And its time for a triumphant return!

Well kinda.........

So its been a while since the last time i was on here, its been hard to find the time to sit down and actually put pen to paper.. or well keyboard to computer ..... you know what i mean! 

The big question i know your thinking is "where is pug?" well... at the moment its on the table beside be and ..... its almost in 1 piece!! its been some hard graft recently! there has been a lot going on behind the scenes, i haven't made much noise about it as there was a lot of fiddly little jobs that took up way to much time, like all the pipe work and stuff, its got a new injector and a new lubricator as well as new piping and all sorts!

Its first steam test was the other day, and i had limited success, i had issues with the boiler priming, so after much swearing a cursing the boilers been descaled, cleaned and well flushed and then it had a second test, this was better but still not perfect, so another flush out and a few minor tweaks and we are ready to go again!

I spent most of last night re-building it again, after the limited success i decided to trial fit the plate work and... nothing really fitted so i took a few bits apart like the smoke box and tweaked bits and bobs to get it all square and sorted and now is sat on the table next to be in almost one piece !  its quite nice to see it in 1 piece again .. looks all squat and chubby again, rather than having a tiny boiler poked onto a set of frames,

I still have a way to go, successful steam trials are still just out of reach and there is some plate work to modify and a some paint to be done and tidy'd to get it all up together, but for now, its looking pretty and im kinda happy about that!

ill get some pictures up soon, but for now that's about it! im gunna go play with bits of Burrell for the afternoon!

Laters!

A break from the Norm

Howdy all... 

Bit of a change today. Instead of trying to catch you up on the goings on in and around the workshop, I thought I would bring you a bit of a STW review. As many will know I'm helping my
Mate build his 2" Burrell agri, last week I dropped off the bits n' bobs I had thrown into the sand blaster and went to see progress. As you may expect I walked out with a box of goodies, which is handy as most of the projects are on hold for various reasons, so I thought I would let you all into the world of kit building.

The box, 

First things first, I took the box home and opened it up, to find a complete kit for a back wheel. The outer rim, rolled and welded, a center hub, a few packets of spokes. A few more packets of bolts n various odds n ends, Name plates, hub centers  that kinda gumf  so having identified the parts n bits, checked its all there I put it all back in the box and went to bed.

The next morning I picked up the box on the way out the door and took it to work, and went about my humble job, once everything was set I cracked out the box and went at it, first was the laborious job of de-burring all the parts in the box, that in itself was a few hrs work, every later cut spoke, was filed up and cleaned, center hub was deburred and the wheel rim had the holes cleaned up. The  i threw the instructions to the wind and started to assemble the wheel. Within a few hours I was looking at a complete wheel, and I have to say I was impressed, 99% of the machining was good, it all fit with no real dramas and the end result was good. I had to tap out a few bolt holes because the countersunk screw bottomed out before tightening up on the spoke but that was the only machining issue that cropped up. 

Soon after I went home, and diss-assembled it all, making sure to mark the spokes! A quick flick through the manual, and it got serious, I broke out the car filler, mixed up a load and slapped it on the putter rim, this was to disguise the fact the rims are rolled and welded rather than cast, let that dry over night and sanded it back to leave a nice radius in the rim edges, 

just for some scale that's the rear rim next to my Folwer plowing engines front wheel!































The next bit i did was to loctite all the outer rivets in place 
around the rim and stick the oiler pipe into the hub, this got all the fiddly stuff out the way and then i could start assembling the spokes 
















As per the instructions i loosely bolted the spokes from the rear hub to the front flange and set it all up, then unbolt the center, cover it in areldite and then stick it all back in, do all the countersinks up tight and bolt the end plate on. I let that all go off and then did the same with the front end, so then i had all the spokes inside the rims, in the right place  then it was the laborious job of removing all the hex head bolts i had temporally bolted the spokes to the rim with, and replace them with the rivet bolts they supplied, 

This took a long time, all the bolts has to be loctited in and done up, 4 per spoke, 8 spokes a side..... i was swearing a cursing by the end,!

the end result was nice , ( this picture shows the welded join before i added a little more filler and sanded the rim edge, so it all looks a little squiffy, this was soon sorted out)

After a final day on the AGA drying all the glues and bits i was actually impressed with the end result, everything generally fit well with no major modifications and its some out looking impressive. not like the kit built things you would expect. so yea ... not a bad little bit of engineering, hopefully there will be some more progress with this soon, so it should all start to look like an engine! .. or at least thats the plan!

