Now where did I leave that pesky thinking cap?

Why can't this stuff be easier?

No new pictures or fun stuff today I'm afraid,. All the bodywork is in the paint shop ( or as most people call it.... "the kitchen")  so I haven't got anything new to show. But today's mental hernia comes thanks to Mr F, who has re assembled the valve gear, but at this stage we are still trying to work through the "issues" that beloved winsons left us.

Obviously the first major issue was the valve exhaust cavity, not a difficult issue to fix. The origanal valve had a cavity of .5" where it should have been .374" calculated from .25" exhaust port and adding 2x .062" wich is the land either side. This means now both steam ports are shut, untill the valve moves either way, realising one end of the cylinder to exhaust, we don't rele have to worry about things like exhaust lap as we aren't talking major volumes of steam and with such small cylinders, and generally everything being small time isn't a major factor so events happen almos instantly. 

Haveing got the valve gear back in the loco, with all the small mods to make it work we are at the point where we can "see what happens". 

So armed with all sorts of mesuring tools we start by working out the valve movement, ( in this case .381") so half the travel gives us .1905" either side. Basicly it means that at some point near the end of piston stroke the valve will be in its "centre" possition, so both steam ports shut to exhaust. The valve then moves .1905" in one direction to open a steam port to exhaust and the other end to steam. It then moves back to the center somewhere near end of piston stoke the other end of the cylinder then moves the same distance in the other direction, to push the piston back the other way, or at least that's the theory!! So we know the valve will travel .1905" in either direction, so far it's still fairly simple..

Now for the harder part

The most frustrating thing about winsons was they send out with each kit a set of instructions and drawings, unfortunatly they are only GA (general arrangement) so they are basicly pretty pictures to show how it fits together. This is great if your building an air fix kit, Not so useful when building locos! There is no given or stated dimentions for anything, at all! Possably so no one could work out how much of the kits were wildly inaccurate!!

This gives us a problem, We don't know how well or badly the valve gear was designed, We can only assume that it was desinged by someone who half knew what they were doing. The big issue is we dont know how much lap and lead it was supposed to have, all we know is the old vlaves were wrong. But how wrong? It may have been just a case of the exhaust port was almost .13" too long. It could be the exhaust port plus any manner of other things, so at this point we just dont know, and withough takeing the entire thing to bits and mesureing everything to try and get some idea of the lengths/ radius's of everything and then back working it thought a simulator we have no way of knowing. So we have come up with a plan to make the valves much longer than they should be, infact in full gear (giveing us most travel possable,) the valve should only open the steam port by .01". This was fairly simple to work out, the length of the valve faces from the outside steam port across the exhaust to the oustide of the other steam port is .624" add the total vale travel gives us 1.005". if we left it here it wouldnt open either steam valves either end but the valve line would be on the outter port line, so we then take off .01" a side, this means the ports will open by .01" a side so the valve ends up being .985". This is useful at this stage because we can put the valve bang in the middle as we know there will be .01" at most between the valve and port, also it means we can measure the valve movement and then we can adjust the eccentric Rods lengths to give us equal movement forwards and backwards, this means we can get everything set apart from the valve itself. Obviously .01" isn't enough steam input to make it work, so now we have to come to a size for the valve ...... Errrm, well this is now down to educated guess work!!! The valve requires enough length to cover the steam ports + some lap or it would be opening the ports far far too early, so to make it "work" and to open the steam port fully the valve would be as big as the travel - the steam ports, so in this case it would be, .0655" lap at both ends, then .125" solid material that covers the valve ports, and finally .374"exhaust port, add all that up and the valve becomes .755" long, but wait! Before you think that's it, when you bring the "lead" into the equation, you will find that it would be opening the ports early still, also there is no need to open the steam port 100% to live steam. So let's add some more lap. If we set ourself to only opening the steam port 3/4 of its travel, we just need to add that extra quarter to the valve, so the port is .125" so decide by 4 equals, .03125". Now add that to both ends of the valve. And the new length is .8175", close enough?...... The theory makes sense, but in practice who knows?! Suck it and see I guess!

Well this while bit may seem like a lot of pointless reading but there is method to it. It's given me a while to put my thoughts down out of my head so I can work through how it should work and how to arrive at where we need to be. Also for anyone having a skim through you may gleam a small incite into how these things work, and most of all, it will give James something to read and work through, being a up and coming engineer and needing a little hand with the maths side, I hope I have outline it all in a way he can understand and get to grips with, so once you have had a read give me a shout and tell me if you understand it!

