var mainmess= "Making Simplex - a freelance 0-6-0 steam loco
Started on 1st February 2006 - completed 25th February 2009"
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var txt=new Array()
txt[1] ="Me driving the Simplex I made before. That picture is about 30 years old!"
txt[2] ="Cutting out the frame steel for the Simplex chassis. Note the bandsaw in the upright position. I learnt fairly quickly that having the bandsaw table the same height as the workbench allows the heavy sheet steel to be supported by the bench rather than by hand! 1/2/2006"
txt[3] ="Marking the frames for drilling the holes - both sides are rivetted together so that they are identical. Incidentally, this also shows the multi-function backplate on the lathe. It can mount the 4-jaw chuck, the 6 inch 3-jaw chuck and also the hole in the centre is large enough to use the collet chuck from the milling head 4/2/2006"
txt[4] ="Milling the bit from the frames for the boiler blowdown valve. This was necessary because I couldn't get sheet steel 1/8 of an inch and had to use much thicker - almost 3/16! Modifications to the length of the stretchers between the frames is obviously essential to make the overall dimensions correct. 6/2/2006"
txt[5] ="The frames cut and drilled with the un-machined wheel castings. The wheel castings are from E.J.Winter in Australia (see the links section). 12/2/2006"
txt[6] ="The frames with the horns for the axleboxes and the buffer beams attached. Four of the axleboxes in the foreground with the top and bottom covers and the rubbing plates to the left. The front axleboxes have been bored, bushed with bronze and the bushing bored to a good running fit on the axle. 23/2/2006"
txt[7] ="After 2 days of hard filing to remove all the pimples from the sand-casting, the wheels have been dip-painted (a very messy job), hung with the back upermost for the first half hour, then turned over. Now on day 2 - drying in the Malaysian sun - too hot to touch at present!! Once machined, only the paint on the spokes will remain. The counterweight will need to be repainted manually when the machining is completed. 3/3/2006"
txt[8] ="Wheels machined (but without the hole for the crank-pin). The axleboxes and covers also on the frames. 11/3/2006"
txt[9] ="Chassis with the wheels and axles mocked up to give an idea of what the frames will look like. This picture taken to mark 6 weeks work so far. Waiting for the silver-steel to make the crank pins then the wheels can be locktited and pinned to the axles permanently. 13/3/2006"
txt[10]='The cylinder castings with steam chests, steam-chest covers, cylinder covers and piston blanks plus d-valves and nuts. To give an idea of scale, the Stuart Turner 10H (which I made to test myself using a metric lathe for a model with imperial measurements), is in the background. Click HERE for a short videos of it running on compressed air. 17/3/2006'
txt[11]="One cylinder. As you can see, the face to the left looks pretty true. This is the face which will be against the frames eventually. I have skimmed it on the belt sander and will use it as the initial reference for machining. 23/3/2006"
txt[12]="New bench to give a better area for assembly etc. It is also away from the flying swarf from the lathe and drill. The cylinder castings are mocked up in position on the upside-down loco. Hmmm - getting a bit exciting now, but still an awful long way to go!"
txt[13]="There are many ways to skin this cat, but I choose to face off the upper flat surface for the valve to slide on as the first machining operation. On the basis it is easier to reference from a bored large diameter hole to a flat surface, than the other way round, I am just taking the skin off the casting. There will be plenty of metal left for the final finishing once the cylinder bore is machined. I am using a fairly well used half inch end mill as the skin from the cast iron is pretty abrasive and will blunt a new milling tool. 23/3/2006"
txt[14]="All the cast iron skin has been removed so that's enough metal removed just now. I will next face off the first reference suface in the same fashion - that's the face on the right in this picture. As both of these faces will get bruised slightly during the cylinder boring (I intend to do that in the 4-jaw chuck as it is easier on this lathe than to jack it up on the cross-slide and bore it with a boring bar between centres.) therefore the final machining will be done to them after the cylinder is bored. 23/3/2006"
txt[15]="Faced off the rear face and started to bore the cylinder at the same setting so they will be perfect. However, blow-holes in the cylinder bore. This is the dreaded unforseeable problem with castings. Sadly the holes were uncovered with only 1/8 inch still to remove on the diameter (1/16 off the radius), so there is no way to machine past it.
So I have bored to 1/8 inch oversize and will now try to obtain some cast iron bar to make a sleeve then re-bore to the proper diameter. 25/3/2006"
txt[16]="The sleeve is now in the bad cylinder (on the right) - you can just see it - about 3/32 of an inch thick (the cylinder bore is 1-1/2 inches. The surface of the bore in the drawn cast iron bar liner is considerably better than the first cylinder as the sleeve is much finer grain iron - almost tempted to sleeve the other one too - but a bit like unnecessary hard work!! 27/3/2006"
txt[17]="The steam ports milled in the top surface of the cylinder. Notice I am using the face to be bolted to the frames as the reference surface against the fixed jaw in the vice. Now the steam passages and exhaust passage have to be carefully drilled. 4/4/2006 (The delay in progress was due to me not feeling so good!)"
txt[18]="Quartering the wheels. This is setting the wheels exactly one quarter of a turn out of alignment. Some jigs have to be made so that all three pairs of wheels are quartered exactly the same. Gotta remember to put the axle boxes on the axles (and the eccentric for the water pump on the front one) before pressing and loctiting the wheels. 13/04/06"
txt[19]="Machining the end of one steam chest. The other surfaces had been roughly milled to give a reference for this machining operation. Although this looks like a rather precarious way to hold the workpiece for an intermittent cutting process, it does work ok if you take small cuts (about 0.5mm).
Most of the work on the steam chests has been milling - this is the only turning operation. 29/04/2006"
txt[20]="The loco frames with wheels complete with crank pins, and the cylinders and steam chests with the D-valves laid inside. Amazing how much rust is developing on the frame steel and even the wheels. I won't paint the frames until the cylinders are permanently attached - that'll be a while - there are still 194 holes to drill in the cylinders, steam chests, cylinder covers etc and 84 of them need to be threaded!
The rough cut coupling rods are lying in the background - I made them to check the wheel quartering was correct before going any further. 30/04/2006"
txt[21]="The cylinders and all the bits machined ready for assembly.
- Piston on the piston rod - not cut to length yet and the cast iron rings not shown
- Cylinder body machined, drilled and tapped
- Cylinder covers - front are flat, the rear cover is machined to take the slide bars
- D-valves with the 'nut' - the one on the right is turned over to show the machined cavity underneath
- Steam chest and cover
- The bolts required to assemble the cylinders - all the holes for them are tapped
- The test bar I made for checking the cylinder bores during machining - also used for sizing for the pistons
- The 6 inch drill I made to bore the long hole in the steam chest.
18/05/2006"
txt[22]="The cylinders assembled with the steam chests and all gasketted. The only remaining operation on them is to drill the holes to attach the slide bars, but that will not be done until most of the motion and links are made and assembled. In total there are 50 separate machined parts to make the cylinders, and 70 bolts to hold the cylinders together. 07/06/2006"
txt[23]="Cylinders mounted on the chassis. The springs on the axle boxes are also now on. So now it's back to sawing, filing, drilling milling and grinding of all the other millions of bits! Time for a breather. 08/06/2006"
txt[24]="The motion brackets and slide-bar arrangement dummied up to check alignment, fit etc. The crosshead is just a lump of 1" by 1/2" bar to make sure that the piston slides freely in the mock-up. As I haven't done any progress pics for a month I felt I had to add something! This pic was taken with my new Canon digital camera - much better for close-ups. 05/07/2006"
txt[25]="Close-up of the right motion bracket almost finished. The slide-bars are attached to the rear of the cylinder and there is a dummy crosshead (the rectangular piece of metal on the piston rod). I still have to make the specialised angle material to join the rear end of the slide-bars to the motion bracket. The clearance between the front wheel and the motion bracket is very tight. On full spring comression there is only about 25 thou' between the wheel flange and the bracket!
The two pieces of metal pointing backwards with holes in them are the pivot mounts for the expansion link which controls the valve movement.
Silly little things cause problems if you're not ready for it - for example, angle iron off the shelf is nowhere near exactly 90 degrees, so it has to be milled to 90 degrees before using it. 16/07/2006"
txt[26]="The crosshead now completed. I have varied from the plan which asked for a piece of bent 1/16 inch plate, and milled it from 3/16 sheet which gives the offset for the anchorlink the right distance from the piston rod. 23/08/2006"
txt[27]="The crossheads completely finished - one assembled, the other in parts, plus the centre finding bar for accurately determining wheel centres etc for making the various coupling rods etc.
