A 'Quickie' Project (hopefully!)

[johan]

What a transformation. When I saw the first photos I would not have believed that it would ever be able to run again.

"A quicky project"... haven't we all been there at some point?

[John Baguley]

Jun 2, 2024 8:07:57 GMT johan said:

What a transformation. When I saw the first photos I would not have believed that it would ever be able to run again.

"A quicky project"... haven't we all been there at some point?

Fortunately, it looked a lot worse than it actually was. My biggest fear was that the boiler would need replacing but it passed the hydraulic test with no problems. It's actually very well made.

Yes, a lot of my projects start out as a 'quickie' but end up taking much longer. Unfortunately, I get distracted with other things and everything grinds to a halt!

John

[John Baguley]

The last couple of days have been spent cleaning up the various boiler fittings and putting them back on the boiler.

The regulator is a nice screw down type as opposed to the disc in tube on the drawings which pleases me as I hate disc in tube regulators!

I did modify the water gauge to take a piece of the red stripe glass which I prefer. This is larger diameter than the original clear glass that was fitted but fortunately, the top and bottom fittings and the gauge glass nuts were big enough to drill out to take the new glass. I seem to have lost the blanking plug from the top fitting so a new one was made. The original will no doubt turn up now!

I may have mentioned that I think I threw away the fire door with the packaging when the loco arrived so I will have to make a new one.

We have a 2½" rally at Rugby on Sunday so I will take the boiler along and get it officially tested to 1½ times working pressure now that the fittings are on it.

I've also made a start on the tender. This is in a similar state to the loco as shown below.

One thing I have only just noticed is that the end of one of the axles has sheared off in the axle box so I will have to make a new axle.

I have dismantled it all and stripped what paint remained from the frames and buffer beams. Those and the wheels were then soaked overnight in a well known rust removing solution which has cleaned them up nicely.

To be continued.....

[John Baguley]

Quite a bit of progress made over the last couple of weeks.

The boiler passed the 1.5X test at Rugby with no problems so is now back on the chassis with the newly painted smokebox and saddle.

The original pipework was still ok and just needed a good clean by soaking in citric acid solution and a rub with some steel wool.

The grate and ashpan were still usuable so they were refitted after cleaning. The grate was pretty rusty but should last a few years yet.

The loco has a simple displacement lubricator which I assume worked so I have refitted that as well. It still had some gooey old steam oil in it.  I prefer mechanical lubricators but we'll see how this one performs. There isn't a lot of room between the front buffer beam and the Averill steamchest so fitting a mechanical lubricator would be a bit of a squeeze.

I may fit a piece of running board between the frames to fill in the gap where the lubricator fits. I don't think there was anything there before.

As mentioned previously, the firedoor had gone missing so a new one was knocked up from some scrap brass.

I wondered what that piece of bent brass was soldered to the bottom of the water gauge - it's the catch for the door!

The loco is now nearly finished apart from the cab which just needs painting and a roof making for it. I have fitted the front buffers today.

So onto the tender. I etch primed the frames and the buffer beams and while that was drying decided to look at the damaged tender axle.

The original plan was to remove the wheels and make a complete new axle but then thought 'why not just drill the end and fit a new stub instead' Much quicker and easier.

The good end of the axle was gripped in the collet chuck in the lathe and the other end supported by the fixed steady.

The broken end was then faced off, centred and drilled to take a stub of silver steel. The stub was loctited in and faced off to length.

The next problem was to get the broken off stub out of the axle box. 

The idea was to drill it out as much as possible and dissolve the rest with hot alum solution. The axlebox was set up in the millling machine and the rough surface of the broken stub machined flat with a centre cutting 4mm endmill. It was then drilled with a 4mm drill. As luck would have it, the stub broke loose after I had drilled halfway through it so no need for the alum treatment after all

I've just come in from the workshop after assembling the frames and giving them a coat of satin black. They will get a second coat tomorrow. I've also painted the wheels now.

We've got a 2½" day at the club on Saturday so I would like to have the tender back together for then so I can steam the loco and hopefully get it officially steam tested.

[John Baguley]

Well, I got the tender all painted and back together but was in a rush to get it finished so didn't take any photos.

I managed to get in a test steaming on the rolling road before taking it to our rally yesterday (Saturday) and it was reasonably successful. There were a few problems though. I couldn't get the safety valve to blow off at more than 30psi and the axle pump didn't seem to work very well. It just spit water out of the bypass instead of a steady stream. I wasn't happy with the hand pump. It is only 5/16" (8mm) bore and just doesn't pump enough water for my liking. It took ages to get any in the boiler.

