Florence Locomotive Works

Evening all, Well another secret pie has been added my multitude of pies with fingers in them. I’ve been planning since Brunel was nearly finished to build another engine, and that day has finally arrived. And to HH’s (hoping all is well Richard btw) horror I’ve once again chosen a totally useless gauge, 7mm broad gauge, which really is nowhere near as bad as G2. So what engine am I doing? Well, I decided on a model of Iron Duke in Rover Class condition, circa 1885. I chose it as: A, the valve gear doesn’t necessarily need to be modeled. B, no quartering need be fretted over. C, they look excellent and the shapes aren’t to difficult. Being an ancient broad gauger however drawings were not forthcoming, only one being found in the HMRS archive and they didn’t specify what it depicted, so I endeavored to make my own, which I had planned on doing anyways. (hence the acquisition of the drawing instruments and writing slope, all part of the master plan you see) So I ended up scaling up the excellent Finney7 drawings off my laptop screen to produce these, rough but usable drawings. The project is somewhat of a joint project between me and William Robertson of W.M. Robertson Miniaturesup in KC, who is providing a lot of advice from his 45 years of making fine scale models of just about everything. Construction so far amounts to 5 of the six 4”6 inch wheels for the engine being turned on the lathe as brass disks (seen by the pencil in last image) as I can’t afford castings these days. Todays main job however was the cutting out of the one of the main frames with a jewelers saw. This took about 2.5 hours and apart from the blade snapping every 7 minutes as usual it went pretty well. Douglas

*hoof

The first frame got cut today, roughly 3 hours work with my jewelers saw and 3 dozen #4 blades. It’s cut from steel plate using scribed lines transferred from the drawings I made using a compass made in the 1850s by P.S. Stubs of Warrington. Now it’s time for finishing and then repeating the process on its twin. I will not be doing the double frames as there is little point in doing so in this scale, just the outside frames getting done. Douglas

Just got done turning up two of the rough flanged and recessed blanks for the leading wheels from brass, only four more to do now. The main driver will be more difficult though as currently there is no 2 inch diameter brass available in my city, I haven’t looked into the softer steel alloys yet though. So something needs finding and hopefully I won’t have to have it shipped here. Douglas

No not quite, although I would like to build one of those one day.

Hello all, I’ve been planning this a for a while. In April of last year I began construction on my first scratchbuilt engine, a 2 inch gauge freelance 4-4-0, which was built basically with a hacksaw, blowtorch and a good set of files, with a lathe only being acquired after 7/8ths of the project was completed. I’ve now amassed a good collection of good quality tools, as I started work at around the same time in the watch/clockmaking industry, so I’ve decided it’s time build my second engine, a model of the GWR’s Iron Duke in Rover class guise, around 1883. I’m a horologist by trade so the engine will be built in the style of a watch, meaning it will all be polished metal, no paint or plastic allowed! The wheels will be turned as solid brass disks and may get divided into sections for cutting out of the spokes with a jewelers saw. This is how the frames will be made from 13 gauge brass sheet. Current progress amounts to a load of research being done and the GA drawing of the chassis being done, along with a test leading wheel. As a point of interest, I also discovered that I have a copy of the original indicator readings from Great Britain in 1856, published in my 1892 copy of The Steam Engine by D.K. Clark. The main holdup right now in making the drawings is that I simply cannot find the boiler diameter. Anybody know? Without it it would be futile to do the cab and smokebox drawings. A few questions people may have. 1. Working motion? Maybe, I’m not sure. 2. Motorized? Possible, but only the tender. 3. Gauge? 48 mm. Douglas

That'd be the one.

That’s a very good point, had not thought of it. The problem is finding the better sort of employer though.

Well the parents wish for me to study history, which would be great but there are few prospects with such a degree. Engineering would be good but I’m rubbish at math, so it’s undecided upon at the moment.

In terms of pies baking, I only have 3 at the moment, this, the ship (which is basically done) and Brunel’s tender. In terms of completed pies reading for scoffing by either a hippo, sheep, bear or wing commander I’ve got 7. Im trying to do as much as possible before I turn 18 as from what I understand it’s all down hill after that.

