Slightly Loco

[shred]

Now that the little loco is running, any plans for paint and polish? Maybe a few dressup trinkets?

Steve

Yeah.. I've been meaning to do more, but been a little distracted lately. I did throw together a 'woodburning' stack cap to see how it looked. Not sure if I prefer that to the small cap. I like both, but in different ways. I also soldered a real number to the smokebox door and did a little more cleanup.

Plans are to do some rivet lines on the cab, then paint as much as I can stand. I'm thinking black with a silver smokebox at the moment, but the stores seem to be out of silver hi-temp BBQ paint (they have black, white and .. almond in stock ???)

 

[Macca]

Your loco looks great Shred, I hope mine turns out that nice.
I haven't had much time to to play around in the shed lately, I picked up some 5/8th" pipe for the flue during the holidays and its just been sitting round gathering dust.
I finally got down to the shed yesterday, and planned to solder up the boiler (most of it anyway). I had a bit of trouble drilling the flue holes in the boiler end plates, I found them very difficult to hold. It would probably be better to drill the holes before forming the plates. Once I got both end plates drilled, I drilled the top of the boiler for the bushes and chimney, this went without incident. At first I tried to solder the boiler together one part at a time (dumb idea, I know). I got the first end plate soldered in and, because of my impatience, knocked it off the bench. Copper pipe that has just been silver soldered (and is still hot) is quite soft, and will deform if you look at it funny, let alone drop it onto concrete. So I desoldered the end plate, cut and drilled a new boiler tube, and cleaned and assembeled everything ready for silver soldering. This time it worked like a charm, here it is after being pickled overnight.

The chimney is just sitting there, so I could see how it looked.
I drilled a section of pipe to make the smokebox, and split it down one side. It was then annealed and spread apart slightly to fit over the boiler.

There is about 1mm between the front of the smokebox and the front of the boiler. I plan to cut and solder a small piece of copper to fill in the gap at the bottom.
Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to order some phosphor bronze to make the bushes, then once they are soldered in I will be able to pressure test the boiler.
Do any of the Aussies know where I can pick up a suitable pressure gauge for a decent price? www.ejwinter.com.au has them for $100 each, this seems incredibly expensive to me.

 

[Maryak]

Macca,

Seems to be about the mark in Oz for 3/4" dial. I've found hobby mechanics in Qld pretty good to deal with.

Best Regards
Bob

 

[stevehuckss396]

Yeah.. I've been meaning to do more, but been a little distracted lately.
Plans are to do some rivet lines on the cab, then paint as much as I can stand. I'm thinking black with a silver smokebox at the moment, but the stores seem to be out of silver hi-temp BBQ paint (they have black, white and .. almond in stock ???)

Black sounds great. How about some fancy pinstripe.

I was thinking about a bell. Didn't most older steamers have a bell clanging as they left the station.

Just a suggestion, Even without it, it's still is a great project.

Steve

 

[shred]

I finally got down to the shed yesterday, and planned to solder up the boiler (most of it anyway). I had a bit of trouble drilling the flue holes in the boiler end plates, I found them very difficult to hold. It would probably be better to drill the holes before forming the plates. Once I got both end plates drilled, I drilled the top of the boiler for the bushes and chimney, this went without incident. At first I tried to solder the boiler together one part at a time (dumb idea, I know). I got the first end plate soldered in and, because of my impatience, knocked it off the bench. Copper pipe that has just been silver soldered (and is still hot) is quite soft, and will deform if you look at it funny, let alone drop it onto concrete.
...

There is about 1mm between the front of the smokebox and the front of the boiler. I plan to cut and solder a small piece of copper to fill in the gap at the bottom.
Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to order some phosphor bronze to make the bushes, then once they are soldered in I will be able to pressure test the boiler.
Do any of the Aussies know where I can pick up a suitable pressure gauge for a decent price? www.ejwinter.com.au has them for $100 each, this seems incredibly expensive to me.

Looks good. You may not even need to fill the gap at the bottom of the smokebox-- it might make a useful air vent and/or drain hole. I got my pressure gauges at some surplus place long ago, but I've seen them in the hardware store in with the plumbing and air bits-- you don't need an ME one unless you want to install it on the loco permanently. You'll want one that goes well above 100 PSI (or equivalent Bar)-- a friend suggests pressure testing the gas tank to higher pressures than the boiler-- some people test as high as 400 PSI in larger scales since they do goofy things like heat the gas tank to get the gas flowing better.

When you do get a gauge, put it on a loop or U of copper tube so you can use it for steam tests later on.