The safety valve spring was obviously too short or too weak but I didn't have another one suitable so instead made up a brass spacer to go between the spring and the ball shroud to increase the spring pressure. This did improve things but I could still only get the pressure up to 60psi. (The working pressure is 80psi). I ran out of time and energy to do any more that day so carried on next day.

I made another thicker spacer for the safety valve to hopefully raise the pressure a bit more. I didn't steam the loco again though and left it until the rally the next day.

I decided to look at the handpump to see if it could be modified to take a larger ram. I have got a few hand pump castings so I could have made a complete new pump but time was running out so I modified the original pump. The original is a fabrication from brass soft soldered together so I made up a new barrel from 0.5" brass bar drilled and reamed to take a 0.375" ram. I unsoldered everything, fitted the new larger barrel and soldered it all back together again. I then made a new ram fitted with an O ring instead of the graphite yarn that was used before.

The new ram should pump about 1½ times the amount of water that the old ram did.

Next I checked the axle pump. I thought there might be a blockage in one of the pipes so I blew down the inlet pipe using a length of rubber tube. Everything seemed clear but when I blew hard something blocked the flow completely. It sounded like one of the balls blocking the passage way in the pump and on investigation this was indeed the case. When the inlet ball lifted it blocked the passage to the ram. Normally, you machine a couple of notches in the passageway to stop this happening or fit a cross pin to limit the ball lift but this hadn't been done. I didn't want to go through the hassle of removing the axle pump again so managed to make a couple of notches with a dentists burr in the dremel.

I took the loco to the rally the next day and steamed it up. The boiler seems to steam well and this time I got the safety valve to blow off at 80psi. The handpump was better but I think I would still prefer one a bit bigger so may replace it with a new one of 7/16" bore.

The axle pump worked fine this time and produced a steady stream of water from the bypass. The loco passed the steam test with no problems

I did fit the cab the day before but didn't have time to paint it.

Time to try it out on the track. It runs very well with plenty of power and the boiler steams well. However, the springing needs some serious attention as the loco was bouncing all over the place which was a bit disconcerting. I manged two slow laps of our track before calling it a day as I was expecting the loco to come off the track at any time!

Back in the steaming bays and we noticed that the front end of the loco was right down on the front axleboxes and so had no springing at all on the front axle. That would explain why it was bouncing on every bump in the track. I don't know why I hadn't noticed this before though when it was on the bench.

The displacement lubricator was definitely working but it was virtually empty when I checked it after the run. It's just not got enough capacity for a serious run so I will probably replace it with a mechanical one.

There are still a few things to do after sorting out the springing. I've got the castings for a new chimney and dome so they need machining and the cab needs painting and a roof making.

John

[John Baguley]

Another update on the Southern Maid.

I've sorted the springing out after buying various sizes from various suppliers. The first lot came from LEE springs but the ones I ordered turned out to be still too soft. Then I ordered some from Kennions and these turned out to be too stiff! Finally, I ordered a load of different sizes from AliExpress and some of these turned out to be suitable. Ideally, the loco needs some weight adding to the back of the chassis as the centre of gravity is too far forward but there is not much room to do this. I think the problem is the Averill one piece steamchest which is heavier than two separate ones.

The next job was a new and larger capacity lubricator, This turned into a comedy of errors entirely due to me not checking the available space between the front buffer beam and the steamchest.

I originally planned to replace the displacement lubricator with a mechanical one and spent two days making one to the Jim Ewins design with a 1 inch square tank. I then found that this would not fit in the space available! Many choice words but I need several lubricators for other projects so the time was not entirely wasted.

Next I decided to just make a larger capacity displacement lubricator and so machined one up from solid brass bar and a soldered in end cap. That didn't fit either as I had made it too tall and it fouled the smokebox! More choice words and onto mark 2. This was made from 22mm copper tube with top and bottom caps silver soldered in. The original lubricator fed into the steam pipe before it went into the steamchest but I designed the new mark 2 to screw into the steamchest itself which would be lower down and give more headroom. This meant having to drill and tap a 3/16" x 40 thread into the front of the steamchest which was done with a cordless drill after removing the front buffer beam. I did not want to have to remove the steamchest from the frames which would have been a lot of work. In order to screw the lubricator feed stub into the steamchest the length of the lubricator had to be such that the lubricator body could be rotated between the frames. This did limit the overall length of the lubricator body but it should still hold far more oil than the original.

