A stream for the Elderbury & District Light Railway - The saga continues

[Lonsdaler]

Running water - what's not to like? Should be done by Saturday then?

[philipy]

Running water - what's not to like? Should be done by Saturday then?

No, unfortunately not. Currently waiting for the arrival of a dustbin for the sump hopefully today or tomorrow, but more importantly, the old apple tree near the bridge is leaning significantly and is due some major surgery above the track to reduce the weight on this side. The tree surgeon is booked for 18th October and I don't really want to have done all this and then they tread on it, drop a heavy branch, or whatever, and wreck it. So nothing much more until after then.

[ge_rik]

Looking good so far. At this stage I double checked the water actually flowed from top to bottom with a watering can before committing myself.

Rik

[philipy]

Good idea Rik, thanks, although it's not quite at that stage yet. The trial pumping was just that, a trial, and the liner is back in storage now.

The 50 litre dustbin arrived from Amazon at about 7pm yesterday. It was raining at the time so I couldn't go and check its fit. It looks bigger than the hole I've dug, even though I aimed for the dims in their advert, but I did expect to have to fettle the hole somewhat, so I'm not too bothered. Once I've got that sorted, I think the next step will be to sort out the sidewall rocks so that I know how wide to excavate the the stream bed and the gradient will get sorted at the same time.
I have got some rocks which will need splitting into thinnish slabs, but I'm not sure if I will have enough (I suspect not, so that will mean another 20 mile round trip for some more), or how easy it will be, because I don't really want to use the angle grinder and get obviously cut faces .

Hey ho and on we go

[ge_rik]

I have got some rocks which will need splitting into thinnish slabs, but I'm not sure if I will have enough (I suspect not, so that will mean another 20 mile round trip for some more), or how easy it will be, because I don't really want to use the angle grinder and get obviously cut faces .

I'm fortunate that the many of the chunks of local sandstone that I use will happily cleave with the 'gentle' persuasion of a cold chisel and hammer, so I can often get two or three pieces of thin stone from each chunk. Some cleave more readily than others though. I suppose it's because sandstone is sedimentary???

Rik

[philipy]

Some cleave more readily than others though. I suppose it's because sandstone is sedimentary???

Sounds feasible.

This Cotswold limestone is strange. When I've tried hammer and chisel before, it has tended to just break into irregular lumps. However when the winter gets at it, after several years it does crack into thinner bits. Not exactly layers but more or less in the same plane, which is what I want. Trouble is I don't think I can wait 10 years for it to happen!
I think I might try angle grinding a line round a block and then chisel it, in the hope that the line will give it a weakness. I can always then hammer the ground edges where they are visible

[Andrew]

Looking great so far - and you've reminded me that a stream is on the long-tern to-do list for the (WH)WHR...

I had one (well', more of an elongated water feature really) on my old line, with a solar powered pump. That worked rather nicely for a while, but then stopped pumping water and started emitting a loud high-pitched whine instead, possibly because it was clogged up with drowned slugs. I'll do it properly next time, using this thread and Rik's blog for guidance...

Cheers,

Andrew.

[philipy]

Well I had a go at stone cutting today. As I suspected this stone doesn't like being chiselled and I ended up with a load of bits instead of two slabs.

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So, I got my small angle grinder out and cut a line right round, and that splits Ok, but obviously leaves a small smooth border, which clearly doesn't look natural.

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However a couple of minutes work with a lump hammer soon roughens that up

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Then a few more minutes with a steel wire brush blends it all together.

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I don't think I'll win any commissions for repairing cathedrals, but it will do for what I want!

[tom_tom_go]

Looks the part, proper job!

[Peter Butler]

When the stone has weathered though the winter no-one would ever know!

[ge_rik]

When the stone has weathered though the winter no-one would ever know!

I'll echo that, especially once moss starts growing over it.

Rik

[philipy]

Yes, It should weather nicely, that's partly why I was a bit anxious to get the stones available before winter so they have a chance to weather on the cut faces.

I've done a bit more this past few days but nothing much worth photographing. Basically I've acquired a small plastic box which, with one side removed and possibly a hole cut in it for the supply pipe, will become the former for the top end of the stream. I haven't yet fully decided whether to run the supply pipe over the top or attach it to a tank pipe connector in the side. Running it over the top will be easier to do but harder to disguise whereas going through the side will look much neater but prone to leaks and water syphoning back. In the picture, the pipe will come in from the back LH corner and the stream will flow out either from the front LH side.
The large lump of slate just visible at the RH side will be split and used to form a junction with the waterfall at the back and cover the inlet pipe.

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Yes I know that slate and Cotswold stone aren't normally found together but we have very peculiar geology in Elderbury, it attracts geologists from all over the world. Thats actually the main reason for the railway building Appletree Halt, to enable the hordes of geologists to use the train to do field trips!

