only saw for the fist time earlier this year, I knew I had to have them on mine! Such things weren't available as castings 30 odd years ago and were probably considered too fiddly to make at the time....or more likely didn't even think about them at all then!

I also have some sanding gear castings to fit.... in stock from years ago, for which the engine has waited as long as for its window glass!

Don

[don9f]

Hi Steve, thanks for that idea.... PM sent.

Don

[don9f]

Here's a bit more on what I've been doing lately, with photos hopefully.

I bought a set of what I expected to be 5" inch gauge scale cab windows and runners, but unfortunately the runners are far too big and would look out of place in the cab. In any case, when I built the model I made and fitted top window runners, because they bridge a joint between the cab sides and the roof, so the bottom runners have to match etc.
I machined the grooves with a 1/16 slot drill into some 1/4" brass angle, thinning and shortening the other leg of the angle, until it looked like the top ones I'd made a long time ago. The nice thin glass that came with the set I'd bought was nearly the right size, but again I had to reject them as they weren't just quite tall enough for the vertical spacing between the runners of my cab (about 1mm short).

I tried some 1.5mm acrylic perspex that I got off Ebay and found I could cut it easily and accurately on an old Dremel vibrating type scroll saw machine I have. I made a metal template and cut out some wood grain effect sticky backed plastic and stuck it on to the outside of the perspex rectangles, to look like the wooden window frames surrounding the glass. Took 6 attempts to get the first one right, but I must say the results eventually looked pretty good.

I also bought a set of side wind deflector frames and pivots that will be fitted to the cab sides between each pair of sliding windows.
These are nicely made and unlike the runners mentioned above, are just right to suit the big cab of a 9F, Britannia and probably other classes. The only thing is, they need "glass" that's only around .75mm thick...haven't found anything just yet but on the look out for maybe plastic packaging or similar to make the glass out of.











Finally, I also ordered some 1mm perspex to use for the other cab glazing, i.e. the windows in the cab front (spectacle plate) and the window in the draught screen behind the driver's seat. Incidentally the norm was for this draught screen to only be fitted behind the driver on 9Fs....not on the fireman's side but I've seen photos I think of the real 92240 that had this screen both sides! Must have been a modification or something and may have been done on other engines?
When the 1mm perspex arrived, it was actually 1.25mm thick, but fortunately this was to advantage as I had made the cab from 18swg (.048") steel, so 1.25mm was almost exactly the same. I had made the frames for these at the time of building, so it was easy to just make the perspex fit the openings in the steel, the brass frames then refitted and trapping it in place. These frames were held together by 16BA countersunk screws....very fiddly when I made them....and even more fiddly now!

All the above work was obviously possible because the cab is off the frames....would have been virtually impossible to add this stuff to a "working" engine!

Cheers Don

[don9f]

I still haven't received the final steam operated cylinder cock casting from the supplier....disappointed obviously, especially as they can't (?) tell me when I'm likely to get it. I'll just have to wait before I can finish that job!

As the frames were upside down for working on the bottom of the cylinders, I naturally needed them right way up to proceed with other work, so I knocked up a "manipulator" that fitted on my existing trolley, using bits and bobs I had lying around. It took no time at all and can't understand why I didn't make it ages ago! I don't intend it to ever take the weight of the boiler etc. as well, but for just the frames, it's ideal....pivoting around the front buffer beam and rear drag beam centres.

I took both valve spindles out to clean and inspect the heads, rings, liners, ports and so on and apart from some old rusty crud in the valve chests, all was fine so put it all back and reassembled the combination levers and valve cross heads with new pins. Next job will be to fit the covers to the front of the cylinders and valves and attend to the paintwork around the front of the frames.

Cheers Don

[don9f]

Hi all, I know there hasn't been any update for about 5 weeks now, but as I still haven't received the outstanding casting from SW (over 10 weeks now), I need to finish that one cylinder drain cock and it's pipework, before I can set the thing right way up and hopefully not need it upside down any more!
I have refitted the front cylinder & valve covers (see earlier photos) and touched up the cylinder and surrounding paintwork where necessary. I've also finished repinning the combination lever joints, where a very small amount of wear was evident, plus fitted new o rings to the brake cylinders, so hopefully apart from the errant casting, the "bottom end" is about done.