- Assembled crosshead
- Crosshead body with the rear plate brazed to it.
- Rear washer 1/16th thick with 1/4 hole.
- Gudgeon pin and nut
- front washer 1/16th thick with 3/16 hole
- Cover plate with offset for the link pin
- Link pin and nut
- 2.5mm bolts for the cover plate
- Centre finding bar
26/08/2006"
txt[28]="Now the project is too heavy to keep lifting and turning, I have made a simple stand which allows the chassis to be locked in any position - simplifies life enormously. 30/08/2006"
txt[29]="The combination levers and anchor links (the anchor link is the small one). The inset gives some idea of how fiddly they are to make with the 50 sen coin (about 1 inch diameter) as a reference. 20/09/2006"
txt[30]="Flycutting the rear end of the front coupling rod. This has to be reduced to half thickness to slot into the rear coupling rod to give the required flexing when the wheels go over bumps etc. I will put a collection of pictures of the various stages of the development of the coupling rods - LOADS of work yet. 10/10/2006"
txt[31]="Making a mandrel for a larger diameter slitting saw to slot the rear coupling rods. - It will just do the 2cm required. 20/10/2006"
txt[32]="Coupling rods drilled, blued and roughly marked. The top of the picture shows one coupling rod in the two-part jig which will be held in the machine vice on the lathe cross-slide when doing the final profiling with a milling cutter. The reason for the two parts is to allow for the fact that the coupling rods are not all exactly identical in length and this allows the jig to fit all sizes!
The bottom half shows how much stress there is in a short length of mild steel. Notice how the cut has opened all by itself where the red arrow is pointing. 22/10/2006"
txt[33]="Now you can see the reason for the jig I made yesterday. The coupling rod, which is 7¼ inches long, is too long to be able to mill the sides using the cross-slide which has only 4 inches of travel. And as the throat of the milling head is less than 4 inches to the chuck backplate, the workpiece has to go past the headstock - hence the substantial jig to prevent vibration. Cuts have to be small and slow. The red stuff is one of the cutting oils available here - not blood! 23/10/2006"
txt[34]="The coupling rods all finished and bushed - they turn as smooth as silk. In the foreground are the blanks for the connecting rods marked and drilled ready for sawing and milling the excess metal away. The inset shows the arrangement where the coupling rods join on the centre axle. 29/10/2006"
txt[35]="Looking down on the front wheel showing how tight the clearance is between the coupling rod and the back of the crosshead. Note the oil hole in the top of the coupling rod - very neat, eh? 30/10/2006"
txt[36]="Conrods now made and fitted. Boy, it's a bit tight to turn the wheels now with the resistance of the piston rings, but the wheels do turn on compressed air. 7/11/2006"
txt[37]="Two views of fly-cutting the baseplate for the jig for the expansion links. The reason for this will become clear with the next set of pictures. 15/11/2006
"
txt[38]="The jig for making the expansion links. The little piece in the red circle is the locating pin which screws into the base of the jig. When my little centre-finder hits the edge of that, it means the centre of the milling head is exactly 4 inches from the pivot point.
The only thing left to do is to drill the gauge plate (the blue painted bit on top) and screw it to the jig for machining. In fact, that piece of guage plate will be cut in half so I mill both expansion links simultaneously - that way they will be identical (What that means is that they will both have the same errors!!). The end stops will be set appropriately. 19/11/2006"
txt[39]="Milling the radius slot in the expansion links. I tried using a slot drill (like one ought to for that operation) but it chattered all over the place, so I reverted to a 4 flute endmill and it worked fine.
The jig I made is moved by hand from one end-stop to the other with a hefty pair of gloves to prevent serious injury if the milling cutter snatches. The machine is stopped at the end of each cut to prevent "grab" on the return pass. All the milling was done against the cut (as opposed to climb-milling where the work follows the tool rotation). Hairy, but effective!
The second picture is with the slots finished and starting to profile the outside of the links. 21/11/2006"
txt[40]="As I haven't done much of late or posted any pictures, here are a couple of views of the expansion link, return crank and eccentric rod. The return crank is the little crank on the main axle, and the eccentric rod is what connects it to the expansion link. See below for the complexities of the expansion link
You can see the two slots in the expansion link - those are for the radius rod which joins the whole shooting match of the valve operating levers together. The bushings and final bolts/screws are not yet in place. The slight double bend in the eccentric rod is deliberate - the plans call for a 1/32 inch fudge bend to make it all fit!! 9/5/2007"
txt[41]="Something I've been meaning to make for ages. The hours I have wasted setting the vice on the cross-slide absolutely parallel with the bed of the lathe for accurate milling.
This simple system of an accurate bar between centres and two pieces of bright mild bar held in the vice - loosen the mounting screws for the vice and just push it up against the bar - tighten the retaining bolts and there you go - parallel with the lathe bed.
If I want to be REALLY clever when milling a taper on a rod, it's just a question of offsetting one end of the vice by putting an appropriate spacer or feeler gauge between the bar and the bit in the vice. 17/05/2007"
txt[42]="The radius rods. These complicated little fellows connect the expansion link to the combination lever and by being pulled up or pushed down at the opposite end by the lifting arm on the weigh shaft, they control the valve events for forward, reverse and steam economy etc. Sounds gobbledegook just now, but once I produce the pics of it all being assembled, it will become a bit clearer I hope! To show the size, the distance between the holes as shown is 4 inches. 19/05/2007"
txt[43]="Wow - the geometry for the valve rods on the plans are a load of nonsense. The eccentric rod is much too long. So I did the calculations and the return crank pin should be precisely 13.47mm from the centre of the axle. So a jig has had to be made to achieve this.
As you can see, the jig consists of a bit of half inch bar bored to take the centre drill which was used to make the centre holes in the axles originally, A screw is threaded into the other end to push the centre drill snugly into the axle hole and the little plate has the hole for the return crank pin at the exact distance from the centre.
This is how it is going to be used tomorrow to hold the return crank in the correct position while I loctite and tighten the pinch bolt - later (when my taper reamer and pins arrive, the return crank will be pinned to the crank pin on the wheel. 23/05/2007"
txt[44]="The motion all finished with the radius rods in place, the eccentric rods lengths finalised and bushed plus the weigh shaft - that's the bar connecting the two radius rods to allow variation of valve events for forward, backward and steam economy etc.
Look at the amount of rust forming despite heavy coatings of oil and regualr spraying with WD40.
Click HERE for a short videos of the chassis running in reverse on air. The videos is 4.5MB so if you have a low bandwidth connection, RIGHT-click and save the videos before viewing. 10/06/2007"
txt[45]="The reversing lever assembly now (at long last) finished. Below is a close up of this complicated little thing. I had to design this from scratch as the plans called for a screw reverser which is a real pain to use if you are doing a lot of forward and backward stuff as this loco probably will. 24/08/2007
"
txt[46]="The steam inlet and outlet arrangement. At present the inlet has an adaptor on it for my air line for testing, and the blast pipe is not yet attached to the outlet.
If the plans are followed, it is impossible to fit the two manifolds without taking the cylinders off. I have circumvented this problem by threading the manifold bodies right through and making the threaded portion of the tubes which connect with the cylinders, long enough to screw right into the middle of the manifold body when attaching and removing.
The tubes were made from solid hexagon bar to simplify installation and making steam-tight joints holding the tube with a spanner, instead of trying to hold thin-walled brass tube with a vice-grip.
The brass plug on top of the steam chest is for the snifter valve. There is also one on the other steam chest. I prefer that to having one snifter on the smokebox as oil can be added through the valves to prevent rust in the steam chest and cylinders after a day's steaming.
The other big advantage of these snifters is that the balls fall under gravity and open the valve. This prevents build up of pressure in the steam chests from a slightly leaky regulator, or one that hasn't been closed fully. It means when you put the loco in gear, you don't get a sudden surprise of a lurch forward because of the steam pressure in the steam chests. It requires a positive flow of steam through the valves to close them, and steam pressure in the steam chests to keep them closed. 03/09/2007"
txt[47]="Two views of making the smokebox. The required dimensions are 5 inch OD with 1/8 inch wall thickness. However, there is no 1/8th tube available, and no 1/8th steel sheet for rolling (not that I have rollers!) So the best I could get is 5 1/4 inch OD with a wall thickness of 10mm! So lots and lots of swarf being generated during the turning down then boring of this hefty piece of black steel. Cuts have to be 0.15mm at a time to prevent 'singing'. This will take about a week to machine, cut to length, and bore the holes for the chimney and steam pipes at the bottom. 18/09/2007
"
txt[48]="Boring the smokebox for the chimney on one side and the exhaust blast pipe on the other. The smokebox is held in the 4 jaw chuck jacked up so the hole is in the mid position. The chuck is held on the cross-slide with bolts into two 'T' nuts.
