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Post by Roger on Nov 3, 2019 21:30:30 GMT
1. No GWR (and GWR type into BR days) safety valve cover was ever made out of anything other than brass 2. Only Express passenger locos had polished brass safety valve covers from the 1920s onwards. Secondary locos had these painted over at'The Works' from the 1920s onwards. (Swindon wasn't the only 'Works', and Caerphilly had it's own painting 'spec'). 3. Lots of sheds removed the paint on the safety valve covers to show the brass underneath. There is substantial photographic evidence of this from the 1920s till the end of steam on the GWR in BR days. I can't be bothered to give you chapter and verse on this this evening, but I have a copy of the original HMRS stuff on GWR liveries which is actually better than the later book, plus Haresnape's book and quite a lot else plus all of J N Maskelyne's drawings and descriptions including the type of brass used and it's thickness etc, plus of course Jim Russell's books. From a financial point of view, thousands of secondary GWR locos had their safety valves painted to avoid them not requiring cleaning and polishing, which is labour intensive, and required time which cost money everyday for the cleaners at the sheds. However, as stated, at many sheds the paint was removed and the brass polished. It was all part of the GWR ethic of the staff. I think Gasson covers this very well in his volumes of memoirs. (On the Isle of Wight, even in BR days, there is evidence of drivers coming in on their rest days and days off to clean their cabs and polish the cab pipework). Cheers, Julian Thanks Julian, that's brilliant! It seems fair game to have it painted or not to suit personal preference.
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jma1009
Elder Statesman
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Post by jma1009 on Nov 3, 2019 22:39:35 GMT
Hi Roger,
I don't think it was a matter of "painted or not to suit personal preference". Secondary locos from the Collett era onwards would have their brass safety valves painted ex Works on newly constructed, and on overhaul. Local sheds would then remove the paint from the safety valves from many of the secondary locos and polish them up.
No one 'higher up' seems to have objected to this practice, and presumably the safety valve covers were kept polished or unpolished with paint removed as circumstances dictated in particular sheds as the railways were heavily Union-ised with very specific agreements for time spent and time employed. As a result, it seems silly to have painted them in the first place, though for secondary locos the paint job at Swindon was not particularly good in any event.
Note that Old Oak Common had a number of classes of 'shunting' locos such as the 15XX and 94XX and 57XX lined out and with polished brass safety valve covers in BR days.
Cheers, Julian
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Post by ettingtonliam on Nov 3, 2019 23:01:13 GMT
Given the issues we have on our models keeping paint on brass items, unless we use etch primers, having read the GWR spec for painting the bonnets on the 9400 class, the paint probably wasn't that difficult to get off----.
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dscott
Elder Statesman
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Post by dscott on Nov 4, 2019 0:07:01 GMT
Two superb Brass steam domes from Fair Rosamunde Poly Models got put in my bag at the last Midlands show and being lost wax almost just need a clean up and polish. They were never totally perfect and gave a sort of rippled charm to the locomotive.
There were stories of crew working extra shifts on their days off in remote sheds to get the very best out of their locomotive??? Yes of course it made perfect sense as there would be official figures for coal consumption and if this could be bettered during the year. The staff could look forward to some cozy home fires during the winter months. Early 517's were pretty little things.
David and Lily. Looking forward to some polishing.
