4472 Flying Scotsman 5"

[greenglade]

Evening all, I managed to find a couple of hours today and so have continued with the sandboxes, today I'll go through the lids, or in as far as I have got with them. Here's Don's drawing, it looks more or less the same as the photo's that I have.

 

Here's a full-size picture of the lid on the steam sandbox.

 

To do these parts I first needed to make two tools, one for the recess underneath and the other for the dish on top. I'll begin with underneath, for this, I have used an old 7/16 endmill, heated to red, let cool naturally and then machined in the lathe. I began with a large centre drill to open up the taper which sits inside the sandbox tube. BTW, the tube is 3/8 and the lid inner is 7/16 (outer is 1/2"), this is too allow air to get in and replace the sand as it leaves the box, I guess if airtight the boxes wouldn't work. The picture shows the second heating, I had to do this in two stages as my gas is low and thus I struggled to heat the tip thoroughly. Sorry about the quality of this picture.

 

The second session with the centre drill gets me to this stage...

 

I machined to a depth that let the filler tube fit into...

 

Once happy with the cutting edge for the outer edge I then needed to shape the inner edges to be able to cut the cone shape that sits in the middle and allows for the dish to be machined above. I basically did this with the Dremel using a cutting disk to grind the shape trying to keep the 4 prongs as equal as possible. Once happy I used an oil stone to sharpen the edges and also a triangle and round needle file to finish the inner edges. I then did a test to see how the shape was, the plan was to do a test and then harden/temper the tool, the tool cut the brass being used for the lids so well that I omitted this stage. Here's the tool before filing and final polishing/sharpening.

 

Here's the result of the first lid inner machined, as the centre is slightly recessed in the lid, before using the profiled tool I machined a slight recess with a smaller endmill, the drawing hopefully shows what I mean. The brass began life as 1/2" hex, only because I had no round bar of that size, the OD is very slightly under 1/2", I'll explain why soon.

 

It was then a simple task of repeating and parting off at the required 7/32 height. The picture shows the state of play so far, the eagled eyed among you will notice that there are 5 lids instead of the required 4. I thought it best to make a spare, just in case one gets lost in service.

 

I now needed to machine the upper recess for the handle, again I have used an old cutter, in this case, a 3/8 slot drill and angled the edges to give a taper, no need to heat this time, I just used the belt linisher and oil stone. I have tried to angle the tool close to the inner cone as shown on the drawing but I wasn't overly concerned with this, just getting something that looks close was good enough for me. There is no depth given on the drawing so again I have gone to a depth that works for the handle to be added later, it also works in as far as airing on the side of caution a little, not wanting to go too deep. You can't see it in the picture but I marked the tool so that I got all the same depth.
Going back to why I machined the OD slightly undersize, this was so that I could tightly hold some 1/2" steel in the chuck that the lid could push against as I machined the recess. You can't see the 1/2" steel bar here but you can see that I have wrapped the lid in masking tape to both protect it's outer face and also so that it too is held tightly in the chuck for machining.

 

This is how far I got with the lids for tonight, I'll remove the machine marks later. The chain is to retain the lids and stop them getting lost, this will be cleaned in citric acid and fixed to the underside of the lid, I'll silver solder a small 'U' buckle on each lid for them to attach too. For the gravity sandboxes, I'll fix a length of round bar to the other end of the chain and drop it into the box, that should stop it coming out easily. The steam sandboxes are not so easy as the lid's feed a long tube, I'll find another way to secure these chains, all lids have to be removable from their respective boxes as I don't think that they will fit through the holes in the running boards after being painted, I'll check this out when I can. The handles will be added last with soft solder.

 

Another full-size picture showing a lid removed and it's chain attached.

 

The last picture for tonight shows the boxes themselves, the filler tubes have been soldered to the gravity boxes and all holes have been drilled, the smaller hole near the filler tube has also been tapped, IRC it's 5/16 x 40tpi. Boxes are in acid primer and now ready for their topcoat, black for the gravity and red for the steam boxes, or at least I think the steam boxes should be red? The small dents that were in one of the gravity boxes have been filled.

 

Thanks for looking guys

Pete

 

[tigerburnie]

I've made some odd shaped tools in the past, but that's a first, well done Pete

[greenglade]

Thanks Tiger...:)

 

continuing with the sandboxes, I have now finished the lids and given the boxes their topcoat.

I didn't take any pictures of the heating operations to finish the lids so will describe what I did. First I made up a small 'U' shape for the buckle that holds the chain to it's respective lid. The 'U' shape was made from fine brass wire and had a right angle at the bottom of it's legs, this was to make it easier to silver solder to the underside of the lids. Also, for the gravity sandboxes, I silver soldered a short length of brass rod to the other end of the chain, the chain being off centre to help if I need to remove the lid at any point. BTW, I have now tested the fit of the lid in the running board and they fit nicely, no need to remove them, not at least not that I can see for now. The last job was to cut to length some brass rod, file the ends to be a good fit within the lid recess and soft solder in place. The first picture shows all 4 lids, one of which is fitted to it's gravity sandbox.

 

In the next picture, I have simply removed the lid to show the chain attached.

 

I also painted the sandboxes, black for the gravity and red for the steam, this picture shows the steam sandboxes after the first coat, I wasn't happy with this result and gave them another (wet) coat last thing tonight, I'll take a look at them in the morning to see if they are good enough to move on. I'm not going to go OTT on some of these parts that are hidden from view, especially those that are going to get covered in oil and ash during service, life's too short...

 

and lastly, the gravity sandboxes painted satin black to match the frames, once dry I then lightly rested the lids on top to spray those too, just seemed like an easier option for these. The lids for the steam sandboxes have also been sprayed although for those i placed them on some wood with holes drilled for the chain to full through.

