The Night Mail

[Stubby47]

HMRC has obviously seen your intention to set up as an international steam engine repair business, albeit fuelled by cake.

Edited April 20, 2021 by Stubby47

[Happy Hippo]

Tittenbrot

[Northroader]

Why is there an odd number?

[Oldddudders]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

Tittenbrot

Why are they called that?

[jamie92208]

2 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Time for a quick giggle:

 

Yesterday I received a letter from HMRC informing me that I was no longer required to submit a self assessment tax return, as I no longer meet the criteria for such.

 

Today from HMRC I received a notice to complete a self assessment tax return!

La Poste did us proud yesterday they delivered a Christmas card posted in the UK on 26-11-2020.

 

Jamie

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

Why is there an odd number?

I had to test one to destruction

1 hour ago, Oldddudders said:

Why are they called that?

It depends on the angle you look at them I suppose.

[simontaylor484]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

La Poste did us proud yesterday they delivered a Christmas card posted in the UK on 26-11-2020.

 

Jamie

Its either late for last Christmas or early for this one depending how you look upon it 

[jamie92208]

4 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

Its either late for last Christmas or early for this one depending how you look upon it 

Considering the sender lives in Cas and is at tight as a bears ar5e he'll probably tell me to keep it till December  then put it up.

 

Jamie

[Dave Hunt]

4 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

Had you been over here, then it would have been a simple case of arriving at my workshop with copious amounts of cake and myself and Dave H could have had a glorious shouting match about who was going to hold it whilst the other drilled it.

The possibility of me holding something while the Army wield an implement that could cause me harm is vanishingly small.

 

Unless liberal quantities of certain comestibles of the solid and liquid varieties wer on offerr.....

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

La Poste did us proud yesterday they delivered a Christmas card posted in the UK on 26-11-2020.

 

Jamie

 

I may have posted this before (see what I did there?) but a few years ago a friend rang me up to ask if we'd been in Australia recently. When I replied that we hadn't been there for three years she said that she had just received a postcard we'd sent from Melbourne during our last visit there.

 

Dave

[Happy Hippo]

4 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

The possibility of me holding something while the Army wield an implement that could cause me harm is vanishingly small.

 

Unless liberal quantities of certain comestibles of the solid and liquid varieties wer on offerr.....

 

Dave

And that would only be that after the consumption of such you'd be so stuffed that you'd be unable to move.

[Tony_S]

29 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

I may have posted this before (see what I did there?) but a few years ago a friend rang me up to ask if we'd been in Australia recently. When I replied that we hadn't been there for three years she said that she had just received a postcard we'd sent from Melbourne during our last visit there.

 

Dave

I was in hospital in 1980 and Aditi asked me to write to her grandmother in Delhi to reassure her I was at least as well as could be expected. It was one of those air letters. 5 years later MiL got a phonecall from India asking why I was in hospital. The letter had just arrived and no one had noticed the date. 
Tony

[Florence Locomotive Works]

Massive new and not terribly pleasing discovering.

 

 

The bushing is slipping in its hole, not the fitting. I have observed this and am sure of it. My idea from here is to very very gently heat up the surrounding solder so the bushing and fitting can be removed and put in a soft jaw vise, where the drain can be safely removed. 
 

 

Douglas

[Florence Locomotive Works]

By some miracle the drawing of the engine wasn’t gone today.

 

 

It isn’t intended to be to scale or anything, just to show the basic working principles. 

 

Douglas

Edited April 20, 2021 by Florence Locomotive Works

[Dave Hunt]

I particularly like the condenser - looks as though an octopus has invaded it.

 

Good luck with the Mogul Douglas.

 

Dave

[polybear]

3 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Considering the sender lives in Cas and is at tight as a bears ar5e......

 

Jamie

 

 

1 hour ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Massive new and not terribly pleasing discovering.

 

 

The bushing is slipping in its hole, not the fitting. I have observed this and am sure of it. My idea from here is to very very gently heat up the surrounding solder so the bushing and fitting can be removed and put in a soft jaw vise, where the drain can be safely removed. 
 