To get the centre sideways, I put a known bar between centres and just touched the sideof the smokebox - so centre is half the thickness of the bar plus half the smokebox diameter from that point.
Note I have cut a register inside the smokebox for the door ring and also the connecting ring to the boiler at the other end. As I had to turn the smokebox from much thicker metal, it seemed like a good idea. It will make positioning the two rings very simple and straight, and also make emptying the ash from the smokebox easier. 20/09/2007"
txt[49]="Two views of the smokebox all bored with door and boiler rings, dummied up on the frames with the un-machined chimney balanced on top - beginning to look a bit more like a loco now! 22/09/2007
"
txt[50]="The component parts for the fiddly little axle pump which will deliver a massive 1ml per revolution of the wheels. An amazing amount of work for such a potentially redundant piece of nonsense. I still have to braze all the bits of the clacks together, make gaskets, assemble, drill the pump stretcher and the pump to mount it. 15/10/2007"
txt[51]="The chimney casting being machined. I spent a day or so trying to find a way to hold it on the cross-slide and eventually decided to silver solder it to a piece of angle iron.
I don't know if the heating of the casting hardened the crust, but what a job to break through to the underlying metal - broke a couple of bits in the boring bar. 23/10/2007"
txt[52]="Turning the outside of the chimney. I made a couple of fairly tight fitting plugs for each end of the bored chimney and by pressing hard with the rotating centre in the tailstock, it turned OK.
The skirt at the chuck end of the chimney is nasty 3D stuff and will have to be done by hand later. I will make a 5 inch diameter base to screw the chimney to with a bolt through the middle then set to with files and sandpaper to do the skirt - later... 24/10/2007"
txt[53]="The sanding drum I made for linishing the saddle and the underside of the chimney and dome. The linisher belt paper is tucked into a slot in the wooden drum (made from old bits of wood nailed together and turned down) and wrapped round against the direction of rotation. The end is stuck with double sided sticky tape. The right hand end is supported by the rotating centre in the tailstock when in use.
The smaller ones on the lathe bed are for use in the drill press for little radii. 25/10/2007"
txt[54]="The chimney now finished. Notice also the hinges on the smokebox door. The chimney will not be fixed to the smokebox until after the boiler is on, so that the chimney will be vertical - nothing looks sillier than a chimney at an odd angle! 26/10/2007"
txt[55]="Making the buffer stocks. The plans suggest turning out of 1 3/16" square steel. OK, for one, I can only get 1 1/4" here, and the time spent trying to centralise square section in the 4 jaw, to me, woud be time wasted and laziness would allow for inaccuracies.
So I decided to fabricate the buffer stocks with a square back and a cylindrical body. Since it seems to working well so far, here's how I am doing it.
- I trued up the bandsaw and put a new blade so it would cut as near straight as possible.
- A sufficent length of the square bar to make the 4 backplates plus a spare as a template for the 4 holes was faced off on two sided to make it 1 3/6".
- I determined the centre with my electronic edge finder in the milling configuration and bored a 10mm hole. 10mm being an arbirary size which happens to be one of the sizes of my stock bright mild steel! And also will be the size of hole I will use in the buffer beams as I can thread 10mm but not the 3/8" the plan calls for.
- I rough-chucked the square bar in the 4 jaw with the hole end showing and faced it off.
- Then I cut a 4mm slice off the square in my trued up bandsaw - amazing, less than half a mil deviation on the cut!
- The previous two steps were repeated a further 4 times to make five slices.
- Back to the 3 jaw chuck and a small jig made from my 10mm bar and a cover from 12mm so that the back plates can be faced off true on the sawn side - see picture below. The corners were rounded off on the linisher with a roundhead bolt as the template.
- The holes were then drilled out to 13mm to get rid of the pip where the jig prevented the tool turning the centre bit
01/11/2007
"
txt[56]="Interesting - just started to turn the cylindrical bits for the buffer stocks and found that if I take a small cut, the surface is scuffed, whereas if I take a more generous cut of 1/2mm, it gives a beautiful finish!
The work is just under 1 inch diameter spinning at 375 RPM, so the surface velocity is approximately 1000 inches per minute which is about 85 feet per minute. I don't know how that stacks up against conventional turning speeds, but it works on that particular steel with that carbide insert! 01/11/2007"
txt[57]="Buffer stocks now finshed. The barrel and backplate will be loctited together when they are attached to the buffer beams. That will let me use the backplate as the drilling template for the 8BA (2.5mm) bolts. Below shows the separate bits.
So now the next job is a complete strip down of the chassis for cleaning and painting and making the running boards, tanks and other brasswork while waiting for the boiler. 04/11/2007
"
txt[58]="Buffers now finished - just need springs! 05/11/2007"
txt[59]="Fly-cutting the underside of the chimney. When I did it originally on the 5" sanding drum, I hadn't held the chimney exactly at centre height with the result it sat squint on the smokebox.
I thought this to be a dodgy job and have been prevaricating, but, despite the odd looking arrangement with one of the cutters from the 3 inch face cutter sticking out sideways to give a 5inch diameter cut, it all went extremely smoothly. Thank goodness for a rigid milling machine - I could never have done this in the milling head on the lathe. 11/12/2007"
txt[60]="Drilling the holes in the smokebox for the rivets. I was lazy and just cranked the handle on the rotary table 3 revs - gave me 48 rivets for the revolution of the smokebox. 12/12/2007"
txt[61]="Making a start on the platework. To get the straight edge on the brass, after cutting as accurately as I could in the bandsaw, I then clamped it between two pieces of angle-iron in my workmate table and ground it straight with the angle-grinder. Easy to know when the brass is level with the angle-iron - you get sparks!
Also notice the rivets in the front of the smokebox holding the smookbox door ring in place. Maybe I should have spaced the rivets closer together, but it was too easy to just turn 2 revs of the rotary table handle to advance 8 degrees and make 45 holes!
I'm going to have to increase the height of my stand so I can turn it upside down with the smokebox (and later the cab) in place. The chimney isn't fixed yet as I will wait until I've done all the plumbing in the smokebox before I do that as space in there is limited for my big hands. 16/12/2007"
txt[62]="Straightening the edges of the brass sides. To try and jig the brass up on the milling machine would be a real fiddle, so just clamping the two sides between two bits of angle iron and sanding down to the sparks works well. The two sides are already bolted together with bolts through the bit which will be cut out for the doors. 27/12/2007"
txt[63]="Mark II method of straightening brass edges - now that I have a machine which can handle such sizes, it works fine. As well as the bolts at the ends of the angle bar, there are a couple of small vicegrips holding the brass between the angle. As long as the cuts are fairly small, it works well ... and is a lot less noisy than the grinding method! 06/01/2008"
txt[64]="Been waiting for the arrival of the nibbler to cut the brass sheet for bits bigger than the throat of the bandsaw.
It arrived, but seems reluctant to cut the skin off rice pudding! I didn't realise how inefficient air motors are. Despite having a 2HP compressor motor, it came nowhere near keeping up with this little gadget's air-hunger. So that's probably lined up to sell on to a car repair shop or somesuch.
So a new method of cutting the brass was tried at the suggestion of Roy Bav. A 3mm endmill spinning as fast as the mill will go, and it sliced through the brass like a hot knife through butter! 31/01/2008"
txt[65]="All the brasswork now cut out and ready to assemble to make the sides and the tanks. Still got to make the spectacle plate, back and cab roof, but I want to get the tanks done first and decide if my 'imperial-to-metric' measurements for the whole lot have been correct! 04/02/2008 (now more than 2 years since I started)"
txt[66]="Right hand tank (the easy one!) built but not soldered, just held together with screws. 92 holes, 46 of them threaded, 12 bits of brass angle etc etc. The left one is a bit more tricky with the recess for the reversing lever. 08/02/2008"
txt[67]="Tanks now built, but yet to be sealed with solder - that won't be done until all the pipework has been planned and the various holes drilled for bits and bobs, plus of course the filler holes and covers and handpump etc etc - still a lot to do.
