Table of contents for Issue 4694 in Model Engineer

Continued from p.15 M.E. 4693, 17 June 2022 There are six steam chest covers in total, two for each steam chest. The two outside cylinders have a similar cover at each end, with a gland where a rod emerges; at the rear, the rod is driven by the valve gear and at the front the rod drives the conjugated gear. The middle cylinder, however, has a gland only at the front where a rod emerges to be driven by the conjugated gear. At the rear there is instead a valve guide. I’ll discuss the centre cylinder rear steam chest cover first and then the other five covers. Centre steam chest rear cover The centre cylinder rear steam chest cover is in two parts. Both parts have flanges which will need…

Continued from p.51 M.E. 4693, 17 June 2022 The flywheel This is 80mm diameter x 16mm thick (fig 12). It was cut from 90mm diameter brass bar 18mm long, held in the three-jaw chuck by the outside rim, faced both sides, centre drilled, drilled 5.8mm then reamed 6mm. The surface was machined to form the recess 60mm outside diameter x 18mm inside diameter x 4mm deep, then reversed in the chuck and repeated. This was to form a web thickness of 8mm. To hold it in the rotary table I used the MFP (mini face plate) with a 6mm bush and an M6 bolt. I decided to drill six 14mm diameter holes in the flywheel. One hole was drilled 5mm diameter on a 40mm pitch circle through both the flywheel…

The next stop on my visit to clubs in Lancashire was to the Urmston & District Model Engineering Society. This is a long-established club whose origins go right back to November 1948 when an announcement was made in the 25 November issue of Model Engineer. Prior to that announcement, however, a group of members from the Eccles and District MES – which had been formed in 1944 and had a track located behind the Rock Hotel in Eccles – had decided to build a railway track closer to their homes around Urmston. (Before the arrival of the motorway in 1960, crossing the Manchester Ship Canal on a regular basis, via Barton swing bridge, was more challenging.) This new Society was formed in 1948 but some members were also members of…

Introduction The East Somerset Society of Model and Experimental Engineers (ESSME) has embarked on the building of a 7¼ inch gauge Highlander Black Five locomotive. I was roped in to produce some of the component parts, mainly for the tender. These parts included the leaf springs for the tender axles and the steel leaves of the front bogie leaf springs. At 22 leaves per spring, on each tender spring, it meant that a total of 132 leaves would have to be formed into the radius required by the design. Fortunately, the radius is the same for all leaves as defined by the normal simplified leaf spring theory. Whilst the club has a traditional roller set, it has the disadvantages of being large and too cumbersome for the components of the…

Introduction It’s been a while since I’ve read a philosophical article for newbies on what to expect when starting our wonderful hobby. There are of course fantastic books on the subject but these tend to deal more with the detail and not the overall expectation. Before starting I feel compelled to lay bare my qualifications to justify penning such an article. I passed cum laude from the University of Hard Knocks, specialising in rework and ‘how not to do something’. My post grad was in fixing mishaps with putty and paint. I currently hold part time employment as a beginner, which complements my extensive qualifications with the necessary experience to give advice to anyone interested in giving model engineering a bash. There will be one glaring omission – namely safety,…

Continued from p.40 M.E. 4693, 17 June 2022 You may recall that in the introduction I mentioned that, for reasons best known to itself, the computer has mislaid all the photos of the carburettor manufacture. Let’s just say that some parts, the fuel intake pipe connector for example, are exceedingly small. Photograph 58 shows the three carburettors required for both supercharged and conventional versions. When I first saw that there were supercharger plans available for the engine, I thought they might provide some interesting machining; I was not disappointed! We’ll look at the blower body first before moving on to the rotors. All versions of this build I have seen online seem to have used a casting to produce the blower body, which would be the obvious choice. That is,…

Continued from p.737 M.E. 4692, 3 June 2022 I have provided Geoff with the laser cutting diagrams for the two main types of tender so you need to be specific in what you ask him for to save any confusion. There is the one which has the one-piece sides and then there is the one with the additional upper plates. There were quite a lot of B1s with both types of tender throughout their lives. To give you an idea of what you are looking for, I will give you a few of the numbers which I know about. They are the first ten plus 61352 to 61354 and 7 which had the extra height plates riveted on with snap head rivets and then 61355 and 6 which had countersunk…