I have now had chance to present the boiler for inspection by two of the inspectors at the railway I'm a member of, and demonstrate the minute leak that occurs under cold pressure, to one of the superheater flues at the smokebox end. As you may remember, the boiler is stripped of smokebox and all cladding, as it is now over 21 years since the last formal hydraulic test in March 1996, when the leak was spotted, but in the dark recesses of the long, black smokebox interior, its source couldn't really be determined. We all agreed that there was no merit in attempting a silver soldered repair and that a steaming or two with a suitable chemical agent (egg white!), might do the trick. That is where I'm now up to and the boiler is cooling down after a couple of steaming, as I write this. Next step will be a further cold hydraulic, to see if there's any change. There is no evidence that any leak has occurred under steam....now or in the past, so another option was "do nothing" as it were! The hydraulic in 1996 was only the second since the boiler was completed in 1988, so for all we know, it could have been like it for the previous 4 years or so.

Whilst waiting for the opportunity to carry out the aforementioned steamings, I had read the very interesting thread regarding "Gordon Smith" safety valves and promptly decided to make some new ones for 92167, to ensure compliance with any future "Accumulation Test" etc. Although the original valves I had made worked ok, they were only of "simple" type and I had no idea whether they would comply or not....in any event, I wanted to make some a bit more scale-like.
The problem here is that the Les Warnett boiler has the safety valve bush mounting flanges on the outside of the barrel, whereas the full size has them (plus clacks & manifold) on the inside....no doubt to keep the protruding valves etc. within the loading gauge for the 9F with its high pitched boiler. An added problem is that the boiler bushes are only threaded 1/2" x 26tpi.....the significance of which will become apparent shortly. All this means that it is not really possible to make safety valves exactly to scale, so some sacrifice has to be made.

Whilst perusing the Polly Models catalogue as recommended in the other thread,, I found that they supply the drawing and springs for "Extra short" 5" gauge Britannia valves, with a 7/32" seat, so I ordered some. Unfortunately when they arrived I found that this particular design requires a minimum mounting thread diameter of say 5/8" x 26tpi, allowing the valve seat to be down inside the threaded part. With only 1/2" dia thread, plus the bore of the body above the seat at 13/32", there just isn't enough wall thickness left to be realistically safe.

I used the basic valve dimensions though and was able to make some valves that had the seat completely above the lower threaded part and still looked better than the old ones. As stated, these were 7/32" seat valves, so I also made some with a 3/16" seat, using dimensions from another design, included in the original EIM articles (thanks to them being posted on the other thread) and will assess their suitability when the opportunity arises.....they are even closer to scale, although still a bit too tall. For both of these pairs of valves, I selected slightly different springs, using Gordon's excellent selection guide, as I only intend an operating pressure of 80psi, rather than the designed SWP of 100psi.

Finally, thanks to Roger's epic thread which I have now read in its entirety (some late nights there I can tell you!), I tried out some of his recommended pcb drills and I must say, I'm impressed! I used one (ok I broke one but that was my fault) to drill the small bolt holes round the top flange of the BR Std type safety valve, as seen in the photo below. I'm just waiting for some M1.2 hex screws for them.....another first for me, metric screws on a British steam loco 😜.....Ok, I believe they have a 2mm A/F hexagon, which is just right for scale 1/2" whitworth bolts?

Really, I'm not averse to metric threads etc. at all......worked with them for long enough on full size rail vehicles, so apologies to anyone regarding the imperial dimensions mentioned above.

Cheers   Don


This is one of the 3/16" valves, waiting for those M1.2 hex screws (and a 7/32" ball....that in the photo is 1/4").


This is the boiler in steam...the cold leak was occurring near the top of the LH flue as we look to the tubeplate.


And here it is, blowing off both valves at 80psi!....not a full accumulation test, as I can only have a moderate flame at the burner, with this crude setup, before it "snuffs out".