Garden Railway Forum

All:

Any reasons NOT to do this? I by mistake found out that the Van Dort lubricator hole drilled in the cosmetic Mamod dome is the same diameter as the safety, so if I put the safety valve out on the front of the boiler, the Mamod cosmetic dome sits nicely with about .5mm of the safety valve sticking out of the top, and holding it in place....

Thoughts?

Nope, no reason why this shouldn't be done, after all, it is all in the same water/steam space, so my argue that this would cause priming, but I can't see where they're going!

Hi Garrett.

Only problem I see, and this has been mentioned on here before, is that when filling up the boiler using your syringe/top up bottle, some of the water may end up going down the pipe to the top of the water sight glass tube instead of into the boiler direct. As long as the regulator is fully closed then no water should go down the steam pipe to the lubricator.

I do not know if you have had any problems yet, but these sight glass tubes are prone to air bubbles and thus can be inaccurate (I have a similar problem with the Cheddar Models marine engines that use this 5mm glass tube as well).

Using your old Mamod brass dome saves you buying the one that PPS make for the PPS Janet, which will fit the IP Jane, and thus the IP Eng boiler as well.

Yes, wondered about the feed pipe, but did not think about the glass.

Yes, the glass bubble issue is a problem, so I think I will move things back to where they were then!