Table of contents for Issue 4692 in Model Engineer

MARTIN EVANS Editor DIANE CARNEY Assistant Editor YVETTE GREEN Designer 70 Glorious Years As you read this, we are celebrating the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. Monarchist or not, noone could be unaware of the significance of this event, the first of its kind in British history – and unlikely to be equalled for a very long time. Like many of us, probably the great majority, I am totally Elizabethan, having known no other monarch. In my case I was born two months after her accession. Our queen has been the figurehead of this country during a period of great change – economically, socially, politically and technologically. Yet she herself has remained in all important respects unchanged, her sense of duty and devotion to this and many other countries…

Doug Hewson presents an authentic 5 inch gauge version of Thompson’s most successful locomotive. Continued from p.633 M.E. 4690,6 May 2022 The water scoop I thought that I would describe the water scoop as a matter of completeness for the tender. The problem is that I do not have any casting for it but for those of you who have got a 3D printer I have provided the drawings for you. I don’t think it will matter if the water scoop is in plastic but it would be very nice if you could make all the gear to go with it as the tender will look very bare underneath if it is not there and, in any event, I do hope that you will make the operating handle if nothing else.…

Mick Knights describes the construction of a supercharged V8 internal combustion engine. Continued from p.693 M.E. 4691, 20 May 2022 Cylinder heads If you feel the machining has been interesting thus far it’s about to get a whole lot more interesting as we move onto the cylinder heads. Every aspect of the cylinder head’s manufacture needs to be as accurate as you can possibly achieve as an awful lot has to happen in a very small space and there is very little room for error, especially when it comes to the angular locating faces for the manifold block as these need to be gas and water tight. The positions of the combustion chambers and, more importantly, the bores for the valve guides are established by using linear measurements with the…

Small World Dear Martin, From time to time in the pages of Model Engineer we read of delivery of items to a model engineer’s doorstep a day or so after ordering, particularly in the UK. I’ve just purchased some tooling from the UK and was impressed with the service especially now that the world has settled into a new covid ‘normal’. Sometime in the 1990’s whilst on a trip to the UK from Tasmania I purchased a set of castings for the College Engineering Supplies rotary table. We – my wife and I – actually picked up the castings from, I believe, somewhere near Wolverhampton and brought them home in our luggage. I remember that I had the worm and wheel in my carry-on luggage – try doing that now!…

John Arrowsmith heads off down to the West Country to see what GL5 are up to. A rally, organised by the East Somerset Society of Model and Experimental Engineers (ESSMEE) for members of the Ground Level 5 Inch Gauge Mainline Association (GL5) to enjoy the facilities available at their Bath & West Showground track was organised for the weekend of 22 – 24 April. When I arrived on the Saturday proceedings were in full swing with lots of rolling stock and locomotives either being prepared or out on the track. David Hale from ESSMEE explained that a roster had been drawn up and he was hopeful that it would all work to plan. I think that, by and large, it did with no real problems with either locomotives or members.…

David Maidment’s book output is as remarkable as is his generosity. All royalties from sale of these two books benefit the excellent charity he founded, The Railway Children, helping street children across the globe. The first of these two books is different from others he’s written in the Locomotive Portfolios series as the author admits he has no personal experience of the classes described. Otherwise the book follows the usual formula with a history of the classes described, train logs showing how locomotives performed, dimensions and weight diagrams plus statistics showing build dates, first and last shed allocations and dates of withdrawal for each engine. We’re also given Midland mainline gradient charts, a bibliography and index. It is copiously illustrated with good photographs, including some taken on shed. Classes described…

Eddie Castellan builds LBSC’s Gauge 1 swansong, Mabel, named after Mrs LBSC. It all started when a few pictures of an LNWR ‘Jumbo’ appeared on the excellent Gauge One Model Railways Facebook page. A certain amount of online head-scratching identified the locomotive as an LBSC Mabel. Many years ago, my dad built about half of a 3½ inch gauge version and I’ve always been a Curly fan so I decided to make a Mabel as my first proper Gauge 1 project. Top priority as a recent Gauge 1 Model Railway Association recruit was to get something running so I kept the locomotive simple and took all the help I could get. I persuaded Malcolm High, then owner of Model Engineer’s Laser (MEL), to produce locomotive and tender frames, motion plate,…

Tony Swinfield constructs an electrically driven horizontal engine. Continued from p.698 M.E. 4691, 20 May 2022 The cylinder This is 50mm diameter x 85mm long (fig 4). Note that any material can be used for this. I used a piece of brass because I had some. It was mounted in the three-jaw chuck and the end was faced. The end was turned down to 30mm diameter x 16mm long (photo 22) and needs to be a good fit in the front end of the body. I used the hole in the body as a gauge (photo 23). The end was drilled 13mm then bored out to 16.6mm diameter to a depth of 25mm. This was then reversed in the chuck with packing (drinks can) to protect the 30mm diameter just…

Luker continues his occasional series with the story of another of South Africa’s master model engineers. Series recap It seems like all over the world it is becoming more and more difficult to build our prized models. Materials in small quantities are becoming scarce, arbitrary designs are plentiful, but working designs are less common and of course there’s all the bureaucracy related to the insurance, health and safety of our live steam models. The idea of this series is to showcase exceptional builders that have let nothing stand in their way when building the models they wanted to build. The guidelines are simple; each builder needed to have built at least five working steam-driven engines. With the average five-inch gauge locomotive taking roughly 5000 hours to build (and with Malcolm…

