It's an interesting thought,
can you measure success by the actual end product? Even if you failed at what you aimed for, can that not be a achievement too? You may have failed but you learnt something so is that not a form of success? These days i just try to tick all the boxes on the "to do" list that seems to grow every day and dont tend to stop and look at what I've achieved, it's just a thought for a Monday morning floating around in my head. I have a friend that has a maxitrak 4F, he has been attempting to "modify" it, add an injector, tidy up, that kind of thing and as much as he's tried, and fairly hard by the looks of it, his efforts have been slightly........wide of the mark, Paint work is no his strong point, and neither is pipework, but it works so is that not enough? I suppose that I just wonder if I was maby a little harsh on the lad, he's keen an enthustiastic, but needs to learn his limits, listen, take advice and learn a bit about what he's attempting. Annoyingly he reminds me of when I was younger!
So this all came about when he asked "can you paint my engine" after talking about it it seemed like a simple job of cleaning it up and taking it back to a flat surface and giving it a top coat or 2, but when I saw it, it's a diffrent story, more along the lined of scrape off layer apon layer of paint. More annoyingly he was un aware that maxitrak dont "paint" engines..... They powder coat them! So thats makeing the job long and fairly hard work! More so that I have to get under his layers of paint and primer, also another one of his short falls, is failing to mask up properly meaning I have to re-paint buffer beams, and scrape paint off rods and all that fun stuff! (Maby a trip to work to use the shot blaster!!)
So that's an on-going project, the best part of 2-3 weeks in prep time to get to a stage where paint will stick and look nice, and then add transfers and tidy up some fairly cobbled together pipework, so sometime soon I'll start putting bits in here about that. I haven't added anything new for quite some time on here but I have been busy so i'd better get
you all up to speed,
Pug. Is in one peice and running for now!!, it works of a fashion.. But could be better, so its soon going to be stripped for another look, me and mr F had a long chat about what works and what doesn't and how to make it preform better. So that's something wich will be happening fairly soon, lapping pistons and valves, modifying a spring to the valve to keep it slammed to the chest so it doesn't fall away, and Maby a new and improved axle pump, one that actually keeps up with the water usage, and at some point it's own driving truck, but as of now I've benched that project to clear some others.
If you have been reading from the start, or have been over the back issues you will know a little about a traction engine I have, a 2" scale "superba" it's a model of the biggest thing crated by Fowler. Even in 2" it's a fairly large lump! We withdrew it from service around the end of 2011 due to leaking boiler tubes, so over the last year and a bit we have been working hard on the lengthy and difficult task of replaceing the tubes, None of wich has been easy. Getting the tubes out in the first place was an incredible task, a blowtiorch and bottle of water to heat and then cool the tubes rapidly helped to free them from the tube plates and then a "puller" did the rest. haveing got all the tubes out at the end of last year and the boiler flushed and cleaned with some phosporic acid to burn out all the corrosion and sludge and debris inside, the inpectors came round and had a good look inside, ouside and all over, and were happy that the boiler inner and outters were showing no dangerous signs of wasteage/pitting and was happy for us to go ahead with the re-tube.Pug got in the way a lot so progress slowed down for a while but i managed to put aside a few evenings here and there to start replaceing tubes, haveing ran a reamer through the tube plates to clean the holes up and had a quick once over of all the bits n bobs i test fitted the tubes. Once i could get them all in then came the task of expanding the ends up to seal, the front end was easy peasy! Just pop the expander in the hole and wind it round and round unill you could feel a step inside and i left it there. The back was a lot more of a fiddle, gettting the tool into the tubes was a mamoth job to start with! Post the back end through the fire hole door, then the center spike into the tube, and then pull the tool up to the tube place, then move the center spike hard back against the firebox inner to shrink the rolls as much as possable, then poke the tool in the tube and start to expand, When inide a firebox with 1/8 of a turn every time took me a few days!!!
After i got all that lot in came time for the final push, i managed to get hold of a test pump, to hydraulic test the boiler with water and take it up to pressure and see what leaked, and i was fairly impressed with what i acheved, i was expecting water spraying from everywhere, but no! i had 2 tubes to tweek up a little to stop the dripping but that was about it. anyone who doesnt know steam engines and boiler regulations will be a little lost here but, in general pump the boiler full of water and keep pumping unill your working pressure and go half as much again. My engine runs at 90psi so i needed to prove it wasnt leaking at 135 psi, but due to the boiler work that had gone on, i was happy to take her up to 150psi. Over the weekend the inspectors came in, and we pumped it up to the 150psi mark and held it there for 5 mins or so, it wouldnt stay there without a ocasional pump or 2 due to a few fittings that were leaking very gently, and a drip isnt a lot of water but 1 drop at 150psi makes more of a differance to the pressure than you may think!
After 5 mins there was no signs of leaks from the front or back tube plates at all and everyone was happy that the boiler isnt leaking and is safe for use! the pressue tester and my pressure gauge was checked against a calabrated gauge and all is fine, so we are all ready to get it back together! its taken a year and a bit of hard work but we are now on the home strech! A week or so will see it back in steam and a few more weeks to get all the platework back up to scratch, paint, cleaning polishing and all that and its a done job! HORAH!
Then onto the next one.... a rather sorry looking 3" Foden lorry thats been sat under the table since the fowler's boiler work started so i will have to pull that out and have a go at that once ive got some drawings... 3" foden drawings anyone?
P.s. if you've read this far well done! go have a cup of tea!
Rock n' Roll!!
After a bit of tidying, painting and a new roof
