The Unofficial Mamod and Other Steam Forum

tmuir · Last edited by tmuir on Sat Feb 17, 2007 2:56 pm; edited 1 time in total

I recently got two Bowman 234 Locos of Ebay but niether came with a burner so I went on the hunt for a burner.

I managed to get half a burner off ebay.
Here it is next to a Mamod Loco burner just to show how huge it is.

I needed to know the sizes of the missing parts off my burner and thankfully other people on the forum managed to provide me with photos and measurements of their burners so I could fix mine.

Here is a link to that thread.
http://modelsteam.myfreeforum.org/about2169.html

Now that I had the measurements I visited my local hobby shop and picked up some brass tube.

On removing the broken pipe the rest of it fell inside the fuel tank so I had to open it up, this was not what I wanted to do but it did let me see what was making the clanking noise inside the burner.
It is a safety fuel shut off should the loco fall over.
Here is my description and picture from one of my other posts.

'Had to open up fuel tank to fit new pipe, should of taken a photo but will try and explain it.
Inside the tank is a steel rod about 2 to 3cm long with a steel ball on each end, one about 10mm diameter and one about 5mm diameter.
The bigger ball is free to move and is what makes the clanging noise when the burner is tilted and sits at rest in ball shaped grove you can see in my photo above.

The next part is tricky to describe.
Imagine a tube with an inside diameter about 1 to 2mm larger than smaller ball, now solder a brass plug in one end with a 1/8 inch hole in it to take pipe that goes out to wick holders.
Now slide the smaller ball inside tube and round the end of the tube over until it is a smooth fit around the small ball but leave a gap of about 2 to 3mm betwen ball and plug so the ball can slide forward and allow meths to pass by it.
If you turn the tank upside down or on its side the larger steel ball swings across and pulls small one back against rounded end of tube sealing off the pipe to the wicks.
This will make it much harder for meths to leak out the filler hole as no air can come in via wick tube.

What this all means is if the loco derails and falls on its side less meths can spill out and meths is cut off to the lit wicks meaning they would go out fairly soon after a derail.

Hope that made sense.

'

After fixing the 1/8 inch meths feed pipe to the fuel tank I discovered the tank had a hole in it where the steel ball rests.

I quick rub down with W&D back to shiny metal and a small bit of brass sheet aneald and domed was soldered over this hole and fixed it nicely.

Now I had to make the wick tubes.

I cut all six to size and then had to fix a bottom to them.
I don't own a lathe capable of turning up plugs for the wick holders so I settled on silver soldering brass sheet to the base of the tubes.
I used silver solder so I would not have to worry about them falling off in the middle of a run.

Here is a picture of what they looked like after silver soldering.

As you can see they had a square base on them that was no good so I used snips to cut off as much excess as possible and then fitted the tubes to my watch makers lathe and used a file and them emery paper to make the base round.

Here is a picture of 3 wicks showing the rounded base fitted to the feeder tube.

Using the photos I already had showing how the wicks spaced between the wheels on the loco I fitted the burner to my loco and marked the position for the wicks one at a time.

Once I had the position I used my jewelers saw to cut a small slit in the top and the bottom of the feeder pipe and then used a small triangle file to widen the slit and finished the hole off by twirling the point of the file in the hole.

To drill the 3.3mm hole through the wick holders I fitted a wooden dowel inside the wick holders that was a snug fit, centre punched them and drilled the holes on my drill press with wood underneath the wick holder to minimise tearing out of the hole and it work well.

I then W&D the feeder pipe and wick holder and soft soldered it in place.

Here is the first 3 fitted.

Now 5 fitted.

To stop the previous wick holder from coming unsoldered as I did the next one I wrapped the previous one in a wet paper towel.

To plug the end of the feeder pipe I had bought a brass rod that was a snug fit inside the feeder pipe, this was soldered in at the same time as the last wick holder was fitted.

Here is a photo of the finished product.
I used the spare wick material from my Mamod burner for this burner.

Before fitting the burner to a loco I wanted to test fire it by itself to check it had no leaks.

The test fire was a sucess.

I then quickly got one of my Bowman Locos gave everything a quick check and an oil and put 150ml of water in it.

I had blown out the burner after my test fire and added another 20mls of metho which would of meant I had about 50mls in the tank.

Put the loco up on blocks and lit it.

After a few mins of heating up I gave the wheels a flick and after a little bit of spluttering the loco sprang to life after being dormet for many years.

Another job sucessfully completed.

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A nice example of an Australian made Scorpion Donkey Engine

Mamodman123 · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 2:33 pm Post subject:

Excellent stuff Tony! a real credit to your hard work

Runs well by the looks of things! what track are you going to run it on though?

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You could get a nice flatbase for that

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tmuir · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 2:39 pm Post subject:

I will be running it on my LGB track I'm converting it to guage 1.
All I need to do the conversion is new axles and somespacers to shift the cylinders out further which I will use brass plate for.

New guage 1 axles will cost me 3 pounds each so it will cost me 12 pounds to change guage, cheaper than my Mamod was to change guage.
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A nice example of an Australian made Scorpion Donkey Engine

Mamodman123 · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 2:44 pm Post subject:

Sandman · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 3:31 pm Post subject:

Excellent job Tony.

I really need to start looking at making some resto burners myself.

It must give you great satisfaction to see the end product work so well.

Keep up the good work.

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Ouch! Where's the burn cream

Did someone mention Bowman?

oldstuff · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 3:43 pm Post subject:

Brilliant job, Tony! Great explanation and pics...even a vid! You must be well pleased.

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Twin-cylinder, CSE-3

"Put that in your Dremel!"

SPOKESMAN · Guest

Great to see, with that burner going the engine will fly!!

tmuir · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 4:17 pm Post subject:

Yes, Now I need to make some caps so when the loco is not hauling anything it can br brought back to a safe speed.
I have the tubing just need to silver solder the ends on them.
Will probably make them in a week or so.
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A nice example of an Australian made Scorpion Donkey Engine

Steve_S · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 10:53 pm Post subject:

That's great Tony, the burner works really well. It's always good to see an engine run for the first time in decades... there's obviously not much wrong with it!

tmuir · Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 12:43 am Post subject:

No besides the paintwork needing done the only other thing wrong with this one is its missing a nut and bolt that hold the cab on and a locking nut off the front bogie and one bogie wheel needs replacing.
All easy stuff to fix.

The other loco needs a bit more stuff but is still in pretty good condition.
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A nice example of an Australian made Scorpion Donkey Engine