[philipy]

Well, I've decided about the water supply position. It will be fed over the top of the end of the tray in the picture above, between the tray and waterfall. To do that neatly and hopefully fairly unobtrusively, I'm planning to 3d print some custom pipework and I've spent 3 or 4 hours over the past two days doing the drawings, which for the sake of completeness I'll post here. There are basically three components, each having two mirror image halves, so eventually I'll print six objects then glue them together.
1) 2 halves of the incoming supply pipe

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2) The 'manifold'

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3) Delivery spouts

delivery spouts.png (65.05 KiB) Viewed 4985 times

4) Complete system with all of the components assembled.

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The spouts wll hook over the end of the box.

[Peter Butler]

This is an ambitious scheme and I'm looking forward to seeing the completed pipework. I've not seen anything like this before so I can't imagine how you came up with the design.

[tom_tom_go]

What are you going to use for glue?

[ge_rik]

Blimey, that's well engineered. Is your middle name Bazzalgette?

Rik

[IanC]

Blimey, that's well engineered. Is your middle name Bazzalgette?

Rik

I agree. Interesting engineering. Far more ambitious than my Heath Robinson solution would be.

[philipy]

Thanks for all the nice comments chaps. Rik's gave both of us a laugh!

I can't imagine how you came up with the design.

Peter,
Like most of my idea's/projects it just sort of growed.

I was contemplating some sort of clip to hold the 38mm ID flexible supply pipe to the top of the tray edge and wondering if I could print something, but in the back of my mind I thought that a 38mm (44mm inclding wall thickness) lump would be too difficult to disguise, so I started wondering about going to a flatter but wider profile with the same cross-sectional area to avoid throttling the flow.

Before getting too complicated a design, I started to think about how it could be drawn. The Sketchup drawing program has a tool called "Follow Me" which I have used a number of times previously for producing things like chamfers. Basically if you draw, say, a diagonal across a corner, highlight the adjacent edge and click "follow me" it automatically runs the triangle to the end of the highlighted line, which can be any shape, like round a door frame for example and you get a chamfered edge to the frame. Well, I had a brainwave at this point, but tested it with something fairly simple. I drew two concentric circles, 3mm apart and removed the centre to give the end of a tube with an external diameter of 38mm. I then drew a line from the outer edge at right angles 150mm long, added a 90deg curve to the end and drew another straight line from the end of the curve. So far so good, but nothing I haven't done before, so now for the bright idea. I highlighted the three lines, hit "Follow Me" and clicked on the face of the tube end, and in a split second it did just that, and I had a hollow tube with a bend in the centre! I then used "Follow me" three more times round the circumference of the pipe to produce the triangular barbs to grip and stop the flexible tube. Finally, because it is easier to print without overhangs, I split it lengthways so eventually I will print 2 open half-tubes, which is the first drawing above.

Following that, I worked out the dimensions of the flattened tube to hook over the tray edge and drew the shape as a long rectangle with one inner curved end and one flat end. I then drew the adjacent lines, similar to the first pipe( different dims obviously), hit F-Me again and got the hollow hooked shape. This was then copied and mirror-imaged so that when glued together flt-to-flat, I will have the area to cope with the same volume - actually I rounded it up slightly to make some notional allowance for friction flow losses in the narrowed pipe.

All I now needed was a piece of pipe, which I'm calling a manifold for want of a better term, with a long thin hole in one side and a fitting to take the two hook pieces. This was drawn using similar techniques.

I hope all that makes some sense if anyone has been daft enough to try reading it!

Tom,
I shall print it in ABS and use Plasticweld to stick it all together.

Finally, SWMBO says I ought to point out that I've been doing this whilst sitting near the pool in our hotel overooking the Nile in Luxor! (Sorry !)

[Peter Butler]

Now it makes sense.... I bet there is a hieroglyph somewhere in Luxor which has inspired you!
Thinking about water flow and distribution it does allow a wider spread of water volume than a simple outlet pipe thus reducing pressure and a jet-like exit from the supply. I think you have found the perfect solution there.

[Lonsdaler]

Thanks for all the nice comments chaps. Rik's gave both of us a laugh!

...Before getting too complicated a design, I started to think about how it could be drawn. The Sketchup drawing program has a tool called "Follow Me" which I ...click "follow me" ... hit "Follow Me" ... used "Follow me" ...three more times round the circumference of the ... pool in our hotel overooking the Nile in Luxor! (Sorry !)

Have I got that right?

Have a relaxing holiday Mr and Mrs Philipy - the last time I went to Luxor it rained - the first time in 5 years, apparently I'm just lucky like that