Table of contents for Issue 4717 in Model Engineer

Steam Traction World Well known miniature traction engine kit company Steam Traction World continues to grow as a business and has recently invested significantly in new machinery for their Daventry factory. The company supplies traction engine kits that are fully machined and ready for assembly after final de-burring, sanding and then painting. Most models tend to be purchased over a fixed period of time so the kits arrive at regular intervals to enable the builder to build as they pay for each kit. To continue to back their operation in January 2023 year managing director Dean Rogers decided to invest capital into the purchase of a new £100,000 CNC lathe, a Puma GT2600L. With a gap of 1.2 meters between turret and spindle this lathe will enable work to be…

Continued from p.621 M.E.4716 May 5 Valve setting Having satisfied yourself that the assembled parts all move freely with one another the last job is to set the valve timing (fig 69). This is done in two stages. Setting the cam Note that because of the mechanism of the beam, the centre of the clevis in the connecting rod will NOT be in line with the shaft and pin of the crank at 90 degrees to the base – so do not bother to try and position all three centres in a straight line! * Turn the crankshaft until the crankpin is at its highest point in relation to the base. Another way to look at this statement is that the centres of the crankshaft and crankpin need to lie…

Published by Pen and Sword Transport, 2022 ISBN 978-1-39909601-0 £35, 204pp, hardback Original in scope, well researched, attractively presented and backed up with details of patents and a bibliography, the previously obscure gas tramcar now has an excellent history well up to the standard set by the author's earlier books on transporter bridges and governors. Astonishingly, the world has just one gas tramcar left. At Cefn-Coed mining museum near Neath, South Wales, a Neath Corporation gas tramcar has been restored. There, gas tramcars operated for over twenty years, a successful enterprise. The author begins by looking at alternative tram propulsion systems including steam trams, batteries, cable, conduit electricity supply and compressed air. None were particularly successful although the London conduit supply lasted until the last trams. He looks at the…

Continued from p.641, M.E.4716, May 5 Ihave a feeling that you might like to see the cylinders for the B1 now so here they are (figs 71 to 73). Now, I have a bit of a problem here as I have always said that they should be done in lost wax cast iron. I have a contact who is making some lost wax castings for a B1 for a friend of mine but they are in 7¼ and not 5 inch gauge. However, he has offered me the drawings in 5 inch gauge so not a problem there as he is also prepared to have some cast off in 5 inch too but I will have to find out the price of them. The cylinders are blind bored from the…

Continued from p.612 M.E.4716 May 5 With the sheep safely shepherded, the track finally fishplated and the Shay suitably unsteamboated, I welcome you back, dear Reader, on a momentous day in history, for this was the day towards which we, the Bentley crew, after contending with the inconveniently solid ground, had been indulgently and admirably racing. Coincidentally, this was also a momentous day for the crew of Admiral's Cup contender Indulgence, which, after running aground on the inconveniently solid Isle of Wight, sank during its first offshore race. But let's skip over that one. A grand opening On the second day of June in the year 1985, the thirty-second anniversary of the Queen's coronation would you believe, with bunting hung and publicaddress system wired, our brand-spanking-new railway at the Bentley…

This relatively unknown gauge was first introduced by the German company Märklin at the 1891 Leipzig Toy Fair. Gauge 2 is equivalent to a scale of 1:22.5 or 7/16 inch to 1 foot. It was originally built to 64mm or 2½ inch gauge but in 1909 was standardised to 2 inch or 50.8mm, often described as 54mm when measured between the rail centres, and this is how it has stayed through all the years. Its use was strongly discouraged by Bassett Lowke, Greenly and others in 1917 in the interests of post war standardisation and it has fallen into disuse but collectors have maintained a small selection of rolling stock and locomotives in the hope that one day it might be revived. A new group of modellers have now built…

Continued from p.625 M.E.4716 May 5 Crankshaft The next part is the crankshaft. It is an easy part to draw and is represented in fig 22 in its basic form. Perform the following operations: Step C1 – Create a Part studio and make the sketch of fig 23. Select the Top plane. Use the Dimension tool to define the position and diameter of the circles. Step C2 – Make a 4mm Extrude-New of the 16mm circle in the positive Z direction – fig 24. Step C3 – ExtrudeAdd 14mm of crankpin circumference in the same direction. You need 14mm to compensate for the 4mm of the part made in Step C2 and get the final 10mm crankpin dimension. Step C4 – Extrude-Add 18mm from the 3mm centre circumference to create…

