Garden Railway Forum

What kind of valve gear is that utilising though? I've ever seen it before... Allan straight link gear. Basically works the same as Stephenson link, but the link is straight, so the lifting links are suspended from a rocker and move the valve rod and expansion link in opposite directions to keep th...

Do you know of any non attraction-esque railways running with this gauge track? Not in the UK, but a friend is building an example of this sort of garden railway on his property. It's a private line, not open to the public. Gauge is 12" and the scale is 6in/ft using 2' gauge prototypes. In SM3...

So far a background search has not provided much actual detailed build info for scaling. In particular how the bell brake gear linkage actually worked and if there were any draw chains at all fitted to the trucks. From the pics it seems that the motive power unit just buffered onto the cross bars a...

Am I right in thinking Gn15 would be a little under scale for 16mm scale? Not underscale, just a smaller prototype. 00 gauge works out to 12" gauge in 16mm scale, which is one of the ride in scales, just not as big as 15" gauge. Gn15 seems to be used mainly to model estate railways in the...

I am curious: is there an example of anyone attempting to create a locomotive with inside cylinders (à la LMS Jinty, for example) in 16 or 15mm scale, without resorting to using a motor with oscillating cylinders? There aren't a lot of 2' gauge prototypes with inside cylinders, as the narrow frame ...

The workshop has been too hot for loco work (only 31degC today, but it got to 37degC last week), so I've been inside the house finishing off various rolling stock projects, like this one. These have been a while in gestation, as they were intended as a load for the Hunslet, but I got side-tracked in...

A colleague I worked with over many years trained as a chemical engineer and I picked up a lot from him that we weren't taught in a Chemistry course.

Good Luck with your studies....

Graeme

Boustrophedon:95276 wrote:Distilled water should be neutral at pH7?

Theoretically, but in practice it is exposed to air, so it absorbs CO2 which forms carbonic acid and once at equilibrium the pH will be about 5.

Graeme

Gun black is usually applied with a swab of some sort, until the depth of colour is what you want. If soaking a part in the solution, don't leave it in too long or the black layer can get too thick and flake off when you wash and dry the part. I've also found the hard way that if remaining solution ...

The water at school is very acid about pH 5. That is very soft for tapwater. I guess you don't have to descale kettles very often in that area. The pH is about the same as distilled water, or DI water. I also suspect that the fuel tablets leave a corrosive deposit, I only use meths burners at home....

What is gas burner howling caused by in the first place?[/url] Seems to be some sort of resonance effect, more like a flute than an organ pipe I suspect. Moving the position of the jet relative to the air inlet holes can reduce the howl on a poker type burner, but that also screws up the gas/air ra...

If you go to the Peco website and look in the 'Technical Advice Bureau' section you will find they have downloadable templates for all their turnouts, including the large scale ones. http://www.peco-uk.com/page.asp?id=pointplans These print out at full size on two A4 sheets for playing around to fin...

Does it make any sense at all to say that RO water and/or dehumidifier condensate are any better? Or is all the fuzz about not using DI water just based on a myth? Pure water is pure water. It doesn't 'know' how it was purified. I have no idea how the business about DI water got started. Being a cy...

Does no-one use them?     No-one seems to list them on their sites, at least, not the ones I generally frequent. Any ideas please? IP use them in some kits, but I don't think Ivan sells them separately. Depending on the application, I either turn my own out of brass rod, or cut pieces to size from ...

the one I used for my coach sides is quoted as 3/32 or 2mm. I've just measured it as best I can and it seems to be about 2.3 mm. The label is half wrong, 3/32" converts to 2.38mm in metric. I get my ply from a local hobby shop that caters to the r/c and control line aircraft fraternity. Ship m...

Condensate in colder weather on start stop normal. He's in Oz and it's summer here. It was +30degC where I am the other day. 8) The crackling will have increased when the Chuffer was fitted, as it diverts the condensate and oil into the hot smokebox, instead of it being ejected up the chimney and o...

Roundhouse safety valves have a 5/16 x 40 ME thread, which isn't listed. So you would need to talk to Polly Engineering about a special order, otherwise you would need to make an adaptor.

Same with Accucraft, who use metric threads.

Graeme

You are fighting two processes with the gas setting. As gas is drawn off the liquid in the tank gets colder and the pressure drops, but if the tank is in the cab, it also heats up from the boiler during the run and the pressure rises. I found early on that test running a new loco on the bench was as...

Having made the roof from two layers glued together whilst curved, it is holding its shape a bit better, but i still think is going to need some internal bracing. I've found when laminating polystyrene sheet for roofs that three layers works much better than two for holding the shape. I also leave ...

Aster have used a range of boiler designs over the years. This particular one is a gas fired single flue boiler, but the flue is much larger than usual and the front tube plate is almost at the front of the smokebox. The gas burner design is unusual, instead of the usual poker with slots on top (or ...