[redbeard]

Hi Bruce,
Cylinders Vertical? HMMM Next you'll be asking about gears...................
Larry

jtutwiler,
Thanks,
In my case I think its impatience that fuels me........or is that fools me? Anyway it's got to be fun!

 

[redbeard]

Hi Bruce,
Don't know if you will see this before you take your "timeout" but after I spoke with you I decided against mounting the cylinders vertically. I am also pretty sure I am going to go with two drive axles.

Hi Larry,
Thanks for the comment, I think I resemble that remark. I definitely march to a different piano than most. As I said earlier the whole idea for me is to have fun in my shop but away from my work. I hope to have this one and possibly another engine ready for Diamondhead. As well as some rolling stock for the pirates to pull.

Howard,
You can be sure I have been following your log. I kind of felt odd starting this while yours is going on, but there really was no direct influence. Except that I also saw Sonny Wizelman's "Matilda" article and knew that I was going to build a truck. My design is still floating about but is beginning to gel. Since I am pretty sure that I am using both Ruby cylinders, I am probably going to build it so that it can haul some cars around. I am very pleased with how your truck is looking. Let's both keep "truckin"!

Anyway here is how my thinking is going today.

But all of this could still be tossed out if something else pops into my head. More Later!

redbeard AKA Larry Newman SA #1956

 

[redbeard]

Hey Howard,
Thanks! I guess you could call it a cab-forward.......but I think Dwight might argue that point! hehehe
redbeard AKA Larry Newman SA #1956

Hey Gerald,
Hmmm........an oil tanker..................don't think the pirate railroad uses much oil!
Good point, but what I am looking for is to have enough space in the truck bed to at least imagine something being hauled back there. Thats why I decided against mounting the cylinders vertically above the axle, used up too much of the cargo space. The suggestion is good....imagine a small tanker car behind a small loco with no boiler..................oh no not another idea !
Thanks for the comment, having too much fun!
redbeard AKA Larry Newman SA #1956

 

[redbeard]

Next installment!
I built the burner out of copper tubing using the basic layout from the plans for "Idris" by Dave Watkins. This is found on a link from Vance Bass. http://www.nmia.com/~vrbass/steam/drawings.htm
I did not follow it but used it as a basis.

I turned a jet from brass stock and soldered it directly to a piece of 1/8 inch copper. I figure I won't be changing it! Here are the parts finished;

and here is the burner putting out some heat!

This is as far as I can go with the burner until I make the boiler base and mounts. I am still waiting on a couple of fittings for the boiler, so the tuning of the burner will have to wait.
More to Come!

redbeard AKA Larry Newman SA #1956

 

[redbeard]

Hi David,
Thanks for the comments!
I looked over your Vermod page, pretty cool!I have a feeling I may be setting myself up for a disappointing performance. Several friends have e-mailed me to let me know my boiler is too small for the two Ruby Cylinders. At this point I will probably continue and see what happens. I built the mounts for the truck cab today. Here is a picture of the cab mounted;

As to the boiler situation I'll just worry about it for now and keep moving.
redbeard AKA Larry Newman SA #1956

 

[redbeard]

I started on the truck bed last night and finished almost all of it this morning. I left the rear edge open as I have not yet laid out where the fuel tank will be. Right at the end of the bed underneath looks like the best location, but I have not decided yet. I needed to get the bed firmed up and mounted so I could build the boiler mounts. Here is the bed from the topside;

And here it is from the bottom;

Onward we go!
redbeard AKA Larry Newman SA #1956

 

[redbeard]

Today I built the mount for the burner. The bed will have a large hole underneath the burner to supply air for combustion. This will be bored the next time I take the bed off the truck. Here is the burner mount.

I also finished the boiler itself, so I built the mounts for the boiler also. The tape around the boiler is in place of a brass band that is not made yet. I still have not decided if I am going to wrap the boiler with wood. So the boiler bands are waiting for that decision to be made. I want to fire everything first and see how hot things get before I decide to stick some planks on the boiler. I have seen a few blackened planks on gas fired vertical boilers! Anyway here is the boiler mounted.