The pic above shows the left tank with the side removed to show the cut-away for the reversing rod. The other pics below are a couple of views with the tank side on. 09/02/2008.
"
txt[68]="Oh the joy of having a bigger milling machine than I planned on!
A detail I overlooked when attaching the reversing pole to the holes designed for the original screw reverser, is that the reversing pole almost hits the back of the tank! So it had to be moved.
To be able to put the whole chassis on the milling table without the need to strip it down to drill some more holes, is a great boon.
So now I have to extend the reversing lever by 1 cm - I had thought I might be lazy and just silver-solder an extra bit in, but maybe I should just get down and make a new one. 10/02/2008"
txt[69]="Snifter valves. I managed to move the wayward hole in the running board by putting an end-mill though the off-centre hole then drilling to the right size. So now the snifters fit fine without any obvious cock-ups showing! Notice also the valance under the running board held temporarily in place with copper rivets. It will be soldered to the running board in the fullness of time. That's another piece of Martin Evans nonsensical design - not only do you have to cut a bit away for the cylinders, you also have to cut the inside bit to clear the expansion link AND take a notch out of the expansion link bracket. 6/02/2008"
txt[70]="Cutting the holes in the tank tops. A bit of hard plywood bolted to the rotary table, and a 5/8" pilot hole in the brass for the spigot in the middle of the rotary table - worked like a charm.
Below are the finished holes 1¼" diameter. 22/02/2007
Plus, of couse, the spectacle plate!
"
txt[71]="Cutting the bezels for the spectacle plate. The scrap brass from the back bit that I messed up is screwed to a bit of plywood bolted to the rotary table.
Then a register was cut so they locate properly in the holes of the spectacle plate. I was being lazy, and rather than changing to a smaller chuck, merely held the smaller chuck in the big one and did it that way - see pic below! 01/03/2008
"
txt[72]="The hand pump for the right hand tank. Took longer than expected due to the fact that my stainless steel isn't exactly circular!! So I've succumbed to modern technology and instead of a labyrinth seal which leaked like a sieve, I've put a PTFE ring on the piston and that seems fine.
As a complete aside, my comments about the speed of rust formation in the past seem to be a medical thing. Since I have controlled my blood sugar (I was diagnosed with diabetes last autumn), the rust formation has diminished extremely dramatically - presumably something to do with the consistency of sweat with high sugar content - odd!! Incidentally, whisky lowers blood sugar - whoopee! 06/04/2008"
txt[73]="Two views of the cab roof and back bent with my new rollers. Now got to set to and put it all together in a manner whereby I can get the spectacle plate out to cut to shape when the boiler appears. 29/04/2008
"
txt[74]="The draincock banjos. These will be connected by individual 1/8" pipes to a centrally mounted small cylinder, which, when the piston is pulled back, will open all 4 draincocks through the small cylinder. When the piston is pushed forward, it will seal all of the 4 radially mounted holes in the cylinder - sounds nonsense, but pics will follow when I've made it.
The reason for doing it this way is that Simplex cylinders are very low to the track and a derailment can easily shear off conventional drain cocks. 08/05/2008"
txt[75]="The draincocks now assembled. The idea is the 4 banjos connect to a central cylinder with the holes drilled radially. The piston in the cylinder covers and thereby blocks (closes) the draincocks. When the piston is pulled back, the drain pipes drain into the little cylinder and exhaust out the front of it.
More views below - one with the PTFE piston pulled out of the cylinder.
The little cylinder is deliberately off centre with respect to the frames to eliminate the need for complicated lever linkage from the actuating rod. Also, the PTFE piston is a very loose fit on the actuating rod to get round minor misalignment with the bending of the rod and to prevent any unnecessary stiffness in operation.
The limits of travel of the piston will be set with stops at the cab end lever.
An overall view to show the routing of the actuating rod through two little bits of brass silver-soldered to the axlebox keeps. Incidentally, the bends in the 3/16" steel actuating rod were done using my little pipe bender I made the other day.
But I did a silly and milled the flats on the cab-end of the actuating rod, top and bottom instead of side to side. However, with a pencil flame on the propane torch, I got the end up to a good orange colour and then twisted the flat bit with a vice grip - God bless steel - great stuff .... you can see the discolouration at the cab end of the actuating rod! 16/05/2008
"
txt[76]="Couldn't settle to anything serious today so I made the steps for the cab and cut the handrails too.
You can see the bottom of the draincock lever behind the step - that's now finished with a nice stainless steel operating handle, plus the floor in the back of the cab is now in place - it may need to be shortened to fit the boiler when it arrives. 19/05/2008
"
txt[77]="Had an almost disaster a couple of days ago. Trying to turn the loco round on the bench to access the other side, involved swinging the end of the stand clear of the bench - (the stand is 3 feet long, the bench only 2 feet wide!) The stand started to rotate and the whole shooting-match almost fell to the floor - saved only by my belly which got a nasty gash for it's troubles.
So I decided to modify the stand by putting onto a free-standing trolly.
As you see, the trolley is made of cheap dexion type stuff, with castoring wheels with brakes on each wheel. It's also 2 feet wide so that it's stable and doesn't try to tip sideways when the castoring wheels turn underneath.
The clever bit is the simple way to get the loco on and off the stand. The bit of angle bar under the wheels slides into place and when the spigots are removed, the loco is left sitting on the rails and can be easily lifted off. I timed it and it takes 50 seconds to have the rails in place, the spigots removed and the loco ready to be lifted off. When putting it back onto the stand, the angle bar slides out once the spigots are tightened and the loco can be rotated and clamped in any position.
I intend to make a shelf on the trolley below the level the top of the loco comes to when rotated upside down, for laying tools on and catching the odd bolt or nut which is bound to fall when I'm working on the loco 24/05/2008
Note also the cut and join in the long sides of the trolley - that is to let me make the trolley longer for when the Black 5 needs it. The shelf is a crappy bit of plywood from the packing case of the lathe 2 and a bit years ago! But it allows me to drop nuts and tools without having to grovel on the floor to find them!
The other GREAT advantage is that when I'm messing about with something large like a sheet of plywood, or even just doing a mega-tidy-up, I can wheel the loco stand into the living room to give me space to move around! And of course the shelf stops the oil dripping on the floor in there!!"
txt[78]="Making the 115° brass angle to hold the cab roof in place. I tried bending brass, soldering two bits together etc, and it was all a disaster, so I set to and made the angle from solid brass square. 28/05/2008
"
txt[79]="Cab roof now in place with the cutout for driving. I've still got to make the "rails" for sliding in the decorative bit to fill the cut-out. Also, you can see the spectacle plate bottom hasn't yet been cut for the boiler.
Platework is not my favourite task. 29/05/2008
Here's the rails done and the bit made to replace the cut-out. 30/05/2008
"
txt[80]="Back of the cab now hinged to allow easier access when driving.
The hinge is made from 1/8" brass rod cut into pieces 5/8" long and bored 1.1mm for the 1mm stainess wire I happened to have as the only usable substance for the hinge pin! The bits are soft soldered alternately to the top and the bottom bits of the back.
The picture above is the configuration for storage.
The picture below shows the configuration when driving. - I still have to make the little locks to hold it in the storage position! 09/06/2008
"
txt[81]="Nipple Mania ....!
A different approach to making nipples suggested by Roy Bavister, who's father used this technique successfully on many models.
The idea is the nipple has no neck sticking out the back for the copper tube to fit into. This has two big advantages - 1) the hole in the nut need only be the diameter of the pipe in use, rather than the bigger diameter for the neck which normally goes over the pipe. This obviously makes for a stronger nut/nipple interface. and 2) I believe this is stronger than the weak link in the neck of the conventional nipple where there is no way of checking how far the silver solder has penetrated.
I also think it looks neater on the model!
The nipple is made with no neck - I make them 3mm long with the 3/16" hole for the pipe.
I then reverse the nipple and put it in a dummy connector. The nut has an oversize hole to allow me to recess the back of the nipple with a 6mm end mill. This is for the silver solder.
I made a jig for holding the nipple and pipe for soldering. Basically a piece of stainless steel turned down to fit the bore of the pipe, and an aluminium washer to stop the silver solder sticking to the stainless steel.
In the next picture you can see how it is all set up for soldering. The recess in the back of the nipple is visible.