 

Tomorrow I'm going to make a start on the other parts, I'll probably start with the steam sandboxes and I'm toying with not stopping until all boxes and their relative parts are made, except perhaps the various connecting rods and handle apparatus for the gravity boxes. Nor will I make the steam valve and it's pipework, that will have to wait until much later in the build. BTW, Don doesn't give a drawing for his steam valve, stating that it's available from DYD which of course no longer exists. I don't think that I need it (unless I'm missing something) as full size uses one of the valves on the manifold which I'll follow.

Pete


 

[greenglade]

Good evening folks

Still battling away with the sandboxes, I suspect the parts that I plan to do now will probably take another week or two, anyway, for tonight's update.

As stated last time I'm sticking with the steam sandbox for now and for tonight I have made a start on the filler neck which is somewhat more involved than the short straight section on the gravity boxes. I began with the flange plates that bolt to the top of the box, I seem to have missed a number of photos here so will describe what has been done. I can show you this picture, this was simple turning and here I am checking that the 1/4" copper tube fits nicely. This flange is (will be) a two mounting hole type with the excess being removed, filed to shape, I can show this later. I have modified this flange, the drawing shows a flat plate which I assume you silver solder the 1/4" tube too there's no sign of a recess to hold the tube as I have done here. I studied the drawing and noted that to remove the filler neck would involve removing the sandbox and all of the parts connected below and then slide the tube out through the slot in the frames, again assuming that it wasn't joined to the neck plate bolted to the running boards? I decided that it might be prudent to have the neck itself as a push-fit and thus easy to remove it on it's own and leave the box etc in place. I'm also going to leave it unfixed to the plate above, thus it is truly independent of top and bottom fixings. I'll explain more in a minute.

 

I then moved on to the mounting plates that bolt under the running boards, the picture shows there basic shape having been machined, I should have had one upside down to show the difference. Anyway, the side that you can see is the top, the spigot (filler neck) is 3/8 OD and the unseen spigot below is 1/2 OD, OD of the flange is 7/8.

 

With the basic shape done I then returned to the lathe to machine the cone in the top, this is where the sand enters. I ground up some tool steel and set the cross-slide to 30 degrees for machining.

 

It was then the turn of the underside which is tapered also at 30 degrees, this being the last turning operation, done last as I wouldn't have been able to do the top if doing this taper first.

 

I then drilled/tapped 10BA the holes around the flange using the rotary table(forgot the picture) and transferred them to the running boards. I have offset the hole positions, they are mirrored both sides but not square to an axis. I did this as they seem to be at an angle full size, mind you, they are different and more of full size but certainly not square. I clocked them in the best position for clearance for both the nameplates and on the driver's side, the lubricator, just in case I need to unbolt the neck bracket at some point in service.. A little more explaining here, I should have left one of the lids off to show what I mean. The filler neck bracket hasn't got a recess to hold the tube like the bottom bracket has, my thinking is that with a floating filler neck, I can lift it up through the bracket clearing the lower mounting flange, turn it approx 90 degrees and drop it out of the bottom, hopefully, the elongated slot in the frames will allow me to do this, so far it's looking good but I haven't finished the first tube yet so we will see. BTW, I'm very glad that the paint got ruined due to the heat when spraying and that I decided to do them again at some point, I hadn't thought about these bracket holes and I'm sure that there will be more to do still, so a nice new coat of non-orange peeled paint will be most welcomed...

 

I also test fitted the gravity boxes to see how they look, the neck is a little high, later I'll reduce it to match the steam boxes. Just one of those hundreds of fettling/finishing jobs left to do.

 

The last picture shows the steam sandbox with it's finished flange mount attached for the filler tube to push into, I have painted the flange black as I'm thinking that it should be part of the tube which most certainly is black, jury is out on whether it will stay that way, looks odd now but may look fine when the neck is in place.

 

I have made a start on the first filler neck, it's going to take a number of heating sessions before it's finished, I'll post a picture when I have done both sides

Cheers

Pete


 

[greenglade]

I spent today finishing the filler tube for the driver's side and then repeated the process for the fireman's side, I haven't finished the filler tube for this side yet but have test mounted the gravity sandbox and fitted the lower and upper running boards ready to fit the tube.

A few pictures to show help explain my thinking... first shows the tube pushed through the frames and into its mount. the csk screws are temporary, I will change these for round head later. Reason for not using hex heads is me not considering that the flange needed to be wider due to the ring that is machined into for holding the tube securely. I also shaved a little of the sides to give enough clearance for the screw heads. The moral to the story is if anyone else follows my lead, make the flange larger than the drawing states...

 

Here's the filler tube as seen from outside, I've angled the shot so that you can see the mount bolted under the running board. When compared with full-size, this tube is a little larger OD (not much) and the bends are more gentle. The real tube looks like it's been made of short lengths of steel tube which has been cut and welded together to form the bends, I have no idea if this is original, going by how it looks I suspect not, it may even be telescopic perhaps to allow for movement in the suspension. perhaps anyone who knows could enlighten me?. On checking for clearance of the coupling rod it's very close but if the suspension did dip enough to touch the tube it wouldn't be a problem as these tubes are floating and not fixed.

 

I include this picture to show how easy it is to remove the tube while in service, if it gets blocked or the sand in it is damp for instance. As you can see all i have to do is push the tube up through the mount and twist it approx 90 degrees and lower out of the mount. Later I'll paint the tubes black as they are full-size.

 

Lastly a picture of the filler neck from above, the tube has been csk 30 degrees to match the mount opening. I had been stumped a little trying to figure out the best way of securing the chain that is secured to the lid, looking at this picture, it dawned on me that before painting I can silver solder a small hook that the chain can be held by, the hook can be closed up a little to hold the chain in place. This won't affect getting the sand into the sandbox, I'll shorten the chain a little too so that it doesn't get fouled. The last thing that needs my attention in this area will be to find a way of making the lids a tight fit without blocking off the air, I have one or two ideas.

