Innehållsförteckning för Issue 4759 från Model Engineer

Martin Evans can be contacted on the mobile number or email below and would be delighted to receive your contributions, in the form of items of correspondence, comment or articles. 07710-192953 MEeditor@mortons.co.uk Happy New Year I should like to wish all of our readers a very happy New Year. “Surely”, I hear you say, “is that likely, Mr Editor?” Well, I have to concede that things are not shaping up very well. The last year, especially the last three months, has been very far from happy for many people and this state appears set to continue into the new year. The Middle East is in turmoil, the normal state, you could argue, of that region of the world, but made much worse recently by the events in Gaza, Syria and…

As some of you may know, when not driving Tom Rolt on running days, Matthew and I are building a railway - a somewhat ambitious railway, it has to be said! One day I will get around to writing a full history but, in the meantime, our esteemed editor asked me for a few photos, when he learnt that real, bona-fide young people would be helping out with the building work for a week (less a few days of genuine holiday!). We actually had two sets of Matthew’s university friends visit over the summer: we started out with Tim, who needed somewhere to stay for a week or so, in order to then take advantage of cheaper flights back to his native Australia. He is a Mech Eng. colleague of…

Continued from p.778, M.E.4757, November 29 Ishall begin this update with a picture from Sir Nigel Gresley’s overhaul images available online (photo 1). I’ve probably said this before, but for anyone building a Gresley Pacific, A1/3 or 4 the SNG online blog is a wealth of information. I begin with this image of SNG’s reverser sleeve, its thrust plate and what Don calls the ‘nut’ although a threaded shaft probably is more suitable but ‘nut’ is shorter… The sleeve can be seen at the back - this is the part that pivots in the top of the reverser stand. We then see the bronze nut (you can just see the thread at the top inside) which is sitting on top of the thrust plate. The sleeve and thrust plate are…

Views and opinions expressed in letters published in Postbag should not be assumed to be in accordance with those of the Editor, other contributors, or Mortons Media Group Ltd. Correspondence for Postbag should be sent to: Martin R. Evans, The Editor, Model Engineer, Mortons Media Group Ltd, Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincs LN9 6JR F. 01507 371066 E. MEeditor@mortons.co.uk Publication is at the discretion of the Editor. The content of letters may be edited to suit the magazine style and space available.Correspondents should note that production schedules normally involve a minimum lead time of six weeks for material submitted for publication. In the interests of security, correspondents’ details are not published unless specific instructions to do so are given. Responses to published letters are forwarded as appropriate. Boilers Dear…

Continued from p.14 M.E.4758 December 13 Now, dare I say that my previous messages on making leaf springs don’t seem to have worked so I will try to explain it in a different manner. The thing is that I just do not like any ‘Tufnol’ in my leaf springs. Spring steel works very nicely on all of my wagons but people quite rightly tell me that when they make the springs they just remain as a solid lump - not surprisingly. The secret is that when you are making the springs you need to make them a very slightly larger radius as you go up the spring. What I mean is that each leaf needs a gap of about 15 thou between it and the next one. This way, the…

Continued from p.44 M.E.4758 December 13 Pistons I’ve gone for aluminium pistons running in cast iron liners, with cast iron rings. I started with a 3½ inch length of 70mm cast iron. Being reluctant to spend money unnecessarily (i.e tight), I wanted to get as much out of the piece of cast iron as possible. Using a carbide tipped core drill, cutting from both ends, I cut out the first core (photo 60). This was too small for the smallest cylinder liner, but ideal for the six valve piston rings (photo 61). Using the next core drill, I ended up with two cylinders and the core (photo 62). I was pleasantly surprised at how easily the core drills did the job. The only issue was starting the cut, when the…

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Mrs Cherry Hill, née Hinds, died peacefully on Tuesday, December 3rd. Our sincere condolences go to her sister, Ro, her family, and her many friends in the model engineering community. Cherry was arguably the finest model engineer we have seen. She was born in Malvern on November 16th 1931, the second of three daughters. Encouraged by her father George Hinds, Cherry’s model making career started very early, with the construction of a small chest of drawers. Later, during the war, she won second prize for a model of a Sunderland flying boat. After attending St Andrews University, Cherry started work at the family firm, which made hop picking machines, first in the works and later in the drawing office. During university vacations, Cherry built herself a Humber special car, based…

