The Night Mail

[Happy Hippo]

Douglas, thank you for the photos, especially the last one of the drawing which clearly shows the route of the steam pipe through the lubricator.

 

What I suggest you try is:

 

1. Make a pair of push fit bushes that can be soft soldered into the back of the lubricator.  you may need to open the holes up in the back of the lubricator so they are properly round.

 

2. Leave the bush that will fit into the bottom aperture as a blank,  and solder it into the bottom hole so it acts as a plug.

 

3.   The top bush should be drilled to take a single 1/8" diameter pipe.

 

4.   Take a length of copper pipe and drill it #74 so that you penetrate the tube wall (there is no need to drill all the way through) 1/2" from the end.

 

5.  Clean up the end and flux it, then tin it with soft solder.

 

6.  Crimp the the end of the pipe closed with a pair of pliers and reheat so that the solder melts, apply a little more if necessary.  This will seal the end of the pipe.

 

7.  Make sure the pipe and bush are clean and solder them to the top of the lubricator.

 

8.  attach to the steam line via a T section ( a lump of brass with cross holes will do).

 

This should function as a dog leg displacement lubricator.

 

It should be a more elegant solution to what you have at the moment.

 

If you don't get enough oil through then de-solder the  top bush and very carefully open out the hole in the pipe.

 

Don't worry where the #74 hole is in orientation, it doesn't matter whether it faces up down or sideways

 

 

 

[SM42]

A new job has arrived home with Mrs. SM42.

 

I have 2 cars to build 

 

All work cancelled to put 2 Little Tikes cars together.

 

Joy. 

I hope there is a baked reward for all this motor mechanic stuff

 

Andy

 

 

[Florence Locomotive Works]

Victory at last. (Apologies Richard, I ended up using my own method to get it running.)

 

Douglas

 

 

[jamie92208]

Well done Douglas.

 

Jamie

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Victory at last. (Apologies Richard, I ended up using my own method to get it running.)

 

Douglas

 

 

As my father used to say:

 

'There's more ways to kill a pig than slitting his throat'.

 

Doing it your own way: Getting it to work;  then understanding how you came about the solution it is a far better way of doing things.  Much better than getting it spoon fed to you from a plate.

 

if you don't try, you don't learn.

 

Well done.

 

It won't be long now before you start making your own parts rather than trying to fix things on their last legs.

[Tony_S]

6 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

 

It won't be long now before you start making your own parts rather than trying to fix things on their last legs.

I was quite pleased they used all new bits to repair my heart rather than reusing old existing bits of me!

[Florence Locomotive Works]

Here’s a slightly better video. Currently it only has the power to pull one coach as I overfilled the lubricator (still trying to work out correct amount) and most of the oil got “primed” out o’ the chimney. Thank you all for your kind comments. 
 

Douglas

 

 

Edited November 11, 2020 by Florence Locomotive Works

[J. S. Bach]

Blowing oil out the stack? And you are running it in the house??

[Happy Hippo]

6 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

Blowing oil out the stack? And you are running it in the house??

It's not unusual for a small scale live steamer to do that.

 

Come to think of it, the gooey crud around the top of a typical full size live steam loco would suggest that oil gets carried through on the exhaust whatever the scale of the loco.

[Florence Locomotive Works]

21 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

Blowing oil out the stack? And you are running it in the house??

 

12 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

It's not unusual for a small scale live steamer to do that.

 

Come to think of it, the gooey crud around the top of a typical full size live steam loco would suggest that oil gets carried through on the exhaust whatever the scale of the loco.

An interesting feature of the regulator on this loco is that when the engine starts priming, the spring holding the “direction block” on the port face becomes over powered and releases most of the crud onto the very wide front bogie, where surface tension keeps it until the end of the run. I’m not entirely sure it should do that though, but a significant amount still comes out the chimney. 

[skipepsi]

3 hours ago, Tony_S said:

I was quite pleased they used all new bits to repair my heart rather than reusing old existing bits of me!

Don't knock it they only used 2 pipes out of the planned 4 but I am still waking up two years on.

[Happy Hippo]

9 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

 

An interesting feature of the regulator on this loco is that when the engine starts priming, the spring holding the “direction block” on the port face becomes over powered and releases most of the crud onto the very wide front bogie, where surface tension keeps it until the end of the run. I’m not entirely sure it should do that though, but a significant amount still comes out the chimney. 

 

Sometime back I suggested running a steam coil through the fire space to give the steam to the regulator block a little bit of reheat prior to it getting to the cylinders.

 

One of the biggest problems you face with a small steamer is condensate because once the steam has left the boiler, it begins to cool down.  The lower the initial pressure in the boiler, the sooner the steam begins to condense.

 

When the loco is cold, it will invariably eject condensate up the exhaust as the initial action of steam getting to the large lumps of metal that form the cylinders will suck all the energy up in order to warm the cylinders up.  Hence the requirement for drain cocks on big live steamers, so that the water, that is incompressible, does not blow the cylinder end covers off!

 

With the B/L Mogul, the problem is exacerbated because the steam leaves the boiler, runs through the lubricator and is then stopped by the combined reversing block and regulator, so once the steam leaves the boiler and travels down the pipes, there is an energy transfer as the steam tries to heat everything up to the same temperature, but with no heat supply to the steam, it cools down and it reverts to condensate.