 

Once the other tube is finished it will be time for the sandtraps, Don makes an interesting comment on the steam sandtrap shield, states it's the trickiest bit to make on the entire loco? Sounds fun...

More soon guys


Pete
 

[SHMD]

This is a masterpiece of model engineering and I look forward to every post on this thread.

 

Where are you planning on running it as I would love to come and see it if not too far away?

 

 

Kev.

(Edit for typo...)

Edited November 26, 2019 by SHMD

[greenglade]

Thanks, Kev, I'm a member of the North London SME so that will be it's home turf, I do hope to visit other clubs in the future and also join the GL5 guys at some point, I just need to get the transport side sorted out, I have a few years yet before I need to worry about that...:)

 

Cheers

 

Pete

[greenglade]

3rd day in a row with an update? I'm clearly on a bit of a roll, to be honest though, as I am taking a lot of pictures I have to post them when taken or there will be too many to post and do the write up for in one go.
I took this picture yesterday and forgot to post it, it's just to show the steam filler tube from a distance to give a better idea of it's position.

 

This picture is to show that the other filler tube is also now completed, I have positioned the coupling rod to show how close the tube is, they don't touch although I may need to revisit this once the loco is at full weight.

 

A picture to show between the frames that both tubes are now sitting in their mounts.

 

The last job for the tubes was to fix a retaining hook to secure the lid chain, to do this I cut a small slot in the lip and soft soldered some fine brass wire in the slot and reaching about halfway into the tube. Once cooled this was cleaned up with the protruding part of the wire filed flush with the outside of the tube. The cone recess was also tidied up after this picture was taken.

 

The lid retaining chains have now been fitted, the chains were shortened first to be closer to the prototype but also to give enough length to be able to easily pour the sand in
To remove the tubes the chains need to be unhooked, easy enough to do.

 

With the tubes done I then moved on to the sandtraps, for the steam version these are in 3 parts, two body parts which need silver soldering together and the shield which bolts on. I tackled the main body first, the picture shows what it looks like, details are 7/16 OD, with the spigot reduced to 3/16 dia at 3/8 length, this is then drilled/tapped 8BA for the central shield retaining bolt. This was then parted off to an overall length of 1/2"

 

next job was to reverse the trap in the chuck, machine a 1/16 spigot down to 3/16 dia and then drill to a depth of 7/16 with a No.41 drill.

 

Here we have the two main part for the two sandtraps, still to do on this part is the 4 holes around the flange to bolt to the bottom of the steam sandbox. I'll explain the other parts in the next update as their relationship with each other will be best explained when I have made them.

 

I have decided that it's probably best to complete all of the sanding gear except perhaps the rodding and cranks for the gravity sander, so I will be doing the pipes down to the track and their associated brackets, there are no drawings for the brackets, I guess Don thinks them unnecessary on a model. I have some good photo's so will try to copy those.

Now for some 'other business', my son has access to an etching machine and has been helping me with the model, there are a few things coming soon but this he did very quickly for me today after helping me over the phone to do the drawing in Inkscape. I'll show the photo that I took of the full-size part first, it's, of course, the dial gauge for the reverser.

 

Here's my drawing, this was scaled directly off the photo. it's small, overall size is 31 x 9 mm, I took this measurement from Don's drawing but followed the photo for slot and grid positions, Don only shows the slot, no other details.

 

The last picture for tonight to show the dial now etched in brass. I have a few things to do here, I need to machine the two slots, the one that can be seen on the front and is marked out in etch but also a wider slot on the reverse which the indicator and control arm moves in. I will then machine a lip around the outside for the gauge to fit into a recess cut into the backhead cladding. The last job to do will be to polish it to remove any visible marks.

 

I have to say that I'm enjoying myself with the small parts made today, there must be hundreds of such parts to do before she steams....

Pete





 

[greenglade]

On to the other body part for the steam sandtrap, this is a little confusing to both read the drawing and don's words and so I will include said drawing. before continuing this morning I did a little reading on Holt's steam sanding design of IIRC 1885. Having done this, things became much clearer, my reading confirmed how I thought it worked but Don's words are a little misleading, in fact in some ways they are foreign to his drawing? Looking at the drawing you can see the 3 views for the sandtrap body itself, the other drawings to the right are for the shield. Now Don's words for the body suggest that after making the bit that I did yesterday (hopefully you can recognise it in the middle view) the next part starts life as a piece of brass bar 1/2" x 1/4", drill the No.41 hole and chamfer at 30 degrees and shape. However, I wonder if the right-hand view of the body could also be a shield that fits under it with the other shield on top, thus sandwiching the body? This would be sound if not for the 5/64 depth shown for the two tapped 10BA holes that the top part of the shield bolts too? It's confusing as to when describing these holes he warns not to go too deep as it could meet up with two other holes below? or words to that effect. Makes no sense to me, if you're still following me your doing better than I was, I can't follow it even though I'm writing it...lol Anyway, looking at the middle view and reading Don's words, they conflict with the shield design so I'll do my own thing.
Here's the drawing;

 

I had no brass of this size so have used some copper flat bar, As with most things I have set up to do both of what Don calls the 'flange' together to cut down on set-ups and ensure the two parts are duplicate. I, therefore, cut a section of copper long enough to do this, I'll part them later, this is 1/4 thick but only 3/8 wide as I wanted to make life easier for machining the part to mate with the other part of the body done yesterday. The picture shows the first stages for one of the traps, I first plotted the No.41 hole which is where the sand pipe will attach too below, next I advanced on 'Y' a distance of 3/16 which is the centre for the other body part, drilled and then opened up with a 3/16 cutter which if you recall is the diameter of the other body part. The drawing shows the shape that I need to make, the other 2 No.41 holes represent the concave curve from the body out to the holes either side which I did by eye using the DRO to ensure they mirrored eachother. The two small dimples are where the tapped 10BA holes belong, I should have drilled these at this setup but due to the confusing words relating to these two holes wasn't entirely sure on what plane they orientate. If I'd looked a little closer at the shield I would have seen that they could have been drilled now. As I think you have probably surmised, things were a little confused in my poor old head at this point, that 5/64 depth and holes colliding really threw me, I must stop reading Don's words...