Afternoon all, A question for us all. I’m pretty sure I posted it here but about 2 months ago I came into the possession of this ancient 7mm finescale (the dark side hath taken me) GNR C1, made by Arthur Ficke of Worksop in 1950. I know little about him other than that he was born in 1887. I’ve been thinking recently about the fact that it would actually be worth motorizing it as it could be taken with me to college (which is looking likely to be Edinburgh) and run on a club track, assuming I have spare time. Here are some photos of it. (it’s missing the splasher though plans have been made to remake them) To me it seems the best method would be to put and motor in the nonexistent tender, or build a tender round the motor, as the wheels are cast iron and are press fitted onto the axles, something i’d really not like to mess with. Anybody else have some ideas? Douglas Who now models 7mm

I wonder why my insurance provider needed that….

It’s about 40 degrees c in the kart with all the gear on so one does tend to get very red in the face….

Morning all, Mom got to France alright via Frankfurt, and the AC has been fixed. On Saturday we got the kart out for its first test session since the engine was sent to Indiana for a rebuild, the brakes were rebuilt by us. The rebuild on both systems are a grand success, my estimate is that we gained 2-5 mph with the basically new engine so we now have a top speed of between 47-51 mph in this gearing configuration. I did however manage to neglect my g force exercises so i was very very sore Sunday morning! Even though we are only pulling 3g, (which is nothing by Daves standards) we do that every 32 seconds for an hour in a test session. Here’s a shot of me waiting on the grid squinting into the sun. Douglas

Unless she secretly possesses the powers of seeing the future I don’t think so. Oddly convenient though….

Morning all, Upstairs AC died on Sunday evening so sleep has been pretty nonexistent with it being about 90 degrees in my room. Mom left for France this morning, for a language trip to aid her in teaching. Douglas Who is very tired

Messed around a bit with the first photo… Douglas

The car has been formally acquired. The peasantry have been called to celebration in the streets. Douglas

Right well a lot has happened in the last 48 hours. Majorly, I got my first car. This 2003 Land Rover Discovery SE, which thankfully has nothing major wrong with it. I’m very pleased with it, I’ve wanted a Land Rover since I was nine and never expected one to be my first car. I was also gifted this today as an early birthday gift by my aunt and grandfather, a Georgian writing lap desk to accompany the drawing set. As they live in NZ it was more convenient to buy something here than in NZ and have it shipped here. It’s a very nice thing, and a I spent several hours making it look presentable again. The only big missing bit is the diamond shaped mother of pearl inset around the lock which I will either replace with brass or ivory. Here it is folded up. Douglas

yes we often switch places with them for the record holder.

Morning all, A Land Rover is being bought today, and to keep you interested I won’t say anything else about it until it’s happened…. Re work experience week. Not something schools in the USA do anymore. You can do 3 week internships mostly with doctors or petroleum engineers, but you are let’s say “expected” to live in a certain tax bracket for that privilege, because god forbid we have someone from north Tulsa walking around the ONEOK office! That is sarcasm btw, but sadly the school system in Oklahoma, which is the least funded in the country, does not do internships because people who would be successful in those roles will obviously go to the private schools, and anybody who’s in the public system is only good for being on a landscaping team during the summer, rather than assisting an ER doctor. Very sad. Douglas

Given the age of the tree stump perhaps you should have applied for it and the bed to be made a scheduled monument, thus avoiding toil in the garden.

Probably pretty good, I’d say under 9 seconds, which is what a Tesla does.

Ah the dangers of Simon Hudson’s store! That is particularly nice one, and yes it’s probably superheated, may even be fitted with a commercial boiler. The main problem with Brittanias and Dukes in the larger gauges is that if they are built from a kit (which the majority are) for some reason the kit designer positioned the cylinder castings to far forward on the frames for the valve travel length that they specify to work, so often the valves need to be heavily lapped or even remade. Over the past two years I’ve seen around 25 Brits come into Station Road Steam with replaced or badly working valves. On a Duke though this is unlikely to be a problem.

Afternoon all, Just finished the first successful floatation test in the grandmothers pool with the assistance of grandad, (chief consulting engineer) it went very well after we dug an ancient drop forged 1 inch spanner out of the garage to set atop the iron bar I was using as it didn’t weigh enough on its own and I hadn’t brought the spare with me. I also was allowed to take home some of the remaining tools from my other grandfathers woodworking shop, which was nice as I don’t have any of his tools and he passed 10 years ago this November. Douglas