Anyways, I suppose I had better do some work today, .....maybe!

Rock n roll!!!

Holy PUG!

OK so maybe i am going chuck another one up this evening, just a little post but still, as the painting is underway, i thought as i still had a few coats to go on now would be a good time to ruin my hard work with some lining work as i have to cover it all up anyway, so i took a few pictures for ya'll, 

First off the lining tool, is kind of a hand full to hold onto, so yes, i have red hands and the moment, trying to fill the tool, was insanely difficult trying to pour it out the tin into what is basically a pen, and then it takes some getting used to, but with some brush cleaner and some rag on standby i went for it! and actually i have to say ... i'm impressed with the outcome,  ok there might be a few slight wobbles here n there wich was my hand more than anything, but for a first off try i was kinda happy, its all been taken off now and the cab and tank returned to the paint shop for the next couple of coats of black to get it even and well covered, and then i get to do it all again and try and make a smart job of it 

Peace! 

And here we go again!

Another Monday always comes round far too fast!

well my weekend was over far too fast, Saturday was a write off as there was 7 hrs of work, followed by band practice,  A quick stop at a friends Halloween party then on to a youth club summer camp reunion, so it was far too late to get any work done by the time I was home. Sunday saw a little progress, the remaining parts went off with Mr F to be re-united with the chassis and with any luck withing the next few weeks we are hopeing to get it running on air, to test out all the hard work. Then it will be comeing back my way as a complete unit for all new pipe work, and finsh paint and the such.

But seens as I've been on the paint front I thought I would give you all a sneaky peek at the latest photos, I have loosely assembled the tank, cab and smokebox just to get a general idea of what kind of finsh I'm heading for. As its a working loco I'm not going to the mass extent of getting all the paint flattened and buffed to a high polish as there is no need, well that's about all I got for you today, next will be the cab and tank lineing, gunna have to break out the lineing tool and learn how to use it u guess!

I'll show ya as soon as I've managed to fail a few times!

Shots Fired, Outta Range.

"they wanna see me in a blood soaked grave, but still i live to die another day,"

And normality ensues!

well i thought i would start off with something that's been on the old iPod today, have spent far too long at work today and just about made it though with something resembling sanity thanks to the newest slash album "Apocalyptic love" .. its a bit epic!

Where is pug i hear?? ... or maybe that was me asking. well, Let me tell you a story of the little engine that really could.. or something like that.. wow my mind is scattered today!.. anyways... where was i?


Well it seems you lucky people are pretty much caught up with all that's gone on over the last month or however long its been going on, but fear not, there is more shiny new things happening

First and foremost is some .... slight beautification, remember how the cab looked? something like this..




 Surprisingly a few easy to move countersunk screws and .. it fell apart in me hands guv!









 time to get rid of the BR numbers and old paint me thinks!!

Also i removed the old screws for some nice smaller 6ba countersinks so they can have a smear of filler on them so one the new paint is done they will dissapear!

After the cab went through the work sand blaster next was the dome cap, it wasnt the right shape realy and poor machineing ment it was too small for the hole in the tank, so not wanting to throw stuff away and try a make a new one i came up with a plan, 

As you can see.. it wasnt great so with a little bit of engineering type thought, i cut a place into a circle, and then useing some rather useful areldite at work, stuck it to the bottom, and then filled the sides and worked them back to about the right shape 

a little bit of boring on the lathe to get the hole in and the semi- finished article looks better!

Other things that have gone through the sand blaster is the tank which looks rather lovely even without paint of any sort! 

Today's work was the smoke box, another challenge as we are going back to original L&Y colours, the numbers off the front have to go. This left me with 2 M3 holes in the door to do something with ,, i was going to filler it up and pretend it never happened but no!!! Must do things right so i screwed 2 M3 bolts in and then filed them back flush with the door so when it gets painted it will be gone

Yes ok .. there is still a shed plate on the door, but i quite like it, and it will give the "rivet counters" something to whine about! Not that i'm trying to cause trouble hahahha! Also i'm filling the 2 bolt holes in the fron that come out on the sides of the door. Another of Winsons f**k ups! the bolts hold the door bar catches but they managed to drill all the way through so there are holes that need filling, as they are half on the front face and half in the door recess, another job for the filler i'm afraid!