 

With both got to this stage I tried one of the other parts for fit, looking good so far. I best explain that I will be machining the back edge that the other part fits into until there's barely a hole left, I did it this way so that I could get a nice fit between the two parts and easily keep them aligned during heating.

 

Next up was to machine a 30-degree angle across the top face until it's just touching the edge of the 3/16 holes. once happy with that I needed to work out the angle for the hole that connects both parts of the trap body together. As can be seen, I've used a drill to get an idea of which angle was required, it's not given on the drawing, in fact you can barely see the hole. Before getting to this stage I had assumed that it may just be a case of drilling down after machining the angled face but I could see that this wouldn't work as there needs to be an allowance for the 1/16 thick bottom of the other part with it's tapped 8BA hole. I, therefore, played around with the angle by eye until I had what looked right. I first used a small end mill to flatten off the top of where the drill needed to start, centre drilled and followed up with the No.41 to match the two holes in both parts, hope you understood that lot...

 

 

Here's a view inside the 3/16 hole to show how things came out, there's enough room on the bottom for the 1/16 8BA section mentioned before, once the two are silver soldered together these holes will be flush with the bottom of the body, I still need to deburr but think the picture shows what I'm trying to explain.

 

And here's where I finished for tonight, tomorrow I'll machine off the back edge, drill/tap the 10BA holes and now that I think I understand the final shape I'll machine down the areas where said 10BA holes go leaving 5/64 depth for the thread followed by parting them into separate entities. I will then move on to the shields which will probably require a small pattern to shape over. I have a plan here to make this easier which will involve a small modification to the body, I'll see how it looks tomorrow..

 

Thanks for reading chaps/chapesses

 

Pete



 

[greenglade]

5 updates for this week... I'd better slow down... OK, so I'd like to begin by thanking those who helped me find more details on this sandtrap, I'm pretty confident to say that no way could anyone build this by Don's 'words and music' alone unless they were familiar with the parts concerned. The eureka moment occurred when I found this image for the sand trap off 'Patriot' when everything clicked into place. 

 

Having now realised that there are 4 mounting tabs, two for the sand pipe and two for the shield (Don's words make a little more sense now) I took a close look at what I had already done and was happy to see that I could still use it for the real shape. I decided as a first step to plot and mark the 4 hole centres, the picture shows the pipe flange holes being marked first which is the lower tabs.

 

I then did the top holes which hold the shield, for this the part was put back in the tilting vice and reset at 30 degrees. For all four holes, I drilled to a depth of 1.4mm not wanting to drill too deep and damage the tabs below.

 

next job was to machine the back off to leave just a small amount of the recess that the other part will fit into. I nearly cocked up here, you can see where I have begun to separate them by the cut, much better to machine the back off as first to keep them the same.

 

Thus I now have the two parts still very much rough and ready to set up for some tricky machining to split the tabs as seen in the first picture for tonight...

 

I've only taken the one (poor) picture to show the tabs split, this was done with a 1mm cutter. Machining the base first, removing the rear part and then the angled top tabs. With that done I then removed some of the excess material around the tabs and also the metal that was left in between. I have left the front of the lower tab as that's angled into the front face in Don's drawing, however, I may remove this and match the photo from Patriot. After taking this picture I removed the part ready for doing the other one and then the 'carpet monster' struck, would you believe that it took me 3 hours to find the damn thing and I had pulled everything out looking, well it is only 14 x 6 mm but you'd have thought big enough to find quickly...lol

 

The result of the sneak attack meant I didn't get as much done as I had hoped, I gave up for a while and began profiling the other one. This last picture shows how far I got, the rear of the tabs are near to the size, I will remove more from the front area to get them as small as possible after getting the second one to the same stage, I'll then finish the profiling which I suspect will take me some time. The shield tabs are going to be pretty small but as they hold no weight I'm sure that they will be up to the job in hand. The sand pipe tabs are about twice the size so will have more meat around them, all are tapped 10BA. Note that the main flange has had its holes transferred to the sandboxes ready for fitting when finished.

 

Once most of the profiling is done I'll silver solder the two parts together and then give them a final going over, need to round off the front more. After that, I guess it will be the shield and then the sandpipe which will require a matching flange for bolting to the sandtrap. For the shield I have kept the offcut pieces from the part made today to use as a pattern, this is why I separated the parts with a hacksaw rather than machining them.

More soon guys

Pete





 

[greenglade]

Good afternoon folks

I have been battling away with shaping these steam sandtraps, not easy being so small but even more of a problem when it became obvious that Don's CTS dimension between the tab holes wasn't too scale (not that far off I hasten to add), but still too large which is why in my last picture the 'tabs' looked more like 'wings' due to being forced too far out by the non scale CTS and thus could never be made to look like the photo that I posted of the real thing.
They probably still are a little large and the bolts will be larger but it looks much closer after a bit of a re-work. I didn't want to start again from scratch so just filled in the holes with silver solder and re-plotted their positions. Thankfully Donf (MECH forum) came to my rescue here as he very kindly measured the Doug Hewson scale traps that he has, I would also like to thank him for his very kind offer to give me his two spare traps, I tell you, at times I was very tempted...thank you, Don...