A large cut out had to be made in the top of the front buffer beam to clear the lubricator body and the front coupling hook had to be shortened and the spring removed to clear the body. It was just held in place with a nut on the back of the beam. The top of the beam now looked a bit of a mess as there was already a cut out in it to one side where the old lubricator fitted so I made a plate to fit between the frames and tidy things up.

The next job was the cab roof and this was quickly made from a piece of brass sheet. I made it with a cut out in the rear edge to give better access to the controls and to be able to see the pressure gauge without having to bend down. The cab was then painted and fitted.

Nothing fancy but this isn't a fancy loco.

I've made a start on machining the new chimney and dome. I have just got the flanges to file to shape which is not one of my favourate jobs

Last Sunday I took the loco for a second run at the club. The springing is much better and the loco is more stable. This time it ran without any sign of leaping off the rails. I did four quick laps as other people with 5" locos were getting ready to run and I didn't want to get in their way. The loco ran really well and stormed up the back curve on our track which a lot of small locos struggle with. It's quite a tight curve and also has a steep gradient. The boiler seems to steam well and maintains steam pressure. All in all, a very successful run. I am very pleased with the performance considering it is a fairly small loco and I think the other members were impressed as well

The new lubricator seems to work ok. I did check it when I got home and it was still about half full. That is after four laps of our track which is about a mile.

We've got a rally at Little Hay this Sunday and I'm looking forward to giving the loco a good run there, probably still minus the chimney and dome though.

[John Baguley]

Had a really good run at Little Hay today. Went on in the morning for about an hour and another hour later in the afternoon. The running time was really down to how long the oil in the lubricator lasted - probably about a dozen or so laps. The Southern Maid ran really well both times. The boiler steams really well and it was difficult to stop the safety valve blowing off all the time. The only time pressure dropped was when I hadn't noticed that I hadn't shut the firedoor properly. Once shut the pressure soon climbed back to blowing off again.

Many thanks to Sutton Coldfield MES for making us very welcome as always and thanks for the bacon butties

I'm beginning to think that LBSC really got the design right for Southern Maid and it would make an ideal beginners locomotive for 2½" gauge.

I was very hesitant about taking the Maid to our Rugby rally next month thinking it would struggle to get round the extended track but I don't think it will have any problems at all. I may have to refill the lubricator every couple of laps though!

John

[John Baguley]

Here's a few clips from a video of the first run that I took at Little Hay:

There's no audio as for some reason the camera didn't record any for the first run. It did for the second run but the audio was poor. The camera was mounted on the driving trolley and it just picked up all the noise from the trolley and the rail noise which drowned out any sound from the loco itself. I had the camera mounted in it's protective housing to stop oil etc. getting on the lens and I don't think that helped. I've now bought an external mic for the camera which I will use next time and hopefully that will improve things.

I have had a thought for extending the capacity of the lubricator. I reckon I can screw an extension tank onto the bottom of the existing tank using the drain plug thread in the bottom. I will give that a whirl and see what happens.

John

[ettingtonliam]

Well done. She seems to steam well, but the water seems to bob up and down a lot in the gauge, doesn't it?

[John Baguley]

Yes, it does a bit. I think it may be that the water sloshes about in the boiler as the loco still bobs about on the track.

John

[ettingtonliam]

True, but in your video, right at the start in the station before you moved off it was bobbing up and down.

[John Baguley]

Yes, you are quite right. I don't remember it being that bad in real life but they say the camera doesn't lie. I don't think it's anything to worry about but I will check the gauge fittings. When I first steamed the boiler a few weeks ago I did notice that the glass got a lot of bubbles in it and I had to keep blowing it down. It seems ok now. I think the passages are fine as the water level jumps straight back after blowing down. I wonder if the threaded part on the bottom fitting is too long and the end is too close to the firebox backplate? I believe that can cause weird effects on the water level due to steam bubbles forming on the backplate. I'll take it out and check that.

I don't think the boiler is dirty as the water in the gauge glass is crystal clear with no scum on the surface.

John

[John Baguley]

I removed the bottom fitting of the water gauge and checked the length of the threaded stub. It was fine and no longer than the bush in the boiler. If that's too long then there's nothing I can do about that so will have to live with a bouncing water level. I did countersink the end of the hole in the stub just incase that made any difference. I doubt it though.

I had another thought about the lubricator. I decided to try putting a piece of wire in the hole in the crosstube to reduce it's area and hopefully reduce the oil consumption a bit. The hole I drilled in the crosstube was 1mm in diameter and was obviously too big. I used a piece of 0.4mm wire hooked over the crosstube to keep it in place. That should reduce the area of the hole by about 25%.