The 2024 Exhibition was graced with some additional club stands and some different demonstrations so that visitors had much more to see and enjoy this year. There was a real eclectic mix of models on show from some very basic and simple models made by young people to the high tech offerings of the gas turbine builders. There were entries in every class except Class 1 for ‘Locomotives up to and including Gauge 1’ and Class 8 for ‘Internal Combustion Engines’, reflecting exactly what was in the competition classes. Class 2 The 3½ inch gauge model of Peter Wardropper’s 2-6-2 locomotive, River Darenth had been built to the LBSC Betty design and this locomotive was awarded Second Prize in the 2023 competition class. Class 3 There were six display entries…

Many engineers have artistic interests and abilities. The classic reference work Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians was first compiled by Sir George Grove, a Victorian civil engineer. James Nasmyth, steam hammer inventor, was son of an Edinburgh portrait painter and was himself a good artist, Nevil Shute Norway was an aeronautical engineer who wrote many novels under the pen name Nevil Shute. Several of his novels had an aviation theme and he also wrote Trustee from the Toolroom, probably the only novel to make a model engineer the hero. Of crime writers one engineer stands out. Freeman Wills Crofts wrote from his debut in 1920 through to the 1950s. Many of his books are sought after, with some first editions fetching good prices. Crofts was born in Dublin in…

Continued from p.28 M.E.4758 December 13 SMEE This series is a transcript of a talk given to the Engine Builder’s Group at the Society of Model and Experimental Engineers (SMEE) in May 2024. I took a break from turning to make a new pair of cylinder gaskets from 0.5mm gasket material (photo 27). I cut the middle out first, to fit the bore stub underneath the cylinder cover and with both gaskets located under the cover, using it as a template, I cut the outline out and then drilled the stud holes through both. The quantity, pitch circle diameter and diameter of the studs are identical top and bottom so it made sense to make them together. As stated earlier, the cylinder cover and all associated holes had been drilled…

Continued from p.767 M.E.4758 December 13 The best laid plans From the tender age of three, and every year since, daughter Emma danced. At the beginning there was a single introductory class each week, on a Saturday morning, and a small group of us fathers thankfully dropped our tutuclad offspring at the local dance emporium and departed to the diner next door for an enjoyable breakfast in relative peace and quiet. After a few years, additional classes wormed their way into Emma’s schedule – one for tap, another for ballet, a third for… well, the list went on, until, fifteen years later, a dozen different classes dotted her weekly calendar, each geared to the highest level of dancing attainment in its specific genre, all demanding hour-upon-hour of carefully choreographed coordination…

I’d like to tell you a story. That is, I’d like to, but my lawyer says I mustn’t… perhaps in a hundred years, when my stock of old jokes has has been reviewed by the Supreme Court… Attending a meeting of the Sheffield SMEE, I was leafing through a 1941 volume of Model Engineer and noticed a water feed pump. As shown, it can not work because the pump handle, rocking at the base, describes a curved path but the pump piston rod connected about half way up the lever is square on to the the base. This difficulty is what the Watt parallel motion solves. In this issue, dangerous scam, a bayonet in a bottle, a robot workshop, disappearing nuts, extending a locomotive to fit a short name? a…

DESIGNING THE T-34 PETER SAMSONOV AVAILABLE NOW Softback £12.99 ISBN: 9781911658306 BRITISH TANKS OF THE RED ARMY PETER SAMSONOV AVAILABLE NOW Softback £14.99 ISBN: 9781911704065 HMS BRISTOL ROB GRIFFIN AVAILABLE NOW Softback £16.99 ISBN: 9781911658757 The first encounter between British armour and the Red Army was not on friendly terms – with the British sending surplus tanks to reinforce the pro-monarchy White Army in the Russian Civil War. When the Reds won, war trophy Mark V heavy tanks as well as medium Mk.A Whippets and Mk.B Hornets entered service with the RKKA. As the political landscape changed during the 1920s, the Red Army assessed British designs available for export and a licensed copy of the Vickers Mk.E entered production in 1931 as the T-26. During the early days of the…

