Florence Locomotive Works

Hello all, finally managed to find some time today to post. Life has been very busy lately, as this is my last year of high school so even though I have till May until I graduate, everything still feels very last minute. Apart from school, my been engine has been taking up a lot of my time. Since you all last saw it, it’s gotten new turned parallel motion, a proper wedge adjusting bearing in the big end, engraving on the beam, an engraved nameplate (Cornubia, the Latin name for Cornwall), and an extension to the LP cylinder that goes down into the base. The boiler (Maxwell Hemmens vertical firetube, made around 1997 in Yorkshire) has also received a sprit burner and a wooden base. I have yet to screw everything down as at some point I’ll be buying a Bix ceramic burner which will give more heat and higher pressure steam to the engine, as currently the burner gives a max of 20 psi. Here’s a good overall view of the engine. Heres the adjustable big end. And this is the cylinder extension that goes below the base. Its main purpose is to proved a home for the threaded cylinder cover which enables the piston to be removed with minimal fuss. And here’s a nice photos of the engine and boiler before I painted the beam. Going forward, I intend to remake the cylinders so that it can be a proper Woolf cycle compound engine, but that project will require a milling machine which I still don’t have so it’s on hold. Lastly, here’s a vid of yesterdays steam test of the cylinder extension. I hope all is well with everyone else, Douglas

He’s still around, just very busy with the Beam Engine and prepping for Uni.

Spokane is and may still be particularly bad.

Evening all, An update. I’ve been away for while, simply because I’ve been busy with various workshop projects and school. On the school front, there is good news. I have received an offer from Aberystwyth University to study History and Welsh History with them. I have not accepted yet, as I am waiting to hear back from Dundee Uni and Uni of Lincoln. Dundee appear to be under the impression that I am a wanted criminal so some things need sorting out there. I had time to post this as currently I am in mild to severe pain sitting in bed recuperating from the extraction of my wisdom teeth, which went well except for the fact that there was a 3 hour delay (of utter agony) in getting the pain killers. I am now doing a bit better, but can hardly open my mouth and am on a diet of chicken broth and mashed potatoes. Earlier I mentioned workshop projects. Recently, the crowning glory of my last 7 years of working with steam was made. My first, entirely scratch built live steam engine. It is a model of a Woolf Compound beam engine, set up for driving a large textile hence the large gear. It’s loosely based on a twin beam engine that from 1854 that I have drawings of. The engine has been quite a learning curve, but nonetheless runs well. It stops running as the fire in the boiler was running out in the video. Steam is provided by this late 1990s Maxwell Hemmens (of the most excellent city of Selby) vertical single flue boiler which works very well provided the fire is hot enough. Here is a shot of the engine that it’s loosely based one. The Eagle eyed among you may note that this drawing is just a typical single acting Cornish Beam engine, which mine was going to be until I decided I wanted to make my engine a Woolf compound. It isn’t a proper compound though as the rear cylinder is fake. Oh, and here’s the video. Douglas

At least it wasn’t a sheep.

Thank you HH, I ended up having to do that later.

Actually it’s Monk Gate Model man’s fault, I’m doing gauge 1!

Afternoon all, Got my Covid booster jab yesterday afternoon and as usual woke up this morning feeling Absolutely miserable. Some oatmeal an Advil and a bit of time resulted in my becoming a somewhat functional human being, but even walking across a room is hard work. On Wednesday something I was half expecting but really dreading occurred. The spring in the 112 snapped on the winding arbor. With this being a gauge 1 clocker the spring is a whopper and I was not sure it would even be possible for it to be removed. Here’s a photo of it jammed up against the stops after breaking, note the telltale egg shape which indicates a broken spring. So after a lot of thought (which was mostly just worrying about what could go wrong) I decided to give removing the spring a go on Friday night. And to my surprise, it went rather well. Here’s a pic of the anchored end of the spring clamped in the vise. To remove the spring you get some thick gloves, grab the mech and pull away from the vise. All going well the spring unwinds itself. After a lot of struggle it finally let me remove it, and I discovered that as I thought it had broken where the annealed portion converts back into spring steel. Bing seemed to quench their annealed spring ends in water which creates a less than ideal line of high less stress metal where there shouldn’t be any. And here is the spring compared to my hand, which is not small. After cleaning all the old oil and fluff off it I set about annealing a new winding arbor end and then drilling a hole for the arbor drive pin. Here is the mech without the spring, showing the size of the gears. Once the new arbor pin whole had been drilled it was time to reinstall the spring, which is much easier than removing it as you have the key to aid you in winding it back in. All was going well until the last 2 inches when another loud snapping noise was heard. What could this be? Nothing else than the severely battered winding pin which I had overlooked replacing. This meant it was back to the garage and the vise for another 30 minutes of hard labor removing the spring. A new (and more substantial) steel winding pin was made and the spring reinstalled once more, and to my great relief everything worked very well. The run length is a bit shorter now but I’m not to bothered. All in all it took about 4.5 hours, which beat my previous 6 hours that it took to fix the spring in my O gauge LNWR George the Fifth back in 2021, and that one only need the spring removing once! Heres a shot of the first test run on the bench. And reassembled ready for another 100 years of pulling trains. Douglas

