Maybe looking for a new home

Bogstandard · Maybe looking for a new home

Hi All,
I seem a bit out of place here, so I will see how I get on with yourselves before I park my bum in your most cumfy armchair.
I recognise a few of the members from a website about building small engines. I was the European administrator on there until a couple of weeks ago when I resigned because the American populace were quite willing to allow posts about guns on there, and my feelings as you can guess are fairly strong on things like that, I hope there is nothing like that on here.
I mainly build my own design engines, but do occasionally make from plans, and in the past from castings.
Tmuir, whom I know, put a posting about Tubal Cains 'Jenny Wren' in the plans section, so I have added a bit in there, and from the u-tube link you can also find my other vids that show the sort of thing I produce.
I am a bit ignorant when it comes to these small commercial units, even though I have owned one or two in the distant past, and repaired a few as well in my time.
I am a model engineer that is willing to help with problems, so if needed just ask and I will try to be as helpful as possible.

John

tmuir

Hi John and Welcome.

Have a look around and if you like it here, as you say pull up a chair.
There are a few model engineers here and you can rest assured there will be no plans on how to build guns here unless they are steam powered toy guns.

People with fully equipped workshops are always welcome here as a lot of the older engines it is getting harder to get parts for so if you ever want to win friends and influence people here you can always offer to machine up spare parts and the like.

We have a few people that scratch build engines and from casting but admittedly most of us don't have the equipment or the skill (yet) to do that.
But we do have a section for home builds and I'm personally interested how model engines are built just as much as toy engines.

Hope to see you around more.

Tony

Stilldrillin

Hello John!
A big welcome from Derbyshire.

Don`t worry, we`ve got all sorts of modeling sorts on here.
If you`ve an interest in steam engines, you`ll be happy here.

Take you`re time and ease in gently.

David.

Manxman

Hi John and I like your honesty already. Hope you enjoy reading posts and who knows within a few weeks you may just be buying toy steam engines.

Andy

welcome to the forum

IndianaRog

Hi John and welcome. I think you will ultimately find our comfy armchair to be just that, a nice place to park for a bit of steam talk.

We are primarily toy steam owners, operators, restorers and modders who enjoy our hobby and sharing it with others of like mind. I tend to favor the Jensen line of toy steam made in the US and find they sort of straddle the toy/model fence nicely...but since joining this forum I have branched out and acquired a few Mamod mobiles, a couple of Wilesco's and a few Stuarts too...finding other brands each offer their unique advantages.

Though I'm American and cherish our right to own and use firearms for protection and sport, you are correct that the subject doesn't belong on a toy steam forum, where it stirs emotions needlessly. I respect your honesty in mentioning this as a concern.

We've all got plenty in common and I look forward to learning more of the model engineering side of our hobby from yourself.

cheers,
Roger

Cedge

Welcome John
I think you'll be quite happy here. Just watch out that these guys don't get you hooked on the Toy engines. They're notorious for helping a guy wreck his wallet.

Steve

MooseMan

John, you're not at all out of place - the only prerequisite for membership of this group is an interest in the hobby, and to be willing to get on with the other members - can't imagine you nit fitting in.

In other words: welcome!

johnreid

I dont think firearms have even been mentioned here, no problem either way with me. Enjoy talking Steam and I bet you will both contribute information and learn. Welcome aboard.

Mister Occlusion

G'day

We try to stay on topic here, in a broad sense, other than the sheep posts on the OT board

The last thing in the world that I come to this place for is to engage in senseless political debate... I can get my fill of that anywhere.

I lurked on and off at your old board a while back, and picked up some decent tips, though anything beyond hammer, torch, and drill press is beyond me

.

Your experience will be valuable here I know.

Bogstandard

Gentlemen,
Thank you so much for making me feel wanted. I just hope I can help you on your quests to getting these fascinating little machines running again.
As I said before, I am 'into' model engineering, but an engine is an engine is an engine, they just work in different ways.

