The Night Mail

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

 Gents, don’t ever hacksaw large quantities of brass plate in your room.

You need a brass magnet!

[Happy Hippo]

2 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

I have this day been fingerprinted. Four fingers of the right hand, then four of the left, which took a lot longer, probably because my arm was at an awkward angle, followed by the two thumbs together.  

Were you in handcuffs at the time?

[Adam88]

2 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

 

... don’t ever hacksaw large quantities of brass plate in your room.

 

 

My problem's not cutting brass, it's making it.

 

[polybear]

3 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

In about 45 min I go to get my first jab, the phiser one. Afterwards I’ll scrounge some food for myself, and set about thoroughly cleaning my bedroom .......

 

Bear has seen reports of various side-effects following the Covid jab, but a Teenager cleaning their bedroom has to be one of the most worrying....

[Happy Hippo]

44 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

Bear has seen reports of various side-effects following the Covid jab, but a Teenager cleaning their bedroom has to be one of the most worrying....

Or a bear refusing cake!

[polybear]

30 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

Or a bear refusing cake!

 

Bear is a very discerning, er, Bear.....

[simontaylor484]

3 hours ago, Northmoor said:

Yes, Dana International (not Dana who was once the Irish entry in the 1970s) and they won.

 

Israel has to get involved in Eurovision and European football because in the latter case, if it played in the Middle East qualification group for World Cups, it would have to play against countries which deny either that it exists as a country, or that it has a right to.

 

There was an interesting situation in a recent World Cup when Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel were all playing.  I think the latter pair played a match but there were serious considerations of whether an Iran vs Israel game could go ahead.  Iran's players could have been considered traitors by some in their home country if they had taken part.

I do remember watching Rangers v Macabees Haifa (I think they were called) some one with a death wish ran on to the pitch wearing a t shirt with Pope John Paul 2 on whilst carrying a Palestinian flag

[bbishop]

6 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

No, you're thinking of the MCC:

His house in Mottingham is now a care home.  I had my first cardiac in there, she didn't make it.  ill

[SM42]

On 26/05/2021 at 20:50, Happy Hippo said:

 

The bed lathe was repaired.  On close examination it was the one that broke last time, so now it's probably more PVA than timber.  Still if it lasts another couple of years, I will be well pleased.

 

 

 

The problem of breaking bed lathes on the spare single bed  was overcome at SM42 Towers by the addition of 3 pieces of chipboard (easier to move 3 than one large one) over the top to spread any load from above across the rest.

 

Of course this doesn't work if you have the springy lathes.

 

Today has been a good day and also an emotional one.

 

Good in that having been let down by a man who does, I have sourced and fitted a new spring to replace the broken one  in my armchair (too much cake it seems) and I also remembered where my large stapler was so I could refit the dust cover. Total cost £4.80 (I bought two springs to future proof myself a bit) instead of £30

 

I took a car full to the tip and arrived at 0930hrs to be waved straight in, no queue, most unusual. Perhaps the town has finally run out of rubbish to dispose of.

 

I've planted up the patio pots and decided to put off the jetwashing of the patio till tomorrow or  Saturday.

 

The emotional part was being at mum's. Still sorting out the contents. I took a moment or two to look out across the back jungle garden and dream of the fine garden railway that it could hold. I then spent some time in my old bedroom looking out at the road and realising what a nice place it was to grow up and how nice it still is.

 

Still we all have to move on and I can't afford to buy out my brother's half and get the place up to scratch (i.e drag it out of the early 80s) without selling SM42 Towers and living in a building site for the next how many  years.  We've been here 13 years and it still has work to do and we started from a much higher base line.

 

Tomorrow is shaping up to be another busy day. I really must go into town to buy an anniversary card, (as a  bare minimum) for Mrs SM42, otherwise Sunday  may be the day I put every tee shot in the water and come in well over par.

We are expecting garden guests for drinks and nibbles on Sunday,  so I have a lot of garden prep work to do as well as all the other day to day stuff. 

 

I may get some modelling done, but I doubt it.

 

 

Andy

 

 

[Florence Locomotive Works]

Evening all,

 

 

Jab was had, the only side affect so far is pain in my upper left arm.  My room had most of the brass shavings removed, but the big work comes tomorrow, as today,

 

I made a boiler. Almost.

 

I ended up deciding to turn my scratch built gauge 1 4-4-0 into a pot boilered live steamer. 
 

The boiler is copper and 1 inch in diameter, and has reassuringly thick brass plates soldered on each end. One is the spectacle plate, the other is a profiled smokebox plate. Underneath the boiler will be an area for 1.5 Esbit tablets to go, which will provide the fire. Or I may burn hand sanitizer. 
 