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Gary L
Elder Statesman
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Post by Gary L on Nov 4, 2019 0:32:40 GMT
Hi Roger, I don't think it was a matter of "painted or not to suit personal preference". Secondary locos from the Collett era onwards would have their brass safety valves painted ex Works on newly constructed, and on overhaul. Local sheds would then remove the paint from the safety valves from many of the secondary locos and polish them up. No one 'higher up' seems to have objected to this practice, and presumably the safety valve covers were kept polished or unpolished with paint removed as circumstances dictated in particular sheds as the railways were heavily Union-ised with very specific agreements for time spent and time employed. As a result, it seems silly to have painted them in the first place, though for secondary locos the paint job at Swindon was not particularly good in any event. Note that Old Oak Common had a number of classes of 'shunting' locos such as the 15XX and 94XX and 57XX lined out and with polished brass safety valve covers in BR days. Cheers, Julian Julian has described accurately the 'policy and practice' as regards the brass safety valve covers at Swindon. I can add two or three pertinent details perhaps: 1. I have a dozen or so B&W photos of various 15xx locos in BR service. About half of them show the covers as clearly unpainted, the rest are ambiguous and it's not possible to be sure either way. (In a couple of NCB photos, the brass is either painted over or exceedingly dirty.) Most of the locos in them are unlined. The works photo of 1500 shows glossy unlined black paint with no BR markings, but the SV and chimney are very clearly polished metal, so nobody can say a polished cover is 'wrong'. 2. There was a broadly congruent practice with chimneys as Julian describes with the SV covers, though a fair number of GW chimneys were plain cast iron and never had copper rims anyway. This makes the 15xx treatment slightly unusual on both counts, because as overtly shunting engines they were not really entitled to polish on either the chimney rim or the safety valve cover. (It is much harder to be certain of the chimney rim treatment in those same B&W photos BTW, but a few are certainly bare copper, if not exactly polished). I can only speculate that Hawksworth wanted to make sure that these rather humble engines were noticed as 'a bit special', which of course they were at first, even though nothing came of it. 3. Painting over the brass was not only done for labour saving reasons. In both world wars, brass and copper were at a premium (shell cases!) and there were metal vigilantes (official and unofficial) doing the rounds to search for redundant metalware. Since these covers had a purpose (noise control- they were not just decorative) and since they would be significantly hard to replace in steel, the GWR found it 'diplomatic' to conceal the brass by painting over it on all their loco stock. They assuaged their patriotic consciences by stripping off some brasswork that was purely decorative, notably the splasher edge and cab edge beadings on the Stars and Saints in WW1, which was never replaced. (Oddly, nobody seems to have done anything about the name and number plates) HTH Gary
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jma1009
Elder Statesman
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Post by jma1009 on Nov 4, 2019 1:12:34 GMT
Hello Gary,
"In both world wars, brass and copper were at a premium (shell cases!) and there were metal vigilantes (official and unofficial) doing the rounds to search for redundant metalware."
That is fanciful and has no evidential basis. The suggestion you propose that safety valve covers were painted over to prevent them being used for other War purposes doesn't make sense.
Collett started painting them over on secondary locos when he took over in the early 1920s (no War then) when Churchward retired. It was a simple matter, arguably self defeating, of reducing time spent and costs of cleaning all but express locos.
Cheers,
Julian
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Post by simplyloco on Nov 4, 2019 8:47:16 GMT
Thanks Julian, that's brilliant! It seems fair game to have it painted or not to suit personal preference. I presume -and hope- that you mean your personal preference... John
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Post by Roger on Nov 4, 2019 9:39:46 GMT
ok, that was a bit painful, I managed to cock up two of these before finally getting it right! The first time I hadn't spotted another weird tool path the CAM system had generated for the top pre-finish pass, and on the second one I put the wrong cutter in. Altogether that wasted about 12 hours machining! Such is life, it's easy to make mistakes in this game. Anyway, here's the successful one... 20191103_193127 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr You can just make out the black line on the back which is where I used a black marker after the first roughing cut to see where it was going wrong. Although I'd allowed 0.5mm stock, that wasn't enough to avoid this issue. On tricky shapes like this, it looks like the Horizontal Roughing pass needs to leave about 0.7mm of stock. Both of these problems highlight Software issues that you need to be aware of and manage appropriately. 20191103_194725 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr It all cleaned up well enough though, the marks weren't too deep. 20191103_203643 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr It's a lot of work to cut this off and finish the part where it was attached. I reckon it's a good hour's solid filing to get to this stage. 20191104_092741 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr And this is how it looks with both of them in place. It all seems to sit down pretty well so I'm pleased with that. I might feather the edge of the boiler sheet at the join so that it sits down even better. 20191104_092822 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr
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Post by delaplume on Nov 4, 2019 11:21:42 GMT
Just harking back to Julian's statement that the Brass beading on the wheel splashers were never replaced....This is Lode Star as displayed at York museum complete ( so to speak ) with missing beading.........Along with the mogul at Didcot I believe these two are the only original Churchward locos left in existence ??? Sorry Roger----defective rudder and I'm starting to "Drift" again....... That bonnet assy. has now got to be the K9's spheroids !!-- or what ??..Come on matey, time to move on to the next "Master Class" item and in so doing take the next step towards completion......... What I'm trying to say ---- and with the best, possible taste ---- is at this stage don't now loose yourself within the minutiae of the safety valve bonnet design / history / application but press on with the main build...