About 1989. I’ve done that with a Meccano screwdriver. It really hurts. Much prefer the hex head bolts.

Happy Halloween to all.

I’ve been up and down that pass a few times in the sun and in wet weather in the summer. Not at all fun even bone dry.

Yes I just remembered that right after posting. The Bassett Lowke/Victor J. Harrison GWR Saint models come to mind.

You are correct in your concern, but no meths fired boiler has ever been known to generate more than 40 psi, and that’s only in the huge Marklin engines. The ones I run in public max out at 15 psi.

I have been asked 4 times by my teachers to bring in my live steam engines during the Industrial Revolution units in history, always goes down very well with my classmates. As long as the boiler is below a certain volume they have no issue with it, and I was running one from 99 years ago!

Not a sonic screwdriver?

Afternoon all, A hunk of not very well packed but mostly undamaged metal designed by Henry Greenly showed up on Friday afternoon after 9 days of delay. The seller (a well known and respected tinplate dealer) had not put enough packing the box causing the engine to slide around and the cylinder bend inwards, locking up the motion. This was easily fixed with some gentle pressure and no loss of paint. And hither it be. 112 has at some point in its life been restored, and rather well to boot. Many of the paint patches are hardly noticeable to the naked eye and the repaired lining is excellent. The mechanism is in very good condition, and runs very smoothly with lots of power. The spring looks brand new and has been kept well oiled (not excessively though, which is important) all it’s life. Being gauge 1 and clockwork, it is a hard job to wind the engine with a normal clock key. So I went to the lathe and made this quick and dirty carriage door handle style key. Here is the finished item, with the stem of the old key soldered into a hole. Some more LGB track will be arriving shortly to expand the current circle which struggles to stay in one piece under the centrifugal force generated by the engine. Douglas

After another delay, the engine finally arrived yesterday afternoon accompanied by much jubilation in the streets. Here it is, in all it’s very well soldered together glory. Much of the paint is original, but a lot of the running plate has been repainted in the past. Whoever restored it was quite good at lining because it is just as good as the original Bing lining. They did neglect to paint the buffer beams which I have now done. Having got the engine out of the box and acquired a key from the local clock shop, it refused to run. I thought the issue was a stick governor, and so began taking the mech out of the body to have a look. After taking apart the motion and releasing the brake, it suddenly burst into life (and scaring me as it is jolly loud). The problem ended up being the crosshead hitting the connecting rod due to the cylinder has been bent inward slightly in shipping. The key I bought for the engine was far to small to wind it up fully as I couldn’t get enough leverage on the small flat. So I made a new one, in the shape of a carriage door handle. I the soldered the shank of the old key into a hole drilled in this new handle, the result being a very ergonomic key with lots of leverage. The engine now being capable of being fully wound, (though I prefer about 3/4) it runs very well and quite smoothly. It has no trouble pulling my brake van loaded with 5 lbs of steel offcuts so should have little trouble with some Midland bogie coaches when I can find some. Douglas

Certain members of this parish me be glad to know I am once again under the influences of crimson, this time in gauge 1. I’ve even got a brake van! The loco will be arriving tomorrow. Its gauge 1 clockwork by Bing for Bassett Lowke, made around 1912 and finished in Midland Railway livery. It’s in very good condition for its age and once some suitable coaches or wagons are found will make a very nice edition to my burgeoning G1 fleet. Douglas

Cheaper than a OO MPD layout I can assure you. Building that in this country would cost several thousand.

