Table of contents for Issue 4691 in Model Engineer

Luker describes a simple but authentic small locomotive. Continued from p.567 M.E. 4689, 22 April 2022 The smokebox The smokebox for this little locomotive is tight to say the least (fig 23). To help with assembly, especially with rather large fingers like mine, the snifting valve is fitted outside the smokebox and no superheaters are included. When testing my locomotive on our club track I couldn’t get it to prime with the boiler water level within the sight glass range, so the lack of superheaters didn’t adversely affect the steaming. The smokebox for my little locomotive was a seam welded assembly (photo 87), but using a rivet construction or rounded screws will work just as well. All the platework was laser cut and rolled by my laser cutting suppliers, making…

RicHard Gibbon restores a pannier’s ‘get up and go’. For some time throughout the Covid epidemic I had been aware through conversations with York Society of Model Engineers Member Charlie Bauckham and his dad Phil that there was a developing problem with their LBSC designed Speedy which is one of the ubiquitous 5 inch gauge locomotive designs by Curly Lawrence from the 1970s that were serialised in Model Engineer. As a young man interested in model engineering I was aware of at the time of the serialisation in the journal. The locomotive is based on the GWR 1500 outside cylindered pannier tank engines and was heavily criticised at the time of publication for having badly proportioned outside Walschaerts motion driving the basic piston valves. None of that stopped Charlie’s locomotive…

Mick Knights describes the construction of a supercharged V8 internal combustion engine. Continued from p.636 M.E. 4690, 6 May 2022 Camshaft As I was saying a bit back, I have machined a sixteen-lobe camshaft from solid silver steel before, only on that occasion it was produced using a milling fixture which was rotated by hand to generate the cam profile, I certainly had my moments during that particular process rotating each cam lobe against a rotating milling cutter. However, the suggested method of manufacture for this camshaft is by using an offset turning fixture. I must confess it took me a while to get my head around the process being described. This is by no means a criticism, as I wouldn’t have the first idea of how to set about…

PART 33 – OTHER MACHINE TOOLS AT THE SOHO FOUNDRY Continued from p.583 M.E. 4689, 22 April 2022 The boring machine has usually been treated in isolation by historians of the new Soho works but it should perhaps be more accurately viewed as part of a comprehensive plan for what, in modern terms, would be regarded as a machine shop. After boring the cylinder, the intention seems to have been to carry out the related tasks of turning cylinder covers, the piston and the piston rod under the same roof as the boring machines but to deal with the fittings attached to the cylinder – the valve boxes, the valves with their seats, bearings, pins etc. – in an adjacent machine shop or turnery. To all of these machining operations…

The maxim ‘keep things simple’ is often worth listening to. When I decided to have a go at making a standard gauge four-wheel wagon in 7¼ inch gauge I felt it was important to keep construction simple in order to make the build easy and quick. The tools needed were a vice, a drill, a welder and a handful of angle grinders. Access to, and use of, a lathe and milling machine is helpful but not essential. When I made my first wagons several years ago I made my own wheels from sawn blanks. The faces were machined in the chuck and the tread was carved with the wheel mounted on a mandrel. Wheel profiles are important; the angle on the tread, the profile of the flange and the root…

Ken Toone extends the versatility of his Land Rover even further. Regular readers may recall that I tend to build models somewhat different from those normally seen on our miniature railways, e.g. Class 86 Electric, Class 323 EMU, Class 47 Diesel/Electric and of course the Cowans/Sheldon 75t Breakdown Crane. With the onset of Covid 19 and the need to lockdown I found myself looking around for something to do. Some months previously I had been very much taken, by a Radio Controlled Tamiya HGV that one of our members had built and thought that I would like to do something similar. On looking through the Tamiya catalogue it soon became obvious, with my JLR connections, the Land Rover 4 x 4 was the vehicle to go for. This is a…

Tony Swinfield constructs an electrically driven horizontal engine. It all started because I wanted a working engine that did not use steam or fire to work, so I looked on YouTube for inspiration, and found lots of engines which were solenoid operated powered by a battery. I have a CAD package but I like to use graph paper to get the basic layout first, so using this I drew out what looked about right, then checked on the materials I have in stock – having been collecting for several years I had all the parts needed. The first engine I made was a year or so ago. I did have some problems with it, as I wanted to make all the components myself, so I wound my own coil and…