 

 

The steam will then travel through a steam pipe (yet to be installed) to a valve and a proper displacement lubricator, before entering a 1950s Stuart Turner ST oscillating engine. This will be geared or chain driven on the rear axle. 
 

 

 

Currently it’s progressing quite well, but I have run out of solder after several failed attempts to solder on the safety valve bushing. I didn’t get that soldered in today as I had the heat in the wrong place. 

 

Wheels will be coming from Walsall model industries once I get them ordered.

 

 

Douglas

[rockershovel]

On 26/05/2021 at 16:44, Compound2632 said:

 

EU membership doesn't have anything to do with it. It's run by the European Broadcasting Union, whose membership is geographically diverse and by no means limited to Europe. Are any of your local broadcasters members of that organisation

 

The EBU is one of those organisations (like the ECHR,or the European Coal and Steel Community) which predate and prefigure the European Union, without (strictly speaking) being part of it. We were founder members. 

[Dave Hunt]

One thing you shouldn't be short of, Douglas, is adhesion weight - all that brass plate must weigh quite a bit. Is the boiler silver soldered together or just soft soldered? I'm not an expert on pot boilered models by any stretch of the imagination but I thought that boilers were generally silver soldered? However, the experts such as HH will have a much better idea than I have. I admire your determination to saw thick brass like that as having to do that is something I really dislike.

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

16 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

You need a brass magnet!

 

I have one in my workshop. It's called paint. Every time I paint something, even if I clean up first, assiduously make sure the model is devoid of all contamination and take all sorts of other precautions there are generally some particles that find their way onto the freshly painted surface. Mind you, I hate painting at the best of times and if I announce that I'm going to be spraying a model, Jill tries to make sure she's out. It's not unknown for me to strip and repaint a model twice. My greatest disaster was when I had sprayed a tender and as was my usual practice had put it in the oven at a very low temperature of about 70 degrees for a couple of hours (enamel paint). Unfortunately the oven thermostat failed and two hours later I found an intensely hot oven containing a kit of parts with a firmly baked on dark brown glaze lying on the shelf, so goodness knows what temperature it had reached. I think that my sons learned some funny words from Dad that day. That was one of those occasions when the thought of taking up stamp collecting came to mind.

 

Dave

[jamie92208]

1 minute ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

I have one in my workshop. It's called paint. Every time I paint something, even if I clean up first, assiduously make sure the model is devoid of all contamination and take all sorts of other precautions there are generally some particles that find their way onto the freshly painted surface. Mind you, I hate painting at the best of times and if I announce that I'm going to be spraying a model, Jill tries to make sure she's out. It's not unknown for me to strip and repaint a model twice. My greatest disaster was when I had sprayed a tender and as was my usual practice had put it in the oven at a very low temperature of about 70 degrees for a couple of hours (enamel paint). Unfortunately the oven thermostat failed and two hours later I found an intensely hot oven containing a kit of parts with a firmly baked on dark brown glaze lying on the shelf, so goodness knows what temperature it had reached. I think that my sons learned some funny words from Dad that day. That was one of those occasions when the thought of taking up stamp collecting came to mind.

 

Dave

One has to be careful about using the oven as higher authorities  tend to have a right of eminent domain.  When I dismantled Long Preston, I recovered as much of the limestone ballast as possible for reuse. This needed washing to remove the PVA so it was then spread out to dry on baking trays and put in the spare bedroom.  Unfortunately  the cats got in and thought it was cat litter. In my naivety I tried to dry it in the oven.  The stench was appalling.  It all needed washing and drying again.  Fortunately  for me Beth was away for the week and I'd managed to eradicate the smell before she got home. 

 

Jamie

[Northroader]

Good luck with your experiment, Douglas, I fancy all that nice thick brass plate will be good at taking the heat away from where you want it?

Edited May 28, 2021 by Northroader

[Florence Locomotive Works]

5 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

One thing you shouldn't be short of, Douglas, is adhesion weight - all that brass plate must weigh quite a bit. Is the boiler silver soldered together or just soft soldered? I'm not an expert on pot boilered models by any stretch of the imagination but I thought that boilers were generally silver soldered? However, the experts such as HH will have a much better idea than I have. I admire your determination to saw thick brass like that as having to do that is something I really dislike.

 

Dave

I think the solder I used could be classified as “high temperature soft solder” and has a melting point of approximately 450 degrees F. 
 

4 hours ago, Northroader said:

Good luck with your experiment, Douglas, I fancy all that nice thick brass plate will be good at taking the heat away from where you want it?

 

Fear not, if the the Hippo says it won’t work then it won’t be a live steamer, it will be converted to battery electric or some other means of propulsion. 
 

 

Douglas

[Happy Hippo]

38 minutes ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

I think the solder I used could be classified as “high temperature soft solder” and has a melting point of approximately 450 degrees F. 
 