I took the loco to the club yesterday and had another good run with it. I don't know if the oil consumption had been reduced but I managed 8 laps of the track (about 2 miles) on one fill of the lubricator. I checked today and the lubricator was nearly empty. There was perhaps enough left for one more lap. It's still using far too much oil though as was evident by the puddle on top of the chimney so I'm going to try increasing the diameter of the wire to 0.75mm. This should reduce the area of the hole in the crosstube by about 50%.

The water level in the gauge glass did seem a bit more stable but I noticed that the axle pump didn't seem to be keeping up with the water usage this time. I will check that out before the next run. The gland on the pump ram may have worked loose. I also noticed that one of the clacks had started leaking where it screws into the boiler bush so that would not have helped.

I took some more video using an external mic and the audio was much improved.

John

[chris vine]

Hi John
On the oil consumption question: can you insulate it so the rate of condensation of steam is less?

I still have my 1971 stuart turner catalogue which I used to read avidly, it talked a lot about keeping the displacement lubricator hot so it didn’t gulp the oil…

Chris

[John Baguley]

Hi Chris,

That's an interesting point. I hadn't heard of insulating it. I'll see how I get on with the larger wire and if that doesn't help then I will definately give the insulation a try. It would not be too difficult to do.

John

[chris vine]

Maybe the wire will fix it.
Stuarts suggested that the lubricator be close coupled to the steam chest so that it kept hot.
In your loco, connected by a pipe, I was just wondering if a bit of insulation might help.

C

[millman]

I always understood displacement lubricators had to be kept cool so that the steam could condense and displace the oil, looking at Sweet Pea loco design the displacement lubricators are mounted on the front of the saddle tank.

[chris vine]

I think that cool is fine as long as there is a fine control or needle valve to control the flow.
If there’s no valve the the temperature becomes the effective control.
It’s all magic!!
Chris

[John Baguley]

I ran the loco on the rolling road last Friday just to check the axle pump and the lubricator. I had changed the wire in the lubricator to 0.75mm so wanted to see what effect that had. I also 'upgraded' the tender handpump again to increase the bore. I found a piece of 0.5" thin wall brass tubing which had a bore of 0.43" so replaced the pump barrel with that and made a new ram to suit.

I noticed straight away that the gland on the axle pump ram was leaking badly which would explain why the pump wasn't keeping up with the water consumption on the last run. The lubricator was fine to begin with but the output seemed to drop a lot after a short time (going by the amount of oil on the top of the chimney) so I think I have reduced the output too much now. The tender handpump was a lot better and put water into the boiler a lot quicker than before.

I decided to remove the axle pump ram and machine a groove in it to take an O ring rather than rely on the conventional gland packing. I prefer O rings over packing anyway. The original packing was graphited yarn and it had gone very hard so wasn't doing it's job properly any more. I replaced it with a ring of PTFE so the ram now has two methods of sealing - the O ring and the PTFE ring.

I replaced the 0.75mm wire in the lubricator with 0.6mm to increase the output again.

The next run was at our 2½" Gauge rally at Rugby on Sunday. The weather forecast was not good and it rained most of the way there. However, about 10.30am the weather picked up and the rest of the day was warm and dry with quite a bit of sun.

After a bit of an iffy start, I had a good run and the Southern Maid performed really well. I struggled at first with the gradient from the steaming bays as the track was still wet and very slippy but it got better as the track dried out.

Unfortunately, I had a slight accident with the external mic for the camera which explains the lack of sound. The cable came loose and got caught on the track bed which ripped it out of the camera (my fault entirely). It destroyed the mic connector but fortunately did not damage the socket in the camera.

I did five laps in all but then decided that I must be running low on oil so came off. I haven't checked the lubricator yet to see how much oil is left but I bet it's about empty. The axle pump worked well and kept up the water level in the boiler, in fact I over filled it a few times. I did notice that the water in the gauge glass was getting quite cloudy with lots of bits floating in it so the boiler could do with a good clean out now that it has been steamed a few times. That's not going to be easy as the boiler does not have a blowdown. Not many of LBSC's early designs had them fitted.

I think that is it for the Southern Maid restoration. It's finished now and I'm very happy with it. Time to move on to the Green Arrow again.

John

[John Baguley]

I cleaned the loco yesterday and checked the lubricator. There was still a bit of oil in the bottom, maybe enough for one more lap.

What surprises me is that everytime I drain the water out of the lubricator after a run the amount of water that comes out is nowhere near the same amount as the oil that has been used. I would have expected the water to equal the amount of oil consumed.

John