Graham Astbury and Mike Tilby delve into the background behind fluxes and soft solders. Continued from p.649 M.E. 4690, 6 May 2022 Very many types of solder have been described. Currently, on Wikipedia details of about 170 different compositions are listed (ref 15) and that list seems not to be fully comprehensive. International standards for solder compositions have been published (e.g. ref 16) but these publications are expensive and probably are of little relevance to hobbyists. The first part of this series discussed the action of fluxes used in soft soldering and ended with an outline of the properties of plumber’s solder. The next type of solder that is commonly found is the 50% tin 50% lead solder which is described as a solder for ‘general engineering work on copper,…

Gordon Gurney undertakes an exercise in improvisation. Over the last 30 years or so I have made five clocks, two of which I still have. One of these, a Victorian Skeleton Clock to John Wilding’s design completed in 1995 (photo 1), has never looked ‘quite right’. After much rumination I concluded that what it lacked was a brass surround to the chapter ring to finish it off. Not having a suitable piece of brass ‘in stock’ meant that the project remained at the ‘wouldn’t it be nice stage’ but on a visit to Bath to see my daughter I remembered there used to be a material stockist in the city. Avery Knight & Bowlers were – and, as it turned out, still are – near the old S&D Green Park…

John Arrowsmith discovers how one reader survived the dark days of covid lockdown. This is a short article describing one man’s solution to a very depressing series of events. The gentleman in question is a lifelong railway enthusiast with particular interest in the old GWR. He has written a number of books and completed lots of detailed research into different railway subjects. However, at the start of the Covid lockdown period he was also diagnosed with a terminal cancer but, undeterred, he decided that he needed a suitable project to give himself something to do. His solution was to turn the double garage of his house into a railway layout room to occupy his time building a Gauge 1 layout. This is the story of that endeavour. He chose to…

A second major publication from David Glen, this is a remarkable book, complementing, as it does, his 2015 title Spitfire In My Workshop. Since its unveiling in 2014, tens of thousands of visitors to the Royal Air Force Museum at Cosford in the West Midlands have marvelled at David Glen’s magnificent 1:5 scale P-51D Mustang. Set off to perfection in its giant purpose-built display case, the model bears its builder’s own heartfelt dedication ‘to all US aircrew who gave their lives in support of their British and European allies through the course of two world wars’. Divided into thirteen chapters, the text of this recently released book initially covers David’s research, planning and preparation – the key, he says, to a successful model. Subsequent chapters focus on, in turn (and…

Peter Seymour-Howell builds a fine, fully detailed model of Gresley’s iconic locomotive to Don Young’s drawings. Continued from p.629 M.E. 4690, 6 May 2022 Next on the list is the spring gear for the main drivers. I think I have most of what’s required, I bought the spring steel some time ago and since it mainly consists of small components there’s a good chance that I have what I need. Spring swivel So where to start? As this assembly hangs below the axlebox I shall start with the part that connects the two which is the ‘spring swivel’, a simple part to make but a little time consuming due to its shape. The swivel is made up of two parts, a cylinder that the axlebox bottom central pin slides into and…

22 May – 9 July 2022 May 22 Bradford MES Running Day, Northcliff Railway 13:30 – 16:00. Contact: Russ Coppin, 07815 048999 22 North Wilts MES Public Running, Coate Water Country Park, Swindon 11:00 – 17:00. Contact: Ken Parker, 07710 515507 22 Southport MEC Diesel Day, Victoria Park 10:00 – 16:00. Contact: Gwen Baguley, gwenandderrick@yahoo.co.uk 29 North Wilts MES Public Running, Coate Water Country Park, Swindon 11:00 – 17:00. Contact: Ken Parker, 07710 515507 29 York Model Engineers Open Day. Contact: Bob Polley: 01653 618324 June 1 Bradford MES Loco Competition 2022, Northcliff Railway 19:30. Contact: Russ Coppin, 07815 048999 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:…

Geoff Theasby reports on the latest news from the Clubs. Well! Following the return to sanity, or what passes for it here, I find my locomotive Deborah has survived the winter, except that a nearby toolbox which appeared to be empty, was in fact full to the very brim with rainwater. This fact had escaped my attention until I reached for a spanner and got a surprise. Fed up with loose wires everywhere, I thought this idea ‘had legs’. The usual way of dealing with straggling bits is a combover... er, laying conduit, that is, using Spirawrap, which works well enough but is expensive (£7 for two metres). What I needed was a tube split along its length but retaining its circular form. Hosepipe, air hose, plastic piping for car…