|
|
Post by Roger on Oct 1, 2018 19:43:13 GMT
That's certainly a neat job. What would worry me would be if one of the threads was damaged, it could be very difficult to repair the boiler. I wouldn't worry much about parts that could be completely replaced, but putting 12BA bolts or studs directly in the boiler is not something I'd feel comfortable about doing.
I decided to not go below M2 for anything connected to the boiler which is around 8BA. Even then, those threads mostly hold non critical parts in place, so it's not the end of the world if one gets damaged. Maybe I'm risk averse, but I thought that big threads would be less troublesome in the long term and a lot more robust. I can appreciate that screwing complete fittings into the boiler is a nuisance, I have that problem with my brake and blower valve. However, with a little thought, it can be done in that case. I dread to think how difficult it would be to get the nuts on the flange at the back of the brake valve.
|
|
Gary L
Elder Statesman
Posts: 1,208
|
Post by Gary L on Oct 2, 2018 10:06:20 GMT
Yup! I've used the German made hi tensile ones from Polly. As yet untested... I would want stainless studs into a boiler, and the smaller the threads the more so... -Gary |
|
|
|
Post by simplyloco on Oct 2, 2018 11:56:18 GMT
Yup! I've used the German made hi tensile ones from Polly. As yet untested... I would want stainless studs into a boiler, and the smaller the threads the more so... -Gary Agreed: anything that goes into or connects to the boiler is made of stainless steel or bronze. The MS ones look after cladding and mountings. I may be daft, but I'm not stupid...  John |
|
|
|
Post by steamer5 on Oct 3, 2018 3:15:00 GMT
Hi guys,
Yep stainless in the boiler studs deptment! It was butt clenching removing the broken off bits of steel ones left in the boiler that held the regulator!
Cheers Kerrin
|
|
Gary L
Elder Statesman
Posts: 1,208
|
Post by Gary L on Oct 3, 2018 23:55:22 GMT
Hi guys, Yep stainless in the boiler studs deptment! It was butt clenching removing the broken off bits of steel ones left in the boiler that held the regulator! Cheers Kerrin Yup, been there, done that... Though nowadays I have a stock of Alum crystals, bless their powdery little socks :-) -Gary |
|
|
|
Post by steamer5 on Oct 4, 2018 3:02:32 GMT
Hi Gary,
Hadn’t seen that way of removing them when I had the issue! Got all 6 drilled out without taking the boiler off the loco & only 1 drill was harmed, despite buying 10 in trepidation!
Cheers Kerrin
|
|
|
|
Post by Roger on Oct 5, 2018 21:43:12 GMT
Well, I was going to post something tonight, but the curse of Yahoo! is now affecting my Flickr account and I can't get in. Up until now, it's automatically logged me in or maybe it's never logged out. Who knows. Either way, it's now showing a Yahoo! login page which then throws an error when I enter what I know to be the correct password.
I've contacted the help people but judging by past posts on this, I don't have much hope that they will be able to fix it.
|
|
|
|
Post by Oily Rag on Oct 5, 2018 21:55:12 GMT
Well, I was going to post something tonight, but the curse of Yahoo! is now affecting my Flickr account and I can't get in. Up until now, it's automatically logged me in or maybe it's never logged out. Who knows. Either way, it's now showing a Yahoo! login page which then throws an error when I enter what I know to be the correct password. I've contacted the help people but judging by past posts on this, I don't have much hope that they will be able to fix it.