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Gary L
Elder Statesman
Posts: 1,208
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Post by Gary L on Nov 4, 2019 11:49:42 GMT
Hello Gary, "In both world wars, brass and copper were at a premium (shell cases!) and there were metal vigilantes (official and unofficial) doing the rounds to search for redundant metalware." That is fanciful and has no evidential basis. The suggestion you propose that safety valve covers were painted over to prevent them being used for other War purposes doesn't make sense. Collett started painting them over on secondary locos when he took over in the early 1920s (no War then) when Churchward retired. It was a simple matter, arguably self defeating, of reducing time spent and costs of cleaning all but express locos. Cheers, Julian Sorry Julian, there's nothing fanciful about the statement you quote, it is a matter of record. Not only brass and copper, but aluminium saucepans (in WW2); even garden railings were famously uprooted for scrap. Collett's inter-war policy though undoubted, is not relevant, because it only applied to secondary locos, and WW1 had been and gone by then. I don't doubt that labour-saving was the morale-boosting reason issued to staff during the two wars, but as you yourself imply, it lacked credibility. When trivial decorative beadings were being stripped off express passenger locos to avoid giving offence, the real reason is not hard to deduce, and certainly would not have been committed to paper. Gary
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Post by Deleted on Nov 4, 2019 11:54:17 GMT
Hi roger Model is looking great as per usual... you may have seen these as I know you are on FB but hope you don't mind if I share these drawings for others which may be pertinent to the current discussion.. There are many great resource pages on FB, one of which is a relative newcomer called the 'Railway Drawing Swapmeet' page. Members share works drawings from all types of railway subjects, over the last few days there has been some new drawings added to the GWR section. I'll share 3, two are chimney and bonnet details and the third is GWR livery throughout it's history, may be of interest to some here. One isn't too clear but i'm sure a request to the OP would bear fruit if a better copy is required. Regards Pete
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Post by delaplume on Nov 4, 2019 18:52:47 GMT
Hi Pete,
Thanks for posting those....They are all well known drawings but it's always good to get a decent copy wherever possible.......The first two can be found in FJ Roche's "Locomotives drawings in 4 mm scale" whilst the linings are in Russells "Pictorial Record of Great Western Engines"...Copies of the originals can be had from York Museum Library as well..
I made a slight blunder earlier on}--- Locomotive 2857 at the SVR is also an original Churchward loco having been built in 1918....Are there any more I wonder ??
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Post by 92220 on Nov 4, 2019 19:41:05 GMT
I've seen that drawing of the GWR lining before. It was drawn by a British Railways draughtsman, in 1954, who obviously never got his hands on the Livery Panels used by the paintshop staff at Swindon Works as their references for painting locos. The drawing calls the Green used on locos as Middle Chrome Green, yet the original Livery Panels, used in the Swindon paint shop, had all the colours listed on the back of the panels, and every one referred to the Green as 'Locomotive Green', not Middle Chrome Green. In actual fact, Middle Chrome Green was the base pigment that the GWR Loco Green was made from. The drawing also quotes the buffer beam colour as China Red, for all ages. Actually China Red was only used from 1875 to 1881, and was noted as China Red on the rear of the 1875 panel. China Red was a pink colour and the Signal Red was a Red similar to all the other railway company buffer beam Reds. The next panel was the 1881 panel and the colours were listed as Locomotive Green, Signal Red, Black, and Orange Chrome. All the later panels had the colours listed on the backs, the same as the 1881 panel. As we have all seen, official drawings don't always show what was actually on a loco. The Swindon Livery panels were used in the paint shop. Paper drawings wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes.
Bob.
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Post by Roger on Nov 4, 2019 22:38:43 GMT
This is the support piece for the dummy tops of the clack pictured recently. 20191103_200104 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr The idea is that the profile of the flange fits up inside the curved part of the shoulder and the dummy clack top is soldered into this hole 20191104_210541 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr The dummy clack tops are Phosphor Bronze just because I think they will age to the right sort of colour rather than looking like they're Brass. 20191104_220227 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr The back register needs to be turned now they've been parted off. I didn't think I could do this accurately enough turning it before parting off. Doing it this way means it will probably need a little fixture to hold or they're going to get marked. I might just try it in the 3-jaw first though to see how it feels. We'll see. 20191104_222544 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr
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Post by Oily Rag on Nov 5, 2019 1:06:33 GMT
Ease up Roger, I cannot read this thread as fast as you design and make ya stuff.