Other things on the agenda

Well progress seems to be slow at the moment, lots of work going in but not much coming out, the pug has seen some hard graft for a few days, cylinder drains and pipe work on the agenda, so Iv'e been bashing as much of that as possible, i got a few bits to finish and link up to get the drains sorted. Pipe work needs some final bits too, most of the piping is done, i need to finish the return and feed for the axle pump/ hand pump, and i need to get and pipe up and injector, there is a few minor items too, like pressure gauge and the feed pipe to the whistle valve, but all in good time.

Also in further news next week will see the boiler exam for the Fowler, one of the last stages to get through before the re-tube, so with a little luck that will pass and all is well, just need to give it a last little clean up before the inspectors turn up so busy week ahead again.. 

such is life!

anyways hope ya'll enjoyed this little incite into Burrell building, 

laters

Ok so maybe things don't always turn out

Best laid plans and all that jazz......

Well by now I was hoping to have a large post put together with lots of pictures, writing and all the rest of it. News on pug, the Fowler and the Burrell but as happens so often, S**t went sideways and there ain't much I can do about it, pugs frames appeared and then disappeared, back for some more modifications, which is a bit of a bummer in most ways. I was lined up to get stuck in and get it back together and tested over Xmas, but with only a few weeks to go it looks like that's out of the window.

In some ways I can take solice in the fact at least the work side of things are going well, it's taken a week to rough out the job ive been playing with and now I'm into the finishing ops. Running around all the profiles with a a 20mm ball nose cutter will surely keep the neighbours awake! The only problem I have is without some frames to work on today's going to be a bit slow. With any luck I shall be dropping some front wheels for the Burrell off an then picking up the "next kit" as it were. Something to keep me amused at work!

The Fowler on the other hand is also taking a leap forward, it's been just over a year now and finally it's back on it's wheels,..... Ok so half of them are missing but 2 is better than none right?!? I'll have some more pictures and bits of that soon, the smokebox, chimney, and other bits have been cleaned, painted and sorted so that's a bonus!,  now onto the hard work of getting the boiler cleaned out and sorted,

So without giving too much away I'll end there , there is some exciting developments in the wings but as yet they aret ready yet! 

So watch this space! ..... --->                     <------/ just here, ...... That exact space! 

Where does the time go?

Tuesday, sometime in the morning.

I wrote out a lot if this in the morning with views on the days activities, so instead of re-wording the whole thing i'm just gonna split it into 2 parts, before n' after kinda deal,

I try not to look at things like calendars, they only show me how much time has passed and what little I've got done since I last looked at one! Pug it seems has been pushed back again, This time its all about eccentric issues, I doubt they have ever been "right" from the start but it's giving me and MR F headaches!  The frames are still at his workshop and will probily be there for a while yet. So close yet so far!! The manifold needs some work and the valves need setting but that's about it, the rest is over to me me to make cylinder drain linkages and pipe work, and get it all bolted back together.

One of the main issues with not getting much done is the work factor, spending up to 10 hrs a day in a machine shop means less time for my own projects in my workshop, the latest job to be lobbed my way is 2.5 tonne of stainless that's all profiled in an peculiar way. 30 mm deep profiles will take some time and took best part of a day to program, so now that's running I've turned my attention I the next kit of Burrell bits,

Will has supplied me with 2 complete front wheel assemblies. Steam Traction World say use araldite to get all the wheels together as a "filler/locking agent" type deal ... So I spent a few hours cutting off large lumps of the stuff,  now looking certainly cleaner,  I'll throw em' in the sand blaster to clean it all, remove the sharp bits and get them looking lovely,

Next on the agenda is the pesky firebox door for the pug, so watch this space!

well that was my morning out of the way,

Now i'm safely home with a cup of tea in the quiet i can sort out the rest and get some  pictures out and fill in the blanks,

This is what the wheels looked like at the time i wrote the first half of this thing, bit messy!. well i used a angle grinder to take the studs off the back of the nuts so it was all flush and nice and then sand basted it.