Just leave them alone as they work and we all have learnt how they work. |
|
|
|
Post by Roger on Oct 5, 2018 22:53:09 GMT
Fortunately, by logging into Flickr on the Android App (which I don't normally use) followed the same procedure, forcing me 'secure my account', but the mobile app actually works, unlike the PC web page. That was happy to accept my password and it also let me set a new and more secure one. Once that was done, I could use the new password on the PC and all is well. I was worried that I didn't know my Yahoo! email address, but that turned out to be rogerfroud@yahoo.co.uk which is why the login just showed rogerfroud So, to anyone who's locked out of their Flickr account, I'd suggest using a phone app to see if you can get back in that way. Anyway, moving on... I've not posted much lately because sadly my Father passed away last weekend and I've had to spend a lot of time on sorting out his flat and arranging the funeral. He was 89 and lived independently to the end, so it's panned out the way he wanted. It's always sad, but it comes to us all in the end. He'd run out of steam and was ready to let go. He gave me the best possible start with a pre-apprenticeship as soon as I could walk. Thanks Dad. I've been playing with the whistle valve design to take my mind off things, and this is how they look on 1501. I do have the works drawings for this, so that's a real help. The valves are held down by a nut with both LH and RD threads which isn't really practical for the sizes I need to use.  20180110_111630 by Roger Froud, on Flickr I've taken a design of the internals loosely from an article I was sent some time ago. The idea is to provide a PTFE seal which is pressed into a matching tapered seat with a spring. The design was much too bulky to copy so I've moved the spring below the valve and made it as small as possible. Whether it will pass enough steam to give a good whistle is open to question. If it's not enough, I'll make a servo valve under the footplate for it to operate. The lugs are let into the body with a milled slot and Silver Soldered in place. This is all pretty small, too small to machine from solid.  Whistle valve assembly1 by Roger Froud, on Flickr The rod is 1.2mm diameter so you can see how small this is. The idea is to make the 'Y' piece in two halves to get the inside cavity and then Silver Solder it together before machining the outside. It's fiddly but interesting. The locking nut is loose on the flanged piece that needs to be Silver Soldered onto the 'Y' piece. That's the tricky part, Silver Soldering that on without getting Silver Solder on the nut. I'll probably use high temperature Silver Solder on the 'Y' piece halves so I don't have to worry about it coming apart when I attach the top parts. I'll protect those with Tippex and use a tiny amount of Silver Solder to make the joint. All good fun.  Whistle valve assembly by Roger Froud, on Flickr |
|
|
|
Post by terrier060 on Oct 5, 2018 23:28:40 GMT
Well, I was going to post something tonight, but the curse of Yahoo! is now affecting my Flickr account and I can't get in. Up until now, it's automatically logged me in or maybe it's never logged out. Who knows. Either way, it's now showing a Yahoo! login page which then throws an error when I enter what I know to be the correct password. I've contacted the help people but judging by past posts on this, I don't have much hope that they will be able to fix it. Worse than that Roger - Yahoo is now interfering with my Google mail saying it is linked and someone is accessing it through Yahoo. What are these people on??? |
|
Gary L
Elder Statesman
Posts: 1,208
|
Post by Gary L on Oct 6, 2018 0:10:48 GMT
I've taken a design of the internals loosely from an article I was sent some time ago. The idea is to provide a PTFE seal which is pressed into a matching tapered seat with a spring. The design was much too bulky to copy so I've moved the spring below the valve and made it as small as possible. Whether it will pass enough steam to give a good whistle is open to question. If it's not enough, I'll make a servo valve under the footplate for it to operate. The lugs are let into the body with a milled slot and Silver Soldered in place. This is all pretty small, too small to machine from solid. Whistle valve assembly1 by Roger Froud, on Flickr The rod is 1.2mm diameter so you can see how small this is. The idea is to make the 'Y' piece in two halves to get the inside cavity and then Silver Solder it together before machining the outside. It's fiddly but interesting. The locking nut is loose on the flanged piece that needs to be Silver Soldered onto the 'Y' piece. That's the tricky part, Silver Soldering that