I haven't taken step by step photo's as most of the work involved grinding, filing and polishing. The exception to those was silver soldering the two parts together and drilling the angled connecting hole between them. Only three pictures for tonight, to begin with, we have both sandtraps more or less finished, I could tickle them a little more to remove the last few marks but hell, they will be tucked up out of the way and thus I can't really warrant the time involved, perhaps when everything is finished I will return to a few bits, or is that a few hundred later.. I have put them up against a rule to give an idea of their size. I wrongly thought that the bolt under the main body had something to do with the shield which actually makes no sense but did to me at the time when being confused with Don's drawing. I'll have to see if Don gives it's purpose later in his notes but for now it's either to help clear a blocked trap or to regulate the amount of sand being fed, in it's position it could do both.

 

Here they are bolted to their respective sandboxes, this is only temporary to show how they will look. I have only used the two rear mounting bolts to hold them in place, once the shields are fitted I'll have better access to get the front bolts in.

 

For the last picture, I have bolted one of the sandboxes in position, to help show what's next on the menu.

 

So next up will be the shields made from brass shim, for which I'll work out how to do these tomorrow, I have a few ideas. Then it's the steam pipe and it's flange, the pipe takes on a shallow 'S' shape. Looking at the last picture, it comes down, curves to the left and then right under the wheel. I will cut these overlength and then work out their final length once I have made the ejectors and their steam pipe feeds to the backhead. IIRC the two pipes meet at a 'T', perhaps on the 'star' stay. I have a works drawing of a similar class which I'll refer too.

Thanks for looking in guys...

Pete


 

[greenglade]

In answer to whether sand will work on this scale, today I did a short test. Please forgive the wobbly camera, trying to film while holding the sand pot was a little taxing...

The sand is some old play sand (silver sand) that has been in the grandchildren's play pit since summer, it's contaminated and was very wet, took a few days to dry out for the test.

I strained it as best that I could, best put SWMBO's strainer back before she notices...

First, a picture to show the very Heath Robinson test rig, the copper pipe is 1/8th thinned walled which is what will be used on the model, so it is a faithful test. A hole was drilled into the plastic cup and the pipe was set in it as low as possible, nearly flush with the base. The sand fell easily through the copper pipe.

 

here's a link to a video that I filmed, ...it works very well and I would expect much less sand to be required than the amount that fell through in these few seconds. Alas i don't know how to post the video directly to this forum..

 

https://i.imgur.com/gUt8sQ9.mp4

 

I'm very happy with the result, on the model things should be even better. With the steam boxes, you have the added force of the vacuum sucking the sand out of the box, which of course also blasts the rail clean with the hot steam. For the gravity boxes, the operating lever can be rocked to help move (agitate) the sand if it gets stuck for any reason, I think as long as the sand it kept dry it should work just as well as seen in the video. 

Regards

Pete

 

Edited December 5, 2019 by greenglade

[greenglade]

As well as playing around with sand today I have also made a start on the trap shields, since these look like castings full-size they look like a good subject for those among you who have a 3D printer.... Being a pauper myself I had to make do with some brass shim, first job was to make a pattern to shape the shim over. The picture shows the result of a few hours playing around with the lathe and mill taking measurements from the traps to judge sizes. The centre section is from copper and was made a drift fit into the brass round bar which as you can see is partly machined with a 30-degree angle to match the trap. It was then put on the rotary table to have some removed off both front and rear faces leaving the area where the tabs are, a little hand filing gave us what we see here.

 

I then cut up some brass shim and drilled two 1.8MM holes for the mounting tabs and allowing for the raised section that needed to be formed, this section btw is to allow air ingress into the trap as the vacuum draws the sand/air through. I guess if no air can get in it's possible for the vacuum to just crush the sandbox. I recall when making the vacuum reservoir that Don stated to test it at 100psi, of which I'm happy to say it passed, that seems an eternity ago now.

After drilling the holes, the shim was heated cherry red and formed around a round bar and then bent out using flat-faced pliers. It was then bolted to the pattern and held in an old machine vice for the next round of heating.

 

This is after a few more heating sessions, I did perhaps another two or three after this before calling it a day and then set about with a cutting disk and files. I used a small hammer and blunted chisel for doing most of the forming

 

And this is where I got to for tonight, there's a couple of blemishes which I can either live with or add a little soft solder to fill them in, I'll see how long it takes me to get the other shield to this stage before deciding on that.

 

assuming I get the other shield done in good time tomorrow morning I'll then make a start on the sand pipes, I'm looking forward to those...

Pete



 

[greenglade]

With the shields finished I can now move on to the 'ejectors' first a couple of pictures to show where we are with the sandtraps...I have given the traps a coat of Eastwood's radiator enamel, the same paint as used on the middle cylinder which requires no undercoat and has a very fine spray. Also in the picture are the two flanges ready for the 1/8th copper sandpipe.

 

Here are the traps bolted to their respective sandboxes.

 

Next, I silver soldered the flanges to two overlength sections of 1/8th copper pipe. Prior to doing this, I did a quick test in filling a length of pipe with sand, sealing either end and bending it to an 'S' shape. This went without incident suffering from zero kinks, however, I decided to anneal the pipe anyway as I plan to bolt each sandbox to the frames and then after bolting the pipe flange to the trap bend each pipe to shape. Annealing the pipe first will allow me to do this much easier and thus impart little strain on the traps. The picture shows the flanges silver soldered in place and the pipe annealed. I have deliberately placed each flange a little way down the pipe and will then file the pipe flat so that I get a good seal when bolting in place.

 

I now moved on to the ejectors, Don states that his ejectors not only work but work very well, I, therefore, do not need to change the basic principle, but changes I have made in both manufacturer and look in my aim to make them look as close to the prototype as practical and be easier to maintain. To begin, here's Don's drawing...

 

And here's a picture of the full-size main driver sanding ejector that I took in 2016, the steam sanding gear used today is different to that of the '30s but the principle and general layout are the same.