 

This is also happening in the lubricator so while the loco is sitting there the steam is busy condensing in the bottom of the lubricator  (as it should) and is forcing oil into the steam pipe, so you end up with condensate and emulsified oil trapped as a big slug between the lubricator and regulator block.

 

No wonder the poor spring can't cope.

 

The solution is to have a separate regulator which stops the steam from leaving the boiler until it is required (or at least stopping it from getting to the lubricator) and to use the current regulator/reverser purely as a reversing block.  Which is what most modern small scale live steamers do.

 

Many of the Accucraft fleet use a piston valve arrangement which carries out an identical task to the old rotary block, although when I drew one up in the early 1990's  John Maxwell Hemmings felt it was commercially unviable due to the fine machining tolerances required.    A few year later it all changed when along came CNC machining!

 

However, a more drastic modification of  a vintage loco away from the original design specification is something that you may not wish to pursue.

 

But it does indicate why so many old  B/L Moguls have their boiler and control systems replaced with a system which has been designed to remove the failing of the originals.

Edited November 12, 2020 by Happy Hippo

[Happy Hippo]

I finally found my copy of the Eddie Cooke live steam book.

 

I've checked the lubricator page, and he seems quite happy to use a 1/16" copper pipe  into the dog leg lubricator.

 

That would give an i/d of 1/32" at the open end of pipe, which is  probably around half of what Douglas has with his Mogul at present.  It's about 0.2 mm over what I suggested.

 

It would not be too difficult to  add such to a new section of pipework. 

[Tony_S]

10 hours ago, skipepsi said:

Don't knock it they only used 2 pipes out of the planned 4 but I am still waking up two years on.

Waking up is always a good start. The second stent I had was very much a bespoke product made from smaller parts. I liked how they  checked with the manufacturer’s website whether they could stretch a component as much as they wanted. My discharge letter had a list of parts used just like the car gets from it’s service. 

 

[Tony_S]

Some of Richard's advice to Douglas sounds very similar to that passing between the person pushing bits of tube round my heart and those observing the images. Except the doctors used less technical words. My favourite being one of my blood vessels described as looking like a Curly Wurly. 

[roundhouse]

Running outside of the house today. OK no oil as it's only electric. Had to clear the leaves first though.

 

Inside the shed N scale track laying is proceeding.

 

Work wise sone glazing completed in this brass Pacific Electric car. Another three to go.

[jamie92208]

1 hour ago, roundhouse said:

Running outside of the house today. OK no oil as it's only electric. Had to clear the leaves first though.

 

 

Inside the shed N scale track laying is proceeding.

 

 

Work wise sone glazing completed in this brass Pacific Electric car. Another three to go.

I'vecalways liked the look of those big interurbans.

 

Jamie

[Happy Hippo]

2 hours ago, roundhouse said:

Running outside of the house today. OK no oil as it's only electric. Had to clear the leaves first though.

 

Since I pulled my line up earlier this year, I have pangs of jealousy whenever I see someone else operating outdoors.

 

 

 

 

[Chris116]

Just now, Happy Hippo said:

Since I pulled my line up earlier this year, I have pangs of jealousy whenever I see someone else operating outdoors.

 

 

 

 

Time for a rebuild!

[Happy Hippo]

19 minutes ago, Chris116 said:

Time for a rebuild!

It will happen..... eventually.

 

I pulled it up as we are going to remodel the side and rear gardens.

 

Getting it out of the way also means I can concentrate on my other projects as I'm not worried about maintenance and it all sitting there just rotting away.

[roundhouse]

58 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Since I pulled my line up earlier this year, I have pangs of jealousy whenever I see someone else operating outdoors.

 

 

 

 

I nearly pulled mine up just over a year ago as it hadn't run for five years after building work on our boundary line but glad that I didn't.

[SM42]

Two cars built, one delivered.

 

The second one is awaiting spares after the relatively soft plastic disc that makes a headlight broke whilst being pushed into its designated hole.

 

Now the manufacturer will send a spare on seeing an e mailed copy of the  receipt . The retailer will send a whole car, from which we must remove the required part and send the rest back. .

 

On the bright side it is the birthday of one of Mrs SM42's colleagues today, and by an amazing co-incidence there was a piece of cake* left over. 

 

Andy

 

* I said it quietly as I'm trying not to attract the attention of bears.

 

 

[Happy Hippo]

23 minutes ago, SM42 said:

Two cars built, one delivered.

 

The second one is awaiting spares after the relatively soft plastic disc that makes a headlight broke whilst being pushed into its designated hole.

 

Now the manufacturer will send a spare on seeing an e mailed copy of the  receipt . The retailer will send a whole car, from which we must remove the required part and send the rest back. .

 

On the bright side it is the birthday of one of Mrs SM42's colleagues today, and by an amazing co-incidence there was a piece of cake* left over. 

 

Andy

 

* I said it quietly as I'm trying not to attract the attention of bears.

 

 

PB might have missed that, but I didn't!

 

Fortunately I'm not quite full of chicken and ham pie.

[SM42]

Shhhh!

 

He might hear you

 

Andy who is also not quite full

Edited November 12, 2020 by SM42

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

PB might have missed that, but I didn't!

 

Fortunately I'm not quite full of chicken and ham pie.

I was a bit worried about having to confess to no cake today but everyone here is full of pie this evening. Cottage pie if anyone needs to know.