I made a few rings of 0.8mm silver solder wire which are a nice fit for the pipe. Flux it carefully and slide the silver solder ring down to the joint, then heat the pipe about 1/2" above the nipple until the solder flows. Pickle and that's it.
Although I can see it by eye, I can't really persuade the camera to do a good enough close-up to show the silver solder has penetrated right through the joint. 10/06/2008
"
txt[82]="A clack - doesn't it look neat with the "neckless" nipple on the pipe.
For the dimensions for making them, see the Tips section. 28/06/2008"
txt[83]="Buffer springs now made from 16SWG stainless wire by following the ideas from this site. About 6TPI on a 1/4" mandrel in the lathe seems to make about the right strength of spring. Various pontificators have said to put a spigot sticking out of the mandrel to start the spring - this is bullshit. a) it's a pain to try to make a hook in 16SWG stainless wire, and b) even when you succeed, as you start the spring, the wire rotates and neatly springs off the spigot. So I use a hole in the spigot and at the end, cut the bit poked through the hole with a hacksaw.
Then all that is left is to poke the spring through an appropriate sized hole in a lump of metal and push it up against the side of the grindstone - yes the side!! Squeeze it in the vice to 'set' it, and that's it.
And I already hear the cynics saying "Why is the one on the right stiffer?" - Very simple - most tracks go round in circles, so to equalise the force on the rear buffers when stopping a ton of human flesh, the spring on the outside radius of the track is the one that compresses the least - Duh - good excuse for a cock-up! 30/06/2008
Huh! - Just got a call from a buddy who tells me he's just posted all this spring making stuff on a model engineer site but didn't give credit to where he found it - Hmmmm!"
txt[84]="The boiler has arrived from Oz - very nice.
However, a couple of oddities - a sort of cumulative problem. Measuring the boiler it seems spot on to the plans, and my frame measurements are less than 1/16" out, but the plans do seem to have a measurement error.
Anyway, the upshot is that if I make the blowdown valves central in the hole in the frames, the boiler only just reaches the rear smokebox ring. So I've fabricated an extension from strips of brass rolled, silver soldered into concentric rings, then the whole assembly soft soldered, so problem circumvented. 06/07/2008
"
txt[85]="The frames were electrolytically derusted using baking soda rather than washing soda as in the recipe in the workshop bit on Alan Stepney's site and now painted with the first under coat - and yea ...yea, I missed a wee bit on the front of the main stretcher!
But the rivets on the buffer beams look quite good 11/07/2008"
txt[86]="I was a little apprehensive about drilling and tapping the boiler for the rear mount supports, so I did it a different way this time and drilled blind holes into the double thickness of the flange plate for the backhead, so I haven't penetrated the boiler at all. The mounting brackets also point backwards, so the retaining bracket can be attached to the frames, and there won't be any risk of the rear wheels hitting them. 14/07/2008
Now there is a bracket on the frames to hold the brass bit on the back of the boiler (in the red circle), and the front of the boiler is bolted to the smokebox, I can turn it all upside down with impunity 15/07/2008
"
txt[87]="Now we're cooking by gas! Boiler mounted centrally, and the spectacle plate cut to fit - starting to look like a choo-choo but without wheels and cylinders! 16/07/2008
"
txt[88]="Cylinders, expansion link brackets etc now attached to frames and all sprayed with primer. After some gentle sanding tomorrow, I might venture into the black epoxy finishing colour! 19/07/2008
"
txt[89]="Frames and buffer beams now painted - I was a bit impatient and photographed it before the red paint has dried properly to it's "dull" finish. The red doesn't look quite right in the photo, but it is Precision (Phoenix) Paints' signal red which is what it should be.
Although it's all progressing, it's amazing how many things are still left to do - makes me weary just thinking about them.
The trouble is now that I can see the end in sight, mentally I'm now building a loco rather than building individual parts. 23/07/2008"
txt[90]="All the bare steel now de-rusted manually, and re-assembly under way - looking like new! Hopefully tomorrow, I'll get it running on air again as it's all a bit stiff with clearances changed by the thickness of the paint.
I have to say, at this time of life, this has a lot more going for it than Max Mosley's hobby! 26/07/2008"
txt[91]="To pre-empt criticism that I haven't been working from those who will remain nameless, here's what I'm at. Making the plumbing fittings - really fiddly, but very gratifying when they work.
There are still a significant number to make before I start the plumbing in earnest. For the dimensions of the bypass valve, see the tips section. 5/08/2008
Also now made the handles for the valves - from left to right, these are the bypass valve, blower valve and the steam valve for the injector - I still have to design and make the water valve for the injector as that will have to be a slightly different design. 10/08/2008
"
txt[92]="The Stroudley type regulator now fitted. Boy this has been a struggle - the bushes and various other bits on the boiler are not quite to plan, and it would not have been possible to fit the standard Simplex regulator for a variety of reasons. Even this Stroudley type I've had to scale down a little from the plans, to make it fit and laterally have taken to giving it an odd 'donk' with a wooden hammer to get it to align properly! 22/08/2008"
txt[93]="The wet-header (also a bit different from the plans - pics will follow later) connection to the superheater had to be done as a 'seperate' because of the non-plan bolt spacing on the wet header - the only way I can get all 6 bolts in is before attaching the connector to the superheater. You can see the problem with the position of the bolts.
The superheater itself is a piece of 5/8" stainless tube with a plug welded in at the firebox end (I managed to do that successfully with a couple of stainless welding rods on the arc welder). The plug has a 3/8" blind hole into which the concentric 3/8" copper tube fits to stop it rattling around inside. Obviously there are holes in the copper at the firebox end to allow the steam to pass. This also has the advantage that it makes it possible to get a flue brush up the superheater flue. And of course, the superheater can be removed without disturbing the wet header.
I know the plans call for 7/16" tube, but that is not a Malaysian size. On the basis that the steam gets from the boiler through 2 x 3/16" holes in the regulator, that gives a total cross sectional area of around 35 square millimeters. The area of the 3/8" tube is around 48 square millimeters and the remaining space around the 3/8" inside the stainless is around 68 square millimeters, so there should be no restriction to steam flow.
There is no snifter in the smokebox as I have individual snifters on the tops of the steam chests which also allow oiling of the cylinders after steaming.
This is looking into the smokebox with the petticoat pipe removed and all the final connections except the blower done. 30/08/2008
And another view looking down with the smokebox removed.
"
txt[94]="The grate made from black steel with stainless spacers - I'll put caps on the ends of the stainless threaded rods for locating in the bottom of the firebox.
Yup, and now I discover the bottom of the firebox and foundation ring are a long way off flat - the grate wobbles about dramatically in a completely unsatisfactory manner, so yet more fudging is required to make this boiler usable. 4/09/2008"
txt[95]="Started the plumbing tonight. Because the silly bu**er who made the boiler didn't follow the plans, I only have two feeds to the boiler on the barrel - not the usual ones on the backhead, and because he also has caulked the boiler with soft solder, I have no chance to put a bush on the backhead, so here's how I get round the stupidity.
One feed I am dedicating for the injector, so, hence, the other one has to cope with the axle pump and the hand pump.
As I don't want a bunker tank, the two inlets for the axle pump are joined (as can be seen in the pic) and will come from the right hand tank, where the hand pump will be. So the output from the axle pump will 'T' into the feed from the hand pump, which will also 'T' into the bypass - here's hoping my ball valves all seat properly!
I tried the axle pump tonight after a couple of whiskies (which should have come from Fred if he hadn't thrown the bottle on the marble floor of the Federal Hotel here when he stopped over a few days ago!) and was amazed at the output - couldn't stop it with a finger over the output, so it should feed the boiler ok. Fortunately everything had been sprayed with a paraffin/lanolin mix (the lanolin courtesy of Fred as you can't buy it in Malaysia because [the pharmacists tell me] the Malaysians are allergic to lanolin - yea!?), so I will see tomorrow if the lanolin does actually protect against rust from the water sprayed around by my attempt at blocking the output.
Some of you may be wondering what the strangely orientated bits of metal poking out from the axle boxes are - well they're just wee bits of metal to hold the axles at half spring depression when running on air on the spit! 07/09/2008"
txt[96]="The plumbing inside the right hand tank. Ridiculously complex, but because there is no feed point to the boiler on the backhead, I only have 2 feed clacks on the barrel. The one on the left is for the injector, so this right one has to double for axle pump and hand pump. I still have to do the connection for the feed for the axle pump and the balance pipe between the tanks, which I have decided to run round the back of the cab.