 

I will begin with the ejector nozzle and as can be seen in this picture I intend to have the ejector removable as with the full-size rather than braze it all up as Don has drawn, this is both for being able to service it if required and also to make it look more like the prototype. The picture shows that I have turned down some suitable brass hex to accept a 3/16 x 40 union and ferrule. I played around with the depth of the spigot and the depth of the cone depth until I was happy with the look. The part was then drilled to accept the 1/16 pipe that will be used for the steam supply and also to make the nozzle jet.

 

I took this picture to give some idea of the ejector internals, the 1/16 pipe has been pulled up higher than it will be when finished just so that I can show what's going on inside. BTW, this short section of 1/16 pipe will be swaged and held in place by the cone fitted the steam pipe of the same size, hope that makes sense?

 

The last picture for tonight shows the two ejector nozzles and the sand pipes attached to their flanges and having been polished ready for silver soldering on the ferrule when I have decided on the pipe length and of course not forgetting to include the union nut. I did make one cockup, I had found that the length of the nozzle and the hex section that I had included to match the full size sat nicely in the chuck with the hex being at the right position to sit in one of the jaw recesses. Alas when holding the first nozzle in reverse so that I could drill the recess for the 5/32 copper pipe which fits into the end, I didn't tighten the chuck enough which duly spun and removed my little section of hex...lol I didn't make this mistake with the second nozzle, I may just put this down to one of those things as the hex isn't that prominent anyway or I may look at added it later, we shall see.

 

 

The next part to do is the sand feed, again I will have this with the union/nut as seen on the prototype which will be slightly larger at 1/4 x 40 and needs to fit the nozzle at the 35-degree angle that Don has drawn.

Hope to show that in the next day or two, thanks for looking in...

Pete


 

[greenglade]

Hi everyone

Continuing with the ejectors, I now needed to make the sand feed that will need to be silver soldered to the nozzle. As with the nozzle I have followed the prototype and included a nut and union for joining the sand pipe to the ejector. This was basically the same method as with the nozzle but now with a larger diameter body, in fact, I have made the body from much wider material than required, I'll cover the reason why shortly. The picture shows that I have turned down to a 1/4" spigot which was then threaded 1/4 x 40 TPI, the length of which was determined by testing how close I could get the nut to the body and adjusting accordingly.

 

After parting off, I moved onto the tilting vice and machined an angle, Don states 35-degrees, (55 from this position) but I needed to allow for clearance for the union nuts and thus settled for 45-degrees. In hindsight I should have drawn up what I wanted here as a little more length for the nozzle would have been more beneficial and closer to the prototype, I followed Don's overall dimensions which means I was limited in choosing the angle. Live and learn as they say.. The flat edge on the front is to butt up against the bracket flange, both bracket and flange being extras to what Don has drawn.

 

This gives us this pile of bits ready for assembly. Note that the bracket flanges have also joined the gang, I have drilled these offset as the photo looks like there is more to the flange on the top face than bottom, it could just be a trick of the camera but this will work, right or wrong.

 

It was then time to silver solder the nozzle to the sand feed body. I think the picture shows my method for doing this, you can also see why I machined a small part off the front of the sand body to give it a better location against the bracket flange. I'm sure that in real life this flange will be separate but I have silver soldered them to the ejector as it should help hold the ejector in its correct position, ie.. less chance of the ejector moving in service. As can be seen, I have used a short length of copper tube to hold the two body parts inline for heating, luckily this worked well. BTW, in the real size photo, it can be seen that the flange and bracket are joined by two bolts and nuts, for ease I have threaded the flange 10BA so that I don't need to have the nut on it's back which would be a little tight with the angle used between the two body's.

 

With those parts now joined I began to form the shape and before I got too far I remembered that I hadn't yet drilled through the sand feed body into the nozzle. For this, I played safe and inserted two drills that were a good sliding fit into the nozzle from both ends and drilled through the sand feed body until I could see the top drill move. I then took the ejector out of the lathe, removed both drills and continued drilling the hole by hand to avoid damaging the inside or worse still going right through.

 

It took me some time to shape the ejectors to how I wanted and having now looked at this closeup picture I can see that I still have a little left to do but they aren't that far off. As can be seen, I have blended the parts into each other to make it look like a single casting, this was the reason for making the sand feed much larger than required so that I could grind, file and sand it to blend into the nozzle. I will leave the ejector unpainted except for the nozzle outlet as per prototype.

 

Next job was to shape/cut the sand pipe to size and to silver solder the nozzle on. For this, the pipes were filled with sand and sealed either end. I tested this first with one sandbox bolted to the frames as seen in this next picture. Two things to note, I later reshaped the curve more and also that here the ejector is in the wrong position, what I mean is that the steam feed should be inboard, not the sand feed. This was just how it went naturally with the angle of the parts, I think though that I can manipulate this to be in the correct position, the parts are only loosely bolted together here and I'll need to have them fully secured before trying.

 

Lastly, a picture to show both sandboxes at the same stage, for the second I just mirrored the first, no need to turn the chassis around to fit the other sandbox if I can avoid it.

 

Tomorrow I'll finish off shaping the ejectors, fit the sandboxes securely to the chassis and look at how best to shape the pipes. I'll need to be careful here as they are no longer filled with sand. Once I am happy with the ejector position I'll take a look at fabricating the brackets. Not sure what they bolt too but looks like they go to the sandbox itself which if so makes life much easier. My plan is to bolt them to the nearside flange bolt that holds the sand pipe to the trap, I'll hopefully, show what I mean in the next update but I think the full-size picture shown in the last update gives a pretty good idea of what I intend.