When I was considering scratchbuilding a 7mm LNWR Jubilee (with cab extension) I decided on 1 inch for the frame width as that is what I thought was standard for 7mm. Then again that was on a bogie loco not a rigid chassis engine. If I were you, I would stick with 1 inch frames just to be on the safe side.

Half Brit, my dad was born in Liverpool and I spent a lot of my early life in New Zealand which is strange mix of English, German and American railways on an jungle-like island. Glad to know someone is modeling the LNWR in the USA, i heavily considered doing a OO LNWR engine shed layout at one point. Cost threw that out the window.

Due to the recent flooding in NYC the engine had been delayed in the mail by a week so nothing has happened with that. It is expected to arrive Thursday. However some work on the “layout” has been done. This has been in the form of repairing this signal I made a few years ago which took a tumble off a shelf a few months back. Station master Mudge has also arrived from eBay. He is a repainted W. Britains figure from the set made for Bassett Lowke in 1924. Douglas

Hello all, I think this is my first new thread in 2 years! Anyways, here’s the story. For years I’ve wanted to build a tinplate gauge 1 layout. I even went so far as to acquire this 1909 Bing brakevan in early 2022. However I could never find a loco that was under the price of kidney until earlier this week when I saw that a well known coarse scale dealer in New York had a rather nice Bassett Lowke 112 tank for sale. I sent them a cheeky offer and to my joy and horror it was accepted! Here are the sellers pictures: Currently all the track I have is a small circle stolen from our LGB Christmas train, but eventually it will become larger. There are no concrete plans for track plan or anything yet, but it may be interesting to model part of a terminus and use the automatic reversing feature that Bing engines had. The layout may or may not end up outside. Due to the dismantling of a wall we now have a surplus of large dressed stones that would be a very good base for some track. I’ll do a bit of surveying today. Douglas

On the college front, application season is here and my high school days are rapidly coming to a close which is a scary thought. I’ll be applying to several colleges, but there are two (possibly foolhardy) letters I’m sending off that might be of interest to us here. The first one will be going to the Flour Mill Locomotive Works, in Gloucestershire, it will be a very elaborate plea for them to apprentice me, but it many more words. We shall see how that goes. The second one will be sent to the P2 Locomotive Company at Darlington, asking the same thing. I’ll be including in both letters images and descriptions of all my previous work and hopefully a letter of introduction from a friend who knows both organizations. Douglas

Evening all, Today has been a day of filing. Some may remember about a year and half ago I acquired a very very old scratch built finescale GNR C1 Atlantic. It was a bit of an impulse buy, and I had intentions of finishing it over last summer. Alas when it arrived and the quality of the construction became apparent, I realized I wasn’t good enough to do it justice. So it began languishing on a shelf, until a few weeks ago when I realized it needed working on. I began first with remaking the missing splashers, which took many attempts to get the ones seen here. They still aren’t perfect and will be getting more adjustment. After that I made the running plate steps, and filed out the blank of the brake valve which now lives on the backhead. It currently awaits handles. Here is the engine as of today, freshly polished. The main item that needs making is the tender, which is completely gone. I’ve begun making the frames for this, and probably this week I’ll be placing an order with Walsall for wheel castings, axleboxes, buffers etc. Here is the roughed out left hand side frame. When I first acquired the engine I thought it was either a Bassett Lowke special order, or something made by an ancient London builder like G. Carson & Sons or C. Butcher & Co. This theory was proved entirely incorrect when on one of the plates I found an inscription with the name of Arthur Ficke, and the date 1950. Arthur Ficke, is actually a Mr Arthur John Fiske born in London in 1884. His parents moved to Worksop/Doncaster in 1891, and I am assuming he went to work at the plant. So it seems quite possible that parts or maybe the entire engine were made at Doncaster, which is very cool to think of. Mr Fiske died in Birmingham in 1974. Obviously there is loads more to do, mostly the making of the backhead detail and sticking a motor in the tender. More updates to come. Douglas Who is covered in iron filings