P.S. Interesting to note the entire smoke box/ door. and funnel is all aluminium! 

Lastly as a quick one off. a nice package arrived the other day, i ordered them on Monday night and blow me by the time i got home Wednesday night they were sat on my bed for me, 4 brand new shiny cylinder cocks, 5/32 x 40 so pug may be able to blow the water out the cylinders rather than throwing it all out into my face and over my nice new paint work!

 The next post or 2 will probily just be painting as there isnt a lot of engineering i can get on with at the moment without the frame or some bits, so we shall see how it all comes together over the next week or 2!

The Saga Continues

 

In a time way before anything interesting happened a dinosaur ate a tree!

Now thats got that out the way where was i?.... god only knows, another day down and closer to the weekend... what little weekend i'm going to get this week! It turns out one of the customers we work for had contracted out 3 heat exchanger cores to a company in the midlands somewhere, they then proceeded to sit on them for 3 weeks and not touch them at all. So eventually the company took there jobs back and duly dropped them off at our door first thing this morning ( which is better than 7 o'clock last night which is what they were promising)... Anyway, To cut the long story short, they want all 3 done by Monday. Each core is roughly 36 hrs machining and there is only 25 hrs of "work" between now and Monday morning, so lookie who gets to spend an entire day at work Saturday .... yup muggings here!

well enough of the stresses and strains of the random existance i lead back to more important matters

Errrrrmmmm... i think i left off at eccentric straps, 

anyways whilst i was off machining new straps i left Mr F in charge of the rod ends as the old rods were bolted sideways through the strap which left no way of adjustment. So i made some drawings and sent Mr F off to produce some new ends






Having chopped and soldered the rods, and bolted them to the new straps the result was rather pleasing!














Whilst we were at the stage of taking the whole lot to bits we decided 1 hole from the valve chamber to each end of the cylinder was asking a bit much so Mr F got the cylinders up and put 2 more in.. just to be sure!

after that the re-bore and new holes it was time to look at the valve face...... hmmmm oh dear!






.. Wave my magic wand and.......











Ohhh look its all better! 10 thou skimmed off the face got all the pitting out and back to a good solid face.. so next was obviously the valves....

Oh Winsons... what have you done?!?!

Well.... I spent a few hours back when we first got the pug trawling the internet. Strange as it may seem most of the Winson pug's have gone missing into the depths of people houses never to be seen again it would appear! I spent an eternity looking through pictures of dogs, or cars, or any random crap but L&Y pugs.. also there is very little written about them anywhere i have found.. One thing that turned up was a e-mail conversation between 2 people talking about one such loco, one seemed to think it was "a nightmare to set up" and the other saying that he couldn't seem to get it right ..... well news for both of you, whoever you are.... of-course it wont work ... the valves are just wrong .. there is no other way to put it! In most engines the exhaust cavity in the valve is line on line ( or there abouts)  with the 2 steam ports to the piston. Meaning as soon as the valve moves either way one or the other port will be opened to the exhaust cavity and port. WELL!.. Winsons apparently decided to make up their own rules here and as it turned out the valve had to move .0625" (or 1.6mm for all you metric lovers) before it would close one of the steam ports to the exhaust cavity! Yup in the mid position both steam ports were open to the exhaust!! so this means the valve also had to move a fair distance before it input any steam... forget lead and lap basically it never got much chance to put steam into the piston as as soon as it did before it had chance to do any work it would throw it all up the funnel! So new valves then!!


well .... not quite. we managed to silver solder a lump of phosphor bronze onto the bottom of the

valve and machine it square, then the cross in the valve top which houses the connection was made deeper to allow it to run properly,  and re- assembled to check clearances it ends up looking something like this

all shiny and new!!!!! .. Ish! 

 once the valve gear goes back together and the throw can be measured we can then draw up the valves and chests and hopefully come to some form of conclusion on how big these valves should be and how big the exhaust cavity should be and maby we can have ourselves a runner!!!

In other news 

the weekend just gone saw us both out in the workshop for a full day and a half, so various things got done, all the main rods and con rods were re-bushed, cross-head slides amended and new cross-heads made up new die blocks and the expansion links fettled up means that that's all working as it should do now,

Well this has been a mouth full, i think its time for a cup of tea and to turn the music up a bit and have a bit of a well earned rest with some AC/DC to make the evening roll on nicely, 

seens as im not far off caught up with the progress i may have to come back later and get the last bits out the way but this is enough for now!