on without getting Silver Solder on the nut. I'll probably use high temperature Silver Solder on the 'Y' piece halves so I don't have to worry about it coming apart when I attach the top parts. I'll protect those with Tippex and use a tiny amount of Silver Solder to make the joint. All good fun. [Images and first part snipped] Hi Roger Hate to rain on your parade, but I don't think you will get away with this. There are a few places on a model steam loco where scale (or even near-scale) dimensions won't work, and I think whistle valves are one of them. We don't use scale whistles- if we did it wouldn't be so bad- so to get enough steam at the volume and pressure needed to make a decent noise with the hugely overscale whistles we have to use, you need a big pipe and a big steamway through the valve, always avoiding sharp bends. Luckily this doesn't matter too much on a Speedy, because the manifold and the whistle valve will probably be tucked away between the cab roof and the top of the high firebox, so it can be largely out of direct sight. Similarly the pipe can either be run inconspicuously down the side of the firebox, or else disguised as an injector pipe (for those who will only fit one injector). Sorry to bear bad news- though it is nowhere near as bad as your other news, for which I'm sure everyone following this excellent thread will want to express their condolences. Best regards Gary |
|
|
|
Post by Roger on Oct 6, 2018 7:33:25 GMT
Well, I was going to post something tonight, but the curse of Yahoo! is now affecting my Flickr account and I can't get in. Up until now, it's automatically logged me in or maybe it's never logged out. Who knows. Either way, it's now showing a Yahoo! login page which then throws an error when I enter what I know to be the correct password. I've contacted the help people but judging by past posts on this, I don't have much hope that they will be able to fix it. Worse than that Roger - Yahoo is now interfering with my Google mail saying it is linked and someone is accessing it through Yahoo. What are these people on??? What a pain. I've managed to get in to Yahoo and select my gmail account for the recovery, but it's not linked and never has been. Hopefully it will remain that way. The odd thing is that I did precisely the same thing on the Mobile App that they wanted me to do on the PC. I'm wondering if it's one of the Ad blockers or other extensions I've got on my browser that's tripping up the process on that? |
|
|
|
Post by Roger on Oct 6, 2018 7:51:13 GMT
I've taken a design of the internals loosely from an article I was sent some time ago. The idea is to provide a PTFE seal which is pressed into a matching tapered seat with a spring. The design was much too bulky to copy so I've moved the spring below the valve and made it as small as possible. Whether it will pass enough steam to give a good whistle is open to question. If it's not enough, I'll make a servo valve under the footplate for it to operate. The lugs are let into the body with a milled slot and Silver Soldered in place. This is all pretty small, too small to machine from solid. Whistle valve assembly1 by Roger Froud, on Flickr The rod is 1.2mm diameter so you can see how small this is. The idea is to make the 'Y' piece in two halves to get the inside cavity and then Silver Solder it together before machining the outside. It's fiddly but interesting. The locking nut is loose on the flanged piece that needs to be Silver Soldered onto the 'Y' piece. That's the tricky part, Silver Soldering that on without getting Silver Solder on the nut. I'll probably use high temperature Silver Solder on the 'Y' piece halves so I don't have to worry about it coming apart when I attach the top parts. I'll protect those with Tippex and use a tiny amount of Silver Solder to make the joint. All good fun. [Images and first part snipped] Hi Roger Hate to rain on your parade, but I don't think you will get away with this. There are a few places on a model steam loco where scale (or even near-scale) dimensions won't work, and I think whistle valves are one of them. We don't use scale whistles- if we did it wouldn't be so bad- so to get enough steam at the volume and pressure needed to make a decent noise with the hugely overscale whistles we have to use, you need a big pipe and a big steamway through the valve, always avoiding sharp bends. Luckily this doesn't matter too much on a Speedy, because the manifold and the whistle valve will probably be tucked away between the cab roof and the top of the high firebox, so it can be largely out of direct sight. Similarly the pipe can either be run inconspicuously down the side of the firebox, or else disguised as