Garden Railway Forum

It’s so confusing Dave. On the forum it shows, Fri Nov 02, 2018 8:56 pm. I posted my reply to you at,Fri Nov 02, 2018 7:54 am…Only 1 hour difference mate…

You are 24 hours in front of us up here in the Northern Hemisphere aren’t you…?


Anyway back to your loco. Are you thinking of R/C Dave. It looks a bit tight under there. But I’am sure ge_rik could help with that. Or may be your quite capable yourself.

The front looks like your best bet but you might have to make your own tank unless an Accucraft one might fit?

Rod, we are 13 hours ahead now.

No R/C for this loco

Here's the original gas tank, a converted steam boiler. It could be put inside a tank wagon.

This afternoon I rearranged the gas valve to make it more compact. The dome on the top where the gas is drawn off

That looks better Dave, why do you need such a large gas tank though?

It was a pleasurable repurposing of the boiler Tom. And it works well with not getting too cold with the gas expansion due to its size

dewintondave wrote: ↑Sat Nov 03, 2018 8:19 pm Rod, we are 13 hours ahead now.

No R/C for this loco

Thanks Dave for putting me straight.

So what are your plans for underneath, if any mate.

No plans Rod, It's pretty full under there.

HI Dave I,m very impressed with your building work and your clever idea's as a newbie to steam loco's I am finding bit interesting seeing idea's put into practice

Well done

dizzysteamer

Thank you Dizzy But I do run into trouble with the H&S police with their rigid views

A month ago I decided to have another go at fixing the diesel. The lubricator was still unsatisfactory as was the boiler sight glass. So I took the L.C. Mason book - Scale Model Traction Engine Building "featuring minnie" off the shelf and started to build the mechanical lubricator. It is a delightful little mechanism, very little material, but lots of time. There's the lovely click click of the pawls skipping over the ratchet wheel

Here's the lubricator fitted to the chassis running on quiet compressed air

That's lovely Dave
Can you please give us some more details?
for example - how big is the body of this lubricator?
Did you build it exactly as per Mason's book or have you used the book as an inspiration and adapted the design for your needs?
Mason's book (long out of print) is nowadays costing silly money
It was also described in details in vol 135-136 of Model Engineer.

Lovely Dave, runs very smooth. I like the clicking noise as well.

The mechanical lubricator on my 5" gauge loco is of the clutch type which although works well I am concerned longer term it will fail and I will end up with seized cylinders!

bambuko wrote: ↑Sun Aug 23, 2020 11:23 am Can you please give us some more details?
for example - how big is the body of this lubricator?
Did you build it exactly as per Mason's book or have you used the book as an inspiration and adapted the design for your needs?

Thank you

The tank is 9/16" x 5/8". I built it exactly to the plans. But the 30 tooth ratchet wheel didn't have enough teeth for my application, so I made a 36 and 42 tooth wheel next, the 42 tooth is the one being used, 36 wasn't enough either. So it's 3.5 turns of the wheels to 1 stroke of the pump. The pump delivery is adjustable, it's set to maximum at the moment

I can see myself using these on future models

tom_tom_go wrote: ↑Sun Aug 23, 2020 12:23 pm Lovely Dave, runs very smooth. I like the clicking noise as well.

The mechanical lubricator on my 5" gauge loco is of the clutch type which although works well I am concerned longer term it will fail and I will end up with seized cylinders!

Thanks Tom, it's a lovely project. LBSC would call it watchmaking

It's good to be able to see the winding handle going round rather than back and forth

Drive shaft and eccentric
Test pumping
Milling the ratchet wheel with homemade cutter
30T 36T 42T Ratchet wheels - hardened
Ratchet wheel and fixed pawl

Another brilliant build Dave....

Made me smile when I saw what you was using for the compressed air....

dewintondave wrote: ↑Sun Aug 23, 2020 11:18 pm ...I can see myself using these on future models

Thank you Dave, for details and all the additional photos and explanations
BTW what solder did you use to secure cylinder cover?
Mason just says "...solder to cylinder..." without elaborating whether silver solder or just soft solder.

I can see this lubricator being very useful in other small models as well - thank you for bringing it to our attention
I have looked at "miniaturising" LBSC's lubricator... but came to the conclusion that it wasn't very practical

FWLR wrote: ↑Mon Aug 24, 2020 10:03 am Another brilliant build Dave....

Made me smile when I saw what you was using for the compressed air....

Thank you Rod! I call it quiet compressed air So many use those horrid noisy air compressors

bambuko wrote: ↑Mon Aug 24, 2020 10:18 am
BTW what solder did you use to secure cylinder cover?
Mason just says "...solder to cylinder..." without elaborating whether silver solder or just soft solder.

Soft solder, same for the bushes and bearings mounted to the tank