ragleth opinions

[Chris Cairns]

The hinges are already there!

Looking at the Billy one I got from Roundhouse unsoldered for my Elke conversion you would have to be very careful drilling holes for the hinge pins as the fixed hinge fitting on the smoke box does not stick out as much as the hinge strapping on the door, so if you drilled just using the holes indented in the door's hinge strapping it is likely you would break out the front of fixed hinge fitting.

The hinge on the Katie smoke box is a different design and looks easier to convert to a working hinge.

Chris Cairns

[GardenRail]

I used to find some of my locos hard to light until I invested in one of those gas lighters with a flexible neck. Just open the smokebox door, poke the lit lighter in an inch or two and crack open the loco's gas valve. Lights every time, unless there's a blocked jet which I haven't had since I took Chris' advice and used a roll of coffee filter paper behind the jet.

Another quick one is not to fill the tank completely. Light the gas, let it burn for a bit, then switch off and fill the tank right up. Then it will light no props with a full tank

[Big Jim]

As a smoker, I tend to use what ever I have in my pocket at the time, although Zippos don't seem to work too well!

What I should use is the old fashioned Piezo gas lighter that I have in my tool box. It is about 10'' long uses a D battery and only sparks. It has no flame at all but is designed for lighting gas fires. No problems with flames being blown out. Goodness knows where you would find one now.

[Chris Cairns]

Another quick one is not to fill the tank completely. Light the gas, let it burn for a bit, then switch off and fill the tank right up. Then it will light no props with a full tank

Tag,

That method was posted on this Forum before, but when I asked if anyone had measured their remaining boiler water after doing it there were no responses.

I tried it once on my Ragleth but ended up with just under 15 mls of water remaining - too low for my full size footplate experience. So I fitted a water filler valve and tried the following on my Ragleth & Edrig.

Partially fill the gas tank, light up, get it to working pressure (40 PSI), clear the cylinder condensate, turn off gas, refill gas tank to full, light up & run loco, after 10 minutes running pump in enough water for the pressure to just start dropping and continue run until gas finishes. Worked perfectly on my Ragleth (original Accucraft gas filler valve) but my Edrig still had liquid gas problems on the 2nd light up (2nd hand loco - previous owner had a proper Ronson gas filler valve retrofitted).

My Caradoc (also 2nd hand, only run once so far) was on the workbench for maintenance. I noticed that the superheater pipe was jammed up against the bottom of the burner, so pipe & burner removed, carbonised steam oil removed from burner & pipe, and after some fiddly rebending, the superheater pipe now runs clear down the side of the burner with the burner central in the flue (took a few goes at mounting the burner correctly as it only has one very useless small screw).

When time permits I'll have a look at my Ragleth & Edrig to see what their superheater pipe positions are in relation to their burners.

Chris Cairns

[laurence703]

Skip ahead to 4 mins 46 seconds... It was new to me at the time and a really cold day and straight butane... but now its much easier it seems its only gotten better with time. Its a Caradoc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2D6bh_ehs0
Video's not mine

[TonyW]

Skip ahead to 4 mins 46 seconds... It was new to me at the time and a really cold day and straight butane... but now its much easier it seems its only gotten better with time. Its a Caradoc.

Scary! Not only for you and James but also for your loco. R/c locos have had their wiring burnt to a crisp with less flame than that.

And this happened...

Any delay in ignition will see the loco standing in an invisible puddle of gas, which will then go "pop" with all manner of interesting results when a source of ignition arrives.

[laurence703]

it was still manual at the time so escaped damage free

[Boustrophedon]

Skip ahead to 4 mins 46 seconds... It was new to me at the time and a really cold day and straight butane... but now its much easier it seems its only gotten better with time. Its a Caradoc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2D6bh_ehs0
Video's not mine

That's the problem with cold butane, it only becomes a gas at -1 degree C.

[Chris Cairns]

Ran my Caradoc last weekend after some maintenance and upgrading the R/C to 2.4 GHz.

Temp 3 to 4°C so used a Butane/Propane mixed gas. Burner light up & popped back straight away 1st time, and no liquid gas surging noted. So this backs up the theory posted earlier that the gas tank in the cab with the vertical filler is less prone to the liquid gas problems that the side tank gas tanks suffer from.