an injector pipe (for those who will only fit one injector). Sorry to bear bad news- though it is nowhere near as bad as your other news, for which I'm sure everyone following this excellent thread will want to express their condolences. Best regards Gary Hi Gary, I did wonder, and you're probably right about the amount of steam required. I don't really want to spoil the scale look of the backhead, I intend to make it visible. Instead, I'll pipe the whistle tubes down and design a little steam operated valve that's big enough to do the job. I might be able to integrate that into the whistle itself. There's a spare steam pipe coming off the turret in the middle at the front which I can use for the feed to that. Another interesting side project. Thanks for your condolences, Dad was a remarkable man. There aren't many self taught Engineers who've made a motorhome starting with just a pair of axles, and a 30 foot Steel Narrowboat, both made at home! |
|
Gary L
Elder Statesman
Posts: 1,208
|
Post by Gary L on Oct 6, 2018 8:43:13 GMT
[Images and first part snipped] Hi Roger Hate to rain on your parade, but I don't think you will get away with this. There are a few places on a model steam loco where scale (or even near-scale) dimensions won't work, and I think whistle valves are one of them. We don't use scale whistles- if we did it wouldn't be so bad- so to get enough steam at the volume and pressure needed to make a decent noise with the hugely overscale whistles we have to use, you need a big pipe and a big steamway through the valve, always avoiding sharp bends. Luckily this doesn't matter too much on a Speedy, because the manifold and the whistle valve will probably be tucked away between the cab roof and the top of the high firebox, so it can be largely out of direct sight. Similarly the pipe can either be run inconspicuously down the side of the firebox, or else disguised as an injector pipe (for those who will only fit one injector). Sorry to bear bad news- though it is nowhere near as bad as your other news, for which I'm sure everyone following this excellent thread will want to express their condolences. Best regards Gary Hi Gary, I did wonder, and you're probably right about the amount of steam required. I don't really want to spoil the scale look of the backhead, I intend to make it visible. Instead, I'll pipe the whistle tubes down and design a little steam operated valve that's big enough to do the job. I might be able to integrate that into the whistle itself. There's a spare steam pipe coming off the turret in the middle at the front which I can use for the feed to that. Another interesting side project. Thanks for your condolences, Dad was a remarkable man. There aren't many self taught Engineers who've made a motorhome starting with just a pair of axles, and a 30 foot Steel Narrowboat, both made at home! Remarkable indeed, I can see where you get it from! If anybody can make a steam-operated servo valve work, I'm sure you can! But I do wonder if you will find it worth the effort. My reasoning is that 'playing the whistle' is one of the pleasures of driving a steam loco (of any size!) and to get those 'whoops' and 'crows' requires a certain delicate touch on the whistle valve. I wonder if an indirect operation, with the added vagaries of boiler pressure variation, will give enough control for anything except a straight blast? You might be happy with that, but it could be a bit dull. Best regards Gary |
|
|
|
Post by Roger on Oct 6, 2018 9:20:41 GMT
Hi Gary, I did wonder, and you're probably right about the amount of steam required. I don't really want to spoil the scale look of the backhead, I intend to make it visible. Instead, I'll pipe the whistle tubes down and design a little steam operated valve that's big enough to do the job. I might be able to integrate that into the whistle itself. There's a spare steam pipe coming off the turret in the middle at the front which I can use for the feed to that. Another interesting side project. Thanks for your condolences, Dad was a remarkable man. There aren't many self taught Engineers who've made a motorhome starting with just a pair of axles, and a 30 foot Steel Narrowboat, both made at home! Remarkable indeed, I can see where you get it from! If anybody can make a steam-operated servo valve work, I'm sure you can! But I do wonder if you will find it worth the effort. My reasoning is that 'playing the whistle' is one of the pleasures of driving a steam loco (of any size!) and to get those 'whoops' and 'crows' requires a certain delicate touch on the whistle valve. I wonder if an indirect operation, with the added vagaries of boiler pressure variation, will give enough control for anything except a straight blast? You might be happy with that, but it could be a bit dull. Best regards Gary Good point, but I think the playing of the whistle is mainly an American thing, I'm not sure it's something we do on this side of the pond. I suppose another idea would be to have a different manual valve for the actual whistle, maybe using the same pull chain. Anyway, where there's a will, there's a way. |