I was experimenting today with different pipe diameters for the balance pipe, and I am convinced a piece of thin-walled 1/4" pipe will be more than sufficient. 13/09/2008
"
txt[97]="More plumbing. Spent a long time pondering the route for the balance tube and decided to run it round the back of the cab with the water feed for the injector taken from it to save any more unnecessary holes in the tanks.
The pipe is 1/4" thin walled aircon tube, and experimenting with a couple of containers, it gives an adequate water level balance. 17/09/2008"
txt[98]="Great, the grate is now finalised. Had to cut a bit off the bottom of the inner firebox wrapper and replace the front bolts on the top axlebox keeps with home made countersunks to get it to slide in and out, but it works.
Apart from my lovely blowdown valves, which I also made today (Not just a pretty face, you know), note the stainless rod holding the grate in place, with the nifty 6mm socket head on the end to stop it sliding out in motion.
Well, this is for the serious steamer. Many times with the old Simplex, I would be running for long stretches, and it was essential to be able to empty the ashpan without dropping the fire - hence the support for the grate seperate from the support for the ashpan when it gets fabricated. 20/09/2008"
txt[99]="The regulator handle now made. The "insulated" bit is actually cast in araldite. The quadrant is to limit the range of movement of the regulator from closed to fully open.
Note the soft solder caulking beside the lower gauge glass bush - bloody disgrace for a brand new boiler - no excuse for that, and it totally precludes me from attempting to caulk mounting bolts for the firebox door. So that little problem will be circumvented in a different way - wait and see! 22/09/2008
And here's the start of the plumbing of the manifold. Pressure gauge injector and blower connected, the whistle valve will go into the left hand end of the manifold.
And the injector plumbing now also complete - just have to make an overflow pipe.
Now done the gauge glass. Bit of a fiddle getting it all lined up as the bushes on the backhead are not "quite" in line with the vertical (what did I expect??).
I was going to use 6mm glass, but didn't have any 7mm or thereabouts taps and dies for the plug on the top, so I used 5mm glass.
People talk about 3-cock gauge glass fittings. Well I once saw a gauge glass go, and the last thing you would be wanting to do is to stick your hand in the cab to try to shut off a couple of well stuck cocks - you get out of there FAST and drop the fire.
I'm now pondering the best way to protect the gauge glass without impeding the view.
"
txt[100]="The whistle valve.
Many years ago in the darker ages when radio hams made their own wirelesses with a soldering iron, a clever fellow Chris Morcom (G3VEH), designed a tone-burst circuit with a couple of 741's - super little circuit which became known as the "VEH Super Bleep".
Well as I consider this design to be as good in it's field as the super bleep, I intend to call it "The Super Peep". As you can see, the idea is to drill and thread a ball bearing which holds the valve closed by the small spring and the steam pressure - works fine on air - didn't get my fingers burnt at all!? so I'll report after steam trials. 29/09/2008"
txt[101]="Circumventing the soft solder caulking on the boiler by making the firebox door a "standalone".
A plug is made from the left-over bronze from the regulator bush and, leaving a flange, turned to fit the existing firebox ring.
Then bored to leave a wall thickness of about 1/16".
Now I can solder hinges and catches to the new ring before I stick it into place with steel epoxy - and yes, that's perfectly durable at the expected temperatures being in contact with water-filled copper. 02/10/2008
Now the door is done as a standalone unit. I decided the flange on the ring wasn't big enough for the hinges and catch, so I turned it off and fitted the ring into a brass plate instead.
"
txt[102]="Now everything except the whistle is done, so it's a boiler removal for pressure testing then painting of smokebox, cleading etc - almost there. 07/10/2008"
txt[103]="A huge disappointment! Today I attempted a hydraulic test on the boiler. Couldn't get it above 20 PSI. There was water spraying out in fine jets from at least 3 stays on the outside, and pouring out from the blower tube.
The displayed test certificate, I can only think, refers to another boiler because there is NO way this boiler held 200 PSI for 20 minutes in the condition it was sent to me. It just might have been tested before the ends of the stays were ground off, but certainly not since.
As I only have one pair of hands, I couldn't pump and photograph at the same time, so these pictures were taken once the pressure had reverted to zero - in about 10 seconds!
Incidentally, the marks of violence round the stay in the picture below, were there when the boiler arrived - that wasn't me trying to seal the leak. Strange that there are no marks on the other leaking stays in the picture further down.
This is a close-up of one of the holes which was spraying like a lawn watering device.
And these are the holes which I drilled for the mounting brackets for the back of the boiler. They are blind holes supposedly going just to the flange of the backhead. However, they also leak and on close inspection, there is absolutlely no silver solder penetration between the wrapper and the backhead flanges.
And these are the pictures of the soft solder caulking which was already on the boiler from new. I have been told that the solder used was comweld 965, a silver containing soft solder. One of the features of comweld 965 is that it stays bright and shiny. The following pictures were taken as a reference when the boiler first arrived, showing the caulking, and as you can see, it hasn't exactly remained bright and shiny, so perhaps 965 wasn't the caulking agent. 11/10/2008
Of course I could theoretically repair the leaks, but my concern is that I could end up with a totally unsafe boiler - the leaky blower tube doubles as a stay between the front and back of the boiler and it has obviously not been silver soldered properly, and with the lack of penetration on the backhead flange, makes me wonder about the integrity of all the other joints in this mess. What to do?"
txt[104]="Well, there's still plenty to get on with until I see where to go with the boiler saga. Patch up the cut-outs in the runningboards, finish the sealing of the tanks and get all the brasswok primed. So that will keep me busy for a while. 17/10/2008"
txt[105]="I am told that my new boiler from Western Steam in the UK, has arrived at KL International Airport, so I'll be off probably tomorrow to collect it and haggle over them wanting me to pay duty on it and me not willing to - I think they're getting used to the "big fat white man".
So made a start adapting some of the bits for the new boiler which hopefully is made to plans.
The safeties originally were 3/8" x 32, and the plans ask for 1/2" x 26, so I am sleeving the original safeties I made. It actually works quite well. By threading the sleeve inside and out and screwing the safety into the sleeve with loctite in the lathe before parting off, it means the thread goes right up to the base of the safety.
Just thought I'd show something on the site.31/10/2008"
txt[106]="Whistle and blowdowns now done - If you look closely at the threaded end of the left hand blowdown, you can see I turned the thread down to 1/4 x 40 and sleeved it with the proper 3/8 x 32 as the other boiler has 3/8 x 26 blowdown holes for some obscure reason which eluded me.
The whistle looks a bit rough, but sounds pretty fair - if you had your sound on, you would have heard it! I blew it in the workshop, and the microphone was on the computer at the other end of the living room, so it's quite loud.01/11/2008"
txt[107]="A picture speaks a thousand words .... The new boiler has arrived from Western Steam in the UK, so it's back to the graft and modifying everything to fit this one which is to the dimensions on the plans.
Interestingly, it weighs 2.5 kilos more than the other boiler ?? why?
Instead of crown stays from the top of the firebox, there are two very substantial girder stays running the length of the firebox, silver soldered to the inside of the outer wrapper.
And has identification stamping to match the boiler certificate. Nuff said! 03/11/2008"
txt[108]="Here we go - skimming the smokebox ring to fit the new boiler which is made from the plan thickness of copper (maybe why it weighs more?!) and fitting the mounting brackets to the pre-installed bushes, so no need to drill this boiler.
Interestingly, the boiler fits up to the smokebox without the need for the previous extension to the smokebox ring. All in all, this seems to be a Simplex boiler ...........!
The safety is screwed in to check verticality (that's a DJ neologism for pointing upwards!) And as you can see, the plumbing from the original cullinder isn't going to fit either. You will have to forgive me if at times I seem to be being rude about the original boiler maker's skills.
Again, nuff said!
Apologies, Helen (of Western Steam) for the Malaysian diabetic sweat on the boiler dulling the shine! 05/11/2008"
txt[109]="Drilling the backhead bush for the regulator - one of the great advantages of having a round column on the milling machine! The bit of 1/4" plate is clamped to the stand for the mill, and the little wooden leg is merely to prevent any bending while drilling.
The regulator bush had been indexed drilled with the tapping size for the screws. One hole is then drilled through the bush into the boiler bush and tapped. That hole in the regulator bush is then opened out to clearance size for the screw and the bush is then bolted to prevent it rotating while drilling the other holes. The depth stop is set for the tip of the drill touching the copper of the boiler so there is no risk of penetration. Then all the threads are started using the mill and turning the chuck by hand from the drive belts to make sure the threads are not made at silly angles doing it by hand, and the remaining holes in the regulator bush opened out to clearance size.