Rock n' Roll!!

To The Workshop !!!!

Its going to be a long day ...... isn't it?

Well apparently this has gone down well so far with the small consortium of people that i have shared it with. So much so that the "friend" that bought the engine with in the first place, and is heavily involved in the pug project is already wanting Pt 3!

Well just for him, (and i have an hour to spare infront of the computer before a band gathering type thing) here is Pt 3..

so where was I? 

...... oh yes catch up,

Well being a kit built loco to start with it all came apart fairly easily, and soon was down to a frame ready for the work to begin, so we had a sit around and a few cups of tea and a long chat and decided on the work needed and who would do it. 

first was to re-machine the axle box horns and make new axle boxes to remove the large amount  of float, Mr F took the frames away and some material to get on with it, whilst i looked into the next bits.

No corners cut here, new steel axle boxes rather than the useless brass rubbish that Winsons decided was a good idea and new Oilite bushes in the boxes for a smooth sexy running fit, 

Meanwhile elsewhere in the world!

 The first thing on my to-do list was eccentric straps, the old ones were also brass, and about .5mm big in all directions, possibly due to a small amount of wear and some poor machining to start with so onto the lathe i went and cut down a lump of cast iron. Having turned it to a rough dimension  i milled a flat for the rods to bolt onto and then went about drilling the holes in it that would eventually clamp the two half's together.

Hopefully this odd version of word will allow me to get these pictures into some form of order, so it should show you a chronological sequance from rough billet




after a some milling work












More milling work, bolt holes added

And finally parting into 4 rings






They were then split by hand and then the cut faces milled and bolted back together. this left then ready for boring out to finish size







Well this should shut Mr F up, also i have ran out of time plus this is getting to be too much like a documentary for my liking! more will follow when i have 10 mins to scribble some more ramblings down ... and hopefully in a less ... regimented fashion!
Now off to play some guitar and do some random stuff like that!

Rock N' Roll!!!!!!

And In the beginning......Blah blah blah PT2

I'm sure I've been here before!!

Before someone gets any funny idea's "the mighty pug" is not a reference to a dog or a car Of any sort, infact it's just the first name that came to my head as the pug (or pig depending on if the wonderful iPhone is having a particular obsession with autocorrect) is infact the number 1 project at the moment,

It all started about a month or so ago (Que. Swirly flashback camera work)
A friend and I bought a 5" L and Y Pug on e-bay.. The world renowned source of second hand junk that they think is worth something, thanks to crappy day time tv shows like bargain hunt and all that shite!
It was an old Winsons model and there for a little... Hazy weather it would actually work or just look prity! We duly collected it and went straight off to play but it seems that good old Winsons engineering leaves a lot to be desired!

Home it went and the work commenced.

First was a strip down wich highlighted issues, like massive float in the eccentric straps and floating axles an axle boxes, mechanical pump failures, bad pipe work, the valves were just wrong anyway you looked at them, lack of anything sealing the pistons, bad valve faces and bores, and well the list goes on!!

So the next couple of posts will be the work carried out so far, as a kinda catch up

And in the beginning..... There was an atomic oopsie!..... PT1

Hello and all that jazz,

Best get all the gumf out the way at the start so be warned the following ramblings may contain a large proportion of random-ness

Im usually known as Andy. A 25 year old precision engineer and a model maker (of sorts!) also a guitarist, so this should be amusing to balance out! Having spent most of my day reading through someone's blogs about making 00 scale engines and the like. I thought " I could do that" ... Or at least something similar, (or at the very least a bad copy with more power tools!!!)

I've decided to take the step into the far too technical world of blogs and such for a couple of reasons, not because I think the world is that interested by my movements. Or because my comical scribblings are note worthy but because,

Number 1, there is a small following of people I know that are interested in what I'm doing. this seems like an easy way to keep all those interested up to date with the current madness!

Number 2, I'm kinda hoping that the pressure to scribble down a blog on a regular basis may actually get me off my ass and into the workshop so I actually have something to show people.

Yes I know this seems like I've created a work vortex but as it stands with the current state of the workshop/ life I need a bit of a kick!

So that's that out the way whats next...... Time for a coffiee and figure out how to organise the "to do" list that gives me nightmares and keeps me from a sane thought!

Rock n'roll!!