July 2/3 North Wilts MES Charity Weekend, Coate Water Country Park, Swindon 11:00 – 17:00. Contact: Ken Parker, 07710 515507 3 Bradford MES Rae Gala 2022, Northcliff Railway 14:00 – 16:30. Contact: Russ Coppin, 07815 048999 3 Bristol SMEE Public running, Ashton Court Railway BS8 3PX noon – 17:00. Contact: secretary@bristolmodelengineers.co.uk 6 Bradford MES Boating Competition and Social Evening 2022, Wisbey Park 19:30. Contact: Russ Coppin, 07815 048999 9 Rochdale SMEE 90th Anniversary Open Day, 10:00 – 16:00. Contact: Mike Foster, 07421 824998 or fosterm@btinternet.com 9 York Model Engineers Evening Talk – 19:00. Contact: Bob Polley: 01653 618324 10 Bristol SMEE Public running, Ashton Court Railway BS8 3PX noon – 17:00. Contact: secretary@bristolmodelengineers.co.uk 10 Bristol SMEE Ashton Court evening, Begbrook Social Club BS16 1HY 16:00 – 20:15. Contact: secretary@bristolmodelengineers.co.uk 10…

Introduction I decided that I should like to build a clock and immediately thought that John Wilding’s Large Balance Wheel Clock (photo 1) would be a good project. I had seen one of these at a club meeting and I liked the balance wheel with its brass weight oscillating to and fro. Doing things backward, I first bought Wilding’s book, a piece of steel tube for the balance wheel and the torsion spring. I even purchased a rod of silver for the switch contacts. Then I went looking for more information. I should have done a web search first, for a couple of videos on YouTube made it clear that this clock is noisy. There are clicks at every beat of the balance wheel and every so often an almighty…

Poppleton Children’s Sports Day This engine is a ‘Wren’ named, appropriately, Puffin, driven by her owner, local resident and York Model Engineers member Jason Edwards. A good team turned out from the club to help. It was a highly successful day with over thirty people waiting for rides at one point, probably the most successful Children’s Sports Day for many years, helped by lovely weather. It certainly beats queueing for flights at Manchester Airport! York Model Engineers usually run about six portable track events during the year in and around York. It’s an opportunity to promote the society and attract visitors to the Open Days at the club track. A Patriotic Engine A Patriot class locomotive for a patriotic event. Here is my own locomotive The Royal Army Ordnance Corps…

Somewhat unusually for this series, our hero is neither inventor nor engineer but a businessman turned industrialist. Henry William Schneider (photo 1) was born in 1817 in London and combined a colourful but ineffective career in politics with helping create a great steelworks and the town of Barrow in Furness. In the mid 18th Century, his grandfather John Henry Schneider left Bern Canton in Switzerland to live in London where he took out naturalisation and prospered as a Baltic merchant. To expand the family history a little, his brother Jacques went to Le Creusot in France, founding that business where his descendants sponsored the Schneider Trophy for seaplanes. John became well connected and married Mary Elizabeth Congreve. She was sister of Sir William Congreve, Director General of Woolwich Arsenal and…

Continued from M.E. 4501, 6 February 2015 It’s been around 10 years since I visited the Guinness Brewery Museum in Dublin and discovered the types of transport that the Guinness Company have used over their long history to both brew and distribute their products. This included an extensive narrowgauge railway or, to give it its correct title, a tramway. Amongst the variety of locomotives built specifically for this railway was an unusual 0-4-0 tank locomotive (fig 1), designed to negotiate the very tight curves around the site – including its unique spiral tunnel. One of these was on display and, as I took a closer look, my thoughts turned to wondering whether it would prove a worthy prototype for a 7¼ gauge project. History of the Guinness Railway For those…

Continued from p.767 M.E. 4692, 3 June 2022 Adding the pump valves and the mounting angle Fitting the pump to the engine frame proved interesting and I decided to use a piece of brass angle placed vertically up from the base frame with an extra soft soldered strap to the back of the angle that could be held against frame ‘A’ by the long stud. My drawing, included here as fig 8, shows the complete part and also has the disc on which to mount the handle which will be needed shortly for the reverser itself. Looking ahead, I have also included in the drawing a summary table for the gears I have used and where to obtain them. The basic pump support material is a 35⁄16 inch length of…