I silver-soldered my boiler one end at a time so I could check the joints on the inside as much as possible, but whatever works, works; you should be able to do a pretty good inspection from the bush holes with a flashlight. Keeping the boiler from being dinged is a non-stop process after you silver solder it in any case.

If it warms up enough today, the plan is to start with some paint on mine. I went by an auto parts place and got some high temp 'header' paint to try on the smokebox.

 

[shred]

I started in on the painting today. I'm not all fired up about paintwork and still haven't totally decided how or what I want painted, so I'm being a little haphazard about it (that and there was some sort of game on today). Current thought is mostly black with a silver smokebox and brass accents.

So, after total disassembly, putting the not-to-be-painted and maybe-paint-later parts in one box,

I sprayed a few parts with the first coat of black 'hi temp' BBQ paint (it looks much darker in person)

I plan to sand the bushing ends back to brass later on.

Since BBQ paint wasn't available in silver, only black, white and, almond ??? (hmmm... all the BBQ's around here are either black or... silver, go figure), I got some 'ultra high-temp' header paint at an auto parts place. This particular stuff has off-car curing instructions that I'm confident almost nobody ever follows-- 30 minutes at 250'F, 30 minute cool down, 30 minutes at 400'F, 30 minute cool down, 30 minutes at 600'F, cool down.

But, I happen to have a craigslist-special little kiln and multi-step temperature controller (note, these are handy things occasionally, so if someday a small programmable glass, ceramic, wax burnout or heat-treating kiln floats by cheap and you have the cash, grab it), so away we went. Here's the smokebox getting 'ready for a ride on the Reading'

And after it's 3 heating/cooling/soaking cycles, it came out pretty nice. The base is going to be painted black later on, and the blem near the top will be covered by the smokestack, so we'll go with it.

 

[Maryak]

Shred,

Nice kiln, looks like the china painting kiln my ex (1st) wife has/had?

Best Regards
Bob

 

[shred]

Shred,

Nice kiln, looks like the china painting kiln my ex (1st) wife has/had?

Best Regards
Bob

This one was used for lost wax mold burnouts, but I suspect the same kilns or slight variants get sold into lots of different markets-- glass fusers, heat treaters, casters, painters, ceramics, etc. It's about 10"x10"x10" inside and heats to 2000'F. This one has a separate controller though many are now integrated (originally I was trying to deal for just the kiln, but the seller ended up throwing in the controller-- an excellent accident for me, I didn't realize how useful it would be).

 

[shred]

 

[Macca]

Very nice. ;D

Last week was pretty much a write off for me, I worked overtime every night, didn't get home till midnight on friday .
I made up the bushes on saturday, and got them soldered in. The phosphor bronze was a bugger to tap, it kept grabbing, I ruined one bushing from chuck slippage. I dilled both holes on the boiler 10mm, and tapped both bushes M8x1.0. Now I have to make up a pump and pressure test the boiler, so I can see just how bad my soldering was.

I have a few questions for you;
How did you end up attaching the wheels?
How is the boiler held down? I understand the front base is soldered on, and probably bolted from below, but what about the back of the boiler? Is it held down by the bodywork?
Can you show some more photos of the steam dome? Specifically the bayonet style bit, and I am a little confused about how the filler valve and banjo bolt fit together, can you do a crap-o-cad diagram?

 

[shred]

I have a few questions for you;
How did you end up attaching the wheels?
How is the boiler held down? I understand the front base is soldered on, and probably bolted from below, but what about the back of the boiler? Is it held down by the bodywork?
Can you show some more photos of the steam dome? Specifically the bayonet style bit, and I am a little confused about how the filler valve and banjo bolt fit together, can you do a crap-o-cad diagram?

Yeah, I like the look of bare brass and copper, so it was a leap to paint it all, but I'm pretty happy how it turned out. The black BBQ paint is pretty fragile though. I'll have to source a substitute next time.

The driving wheels are fixed by loctiting them to the gears. Those set-screw to the axle. The off-side wheels can freewheel if they like. They are kept separated by a length of brass tube slipped over the axle. You can see I've put some shaft collars on the outside ends of the axles-- those were going to go on the inside and attached to the off-side wheels to create a set-screw attach there too, but it had plenty of traction as-is, so I put them on the outside for looks.

The boiler is held down at the front by the smokebox and mount for that-- that's bolted in from the bottom. The aft end more or less floats-- the rear saddle is bolted to the frame, but the boiler just sits on it-- that allows the boiler to expand and contract as it heats and cools. The steam pipe and bodywork help anchor it as well. I had some rubber tube between the cab bodywork and boiler since I left a huge gap, but it's not there now and seems to be ok with just the steam pipe and smokebox holding it on. If I was going to make a new cab, I'd have it be a much closer fit.