And here's the finished product with 8 evenly spaced M4 stainless cap-heads (the PCD of the holes is stamped into the inside of the regulator bush in case I ever need to make a different one). As the capheads were a smidgen too long, rather than shortening them and messing the end of the threads, I have put a small bronze washer 0.7mm thick on each and they tighten down fine now. 08/11/2008
"
txt[110]="I've decided to stay with the Stroudley regulator and instead of concentric threads at the wet header, I will reuse the bit I made for the other boiler as it fits onto the superheater I made before. 09/11/2008"
txt[111]="New bits for the new boiler. The concentric superheater is the same design as the last one with 3/8" copper tube inside 5/8" stainess with a stainless plug welded in the end.
Also made the blower tube as this boiler had bushes front and back threaded 3/8 x 40, with no tube. As I am not a great proponent of concentric threads especailly where one is into copper pipe, I've silver soldered bronze threaded bits on each end with a brass locknut to go outside. So the whole thing screws in from the backhead and the thread on the smokebox end being longer, is entered before the thread on the backhead - all goes together remarkably easily. 15/11/2008"
txt[112]="Making a start on the ashpan - as you can see, the grate is now fitted with the same arrangement as before, the stainless bar across to hold it in place. Because of the hugely complex shape of the ashpan, I'm doing it firstly in 'origami' and will make the real one in brass when it all seems to fit properly. Again, rather than the design idea of two screws to hold the ashpan in place, I will put another stainless rod right through with a tube across inside the ashpan.
It's important that the ashpan protects the back axle as with my original Simplex it didn't and I had to replace the bushes on the rear axle boxes after a couple of years of hard steaming. 15/11/2008
"
txt[113]="Just so you don't think I'm sitting back and doing nothing - I'm almost back to where I was 6 weeks ago. I've got the new superheater appropriately connected, and the blower tube and regulator fixed into the new boiler, so after I re-do the plumbing, it'll be painting time. 20/11/2008"
txt[114]="Another disappointment! Thought I'd found some track, but sadly most of it has been stolen by the Malaysian diddycoys. Albeit 7 1/4" gauge.
Apparently, it's been there for years, but nobody ever remembers any locos on it.
Below are some pictures of the remains - it seems to have had a turntable at the end of the track too.
A beautiful setting in Central Park in Petaling Jaya - they did it once, maybe they'd be willing to do it again in 5"!
I will endeavour to find out who built it, when and why, this coming week. 30/11/208.
And this is another ex-pat who was the guy who took me to see the track - John's been here for more years than he likes to remember!
Models, but no railway !!
"
txt[115]="Cut out the cardboard template for the boiler cleading and in the workshop section, you can see the sheet metal working stuff I've been making.
I'm not going to run the cleading to the backhead with complicated shaping - it will stop just inside the spectacle plate. 16/12/2008"
txt[116]="Cutting the hole in the brass cleading for the inner dome using a fly-cutter in the milling machine.
I didn't want to tempt providence by stopping half way and taking a picture, so I waited till it was successful - the central disc has popped under the brass sheet.
I've been prevaricating about doing this job - whether to drill radially, use a hole cutting saw, or what, but having tried this on a scrap bit of brass, went for this technique. I'm sure the engineering fraternity will have lots of different suggestions as to how I should have done it.
Now fingers crossed that I don't ruin it all when I drill the holes for the safeties and clacks - knowing my luck, they'll either be perfect in the wrong place, or all messy in the right place!! 27/12/2008"
txt[117]="Cleading now on the boiler - looks pretty good - the boiler bands are lying underneath waiting for me to make the screw catch to fit them.
I rolled the cleading with my new extended rollers that I made the other day. As there is not enough room between centres on my lathe to turn down the ends of 20" long one inch bar, I used 3/4" bar which goes through the headstock - seems adequate for the cleading which is 0.5mm brass - but surprisingly tenacious stuff!
I cheated and used the end cheeks and gears from the original rollers (which can be reassembled any time I need then). 27/12/2008
The bands holding the cleading are now on, the dome is screwed on and the chimney glued with epoxy-steel. So there is nothing left to stop me getting on with the painting, except, today it rained which saved me the task as I wasn't in the mood! 29/12/2008.
Added 01/01/2009 - boiler all masked up and ready for etch primer spraying, on my new spray table (which is the engine stand trolley with a sheet of plywood on top)
Then the powers that be said "No spraying outside today!"
"
txt[118]="Now doing the bit I really dislike - painting! Boiler and platework done with primer, but a second round of fine filler needs to be done to completely hide the screw heads on the platework, then one more coat of primer, quick rub down and the finishing black. 15/01/2009
To make it easier to handle the whole structure while painting, as you can see, I've bolted a couple of bits of scrap underneath to the bolts which will mount the unit on the loco.
The screw heads on the boiler side of the tanks will be left as they won't really show, and it will allow access as the insides are just screwed and glued with silicon sealer. Also, I was a wee bit Scottish as I was short of 1/16" brass sheet, I did the insides with just 1mm sheet so there's not enough meat to make a deep enough countersink for the screw heads!"
txt[119]="Started the painting in earnest using epoxy semi-matt. A running battle with dust and insects!
Looks a bit glossy but I think (hope!) it will go more matt as it cures. 21/01/2009
"
txt[120]="Just in case Ron thinks I'm skyving, the painting is now finished apart from the odd touch-up at the end. The boiler is now (hopefully) mounted for the final time on the frames.
The clacks, pipes, boiler backhead etc will all be painted black once all is finished, then it'll be on with the runningboards and tanks and making the decision whether to put lining round the tanks or just the BR logo in the middle - I'll see!
And for those with sharp little eyes, you can see I've also made the front hook, but won't bother with the fiddly, flimsy little coupling stuff.
On the back is a much more substantial towing device. 29/01/2009"
txt[121]="Finalising the backhead arrangements. Having now successfully dealt with the clacks and put new seats in them and made the copper washers to align them properly, my decision was whether to paint the backhead fittings black or leave them in original brass/bronze colours - Alita over-ruled me and said leave them as is. I will, however, paint the backing of the firebox door black. And again for those with sharp eyes and good memories, I have reversed the opening of the firebox door to allow me to remove the injector feed clack at the bottom left as it impinged on the door hinges in the original configuration. 31/01/2009"
txt[122]="Well - at long last! Apart from transfers and lining if I can be bothered, it's FINISHED!!
And in case anyone noticed, I had forgotten to connect up the lubricator - now done.
And also blocked the holes round the steam inlet and blast pipe in the smokebox with epoxy putty.
All that's left now is the steam-up once I've made a blower and sourced some anthracite!
05/02/2009"
txt[123]="The blower!
Made the blower from the junk box. Also I have successfully done a hydraulic test on the boiler with all the fittings in place, so it's green for go - I still have to make a protector for the gauge glass, perhaps incorporating diagonal stripes behind the glass to make the water level more obvious. 07/02/2009"
txt[124]="First steam-up. The blower worked OK, but went better when I boxed it in with packing tape.
Then disaster - complete seize-up.
The cause of the seize-up was the axle pump shaft had bent.
Quite why this happened is a mystery - I've stripped the pump down and checked the eccentric and there is no obvious reason. So I have now dispensed with the pump and will rely on the injector which worked fine will cooler water.
A couple of tiny videos clips can be seen here and here
The only other minor problem is the paint on the smokebox bubbled a bit, so when I can lay my hands on some decent high temperature paint, that will be replaced.
Very exciting and very gratifying after 3 years' work, it ran like a sewing machine. 09/02/2009
A burst of throttle to show some steam!
And the fire just starting to get steam up on charcoal.
"
txt[125]="Smokebox and chimney now stripped as the blisters looked silly and ready for re-painting with high temperature paint - I have 3 different ones "on order" so I will test them if and when they arrive. 16/02/2009"
txt[126]="All finished now with the brass nameplates attached. I attached the nameplates by scraping the paint off the brass and sticking them on with loctite 620, so ask me in a few months to see if they fall off! Now all we need is coal!
The nameplates were made locally by a company called Rep Graphic - at a fraction of the cost of having them made in the UK, and delivered 3 days after they were ordered. Rep graphic's details are in the links section.