 

Fear not, if the the Hippo says it won’t work then it won’t be a live steamer, it will be converted to battery electric or some other means of propulsion. 
 

 

Douglas

Douglas ,

 

Nothing is impossible, it might just take a little longer, but I would caution against making a boiler in that fashion.

 

Without going into a detailed description of building a pot boiler, there are certain conventions that are both fashionable and sensible.

 

Use similar materiel for the shell of the boiler, so it's either copper or brass.  The only change should be for the bushes for fittings which should be gunmetal.

 

The boiler shell should be a uniform thickness.  As it stands the boiler you are constructing has massive end plates and a fairly thin barrel.

 

Those end plates are going to suck up huge amounts of heat which should be heating water.  Contact between the boiler and the rest of the loco should be as minimal as possible. One rigid fixing point and a sliding one to allow for the expansion differential between the hot boiler and the cooler rest of the loco.

 

Butt joints are not a good idea.  They can be used, but if you are using them then you must fit a some form of longitudinal staying: This reinforces the location of the end caps.

 

The end caps would normally be flanged so the surface area that is soldered is greater.  Even, without any tubes in the boiler and using flanged end plates, I'd still fit a single stay along the centre axis of the boiler.

 

Boiler making is not a case of soldering some metal together and then using it with a heat source to provide steam, you do need to work out whether your design of boiler will actually drive the cylinders for the duration of the water fill and not have to keep stopping to remake the working pressure.  Something you have had much experience with the Mogul.

 

Make a proper engineering drawing of the boiler and design it to fit the chassis.

 

If you are going to build your own boiler, then it is worth building a proper burner unit and not rely on the crystalized camel droppings that pass as solid fuel tablets.

 

 

 

 

[Happy Hippo]

PB: Look away now!

 

Sam came around yesterday evening and asked if I could fix the corner of the  wooden flower bed in her front garden.  She dropped off some black forest gateau that was left over from a Georgie bake.

 

I fixed the flower bed this morning between making a window frame for a dolls house and making coffee for the  gentlemen removing the old floor from the conservatory.

 

This afternoon, Sam returned with a further plate full of samples from Georgie's latest baking session.

 

Individual carrot cakes  and mini cherry and chocolate cheesecakes.

 

Fortunately you cannot overcake a hippo.

Edited May 28, 2021 by Happy Hippo

[polybear]

7 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

PB: Look away now!

 

.......She dropped off some black forest gateau that was left over from a Georgie bake.

........This afternoon, Sam returned with a further plate full of samples from Georgie's latest baking session.

........Individual carrot cakes  and mini cherry and chocolate cheesecakes.

Fortunately you cannot overcake a hippo.

 

 

[Dave Hunt]

We visited Dad yesterday for the first time in two weeks due to the nursing home having put him in quarantine when he arrived there. It's a nice place, as such establishments go, but he is getting somewhat stir crazy being in a room by himself 24/7 with only the staff coming in as company. Hence he was really pleased to see us but the traffic was horrendous, added to which we had to have a Covid test before being allowed in to see him so a one hour visit took a total of over four hours. Hence I can't see us visiting every day but our two sons will be here for the holiday starting later today so Jill is going to take them to see him tomorrow, which should chuff him. The good news is that he seems to have got some determination about his physiotherapy and they are pleased with his progress but it is tiring him out and there is still a way to go.

 

Dave

[Dave Hunt]

Forgot to add last time that since the grandkids are coming there has been a grand baking session of Grandad's chocolate cake so ground and air defences have been set up to guard against raids by bears and hippos. Details are, of course, highly secret but include state of the art traps and deterrents along the lines of those developed by our Swiss correspondent.

 

Dave

[Happy Hippo]

3 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

Forgot to add last time that since the grandkids are coming there has been a grand baking session of Grandad's chocolate cake so ground and air defences have been set up to guard against raids by bears and hippos. Details are, of course, highly secret but include state of the art traps and deterrents along the lines of those developed by our Swiss correspondent.

 

Dave

Despite all that hi tech Swiss gubbins and gizmos we still cleaned him out, although there is a blanket denial he lost the lot.

Edited May 29, 2021 by Happy Hippo

[Happy Hippo]

Today's delights were the 'rejects' from Georgie's  biscuit bake for a friend's birthday and a bag full of mini meringues.

 

They were sent around, not for me but for the grandchildren who are visiting next week.

 

As one can imagine, I had to check to make sure they were suitable for consumption. 

 

Nyda  bravely insisted on helping me.

 

 

[New Haven Neil]

Today we have been mostly....

 

[Dave Hunt]

31 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

Today we have been mostly....

 

 Deeeelightful! I'm envious.

 

Dave