May 16 Taunton Model Engineers Trophy night, West Buckland trophy night, 19:30-21:30. See www.tauntonme.org.uk 17 Bristol SMEE Model road locomotives evening, Begbrook Social Club BS16 1HY, 19:30. Contact: secretary@bristolmodelengineers.co.uk 19 Rochdale SMEE Models running night, Springfield Park, 19:00. See www.facebook.com/RochdaleModelEngineers 20 Brandon and District SME Running/family day, Weeting track. See www.brandonanddistrictsme.com 20 Sutton MEC Children's party. Contact: Paul Harding, 0208 254 9749 21 Bradford MES Public running day, Northcliffe, 13:30. Contact: Russ Coppin, 07815 048999 21 Guildford MES Open day, 14:00-17:00. See www.gmes.org.uk 21 North Wilts MES Public running at the Coate Water Railway, 11:00-17:00. See www.nwmes.info 21 Taunton Model Engineers Public running, Vivary Park, 14:00-17:00. See www.tauntonme.org.uk 24 Bristol SMEE Zoom meeting, 19:30. Contact: secretary@bristolmodelengineers.co.uk 25 Newton Abbot and District MES Track evening at club site. See nadmes.org.uk 25…

Mikhail Chernyshev ponders the mystique of the machine. A locomotive is, next to a marine engine, the most sensitive thing man ever made. Rudyard Kipling There are things made for aesthetic and spiritual purposes; they have been created in all times. Their impact on mankind's evolution is indisputable and their historical role is enormous. A lot has been said about them and they occupy their welldeserved places in museums and private collections. They adorn home interiors, building fronts and proudly raise their spires to the sky. I leave their description to art historians. I want to talk here about objects that have a purely practical meaning which at the end of their service life are often sent away to be melted down. Whatmakes us stop and wait for a locomotive…

Ihave abandoned my latest railway project. Having got the thing to runnable condition, I tried it sitting in the seat to see how it felt and to get a balance. Reluctantly I concluded that it feels most unsafe and wasn't worth the likely effort in making it better. In addition, I have no desire to inspect the ballast any more closely than I already do from six feet up so I shall proceed by making a more conventional four wheel driving trolley as per usual. It's tough at the top! In this issue: three Bings (“House!” – Geoff.), Cramptons, hot rods and dragsters, a ‘Ground Zeppelin’, liquid fuel, the wrong plans, how the other half lives, a 1½ inch scale locomotive, an early digital micrometer, a radio controlled derailment(?) and…

Introduction Throughout the past century of our hobby, there have been many developments in improving the performance and reliability of miniature steam locomotives but very little on the subject of braking. A relatively small number of articles have appeared in the model engineering press but no real efforts have been made to adopt continuous and automatic braking, possibly because the additional effort needed to equip miniatures with a well-engineered braking system adds quite a significant number of hours to the completion process. Not only that but it is evident that there is a knowledge gap and this article is intended to help bridge that gap and stimulate interest in the subject. Throughout this article, the Imperial system of weights and measures is used. Why adopt power braking? The author's first…

Continued from p.617 ME 4716 May 5 The wheels The wheels for Fire Queen (fig 8) really jump out at you when looking at the model. They're large, very large, and the crankpin boss is unique. The rounded rims, rectangular spokes and this unique boss were all captured in the patterns using 3D printing (photo 42). I would be lost without my modern pattern making techniques when doing complex wheels like these. The tender wheels are even worse. The drawings show a shrink fit tyre, like the originals. I draw all the main drive wheels like this for two reasons. Firstly, if drawn like the original the end result will be closer to scale even if the tyre is omitted. Secondly, if the wheel is damaged or worn, I add…

Continued from p.529, M.E.4714, April 7 Making the lever driving system Note that some figures and photographs from part 1 (M.E.4714, April 7) are referenced again here. Adjustable fulcrum (See fig 5, parts 2, 3, 4) This is made by welding parts 2, 3, 4 together (see figs 7, 8 and 9). Driving lever (See fig 4, parts 12 to 15) This is made by welding parts 12 to 15 together (see figs 10, 11 and 12). The M4 tapped hole must be made only on one of the two parts 12 and the 10mm diameter holes must be made after welding for good coaxial alignment. Connecting rod See fig 15 - the larger hole should be bored on the lathe. Linking fork See fig 18. Plain linking rod See…

Photographs and Drawings: Theo Aerts, Thierry Fayt, Cris Vande Velde Continued from p.647, M.E.4716 May 5 Final choice: to the super bending beam Once everything was drawn up, it soon became clear to Thierry, one of our CAD designers, that, when moving the swing bridge, the lateral movement of the flexible rails on the swing bridge as originally designed was large - too large for us. In order to be able to properly support all of the sleepers under the flexible rails, a fairly broad support base plate would have been necessary. We had already understood this from the drawings of the BDSME that they too had to opt for this solution, and their switch was very wide. The switch in Bournemouth uses one straight passage and one at full…