I am quite willing to help produce small bits that are no longer available, but please no 'just' jobs (can you JUST make this v8 1/4 scale engine).
For some reason a gentleman from Oz sends drawings for me to make bits for his very exclusive steam engine and model paddle boat that he is building, but he seems to think he is getting a very good deal on it. I know the area I come from charge about £45 ($90 US) per hour, and that includes jig making and set up time, so your little cylinders and pistons would cost if ordered as a one off unit, well over £100 each. My charges are nothing like that, all I require is that it costs me nothing in postage (so reuseable packaging if possible), you pay return postage plus material costs at cost. I will give you two hours FREE machining, after that a donation of £10 per hour to my workshop fund (to pay for running costs). The one thing I do insist on is either good drawings, or send the bit that needs to be duplicated. I cannot work to dimensions that say 'about 1/4"'. If people are within striking distance and only a smallish job I can usually make as you wait, but you would need to phone first. I can't be any fairer than that.
I had better tell you now before I am inundated, I am due for a bit of pioneering surgery towards the end of Jan, hopefully to get my right arm working properly again (I have been running on a left arm and a bit of right for the last 2 1/2 years), so there might be delays after that for a bit.

I am always willing to help anyone, as far as possible, with engineering questions, just remember that there is no such thing as a stupid question. We all have to learn sometime. But please remember, I don't know everything, but I might be able to point you in the right direction.
Or if someone needs to know how to machine a part or even set up a very cheap workshop, I can most probably help.
I have now got to troll your site to find out where I can post a few piccies and vids to show you what I am capable of.

John

johnreid

Best of luck with the surgery, I am sure you will enjoy it here.

steamgranny

John & hope that surgery gives you back a fully-functional right arm - sounds as though you will need it with machining jobs piling up

Cranko

Hi John ad welcome from New zealand . I think you will enjoy it here

Griffin

Hello John, and welcome to the forum

Hope you have a speedy recovery from the surgery.

Just noticed on your signature that you are also from Cheshire.

Bogstandard

Hi Griffin,

The teeming metropolis and romantic gateway to the north.

Crewe.

Please, no laughter, I saw that exact quote on a bit of local literature about the place.

John

flywheel61

Hi John, and another welcome to the forum from Down Under, I hope you park you chair here permanently even though most of us are only into toy steam. Also a big thanks for the offere to make parts I'm sure it will be greatly appreciated.

I hope all goes well with your surgery next, month, I know what it's like to loose part of the use of an arm and the miracles of surgery that can bring it back to full use, go for it.

Cheers

Chris

tmuir

Hi John,
One area if you are interested in making a small bit of money to cover the cost of new tools ect is Mamod Loco upgrades.
I don't know how much you know about Mamod locos, they are a great introduction in live steam locos and for many people they are all they could afford but off the shelf their performance is pretty average.

I know you could probably get a number of people interested if you were to build a decent regulator that could fit in the cab of the locos like the one I fitted in mine in this thread.
http://modelsteam.myfreeforum.org/about3846.html

Or meths burners for the locos so they could get rid of the solid fuel ones or better still butane ones.
The old Merlin after market gas burners for these locos that are coming up to 20 years old still fetch £30 on ebay whilst a new gas burner will set people back £50.

Something for you to ponder about late at night.

Good luck with the surgery in Jan and I hope all goes well

Tony

Bogstandard

Hi Tony,
There is no problem making custom parts at all, and I am sure that a good steam regulator could be designed and made fairly easily.
That is the easy part, the hard part is getting it to fit your loco. I don't have examples of any of your engines, so making the bits to fit would require you to supply well dimensioned drawings of the engine so that everything could be custom made. Once one is done and fitted, then further making is easy as they would be drawn up and each subsequent one can be made the same.
With regards to burners, no problems, but the dimensioning thing rears its ugly head again. One thing I do know is that when I used a gas burner on a brass boiler for model boats, the 'fumes' from the gas de-zinced the boiler in about 12 months, turning it into a rather expensive sieve (that was a Wilesco upright boiler and using their own gas burner as supplied). I have made ceramic burners for boilers, very efficient indeed, but the problem lies in the rechargeable tank that they use, rather expensive to produce, since they require purchase of the gas control valve and the filler valve, plus the adapter to fill them up with from standard cartridges.
Inline lubricators are easy, but another thing is starting to rear its ugly head. As you most probably know, the third world and China are sucking up all supplies of copper and so the price has shot up for copper and copper based derivatives (brass and phos bronze), so expect a lot of price hikes when you come to buy these things a little later on. Especially if you are considering a copper boiler, the cost of tubing is rising already.
So to put it into a nutshell, if a sample or good quality drawing can be supplied, no problems.