After blasting the overall look was much better, I do like the finish i get from the sand blaster, its fine but gives a good key for paint and used in the right way can give you a nice cast look 

Next on the Agenda was the pug firebox issue, well i thought about it a lot before coming to the conclusion.. "Hell ram summat together".. so i did. A few hours produced a working "prototype" ... something to have a play with to see if the idea works, 

As you may be able to tell, its a bit ... Thrown together .. but that's kind of the idea. Its simple and effective, the end result will be more tidy and nice to look at but for the time being its functional as a firebox door, so as soon as the engine is in 1 piece again we can have a play and see if the door is still in the way and if so what changed need to be made. this way i wont spend all of next year building firebox doors all the time to get 1 that's the right shape and size and does the job we want, 

As i mentioned before about the "work side of things" i thought i would chuck in a couple of pictures of that, 

If there is any engineers out there reading this you will appreciate the amount of work involved, the block is some 2 meters long, .7 meters high and about half a meter thick, made from 1.5 mm stainless steel plate all bonded together to form a "block" of sorts. After a day of machining I've roughed out less than half the material. (for general scaling the round cutter marks are 100mm dia). there is a lot of machining to go! The machined face I've produced is around 13mm deep ... it will end up 30mm deep!!! so this job will keep me busy well into next week.. and then i have an identical one to do .... which is a mirror image so back to programming !

Thats ya lot for now, time i was letting the brain rest a while!

Randomness has landed!

Well.. Kinda!

Just another random update for ya'll, Work on pug has been a little slow recently, too many small fiddly time consuming jobs! but the frames should be coming back together soon! there is only a few bits to do before it can have a test run on air!! once its back at my place i shall probily make up a rolling road for it, and then take it into work and plug it into the air line and let it "run in" for a few hours whilst i cover it in oil every 10 mins. Hopefully it will be lovely and free when it comes to steaming. The boiler has its original gauge glass back, be it with a few minor mods, moving the gauge glass is much more of a technical issue than i first thought, in theory its simple! When you look at it in 3 dimensions .. it aint!.. ahh well, so it looks like i shall have to have a massive go at working the firebox door around the gauge glass, but this can be achieved .... i think!

Other things that have been on and off the project bench.

There is a few things that have come through the workshop recently, the Burrell smoke box and perch bracket assembly has gone back to Will. and swapped for a set of complete front wheels to be cleaned/ tidy'd and shot blasted.




Also the smoke box and perch bracket assembly for the Fowler has been in and is now in the paint shop (yup you guessed it ... the kitchen!!) so thats now starting to look a little more loved than it has for a while!











Here is a few random pictures before / after blasting,

OOOOHHH!! lookie at the shiny!

Ok ok ... so we got a little excited and started putting things together the other night and it looks kinda like a Burrell! 

Well that will do for this week, with any luck next week you can have some pictures of something resembling a pug!!!!

On a side note it turns out Will is keeping a blog too on the progress of the Burrell, had a read through earlier and it sounded a little familiure... but its worth having a look at! hopefully it will spur him onto getting some more work done!!

http://burrellbuilder.blogspot.co.uk/

Laters all!

Tuesday ...... i think ?

Well here we are again

I wasn't planning on doing much on here for a few days, too much else to do and all that, but i got a few nice shiny pictures in the e-mail today of some more pug related stuff.

now pistons with new rings, Manufactured by Mr F and what a stunning job he has made

Also a sneaky shot of the frames thrown in there to show how the frames are getting on,  I have been told that the front axle has been put back together and will be installed tomorow, as well as a few other "missing" bits 

As for me, ive been working hard on boiler bits, the new steam T is complete, with the new valves, needs some work to fit it all, and get it all set up.  also there is 2 boiler test plugs in 2 of steam feeds so they will be replaced with some nicer ones to send steam to the pressure gauge and whistle valve, they are just thrown in for aesthetics.

Next on the agenda is gauge glass, which i shall start to tackle sometime soon!

In other news

The old man had seen the Burrell.... This lead him to the idea.. "well as your all tooled up for it you may as well do the Fowler at the same time.. so here is a few before and after pictures of the smokebox door being sand blasted and prepped for a new coat of paint

Masked up and ready 

After some high pressure sand!

Well thats all for now, tomorow ill try and dig out the smokebox and line it up next to the Burrell's smokebox for a size comparison 

Laters 

Well! This seems awfully familure!

Well it's been a while since the last update, so I wanted to drop in and put something up at least. Between, work bands and social life, it's all getting a bit intense! So what's new? .... Well not a lot really! Things are still moving along, but time being on the slim side not as much has happened as I would like! Pug however has had some more love and new bits!