Pete


 

[greenglade]

Good evening chaps..ok so a slight change of plan... after I posted the last update it was pointed out to me by Kevin Fisher and Peter Pope (FB) who I believe both worked on 4472, that I had copied the wrong ejectors, evidently the ones in my photo from 2016 are air ejectors off an 08 shunter, now this would never do. First I must say a big thank you to these two gentlemen for pointing out my error for which I'm most grateful. having learnt this I duly took a look through my photo's from the 30's to see what I (yes I know, I should have done this to begin with) could find. I found 3 pictures where once I zoomed in I could get a good idea of what the ejectors really looked like, as it happens Don's drawing is very good although he shows no union connections in his drawing. To be fair when looking at the photos I had the ejectors and connecting pipes all looked different and one early photo had no nut for the sand pipe connection but did for the steam pipe. I eventually settled on a photo which was taken in 1934 after 4472 broke the 100mph barrier, the photo in question showed the driver and firemen standing in front of the coupled wheels where the steam ejector was clearly visible. It looks like it had union/nuts for both feeds but I won't swear to it as it is a little blurred when zooming in. Doesn't matter to me as I said before I chose to add the connection points for ease of maintenance.

Here's the photo in question...Note that there's no flange or hanging bracket and that the orientation of the pipes is different, with the sand pipe angled directly above the ejector rather than to the inside as seen on the air ejectors. It's also very clear to see how much longer the steam feed is before meeting the sand feed and also that it's now in line with the wheel flange rather than being angled inboard resulting in the sand pipe being more in line with the wheel flange.. So I needed to make a decision, do I remake them, or do I modify those already made. After taking a look at what was involved I chose the latter, well I do so enjoy a bit of grinding.....not.

 

After spending most of the day working on these the result os shown here. I have extended the steam inlet, I could have made this a permanent attachment but decided to leave it as a screw-on part in case I ever get a stuck jet where it will be much easier to remove the extension and grip the protruding jet than trying to tap it through from the front. The bracket has gone although the part around the nozzle remains to give that part more length to match the photo, the flange wings were cut off and then all blended in removing much of the extra width of the sand feed body. I then soldered on a small washer to give me a finished front which was backfilled with solder which again was blended in. Also, I have reshaped much of the underside of the sand feed body, again to better match the prototype. It's not perfect and I could define a crease between the two body parts but this might exaggerate that the two parts are of differing sizes for the reasons given, it's a damn sight closer than the air ejectors were, ie they look like steam ejectors now. Once I'm happy with both ejectors they will now be painted black, with the nuts left bare metal, again in an attempt to match the prototype. This all took a good few hours today but I'm happy with the end result and again wish to thank both Kevin Fisher and Peter Pope for their input.

 

To finish with I decided to test the ejectors using air, the compressor was set at 60/65PSI, any more resulted in the temporary pipes getting blown off which I couldn't physicaly hold as I needed my other hand to operate the camera so used a lower setting. I'm happy with the test, it's an old boost gauge but looks like I was getting 6-7 inHG. BTW the jet is a 1" length of 1/16 copper pipe with one end swaged so that it doesn't get blown through. I have followed Don's drawing as to where the jet ends in the nozzle, I guess I could play around with this to see if the result changes... perhaps that's for another day

 

https://i.imgur.com/LiIPz2t.mp4

 

 

 

Thanks for looking in all, next update should see the steam sanders finished and then I'll be on to the gravity sanders...

Pete



 

[greenglade]

hi guys

I've been a bit busy with grandparent duties since the last update but have this morning done a little more on the steam sand ejectors. I first needed to check that the other ejector was working and once happy with that I played around with the nozzle jets. I have now shortened them a little so that as you look at the ejector in the first picture image the jet is just a little forward of the main body into the nozzle itself. This has increased the vacuum by about 30% and still only at 65 PSI, I would expect the inHG to increase further at the max boiler operating pressure of 100 PSI. Only two pictures for today, the first shows one of the ejectors in its correct orientation/position in front of the main driving wheel. The steam pipe is just temporary to test that the sandbox works, it will be routed in a slightly different way once painted/finished, I can see from the works drawings that it goes up to the stay above and joins a 'tee' piece, there's a lot going on in the drawings which may take some time to plot its proper route and what I don't need to fit. In simple terms, I need to meet the pipe from the other side and then route it back to the manifold turret which I obviously can't do for while yet. I think what I will do, is decide on where the two pipes join the 'tee' and fit those accordingly, the section to the cab will have to wait for now.

 

I have tried to take a video of the steam sandbox working using air, it's very difficult to film the sand leaving the nozzle as it's so small and faint in colour, I have placed a sheet of W&D under the wheel so you can see some of the sand as it builds up, most went on the floor... I have directed the nozzle a little outboard of the wheel, one to help show the sand but also to stop sand from getting blown too much around the model as many parts have oil on and I don't want the sand to mix in with this.

 

https://i.imgur.com/7xyOJ6U.mp4



Tomorrow I'll finish the ejectors and pipework and paint the parts that need painting black. I'm in two minds as to whether to fit the sandboxes properly to the frames, I'm worried about knocking them but then I can't really fit the inside connecting rod until these parts are fitted so I guess my hands are tied, I'll just have to be careful. Next up will be to finish the gravity sanders and get these working, once that's done I can fit for the last time the outside motion brackets and then hopefully, get back on with the rest of the moving parts. During this, though I need to repaint the smokebox and mount that for the last time too as this needs to be done before I can fit the outside cylinders and their slide bars... I tell you the list of parts is endless and they all need doing before each other, or so it currently seems...thanks for looking in guys...

Pete

 

[greenglade]

Hi guys...

Just to clarify something that I wrote in my last update... I said that the steam supply goes to the manifold, well it does but what I should have said is that it terminates there, with the isolator valve, there is, of course, the steam valve in between. IIRC this is attached to the reverser but I'll look closer at this when the time comes...

Thanks to Eddie for pointing out my omission

Pete

[rogerzilla]

Obviously from the name, this is an A3 and I can't absolutely vouch for its accuracy, but it seems to show the curves very well and is different to the photo.

