Member postings for Bob Wild

Never dreamt that my simple question would provoke such a heated discussion. But apart from Hopper’s suggestion about a bit of brass bling not many other posts address my initial issue 🙁

Thanks Hopper.

Paul - that’s a good idea. I like a bit of bling. And I have some brass nuts left over from an earlier job, so I can try those.
Bob

Oh this is so hard (for me). Not much progress in the last two months, but a lot of effort. Got the leak test going on the water pump and it failed miserably. The culprit being the soldering of the cylinders to their backplates. I figured out that I was paying too much attention to appearance by putting a neat bead of solder between the mating faces. So, two attempts later I finally smothered the joints with solder and ‘Bingo’. It finally was sealed OK.

The present nightmare is getting everything lined up. Each cross head has the water pump piston rod and the engine piston rod at opposite sides. The cross head thickness is 20mm and I would have liked to thread them both from the same side. But I don’t have any taps that long. So I had to tap them separately from each side. The only way I could think of to get the two rods aligned was to hit them with a big hammer (well a small one actually) and finally they do run more or less true. The challenge now is to get everything in line. That means four rods, four pistons, four crosshead columns and two cross heads with their column guides and crankshaft slots. Added to that I’be discovered that the pump rods are 10mm short (how did I miscalculate that?). So a bit more rework again! I did manage to get the crankshaft to rotate a bit until it fouled so I’m quite hopeful in that respect. I did get a tip from another member where he suggested that you could drive the crankshaft with the mounting nuts fairly loose and progressively tighten them over a period of hours. We shall see!

And another thing, I‘ve just got round to drawing out the boiler (because it’s snowing outside and can’t work for more than an hour in the workshop). Goodness only knows how I’m going to make that with twelve curved fire tubes, a very complicated super heat tube, not to mention the conical body. But that’s for another day.
Bob

I’ve been building my Fire King for a year now. I notice that many of the nuts and bolts that have been in for a while are starting to look a bit tarnished as if starting to go rusty. That’s not pretty to me. So, I hit upon the idea of replacing them with stainless steel ones. Is this a silly idea or are there any alternative solutions?

Bob

I built his traction engine. A few pics here:

**LINK**

Quite pleased with the castings and drawings although I did customise it a bit to make it look a bit better (to me). David Abbot, myfordboy, was most helpful and answered my email queries.

Bob

What a load of wimps on here. Just spent an afternoon in the workshop at 1.0 deg C. Done a load of milling with a glove on one hand to reduce the conductivity from an aluminium handle. But it was most successful 😋😋

Edited By Bob Wild on 04/12/2020 22:59:31

Bother. I wish I had seen this thread earlier. I built Lady Stephanie recently. No problems but the supplied drawings were almost unreadable, so I used the magazine articles. There is a funny story (now). The entablature casting was terribly distorted so I sent it back to the address on the drawings. No response after a while so I phoned Reeves. They said that they moved from that address many years ago so my parcel was lost! They refused to send me a replacement until I gave them the original. Despite the fact that they had given me the wrong address they were unrepentant and I had to give up in the end. So I prefabricated the entablature myself in the end and put Reeves on my list of non-preferred suppliers 🙁🙁

Where’s Clickspring. He’s very good but hasn’t posted for ages?

Very impressed!!

These brackets look fairly straightforward, but they have given me a real headache. So I thought they deserved a mention in my build thread::

The drawing called for them to be bent from 3mm strip. But I wasn't confident in making the double bends in the right place, so decided to machine from solid. Two pieces were glued together so I could machine them as an identical pair. I chain drilled first to remove as much metal as possible:

This is where the problems started. Because I'm using Stuart cylinders I had to recalculate the width, and somehow while allowing for the 3mm thickness I ended up with then being 3mm too wide. I couldn't face throwing them away and starting again, so I cut off one face and screwed and glued another piece of machined angle. This gave me the opportunity to use JB Weld for the first time:

I painted the chassis while I was at it, and here is the pump assembly finally in position:

Next up, a leek test. I have learned from bitter experience not to delay this!!

People who say “myself” when they really mean “me”

Oh Paul, this is hard. I suppose I need a non-windows photo editor. But I think I’ll just stick to landscape in the future!

Bob

Thanks for all your useful suggestions. I think I know what to do now. Let’s hope for the best.

Bob

I have just finished the water pump for my Merryweather Fire King. This the first working engine I have made, so I have no experience in sealing the joints. There are flat surfaces, screwed parts and some glands.

What’s the best way to do this? What should you pack the glands with? I have some fibre paper, Hylomar Blue and ptfe tape.

Bob

Don’t understand that Paul. That image you did was just as the original on my PC. Could it be something to do with the fact that the original was taken with an iPhone. I have seen other issues between iOS and windows?

Thanks Paul. The plans are from Julius de Wall based on a design in The Engineer magazine from 1908. There is a layout drawing and a lot more detail in the first post of this thread.

Here is a rotated image of the pump. It has rotated the whole lot; so not much help. And you can see that if I crop the image half the detail will be lost. NBG

Bob

Well I'm back from my tour of the UK from the Lake District to The Yorkshire Dales by way of Devon. In between pitstops I've managed to get the water pump finished. Here are the parts:

And here is the assembly complete with the steam cylinders:

and placed in the Merryweather:

Before I go any further I need to pressure test it. Been racking my brains thinking about how to do it and then it came to me. The Merryweather already has a hand pump for the boiler feed, so I can use that. And here it is:

My only problem when I build it is how to seal the joints. I have some fibre gasket material, Hylomar sealant and some PTFE tape, but haven't a clue which to use and where. Or should I get something else? Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

Incidentally, I have just realised that this forum doesn't like Portrait photos. Note to self for the future.

Edited By Bob Wild on 06/10/2020 23:21:13

Thanks chaps for all your replies. As a bit of background I should have said in my original post that my immediate need is to clean up the parts of the water pump for my Merryweather Fire King. This has two double acting cylinders that I lapped with grinding paste. The pump bodies have eight ball valves and an internal rabbit warren of holes, many of which are plugged which prevent direct access for cleaning.

So I have decided to use white spirit as I already have a gallon of the stuff.

Bob

Many years ago when I worked in an engineering company, components were cleaned in a trichloroethane bath. This is now banned, so I wondered if anyone could suggest the acceptable alternative for washing out swarf and grinding paste?

Bob

Thanks chaps for all your divers comments. I should have mentioned that it was a new product and my workshop is pretty dry without the need for de-humidifiers.. I'm inclined to the opinion that it was caused by some reaction with the felt or glue. I'm puzzled as to why I should have the problem when other purchasers of this tool box have not.

Anyway, I've reported the problem to the supplier and asked for my money back. Watch this space (slowly).

Bob