Garden Railway Forum

Hello, Finely started to run in Jakarna....my new Brunel. The exhaust pipe is a bad fit in the engine body. Has anybody out there soldered the pipe on?? Found loads of loose bolts...most of all the large nut under the engine by the rod out-let! Using the old Brunel as spare parts. Had to go back to Mamod as major leak in sight glass at bottom. Peter (the nice chap in the back room) told me where to buy the spare glass tube from....

New loco, old problems. What a pity !

The reason the exhaust isn't soldered on is because Mamod don't know where the customer wants it to be routed. Ideally it would go down vertically and then vent onto the track (and you'll see there's a cut out in the floor to accommodate the pipe). Others have routed the pipe so as to come up on the side of the chimney or even into a condenser to separate the waste oil from the steam.

and of course some cylinders had a single outlet for the exhaust while others came with one on either side, so you're left with an even greater choice.

Personally I've opted to route the exhaust down onto the side of the track. Not prototypical but it does keep the engine cleaner.

and yes, you can solder the pipe in position if you feel you're able to.

Mike

I am going down the condenser route Mike. There are quite a lot things one can do to make a locomotive freelance.

'Pierre Berry:102279 wrote:New loco, old problems. What a pity !

Still thinking about a purchase!

You could make the condenser the full width of the loco and use it as a seat for the driver as well, a bit like the Regner Willi.

A nice hot day and a day for starting running in properly of Jakarna. First a praise of ordinary household mastic as I fitted a 3/4" size pressure gauge as the factory fitted one is rather gawky.....way too large even for 7/8" scale! Lots of steam leaks from gauge pipework but the mastic fixed them good and proper. The steam-up bit of my line is about 18" off the ground and allows me to view the gas flame on the burner. Just as well I painted calibrations on my gas valve body and regulator body as I can see how one has to only open the gas valve a 'smiggeon' to light up and wait a bit for burner to warm up. What with the boiling water injected into the boiler the water heat hit 25 ibs in no time at all! The usual palaver turning the fly wheel to clear the condence and off she trundles. The lower gearing certainly shows as a half revolution of the regulator gets around a 'scale' 10 mph and the hills on my sunk track-work did not stop Jakarna at all. Two good runs.....15 to go and she will be fine!!

Sorry Mike, just noticed your reply. I hope to fit a condenser by the side of the gas tank in front of the locomotive. The cab part at the back is going to get a half cab like my Roundhouse 'Millie'. The company don't like the staff to get too comfortable so seating is in the air at the moment.....

I look forward to seeing the photos when its finished.

Anybody know how to get the steam control nob off a Brunel? I want to get mine off so I can have a regulator handle on like (say) a Roundhouse one. When I undo that locking nut on the top of the regulator housing and turn the nob it comes out a bit then just turns endlessly! Bit of a laugh running my newer Brunel as I go into our house and leave Jakarna running along I know that the loco will still be trundling along when I return....if I did that with my rod locomotive something may have happened to the running whilst I was away....

If its the same as a Mk11/Telford (i.e. has a large rubber ring around the perimeter of the regulator knob) then its quite easy.

Unscrew the locking nut like you have done.
Rotate the regulator knob anticlockwise until it turns very easily. At that point its just held in by the internal O ring.
Then continue to rotate anticlockwise and pull back at the same time. The regulator shaft should come out of its housing.

The knob itself threaded onto the shaft and then soldered to stop it unscrewing.

Mike

Picked up one of Rob Bennett's 'Brunel' figures at the recent Llanfair show.



As you can see he is not 16mm scale being taller scalewise than his actual 5' height.

The other figure was a clearout from Modeltown - probably an ex-display 7/8ths figure as he still has glue on the bottom of his boots.

Chris Cairns

Chris Cairns:104009 wrote:Picked up one of Rob Bennett's 'Brunel' figures at the recent Llanfair show.



As you can see he is not 16mm scale being taller scalewise than his actual 5' height.

The other figure was a clearout from Modeltown - probably an ex-display 7/8ths figure as he still has glue on the bottom of his boots.

Chris Cairns

With or without hat?

The Model Town figures are a bit primitive but get you 7/8" scale figures cheaper. I buy just the bodies as I have a number of fine scale heads from other figure kits from Back2bay6 left over. The result looks very good as well. I don't really like the caricature type of face's.

How´s the running in going now?

Chris Cairns:104009 wrote:Picked up one of Rob Bennett's 'Brunel' figures at the recent Llanfair show.



As you can see he is not 16mm scale being taller scalewise than his actual 5' height.

The other figure was a clearout from Modeltown - probably an ex-display 7/8ths figure as he still has glue on the bottom of his boots.

Chris Cairns

Brunel was about 5' 4" so yeah.....he IS in scale for 16mm!

Hello S.A., I am afraid the locomotive is suffering a slight case of 'engineering limbo' at the moment! I am trying to get a small back-log of jobs completed and I am nearly done, The part of the conversion I have done to date I am very pleased with. I cannot continue the running in as half of the engine is off and the engine tips up very easy....

I've very kindly been sent a modified Brunel lubricator (has a continuous steam pipe with a drilled 0.5mm hole) by Mike Wakefield to retrofit to my poorly Brunel.

Currently do not have workshop time available to disassemble my Brunel to attend to this, but worth pointing out that the drain plug used by Mamod does project into the open void of the brass block thus reducing the overall capacity. Currently my Brunel will only run for so long before stopping, and only after refilling the lubricator will it start running again.

What grade of oil do people use in their Brunel's? Mamod supply 460 steam oil, but in conjunction with my better running experience on other Mamod/MSS's I've converted to Roundhouse 220 steam oil.

Chris Cairns

Hello Chris, I use the stuff from Brandbright what ever that is. It is described as "thick Steam Oil"....My locomotive work on alright. Years ago I brought some molyb...something..disulfite...which I used in my motorcycles. I kept some and put it in the steam oil! It works...

If you're a member of the 16mm NGM you'd have probably read the Brunel article in the latest (the delayed August 2014) 16mm Today.

I read Dave Kirby's article over the weekend so this morning decided to have a go at a few of the alterations he'd detailed as my Brunel, despite behaving impeccably all summer, had proved a bit difficult to get good steam pressure the last couple of outings.

Dave Kirby listed the changes he'd made to improve steaming. In essence these are:

1)Further elongate the mounting hole to centralise the burner under the boiler.
2)Lower the burner by about 5mm until it almost touches the axle.
3)Raise the boiler by about 5mm by fitting spacers under the boiler mounting (and using longer screws).

Now his track appears to be 45mm and mine is 32mm so I found his improvements 1) and 2) were  impossible on my Brunel as the burner would foul the wheels.

Which left improvement 3). I first studied the photos accompanying his article. In doing so I realised that as the boiler is simply clamped to its mounting all you need to do is slacken the clamp, put spacers around the clamp's circumference to raise it a small amount (I used 6BA brass nuts),  replace the boiler so its sitting on top of the nuts and finally re-tighten the clamp. You don't need to fit spacers under the clamp at all.

The result: I was able to turn the gas up further before the flames start to lift. I easily reached 40 psi and the loco ran well. Unfortunately only on the rolling road so far as the weather outside is decidedly grim.

Mike