The gas regulator valve is quite loose on this loco so the burner did go out when I tried to turn it down low during the run, but I'm hoping to get the right replacement gas regulator valve via The Train Department at the Peterborough Show.

Chris Cairns

[Boustrophedon]

My Ragleth seems to just run better and better. I suspect that it was a little tight and needed a bit of running in. Lighting has got easier too, I have switched to pure Butane and that seems to light easier in the recommended way.

Fill gas first

Then do the other fluids.

Depress filler valve for half a sec to stop liquid gas getting carried over.

crack open the gas valve a little and light with ordinary lighter through smokebox door.

Great little runner.

[IrishPeter]

The rule here is anything below 50F/10C is to use 70/30 mixed gas on all locomotives, which tends to mean either Millie, or the more even-tempered of my two Rubies in winter, as my Roundhouse/Beck Ana is butane only. This winter, the LBD did most of the work simply because I did not have to wait for the kettle to boil as the light faded.

Cheers,
Peter in AZ

[Boustrophedon]

OK odd one this, but which way up do the flames go, up or down? The burner on my Ragleth has the flames going down, which does seem a little odd.

(Late model Ragleth with the filler in the cab.)

Edit OK ignore me, it's correct. Just watched Chris Bird's youtube on lighting up a Ragleth. Which answered the question.

[dougrail]

Of course, the Ragleth and Accy 040s are pretty cool...it's their burners, which, as discussed can let them down. That, and Laurence's experiences with the flamethrower effect which seems to start happening after a period of time. It started happening on my dear old generation one Caradoc.

For reference, yes, the burner flames are meant to be pointing downwards.

The surging which causes the flames and flamethrower effect is partially due to the design of the gas tanks which seem to have 'necks' where the gas settles.

The gas burners could burn much more efficiently if the burners weren't equipped with simple slots for the fireholes but with a meshed formation. I understand that employing steel mesh on the poker burners can help. Another improvement is the air control rings which are apparently equipped on the latest models. I bought one to test on my Caradoc's system and it has improved flame quality somewhat.


However, because I'm a mad scientist and wanted optimum -I had the Accucraft system totally replaced with a Roundhouse burner:

Better tank design - no surging. Also hoping for filler valves to not need replacing every six months.

Burner design - more optimum flame. Enable much safer lighting up.

Efficiency - flame much more efficient. Also no more howling whatsoever.

Run quality - immensely improved!


My "Cadno" has become a different engine since I had the operation carried out.

[Boustrophedon]

Can you give some details of that conversion?, How easy was it, did you have to re route the superheater? Where did you put the tank and which tank did you use?

(Now I know why you are selling an Accucraft burner over on the Mamod forum. ;-) )

[dougrail]

I had Matt at Barley Pit Works do the job for me. Superheater is in same position, we used a Type B tank [still larger than the Accy].

As for selling the Accy burner? Yes, I'm selling because it's surplus. I had not tried the air control ring prior to the swap. I sourced one to improve it prior to selling and also serviced it fully. The difference is palpable, but I am sticking with te RH burner.

[Chris Cairns]

Doug's Roundhouse gas system is an interesting conversion, although not a cheap option.

At Peterborough I picked up the Train Department replacement gas regulator valves. They offer much finer control and although the gas tank in the side tanks (my Edrig & Mark I Ragleth) still suffer from liquid gas carryover, it is more manageable with these new valves.

My Caradoc has been running great, although I found I could not turn down the gas enough for indoor running without the burner going out, so it was running around a bit higher than I wished.

Talking with Dave Mees at the Fairbourne Railway Gala he suggested fitting an air control ring (my Mark I Ragleth has a factory fitted one, and the Edrig has a sleeve fitted by the previous owner). Whilst Roundhouse have 2 air holes in their burner, Accucraft have 4 air holes. I fitted an air control ring which has further improved the burner, now being able to hold lower boiler pressures with ease. Last thing I did today was to replace the original gas jet with a No.5 gas jet, which has a much smaller hole than the one I removed.

Chris Cairns