Gahhhhhh!!!

Well. It's been a few busy weeks, 

Mostly my time has been decided between work and the band, there has been a lot of practice to get up to a level where we can go out and gig, and as we have a gig coming up we have been on the case somewhat solidly over the last few weeks,

Apart from that I've succumbed to some random cold/flu thing (thanks james!) which is really bugging me!! it hasn't stopped me yet but I have this nasty feeling its going to hit me like a truck later on, but until then ill keep on doing what I do! 

The Foden had a trip out on Sunday, up to Swindon for. Steam and chips, and it's now 100% officially sorted, I have both boiler certificates, steam and hydraulic, with Minimal fuss ( apart from a crafty re-machining of the safety valves a few days before!) 

so after all the hard work and tests I was a day of steaming involving a road run to the pub......or 2!!!!

A few things have popped up as issues to sort, number 1... I desperately need to put a surround over the water gauge, having just put a new one in ( having managed to hit the old one with an Allen key or something whilst trying to sort a different issue,) I broke the new one too trying to put a cup down inside the cab.... Fail!!!! 

Second on the list is the pump. Although I am fairly happy it "works" but it's not enough you can't fill the boiler with it, it's more of a .... "It stops the water level dropping quite as fast" kinda thing so there will be some work to be done to get a bit more flow going through that! 

The third major thing is the blast pipe / fire grate, the grate we recon has too many bars in it, so not enough room for air to get up and through, also the blast pipe we recon is too big so it's not really barking hard enough to draw the fire that well, you can sturr it up and it steams well but you need to get in there poke it around and sturr it up fairly hard before it will go properly!  So some work to be done there! 

As a side project with it all is the lights! I'm keen on having proper lights on this beast and not being much of an electronics type person, ( all I know about electric is its all black magic and witchery!!!)  ill need to learn a few things so the plan is to have the lights set up to a switch and a battery, easy, head light/ tail lights, cab lights and canopy lights ( just for fun).. I'm also gunna run a dynamo from the crank to help keep the battery charged so I went and got this 

Wind up led torch! This will from the basics of my system, I have a battery (Be it small for what I want ), some lights which I can ignore and wire in my own lights for other things, and most important is the dynamo, first thing is to strip the guts out of this and mount the dynamo on the engine and run a belt off

The crank, throw a fire at the engine and see what kinda of output power I get I guess! 

If any electrical wizards out there read this and fancy getting in touch with some helpful advice, please do! I'm a little out of my depth with this electronics stuff! 

Rock n'roll and all that jazz! ... Or funk. Which ever floats your boat!!!

Laters! 

Getting Lazy

well ...... not really!

ive just decided to go a diffrent way with this blog thing,... 

The foden ran but was a little more miserable out in the pouring rain on Sunday. On the way to the pub for the annual Pub run i ended up towing a 2" Clayton that had died, as much as i would like to say it went well, things were a little more like climbing a mounting rather than a up hill struggle, but after some tinkering time at the pub i stormed back leaving the Clayton to enjoy its ride home in the following van,

and apparently i was clocked on the way back at 10MPH +  now ... that's not bad really! im well pleased with that! just need to tinker with some valve timings and draughting to get it to steam like a witch!

the cold damp weather did highlight the need to do the steam seal under the cylinder block though so that was the first job on the list, unfortunately... whilst doing all this, i managed to put a Allen key through my gauge glass so .... :( bad times! need to order some 5mm glass and whilst im at it, a new blow down valve because i really cant be bothered to make my own when i can buy one for £10 odd.. and it will take me way more than an hour to make one so its not really worth my time, 

As i said this is going a different way so..........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkXxSVSeTyk 

here's a link to a youtube video i made on the Foden re-build, a quaint little montage of some of the work and then a quick video of its first steaming, i would have liked to do more but i ran out of time, also ill get some proper video when i have a new water gauge and have tinkered some more!

Laters!

Success happens when you least expect it!

Ok so maybe I did have the Foden running by the end of the week, one thing led to another and it went a little crazy but I got to a stage where I could have it plugged in and running on air to play with valve events and all that lark! 

Since then it's was a little bit of a push to get it together, and come the next weekend it was piped up and ready to go

So in true fashion a shake- down run was. Organised, a mere 1.5mile round trip from my friends place to Winchester cathedral and back, there just happened to be a fair in the grounds and a 3" traction engine running a model bailer making miniature bails of hay! 

We started off at my friends house. Tentatively lit a fire and tinkered with it as it warmed up, a few minor leaks to sort out but nothing major to worry about mostly fittings and a cylinder block bolt, but nothing I wasn't expecting!  steam happened and we started to test things, pump, injector and hand pump all worked so that was the first major concern sorted then we moved Into will it go?.... Well... It did! And it went well..... so well infact the first major failure happened! I took off round the car park to see how it handled in medium gear and it seemed to be more than happy with a fair amount of grunt, after that I decided to give top a go! So I changed up on the run and instantly it took off! Hurtling across the car park at a good jogging pace! Fantastic I thought! As my mates other half was scrabbling to find her phone to video the occasion. Then she suddenly started making noises and wavering her arms around. ... Better stop I thought as it seemed like she was panicking fairly well..... When I turned round to see the commotion... Someone may have forgotten to lock the fire grate in... And it may have...... Shaken out .... A bit..... And maybe left a trail of fire behind me on the tarmac !!!! Apparently it looked somewhat spectacular!! 

Well with that human error put right and a new fire laid a short run was in order. The local pub being no more than about. 2 mins away was the first stop, and all went well. Back to the van to re-coal and water for the long road ahead and we set off! 

Wel did encounter a few minor technical problems en-route. A few bolts coming undone and the most annoying was one of the rods that attach the front axle to the boiler to steady the front axle fell off and broke, but with some on-site bodging we carried on regardless! And after a fairly good run we arrived at the cathedral in style, steam and smoke high in the air and the valves just feathering as we entered the grass area with the other traction engine was sat in a little fenced area. So we parked up next to them.

Now you would have thought that it would be a nice thing to do as talk of steam engines and engineering would be rife....... But no. These group of people were some of the most sour faced, unpleasant and rude F***wits I've ever had the misfortune to meet, the old woman's first question was did I have a boiler certificate and then went off on a tirade of stuff about how much water I had in my boiler and the injector didn't pick up cleanly and dribbled a bit which was apparently unacceptable to her, so after a short stop to give the engine some attention and check over we left in the same grand style we entered and headed home, the return journey was particularly uneventful apart from loosening the bolt which attaches the pump sprocket to the crank shaft.. So all in all... A good day! 

Having just looked at how much I've written I think I'll leave this here, I apologise for the small essay!! But as I couldn't film the entire event I thought I would fill you all in on the more interesting details! 

There will be a couple of short videos to come from the moments I managed to capture that I shall link up as soon as I've done it! 

But for now. Peace out!