Here's the steam dome C-o-C. Basically it's a banjo setup that's been drilled and tapped from the top to hold the Goodall-type valve. There are other ways to do it that might make for less vertical stack-up, but this one worked for me. Make sure there's clearance between the rubber bit on the Goodall and the inside of the fitting so water can get in. Note that I've drawn the fitting sticking below the bushing. You don't want that; it'll create excess water out the steam spout if the boiler is full. The unit removed from the boiler is visible front-and-center in the 'parts-not-to-be-painted' picture above and I've included a blowup below.

 

[Macca]

Thanks Shred, you confirmed my suspicions.
I assumed the filler valve would have to extend below the steam outlet, which is where my thinking got stuck. I don't suppose it matters too much if the water inlet is above the steam outlet. Is there a risk of forcing water out of the boiler and into the engine when filling? And does it matter all that much?

 

[shred]

Thanks Shred, you confirmed my suspicions.
I assumed the filler valve would have to extend below the steam outlet, which is where my thinking got stuck. I don't suppose it matters too much if the water inlet is above the steam outlet. Is there a risk of forcing water out of the boiler and into the engine when filling? And does it matter all that much?

Depending how the holes line up, or if you fill the boiler to the top, you can squirt some water down the steam pipe. Even if you fill the steam pipe all the way up, it pumps out in a few cycles of the engine when you flip the flywheel if steam is up (watch where the exhaust is pointing if it's not into the smokebox 'cause the squirt of hot water can go a surprising distance).

 

[shred]

The black BBQ paint didn't hold up Either the metal wasn't prepped enough or it just didn't like hot steam and oil, but after some big flakes just sloughed right off, I decided to repaint (which meant replumbing the shop air and making a new air dryer and.. and.. it's no wonder the Paddleducks engine is going slow ). This time I tried some Brownells Baking Lacquer-- supposed to be fairly tough stuff used to refinish guns and the like, so I was optimistic it would hold up to heat, oil and hot water. That it does. I've also noticed it's fairly brittle-- a few knocks and bumps and there are little flakes missing. You can see the corner of the cab took a hit in the pictures below.

I used "matte black", but I'd call it more of a satin finish, with a little bit of eggshell in it-- add a coat of oil and water as after a steam up and it becomes almost glossy. It's reasonably easy to apply, blast the metal (I used glass bead, AlOx is recommended), spray on several light coats, heating with a hair dryer in between and bake for 30 minutes at 325'F-- there's a little instructional video on the www.brownells.com web site in with the metal finishes. It took almost the entire small can for the loco.

The rest of the smudges and spots are leftover dirt, oil and water from it just coming off the track after several paint-testing steam runs. Honest dirt, that.

​

 

[J. Tranter]

Shred I have a question on the wobbler engine if it is OK.
I a trying do figure out how far the holes are spaced for the intake and exhaust ports on the port block.
It doesn't show it on the plans. Also is the wobbler of set on the port block. I read Tony Birds build notes and It said something about it being offset but I didn't understand it to well, I'm more of a look and do
than a read and do type.
Any help would be appreciated.
John T.

 

[shred]

Shred I have a question on the wobbler engine if it is OK.
I a trying do figure out how far the holes are spaced for the intake and exhaust ports on the port block.
It doesn't show it on the plans. Also is the wobbler of set on the port block. I read Tony Birds build notes and It said something about it being offset but I didn't understand it to well, I'm more of a look and do
than a read and do type.
Any help would be appreciated.
John T.

I don't remember the port measurements I used, but that's probably a good thing.. the exhaust hole was off a little until I drilled it larger. Dave Goodfellow on his site has a way to mathematically determine the hole spacing, but most people either do one of:
1 - Make a little jig plate like in Elmer's Engines or
2 - Make the cylinder and put a sharp rod in the steam port that barely protrudes and use that to lightly mark the path of the cylinder hole as you cycle it by hand, then drill both ends of the scratch (and re-flatten the port face to eliminate leakage along the scratch).

Mine is set directly centered on the block, but it's made a little differently than the plans since it's from bar stock-- the plans call for a K&S tubing cylinder soldered to a piece to be the cylinder, and another piece of flat stock with tubes soldered to it as the port face. I can't think how that would need an offset, but I may have missed something.

 

[J. Tranter]

Thank you for your help. I thik I get it now.
John T.

 

[vlmarshall]

Great build, Shred. Congrats on the win, and thanks for posting so many details of the build. You've talked me into building a pair of Crackers of my own. ;D

 

[shred]

Thanks. It was such fun building and running this little guy that someday I'll do another little loco ;D ;D

Anybody with questions, feel free to post 'em here or send a PM.