Seen's as Mr F has the frames still I've been working on the boiler as the paint work is mostly Done, There is a new steam T that needs finish tapping, and the gauge glass is being looked into, I've decide to scrap the original idea so sent the gauge glass and fittings back, more design work is needed to get it right but the basic principle is to make a new block that screws into the bottom glass fitting on the boiler. Pushing the bottom fitting out to the left, meaning we get an angled glass which is more proto-typical, also we gain glass length and gain more space for the firebox door mods. So that's my side of the work recently, doesn't sound a lot i know but it's all I've had time for and trying to work out all the ins an outs of moving fittings an planning the back head is no easy task.

Elsewhere in the world,

The frames show a bit more progress. There is wheels, Ok only 3 of them but still that's a step forward, valves are machined and rods bored, pistons are on their way with rings to suit, so it's all starting to look like an engine again, and from what I hear it's all looking rather promising! With any luck and a bit of work, I'm expecting the frames back my way in a few weeks, by that point we should be running on air so I'll try and get a video done of that and post a link.

Well now that's pug news out the way I'll move on.

For the last few weeks it's all been about pug, as much as I want to see it back in steam and doing a bit of heavy haulage I'm also aware too much of a pug thing is never a good idea! So I thought i would share with you something a tad different,

On one of the "social" visits, I saw a friend of mine ... So what you ask? Well...
Ever heard of "Steam Traction World"?
Well I'm assuming you have but for those who haven't, basically it's the aftermath of Modelworks, they realized that railway engines were hard to make and changed into more ....... Simple items, like traction engines! Well my friend has got (be it still in kit form) a 2"Burrell. As I went for a social, I dropped in to see the beast under way, and well found a lot less than I expected by now!
I think all the bodging was far more than he expected and "lost steam" (all the bad puns here!). I had a dig around in the boxes of parts and pulled out all sorts of bits, Eventually I left after discussions over the "best way to get things done"... Taking with me a box of parts. Willing to lend a hand, I took the smoke box and perch bracket assembly to sort out, leaving him with the front and back wheels and various other bits to get a move on with.

Later on that evening

I got home and sat down a the table, being fairly late there was no time for workshop antics for pug so I decided to get stuck in, I opened up the box, spread all the bits out an looked at the instructions, "well this has winsons written all over it!" was my first reaction! First I waded thought the half-assed instructions complete with bad grammar and spelling mistakes (for a dyslexic it must have been bad if i picked up on it!) and duly found all the bits, after a few "test fits" I came to the conclusion, "I need a workshop!" so I boxed it all up and took it to work.

In between setting and programming and running my machine I spent my day armed with files, sanding disks and the like. It took almost half a day in a full workshop to get the parts de-burred and cleaned and then a lunchtime in a sand blaster to finish them off. The first bit was the front axle, which I had to take an angle grinder to, to get the machining miss-match out, then moved onto the smoke box  All the holes and every part needed de-burring and sorting. Having got that done and fitted the door ring, i re-drilled the holes so they line up, and bolted them together. First major error I came up against was one of the door ring bolts cross the hinge bolt counter bore  but not much can be done without a large amount of machining, so I made the best I could with what i had. I progressed onto the door, the riveting went well and so, quickly the door was put together and added to the assembly. The next few hours was spent bulls***ing the chimney base casting, aparenty its too difficult for them to center the casting before machining! It was all over the place and a weird shape, so back to the sanding machine and then sand blaster to make it look more like the right shape. After that I bolted it all together and cleaned the name plates to check it all went together correctly. It was fairly straight forward till I went home. At home I unbolted it all and went for the "foliac paste" they send with the kit, a weird substance that works as a "sealant". So I put some around the door ring and bolted that back in, and then move to the chimney base.
"the bolts will de-form slightly and will require a bit of a tap to get them in"
Says the instructions...... Not a chance!!! Try "beat the living hell out of them" would be more accurate!!! Being copper bolts no easy feat! But 10 mins giving them some tender but firm clouts they went in, but I'm not happy with them, as the casting isn't straight to the bolt hole they looks slightly wonky, but I'm sure some paint and a touch of  filler will make it all better!
I probily should have taken some More Pictures as I was doing the work but I was too "head in what I was doing" so I only have some of the complete unit. Maby next time I'll be a little more on the ball!!!

Well I shall stop taking up your precious time with my inane scribbling and let you get back to your own lives and dramas!























Rock n' roll!!!!