|
|
|
Post by Jim Scott on Oct 6, 2018 9:43:00 GMT
..................... I've taken a design of the internals loosely from an article I was sent some time ago. The idea is to provide a PTFE seal which is pressed into a matching tapered seat with a spring. The design was much too bulky to copy so I've moved the spring below the valve and made it as small as possible. Whether it will pass enough steam to give a good whistle is open to question. If it's not enough, I'll make a servo valve under the footplate for it to operate........ Hi Roger Roy Amsbury did a servo operated whistle on his Caledonian Loco. Interesting in that the servo valve was located in the end of the whistle itself. Model Engineer July 1977
Jim S
ps Sorry to hear about your Dad |
|
|
|
Post by Roger on Oct 6, 2018 10:00:59 GMT
..................... I've taken a design of the internals loosely from an article I was sent some time ago. The idea is to provide a PTFE seal which is pressed into a matching tapered seat with a spring. The design was much too bulky to copy so I've moved the spring below the valve and made it as small as possible. Whether it will pass enough steam to give a good whistle is open to question. If it's not enough, I'll make a servo valve under the footplate for it to operate........ Hi Roger Roy Amsbury did a servo operated whistle on his Caledonian Loco. Interesting in that the servo valve was located in the end of the whistle itself. Model Engineer July 1977
Jim S
ps Sorry to hear about your Dad Thanks Jim, That's a really useful article, I'm sure I can use that approach. I've got two whistles of course, so I'll have to make two of them! |
|
|
|
Post by Roger on Oct 6, 2018 10:53:29 GMT
This is the 'Y' branch piece for the whistle valves, showing the final internal cavity...  Branch pipe section by Roger Froud, on Flickr ... which is going to be made from two halves like this, Silver Soldered together. The piece is 2mm longer than it needs to be so it can be Silver Soldered to a piece of Steel so it can be held for machining. The hole down the middle is easy to add later and it will be stronger to machine the part with that solid. I just need to create the 'U' shaped cavity and create a profile that's big enough to machine the outside from. The little dowel holes will use a scrap of material to locate the two halves when Silver Soldering.  Clam shells by Roger Froud, on Flickr |
|
Gary L
Elder Statesman
Posts: 1,208
|
Post by Gary L on Oct 6, 2018 13:43:06 GMT
Remarkable indeed, I can see where you get it from! If anybody can make a steam-operated servo valve work, I'm sure you can! But I do wonder if you will find it worth the effort. My reasoning is that 'playing the whistle' is one of the pleasures of driving a steam loco (of any size!) and to get those 'whoops' and 'crows' requires a certain delicate touch on the whistle valve. I wonder if an indirect operation, with the added vagaries of boiler pressure variation, will give enough control for anything except a straight blast? You might be happy with that, but it could be a bit dull. Best regards Gary Good point, but I think the playing of the whistle is mainly an American thing, I'm not sure it's something we do on this side of the pond. I suppose another idea would be to have a different manual valve for the actual whistle, maybe using the same pull chain. Anyway, where there's a will, there's a way. Depends what you mean by 'play.' If you want to play 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' I wouldn't know how to do that, but British enginemen had a complex official code of whistle signals, of which the 'crow' was a part, and that required a variable pressure at the valve rather than a straight 'on' and 'off' action. Then of course there were undoubtedly unofficial 'signals' too, and even the straight notes would have a certain individuality according to how the valve was -er- played. It is part of the fun of driving... -Gary |
|
uuu
Elder Statesman
your message here...
Posts: 2,860
Member is Online
|
Post by uuu on Oct 6, 2018 16:39:20 GMT
We were discussing whistle valves at the Pump House earlier this week. John has had success using the innards of Schraeder valves, which might be about the size you are proposing. They do pass sufficient steam.
Wilf
|
|