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Continued from p.54 M.E.4758 December 13 Time to get to grips with the coupling rods. The laser cut parts were listed previously and photo 42 shows the coupling rods as delivered. These come with legs on so they can be gripped in the machine vice to mill the thickness down as required by the drawing. The legs are amputated (hacksaw, no anaesthetic) when all the machining is complete and any remaining marks then filed to match the shape. The rods are 6mm thick, and here it becomes apparent that laser cutting accuracy has limitations as the material becomes thicker. The thinner plates for the frames were bang-on size and the edges were nice and clean but now we have edges that are a bit uneven through the thickness and striated,…

Introduction The lathe is a versatile machine-tool that many engineers would advocate should be the first addition to a new workshop (photo 1). Utilising the lathe, the engineer is able to make perfectly cylindrical parts, tapered parts, flatten surfaces (facing) and cut an assortment of imperial and metric thread pitches. There is also available to make, or to buy, for the lathe numerous attachments or devices that expand the versatility of it even further (ref 1). Dedicated attachments for the lathe enable precision milling with the vertical milling-slide (photo 2), surface grinding, gear cutting and slotting, to mention only a few possibilities (ref 2). In essence, by harnessing the capability of the lathe to provide precise revolving motion relative to precise multi-axis linear movement, the opportunities are enormous. Drilling and…

Continued from p.18 M.E.4758 December 13 The group of five castings (photo 163) that go to make up the structure of the high-pressure cylinder are the last bits of cast iron to be machined as the rest of the engine is made from gun metal castings and bar stock. The cylinder itself is not much more than a rectangular block of cast iron with one big hole through it and a lot of smaller ones as well (fig 28). As with most of the other castings in the set, the machining allowances are small (close to zero in some places) so some careful measurement and setting up is needed. The four longer faces of the block were quite clean and a little filing got the bottom smooth enough to be…

‘It’s dead.’ I had been taught at school that the first sentence in a short story should be as arresting as possible and that the word dead or something like the statement ‘He’s dead!’ were the best way to begin. In a sense, this statement is applicable to what happened that evening; whatever ‘it’ was it was not alive, in that it was not anything living that would be recognisable to us. At the same time, it was anything but dead. I was working in an office in dreary old Hammersmith, on a grey old Friday for a large petrochem organisation although, admittedly, the work was not too awful. I decided on an impulse to take a long weekend and go to visit the Settle and Carlisle line. That afternoon…

Are you ready to absorb some Cosmic Vibes? Then I would like to give you a short introduction to Space Toys. The discovery of the universe and the role of the human species in the cosmos has challenged mankind ever since the human being was created. For economic reasons, the exploration of rare exotic materials, finding resources on the moon and planets, can play an important role in today’s world but also for future space programs. On the moon for example materials such as aluminium, magnesium, silicon and titanium can be found and this will attract future mining. When these ideas started to gain ground and became more realistic in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, it was no wonder that the public wanted to be part of these advanced…

These topics and more are covered by Mortons Books’ imprints: BANOVALLUM Banovallum Books explores a huge range of modern interests and experiences from veganism to venomous spiders, from composting to communism, from knitting to fitness. Covering consumer and leisure topics of every variety, Banovallum Books is dedicated to producing high quality titles which offer readers an informed and informative look at lifestyle and specialist subjects. GRESLEY Britain’s unparalleled history of great railways and locomotives is what Gresley Books seeks to explore, explain and celebrate. We cover everything from the pioneering days of the early railways to the golden age of steam, the devastating Beeching cuts, the British Rail days, preservation and the ongoing story of modern diesels and electrics. GALLANTRY War and warfare in all its many forms is the…

Locomotive No 32 Tamerline became the first steam locomotive to be completed at Crewe Works on 10 March 1843. One hundred and fifteen years later BR 9F No 92250 became the 7,331st steam locomotive to be built at the Cheshire works, when completed in December 1958. This publication is a tribute to the thousands of people employed there during the steam locomotive building era. In 1913 The Railway Magazine proudly described Crewe as “the most famous railway works in the world”. Indeed, railways throughout the world benefited from adopting ‘best Crewe practice’. Many who worked at Crewe in its heyday, first under the London & North Western Railway and later the London Midland & Scottish Railway, held the firm belief that the works was the ‘beating heart’ of the Cheshire…