 

Douglas

 

Bear would repeat Hippos' suggestion to strip the boiler off the loco, thus making access a hell of a lot easier and, more importantly, enable young Douglas to wrap a damp cloth around the boiler adjacent to the soldered seam with the backhead - hopefully this should minimise any risk of this joint being at risk when you heat the bush.....

[Florence Locomotive Works]

40 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

 

 

Bear would repeat Hippos' suggestion to strip the boiler off the loco, thus making access a hell of a lot easier and, more importantly, enable young Douglas to wrap a damp cloth around the boiler adjacent to the soldered seam with the backhead - hopefully this should minimise any risk of this joint being at risk when you heat the bush.....

But alas, removal of the boiler is impossible without the ruin of the paint. This is because it is soldered into a fake taper boiler outline, in tern soldered to the frames. To remove this would mean the destruction of the paint, not permitted by my dad. 

[jamie92208]

13 minutes ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

But alas, removal of the boiler is impossible without the ruin of the paint. This is because it is soldered into a fake taper boiler outline, in tern soldered to the frames. To remove this would mean the destruction of the paint, not permitted by my dad. 

Can you fill the boiler with cold water to act as a heat sink or would that make it impossible to sort the bush out.

 

Jamie

[polybear]

23 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

Can you fill the boiler with cold water to act as a heat sink or would that make it impossible to sort the bush out.

 

Jamie

 

Hmmm...could be a plan, though only filling it perhaps 1/2 - 2/3rds to act as a heat-sink on the backhead/boiler tube joint, with de-soldering of the bush being undertaken with localised heat and the loco stood vertically upwards (and securely held).  Does @Florence Locomotive Works possess a blow lamp with a very small precision flame, or will you be using a big soldering iron?

[Florence Locomotive Works]

25 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

Hmmm...could be a plan, though only filling it perhaps 1/2 - 2/3rds to act as a heat-sink on the backhead/boiler tube joint, with de-soldering of the bush being undertaken with localised heat and the loco stood vertically upwards (and securely held).  Does @Florence Locomotive Works possess a blow lamp with a very small precision flame, or will you be using a big soldering iron?

Yes I do posses a precision blow lamp, I will consider this strategy, thank you both.

[Happy Hippo]

If you put any water in the boiler it will get hot and we know what happens to hot water in a confined space.  Those who have tried to repair a copper pipe with water still in in will already know the outcome.

 

PB has the correct solution by wrapping the boiler around the outside, with a damp insulator.  This will at least protect the paint.

 

You might be better using a really big soldering iron if you can get hold of one as it will direct the heat very precisely:  Probably something between 150 - 200 W as you are only soft soldering. But I would suspect that the real victim is going to be the O ring you mentioned, which ever method you use.

 

However, since your father seems more concerned about it's condition from a historical viewpoint...original paint etc, then in all honesty, and harsh it may sound but I'd not spend another penny on it, stick it into a box and forget about it.

 

[Winslow Boy]

10 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

And that would only be that after the consumption of such you'd be so stuffed that you'd be unable to move.

 

Health & Safety please gentlemen. The correct procedure is; one hand for work and the other for self. So it this case it would be one hand for the drill, pliers, hammer etc and the other for cake, alcohol beverage of choice etc.

[polybear]

12 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

However, since your father seems more concerned about it's condition from a historical viewpoint...original paint etc, then in all honesty, and harsh it may sound but I'd not spend another penny on it, stick it into a box and forget about it.

 

 

But where's the fun in that?  It'd be like Bear sticking LDC in a box and forgetting about it.  It just doesn't happen....

[Dave Hunt]

My thought on Douglas' dilemma is that if HH's viewpoint is valid, I.e., the historical aspect wins and therefore the Mogul should be left alone and running it effectively forgotten, then attempting to rescue it as a going concern is worthwhile because if at the end of the day the attempt fails nothing is really lost - it simply becomes a non-working museum piece. Therefore I would advocate a rescue attempt along the lines of procedures suggested by PB and HH, being careful not to damage the external appearance of the model. If it works, all well and good and Douglas has won; if not he and his Dad still have the model in no worse a state operationally than before.

 

Dave

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

But where's the fun in that?  It'd be like Bear sticking LDC in a box and forgetting about it.  It just doesn't happen....

But you would you really have been trying to eat an LDC that was older than you are?