Brian Baker revives the spirit of Blackpool sea-front. If you live, as I do, in a village in a rural area, mixing with a group of model engineers will, fairly soon, lead you to receiving the phone call or email which begins; ‘you don’t know me, but I was given your name by Joe Bloggs who said you might be able to help me. I need a.....’ – and you become embroiled in what is often an unforeseen enterprise outside of your usual model engineering activities. That’s how it started when I was once asked to make a coin slide for an old Scooter Racer, with just another, similar item to use as a pattern. Perhaps I had better explain what a Scooter Racer is; in the world of old…

John Whale showcases a locomotive that lives up to her name. The Saint was first steamed on 10th July 2012, my dad’s birthday and the year my grandson was born. I bought the castings for a Manor in 1975 and had a rolling chassis by 1980, the work being done as a project at college. Very little was done after this for a number of years until in 2004 I decided to work on the locomotive in earnest. I bought works drawings for a Saint class locomotive from the Railway Museum in York and Peter Rich kindly gave me a copy of his excellent drawing of Saint David and from these I drew up working drawings using Torquay Manor drawings for much of the detail. The boiler was professionally made…

Peter Seymour-Howell builds a fine, fully detailed model of Gresley’s iconic locomotive to Don Young’s drawings. Continued from p.703 M.E. 4691,20 May 2022 Oil cuds Checking the photographs of the prototype I could see that my original thinking that the expansion link oil cups had screw on lids was completely wrong as in fact the lids slide over the inner cup. Now I couldn’t have scale thickness lids and still be able to go through the various machining processes, as they are just far too thin, so the lids needed to be a little thicker. This meant the cups needed to be a little smaller in outside diameter. With the photographs to hand I sat down and drew up a rough drawing to scale and gave some thought as to what…

Graham Gardner watches hot metal being poured in Bristol. After a chance meeting with Mike Brett, the boss of Bristol Foundry, I was invited for a visit to see what went on inside. Mike has worked in foundries all his life and was involved in the making of large machine beds ‘up North’ in big iron foundries when Britain was still the world leader in all types of engineering. Sadly a lot of foundries have closed during the last few decades, which is a pity. Mike runs the foundry with his son and a couple of others and is always busy making all sorts of ferrous and non-ferrous castings for various industries including model engineers who often ask advice on pattern making for their castings. While I was there one such…

Graham Astbury and Mike Tilby delve into the background behind fluxes and soft solders. Continued from p.708 M.E. 4691,20 May 2022 The second part of this series provided a survey of the composition of some of the more common soft solders and discussed some of their properties. In this third part we examine how solders actually adhere to the metals they are joining together and summarise the effects of various parameters on the joint. Nature of the solder joint Wetting and bonding solder to the surface of a piece of the base metal is where a very thin layer is formed in which the tin and the base metal become intimately mixed. In this layer, tin and the metal become dissolved in each other to form a solid solution in…

5 June – 10 July 2022 June 5 Cardiff Model Engineering Society Public running, Heath Park, Cardiff 13:00 – 17:00. See www.cardiffmes.co.uk 5 North Wilts MES Public Running, Coate Water Country Park, Swindon 11:00 – 17:00. Contact: Ken Parker, 07710 515507 11 York Model Engineers Evening Talk – 19:00. Contact Bob Polley: 01653 618324 11/12 North Wilts MES Club Rally, Coate Water Country Park, Swindon 11:00 – 17:00. Contact: Ken Parker, 07710 515507 15 Bristol SMEE Talk: ‘Batteries’, on Zoom, 19:30. Contact: secretary@bristolmodelengineers.co.uk 18/19 Cardiff Model Engineering Society Welsh Rally, evening hog roast, Heath Park – see www.cardiffmes.co.uk Contact: secretary@cardiffmes.co.uk 18/19 Fareham and District SME Sweet Pea Rally, Club Track 10:00 – 16:00. Contact: sweet-pea-2022@fdsme.org.uk 18/19 Melton Mowbray MES Steam Show, Whissendine Sports Ground – see mmdmes. wixsite.com/home Contact: jacced@hotmail.co.uk…

Russell Gifford finds there is a great deal of satisfaction to be found in bringing old, faded models back to life. Health issues have required me to take a back seat for a few weeks. I have used the time to amble through a large pile of old Model Engineer magazines. I have some hundreds of random copies, some dating back to 1946. The most treasured are three copies that I picked up at the general store in Nanyuki. Nanyuki, in the 70’s, was a modest township almost on the lower slopes of Mt. Kenya. Ecstatic would barely describe my reaction to finding these copies in such an unlikely location. The earliest advertising is interesting. Gallaher’s Pipe Tobacco is promoted, as are Senior Service cigarettes, and then advertising for the…

Hotspur constructs a three-cylinder reversible oscillating engine. Continued from p.611 M.E. 4690, 6 May 2022 Hotspur may be contacted on 01600-713913 or hotspurengines@gmail.com Constructing the water pump There were several points to consider when designing the water pump. Very small pumps can be temperamental due to air locks and if a bypass vent valve is added to control the flow this can be difficult to adjust for small bleeds. After talking to a number of builders of Gauge 1 locomotives it was decided to drive the pump through a worm and pinion which has already been described and this means that a larger quantity of water can be delivered but more slowly than if the pump was being driven by the crankshaft directly. So, this pump is fitted with a…

Geoff Theasby reports on the latest news from the Clubs. I have nothing to review at the moment, so here’s one I prepared earlier. My locomotive Deborah is progressing to the point where I am considering what colour to paint it. Taupe? Heliotrope? Actually, I fancy British Racing Green, originally adopted in honour of Ireland’s 1902 hosting of the Gordon Bennett Cup, precursor of today’s Grands Prix. (There were no speed limits.) A related story of why the AA uses yellow – it was the livery of The Earl of Lonsdale, its first president in 1905. Meanwhile, back at the running shed, Anno Domini marches on, well, perhaps ‘marches’ is not the right word… I have acquired a walking stick, as getting about was increasingly slow, and I was becoming…