25/02/2009 - so it's taken 3 years and 3 weeks from start to finish."
txt[127]="In it's new resting place complete with buffers and a bit of rail to sit on.
Until I can get some coal and a track to run it on, sadly, there it will stay.
It didn't quite get into the fish tank - that's behind it because the fish are still alive! 26/03/2009
"
txt[128]="Now there is a real possibility of getting actual coal here, I decided to refit the axle pump.
The original pump stretcher was held by countersunk screws behind the main driving wheels and hence impossible to remove without major surgery. So this time I'm devising a new design of pump stretcher which doesn't need the wheels removing to get it in and out - still a bit of a fiddle to connect all the pipework, but with some specially made spanners, it should be possible.
But looking at the picture, the obvious answer is to re-make the feed pipes so one passes each side of the stretcher, then all the plumbing can be done before the stretcher is put in place and bolted to the pump. 22/04/2009
Updated 26/04/2009 - The refurbished axle pump sort of worked, but with the narrow bore 3/16" copper pipe I got from Oz, the pressure is way too high, and might well have been one of the reasons for the seize-up initially - I also wonder if the length of the piston was partially covering the outlet holes at the end of each stroke and so the new piston was 3/8" shorter.
As the 7/16" diameter piston was delivering almost 1.5ml per revolution of the wheels, I am now going to sleeve the pump and put in a 1/4" piston, single acting, which will deliver about 0.4ml per rev - I don't see why that shouldn't be sufficient to keep the boiler topped up as the original design delivered far more water than the boiler was capable of using. "
txt[129]="COAL! At last.
I collected it from the Kapar Energy Ventures over on the west coast. An extremely helpful man called Mr Karim persuaded his boss to allow me to have some coal
Unfortunately, I was not allowed into the facility wearing shorts and sandals because of the safety rules, so Mr Karim kindly got the coal for me. 29/04/2009
So it's green for go for a coal steam-up at the weekend.
This is how I break up the coal into a usable size!
Sadly, the coal is not suitable for the small firebox - flares up while the bitumin burns off, then sits as big lumps of tenacious ash which will not pass through the grate.
However, as luck would have it, today I got 22 kilos of anthracite beans from The Millennium Water Treatment company and it looks the business! Tomorrow, 3rd time luck steam up hopefully 06/05/2009
"
txt[130]="I've now stripped this useless Malaysian epoxy paint from the bits that get hot and will respray with Precision Paint's dull black.
Also made a clutter of neckless nipples and the new gauge glass fittings while I eagerly await the arrival of sensible bore copper tube and 6mm blue-line gauge glass from Circlip - should arrive this week. 21/05/2009
Now repainted - just got to do the replumbing etc.
"
txt[131]="At long last - resprayed, re-plumbed and reassembled. Note the blue-line 6.8mm gauge glass. The new water pipes can be seen feeding into the injector clack bottom left of backhead, and the bypass on the right tank. I didn't bother to re-plumb the steam feeds, only the water pipes. A final test will be done on air with water in the tanks to check for leaks and functionality of the new axle pump in the next few days. 27/05/2009
"
txt[132]="The first 20 formers at 6 foot spacing for casting the concrete supports for the track in the garden jungle. The beauty of here is there is no need for planning permission, building permits or complaints from neighbours - just go for it. I spoil the guys - they get paid £60 a month Lol!
Some of my home grown neem trees which I'll use to make the sleepers. Initially I wll lay the track in wooden sleepers, then once it is positioned satisfactorily, I'll weld steel sleepers every foot to keep the gauge correct and to attach it to the track bed.
However, weather is stopping play just now - a couple of satellite pics - one yesterday morning and the second one this morning - if you look closely, you can see that I'm honoured by being marked as DrJ on the satellite!!
30/10/2009"
txt[133]="Getting inspired with the progress of my jungle track, so I've started to make the driving trolley. It's based on John (Baggo)'s simple trolley with even simpler modifications. The bearings go into the wheels rather than the tube as I couldn't get bearings and tubes to match.
Chassis completed. Runs as smooth as silk. 01/11/2009
The always on brake system to act as a dead man's handle so the train doesn't run away when left on the hilly track. I will make a locking mechanism on top to hold the brakes off when driving. 12/11/2009
Made a modification to pivot the front axle to keep all 4 wheels on the uneven bits of the track - it works well with the leg-irons attached to the front pivoting bit and my weight keeping the rear wheels on the track.
"
txt[134]="Track progress - I will keep adding pictures to this as it progresses - a sequence of pictures from the poultry end round to where it's now at.
Looking up towards Magnolia Avenue.
Looking up to Washing Area Wiggle - a steep climb on the curve which will make the loco grunt a bit.
Down past Dirty Kitchen Depot, the pick-up point.
And the long straight down to the poultry curve which is where construction has got to now. That's the house of the monitor lizard under the nipa on the right.
And of course, mustn't forget my 2 Philippine horse power cement mixer! It's 36°C in the shade out there!
Now starting to put the track bed on top of the piers. 04/11/2009
Almost complete - the gap will be a removable section to give access to the poultry which is down behind the trees past the cow! 15/11/2009
Getting there slowly - one problem is the steel setion here varies very considerably from length to length - it's called Philippine quality control. 22/11/209
A couple of problems have arisen - one, my rail bender wouldn't work with this section of rail and two, the concrete base is not in a nice circular curve, but we're getting round those.
Now got 50 metres of track laid - 1/5 of the way there! 25/11/2009
Now more than a third of the way round - down through magnolia avenue
And on to poultry parabola
I'm welding a bit of angle bar on top of each 6 foot spaced posts
With a steel spacer every 3 feet in between
26/11/2009
Now 2/3 of the way round.
05/12/2009
10/12/2009
Track is now complete apart from sanding off the sharp edges which is in progress between the rain storms (we have a tropical depression sitting off the south just now).
I will take some close-ups of the lift-out gate tomorrow once the cement is dry.
Then I will push the Simplex round by hand to make sure it doesn't derail, also with water in the tanks to see how long it takes to pump the boiler up to level. Getting really exciting!! 12/12/2009
Here's the lift-out gate to allow access to the poultry
The centre post is reinforced concrete with a tie-down bolt to keep the bridge in place
with locating lugs welded on the outside at both ends
12/12/2009
Pushed the Simplex round the track by hand - no derailment, but 4 tight spots which will be dealt with in the next few days. 13/12/2009"
txt[135]="At last it's in steam on the track.
Click HERE for the first successful circumnavigation of the track. It's a 36MB movie so will take a little while to download.
The Malaysian/Chinese anthracite appears to be black painted shale, and doesn't burn too well, so other fuel sources will be investigated until the British anthracite appears at the end of January. 20/12/2009
and HERE for a videos of Alita riding behind generating wheel slip on the uphill bits."
txt[136]="The bogies for the passenger trolley. The wheels and axles done the same way as the driving trolley, but with somewhat smaller diameter wheels to save on steel.
They seem extremely stable and pushing them as hard as I could to make them fly round the most trecherous corner, they didn't derail.
Now got to do the superstructure. 10/01/2010
And here's the superstructure all painted and ready to go when the rain stops.
I had to put little 1.5mm bronze washers on the pivot pins of the bogies as the trolley was derailing on a couple of corners because of the uneven track. They allow the bogies to follow the contours without making the trolly unstable - just very light side to side wobble. 17/01/2010 "
txt[137]="First load with the new driving trolley. Sadly, for whatever reason, the fire just wouldn't keep the boiler pressure up. Perhaps I used too much anthracite and not enough charcoal. Anyway, that was the last run of the day. I will now wait for proper anthracite from the UK which should be here in a couple of weeks.
I have also given up giving up smoking meantime!! 01/02/2010"
txt[138]="The anthracite from the UK from Guy Donoghue in Portsmouth. Guy has a house on my access road to my other land.
The anthracite is just wonderful - just like the old days - I set of with the little lady behind me with 50 PSI on the clock, and as we climbed Bodega Bank, with no wheel slip because of the rust, the safeties were blowing at 95 PSI - just like full size under load - the fire was fantastic. 15/03/2010"
txt[139]="I've now got the signboards all the way round the track
This will be the "Tunnel of Love"
My favourite bit
And the impossible climb of the 1:20 wheel slip nightmare
02/09/010"
txt[140]="I put some epoxy mixed with sand on the rails to help get up the hill at bodega bank - worked like a treat and looks like it will last quite some time - this is it after a whole afternoon steamup without a single wheel slip on the climb. 12/09/2010"
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