John

Griffin

Mister Occlusion

Bogstandard

MO,

The boiler in question had been run for between 80 & 100 hours(guesstimate of 2-3 hrs running each weekend for about a year, minus the odd weekend when not sailing) in a model boat. It used the supplied burner and rechargeable gas tank by Wilesco (very inefficient burner). I noticed steam coming from the chimney one sailing day, and thought it had sprung a joint leak. At home I stripped it down and felt up the central flue chimney, it felt very 'springy', a little further finger pressure and I had broken thru the chimney pipe into the boiler, it was tissue paper thin.
Whether this was a combination of having unburnt gases and fumes plus water vapour, or just by using a propane/butane mix, I can only guess, all I can suggest is to make enquiries about the problems associated with gas burners and brass boilers. I put a copper boiler in the boat with a home made ceramic burner, and up to now is still steaming well, the boat and boiler is going to a new home in the new year, it is going to be refurbished by the new owner (well over ten years sailing).
Brass is renowned for dezincing and corrosion when exposed to temperature and condensates. That is why, if ever you have a boiler bush screw up, always try to replace it with one made from phos bronze. On a copper boiler these should be fitted as standard.
There are a few processes now that are producing anti dezincing brass, and hopefully this will alleviate a lot of problems with it.

Please remember, in this post I mentioned extended running times, youselves might only do a fraction of this time thru the boilers' lifetime, so the problem might never occur. Also the boiler in question might have been made from substandard materials, but what I do know is that the material it was made from was very thin.

If in doubt over a subject like this, I would contact the boiler and gas burner manufacturers, if they say it is ok, then you have some comeback if it all goes pear shaped. If they give you a straight answer you will know where you stand, if they give you the runaround or don't reply after a couple of attempts, be suspicious.
I do this all the time when purchasing the latest 'best thing since sliced bread' tooling. They are only human like yourselves and there is nothing to be afraid of, in fact some manufacturers expect questions, and provide direct links.

Hope this helps, and maybe starts a discussion in the appropriate section, by the members, about their hands on dealings with gas burners and brass boilers. It just might put your mind at rest.

John

Mister Occlusion

I'm going to look into it further on my own, certainly.

Wilesco boilers are largely nickel plated too, so that wasn't protecting anything, unless yours was natural brass. I have a Mamod that developed pinholes in the boiler end cap where there were coppery patches of corrosion, and I recognized similar patches on an old Jensen boiler of mine that I had removed the thin and patchy nickel plating from. I suppose that one will spring a leak some day too.

It's odd how I've only seen this dezincification on boiler end caps so far.

I have a strange one too: an old engine with a copper boiler and what has to be some sort of meths burner. I was looking into the boiler through the filler port one day and noticed the bottom was rotting out, like an old car fender - a patch the size of a thumbnail with dozens of perforations. That surprised me. But, then, this thing belonged to my uncles back in the 40's-50's and they managed to abuse just about every steam engine they had to the point of failure (only a single small Fleischmann vertical remains intact).

Yes, this is the sort of thing that needs research and discussion (elsewhere)..

This is supposed to be the Welcome Wagon thread after all!

Bogstandard

MO,
Mine was a plain brass one.
The reason for just the end cap failures might be that the main barrel is drawn tube and the end caps might have had further pressings on them to get them to shape. So they might be different materials to begin with, or the extra working of the end caps produced a brass with slightly different properties.
With regards to the blemish in the bottom of the copper boiler, it could be caused by the residue flux from the build not being cleaned out properly, 50 years before. I have to be careful when I am laquering my brightware, a single fingerprint under the laquer won't show itself for up to a year afterwards, when the metal starts corroding from the acid in the print, by then it is too late and usually a new part has to be made.

John

Steve_S

Welcome to the forum John. I'm sure you'll fit in here perfectly!

James

Welcome to the Forums John!