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Post by David on Nov 5, 2019 5:16:12 GMT
I'm sorry to hear about the wasted time & material but as always it's come out beautifully in the end.
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Post by delaplume on Nov 5, 2019 7:17:02 GMT
No, not a waste but more a sort of "negative profit"......It was that type of "Creative Accounting" that made Lehman Bros. a household name !!....LoL
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Post by Roger on Nov 5, 2019 8:04:04 GMT
I'm sorry to hear about the wasted time & material but as always it's come out beautifully in the end. It's inevitable from time to time I'm afraid. I have loads of material left over from making the batch of Bugle Mouthpieces for the Royal Marines five years years ago, and I'm saving as much of the swarf as possible to sell to my tame Scrap Metal man. The time wasted is irritating though when it's a stupid mistake. It's definitely worth the effort in the end though.
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Post by Roger on Nov 5, 2019 20:34:41 GMT
It's time to make the open sided box spanners needed to unscrew the retaining cap from the bottom of the Pannier Tank feed water coupler, pictured here... 20191029_232050 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr This is the top one that has to reach 30mm down inside to engage with the top of the Brass part of the coupler. It's this far down so it can't be easily seen from the top. Top spanner by Timothy Froud, on Flickr The through hole was drilled first, then the hex added to the top. That needs to be registered to the hex on the bottom too. It's not easy to do that, and it also needs that deep slot in the side, so a fixture is one way to solve both problems. Here's a round piece of Aluminium bar which has had a square machined on it and a pocket that's the same across the flats as the hex on the outside. 20191104_212500 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr The 10mm hole was drilled and reamed from the other end since the hex is smaller than that. It was just slit roughly with a hacksaw. 20191104_214753 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr The clearance was machined first, including the tapered sides. (not shown here) This is the roughing cut. 20191105_105911 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr Then it was upended and the hex pocket machined with a 2mm cutter. 20191105_132851 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr 20191105_134556 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr It's made from Silver Steel so it's pretty tough. I might harden and temper it, we'll see. 20191105_135408 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr The bottom nut is only just out of reach and can't be seen unless you get right down and look up. The spanner therefore doesn't need to be very long at all. I'm aware that the pipe is going to go around a tight bend as soon as it exits the tank, so this needs to be as open and short as possible else it won't be possible to turn it. Bottom spanner by Timothy Froud, on Flickr The hex outside and the internal clearance can be reached from the end in one operation. 20191104_091517 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr Remember this when someone tells you with some authority that Carbide isn't any good on intermittent cuts. This wobbly video shows Silver Steel being parted under power and it's only a 1.5mm wide blade. Neat cutting oil, a rigid setup, power feed and taking it gently makes it dead easy. 20191105_121244 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr This isn't really held that firmly, so the hex pocket was machined gingerly 0.2mm at a time with 10mm/min feedrate without any drama. This is another case where CNC comes into its own. You probably couldn't be bothered to spend 30-40minutes moving the handles painfully slowly even if you could move them in straight lines, let alone around a hex. Time doesn't matter when you don't have to be there! 20191105_181310 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr 20191105_182131 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr So this is the problem, how to unscrew that hex nut up inside the tube. 20191105_182502 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr The spanner makes this dead easy. 20191105_182525 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr
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Post by Roger on Nov 5, 2019 21:43:15 GMT
I want to get these holes spot on in the right place because the fittings underneath have been profiled to pick up the inside contour at a specific point. The white Silicone Rubber offcuts are to stop it bending the flanges when I pulled the cable ties tight. To that end I've set the fixture side to side in the vise first and then I've used the 2D drawing of the side view to find a way to reference it from this gently sloping end. There's a transition between two radii that I can find the coordinates for, so that's decided the height at which I need to set the distance from the end. So here I've initially set the ball to be touching the top of the shoulder and that was set to the ball radius and then moved clear of the top. Then I'd dropped the ball centre to the required height for finding the edge. I've ignored the fact that the ball centre won't be precisely at the same height as where it will touch because the angle is pretty small. 20191105_205349 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr I know the precise size of these, so I can confidently drill these. If anything looks wrong with the dummy clack tops compared to this, it's those that will need changing. 20191105_210116 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr One more job done! 20191105_211813 by Timothy Froud, on Flickr
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