 

20191219_164336 by rogerzilla, on Flickr

 

From "Introduction to the Locomotive" by H C Webster, published sometime in the 1930s (there's no date in the book).  Must be out of copyright now.    Harry Webster was LNER Top Shed manager, so probably had the drawing made from the works drawings.

[greenglade]

Thanks for sharing the drawing Roger... I'm not too worried about the pipe layout, reason being that the pictures that I have from the 30's are all different and clearly this part must get knocked a lot or rerouted during service. If you look at the 1934 photo above I posted of the 100 mph run the pipes are different to your drawing too.  The pipes are easy enough to move about, I'll probably look at this closer near completion of the model and after the brake gear has been fitted. Also the photo that you are comparing it too was for the test, tonight's update will show the pipes closer to the 1934 photo but not entirely there yet.

 

Kind regards

 

Pete

 

 

[greenglade]

This more or less completes the steam sanders... I'll need to do a little tidying on final assembly but otherwise, they are done.
The last few days involved fabrication of the 'Tee' for the 1/16th OD steam pipe feed, making the 'unclogging' bolts for the bottom of the sand traps, painting those parts that need to be black, fabricating the joining brackets to support the pipes and running the copper pipe from the sanders to the joining 'Tee'. The first picture shows the 'T' before silver soldering, you may notice that the 'T' isn't central, there's a reason for this which I'll show in a later picture in tonight's update.

 

I then turned up the new bolts for the traps clearing hole, I have made these to facilitate easy removal and thus easier to clear any clogging during service without needing to remove the entire sandbox. These are 8BA thread with a turned shoulder (1/8th) to bring the hex further out from the trap so that I can both see and reach it from below.

 

After having all the parts ready I began fitting the first ejector and its pipes (fireman's side), I have left the steam feed unpainted, it's not very clear in this picture but there's a bracket holding the two pipes together, I didn't take any pictures of its fabrication but IIRC it's the same as those made for the tender all those moons ago.

 

This picture shows the first pipe run, you can see in this picture why I didn't fit the 'T' central to it's body, once the first part had been silver soldered I then added a thick plate behind the body with a mounting hole to one side. this holds the 'T' off the star-stay to allow the union nuts to be easily tightened up. Also worth noting is where the pipe has the 90-degree bend, I have a temporary bolt here but later once the other pipes (they'll be quiet a few) have been added I'll make up a proper bracket to hold all of them together. For this I have used the 4 redundant holes either side of the frames which are tapped 6BA, When I drilled all those holes in the frames I didn't realise that these particular holes aren't required for the A1, they are a later addition for the A3. I'm pretty happy that they are there though as drilling new holes in the frames (there will still be some) isn't the easiest of things to do.

 

the last couple of pictures are just to show that both sanders and related pipework have now been fitted. This picture from underneath to show the two ejectors fitted, you can also get a better idea of the bracket to hold the pipes that I mentioned.

 

And lastly a view from above, on looking at this I can see that I need to level the 'T' and also touch in a few areas of red, I'm generally happy to get these fitted though.

 

Next up I think needs to be a good tidy of my bench, it's a mess..lol I'll then get on with the gravity sander gear, hopefully, should get this done by next week, it's amazing how much time these little bits and pieces take.

Kind regards

Pete




 

[tigerburnie]

There's a bit more to a "Kettle" than lighting a fire and boiling some water then lol, very high standard engineering, you can see why it takes a while to build a full sized one.

[greenglade]

Afternoon chaps/chapesses

My son dropped these off today, he etched these at work for me and I'm both very happy and impressed with the results.


A few parts to mention here, the large builder's plate is to be put on a wooden plaque and be displayed with the model at shows when on its display stand, there's a spare too. The smaller plates are to be secreted somewhere on the model for security reasons, all of these plates are made from stainless steel. The two brass plates are for the reverser dial gauge, these were scaled from photo's that I took off the full-size when at York in 2016. One is a spare as these still need to have the dial slot machined along with the wider recess on the back for the dial marker to travel, these are made from 2.5mm brass. There's one other item still to come which will be the loco/tender fall plate which will have the diamond grid etched along with my name in a middle section, not sure yet if the etch will be deep enough, I'll deal with that when the time comes. The part has already been etched but was accidentally left at my son's work, hope to get it in the new year....

 

 

Pete

[greenglade]

Hi guys, hope you all got what you wanted from Santa...

I have stayed out of the workshop during the last few days for more family time but do get restless doing nothing. So today I thought that I'd do something that can be done indoors which does have a passing relationship with 4472 but with no building involved. This extra activity involves putting together a hard copy album on 4472's boiler, nothing special, just some build pictures with notes and a copy of the boiler certificate etc. I thought of doing this a few months back when finding an old (but as new unused) photo album in the garage (old workshop) The cover is showing some wear but the pages within are all fine. I have created this album to not only give a back-up record of the boiler's contruction and paperwork but also as something that can be presented to any boiler inspector if required in the future. A few pictures just to show that I have been doing something over xmas...

Front cover

 

Some of the build pictures:

 

 

 

A number of drawings, here's one of the backhead...

 

And of course a photocopy of the (IIRC) ten pages of paperwork for the boiler's construction etc..here's two of them...

 

 

 

I have shown but a small sample of what's contained within this album, I have put the build details in the front and paperwork to the rear, this leaves the middle to fill as and when I get to the rest of the parts concerned, IE: all fittings and superheater details.

The plan is to get back into the workshop on Monday, for the weekend I have a few things to do on the car...live steam and classic cars... never any rest...

Pete


 

Edited December 27, 2019 by greenglade

[rogerzilla]

Out of interest, what's the minimum pressure (or size) at which you need one of those?  Obviously Mamod steam engines don't need one, and nor do things like pressure cookers and pressurised moka pots (Brikka), which are about 2 bar.  And do you need a reinspection at 7 years?