I will have to put this aside for a few days and attend to the real world before I get caught! Much more to come!
redbeard AKA Larry Newman SA #1956

 

[redbeard]

Hi Gerald,
I think you may have missed that I decided against using the Midwest engine and boiler. The boiler in the picture is one I built from much heavier materials. I decided to use butane to fire the truck and the consensus was that the Midwest boiler was not heavy enough for gas firing. I am using a water gauge on the boiler, and the four fittings on the top are safety valve, goodall valve, throttle (steam outlet) and gauge. So if I read your post correctly, the water fill bush on the Midwest boiler is the the same thread as a Wilesco safety valve? That could be a handy thing to know.
Thanks,
redbeard AKA Larry Newman SA #1956

 

[redbeard]

Hi everybody!
I would say that I'm back, but I didn't go anywhere. I had to tend to some house repairs that were left over from Ivan. Still not quite finished but I needed to get back to my train bench and try to get things moving again. I have been at a slowdown because I needed to machine a throttle valve. I have not run a lathe for about 20 years, and needed a little refreshing. But I have made my throttle valve this weekend. First picture is the needle during machining. It is turned from 1/4 inch brass hex stock.

Next picture is the needle finished with o-ring.

Next is the body of the valve. It was made from 5/16 inch brass hex stock.

And finally the finished valve temporarily threaded onto the boiler.

Threads on the needle and inside the block are 3/16 x 40. Mounting threads are 1/4 x 40. Hopefully I can do an operational mock-up now to see if the boiler will run the two Ruby cylinders.
Onward we go!
redbeard AKA Larry Newman SA #1956

 

[redbeard]

Hello everybody,
Thanks for the comments!
Took a little time today and worked on the pirate's railtruck. Since the throttle valve is finished I decided it was time to put he boiler together and test it. The first picture is of the the sight glass mounted to the boiler.

I did not use any sealer on the threaded fittings yet since I am not sure that this is the final configuration of things. Next I soldered up a siphon for the gauge.

Then I installed the "Jim Sanders" safety valve and goodall valve. Now it was time to see how the burner would work. The hole in the bed under the burner did not supply enough air for the burner so I decided to add a series of vents around the shroud under the boiler. Since I was sort of in the dark about what this burner would need, I started with seven 1/16th inch holes then increased them to 1/8 then 3/16 and finally 1/4 inch. At this point the burner seemed to be burning very clean and hot.

So I filled the boiler and lit her up. Steam came up in about 3 minutes and climbed to 35lbs and the safety released and kept her at 35lbs. A little seep on several of the threaded fittings, but the boiler was keeping up enough to regularly blow the safety.So I cracked the throttle valve and bled steam off into the air(no running gear assembled yet). And the boiler kept the pressure up with no problem. How nice it is when your first boiler makes steam!
Time to assemble the cylinders and valves, build some linkage and a lubricator and see if the boiler will keep up with two stock Ruby cylinders. Much more to come!
redbeard AKA Larry Newman SA #1956

 

[redbeard]

Well I got some time to work on the truck. I assembled the cylinders and valves and started working on the reverse linkage and the shifter. (I figure that "trucks" don't have Johnson bars, so I built a shifter.) Since I want to try and have some cargo space in the bed of the truck, I wanted the shifter to be mounted on the side of the bed. First I built the linkage to connect to the reverser valve.

I know this is hard to see, but the next time I take the bed off the chassis I will post a picture with no cylinders and drivers in the way.
Next I built the shifter into the side of the bed.

Then to make sure everything was working properly I ran an air line to the reverser and tested the running gear.

My next project will be modifying the leftover Ruby lubricator and plumbing the steam line. Then I can test the boiler with the cylinders and see if it is big enough. If that goes well, I will build a fair size fuel tank to fit under the back edge of the bed.
More to come!
redbeard AKA Larry Newman SA #1956

 

[redbeard]

Hello all!
Worked over the original Ruby lubricator today. The first thing I did was to unsolder the old steam tube and cut a length of 1/8 inch copper long enough to go from boiler to reverser. I drilled a new smaller hole for the steam/oil transfer. The old tube had a .023 inch hole, the smallest drill I had is .019 so that's what I used. Here is a picture of the old lubricator body with the tube removed, and the cut out cleaned up for the new tube.

Next I turned a small shut-off valve to make a lower drain on the lubricator. In the picture from top to bottom; The old body with a hole to mount the valve at the bottom. The body of the valve. (drilled for drain tube) A short length of copper for the drain. The valve needle. (threaded 8-32) The longer piece of 1/8 inch copper (steam line) is not picture here.

Next I soldered all the connections and cleaned everything up.

Next I fitted the inlet tube to the boiler throttle valve and soldered on a 1/4-40 connector, and installed the lubricator.

That's it for tonight, my only niece is getting married tomorrow and I need to get a few hours sleep for the week. Next task will be to route the outlet tube to the reverser valve and solder on a connector. Then I will jury rig the stock Ruby fuel tank to test everything. Lots more to come!

redbeard AKA Larry Newman SA #1956

 

[redbeard]

Hi Howard,
I don't plan things at all so I made this drawing "after the fact". I hope this is enough to work from. I used 3/16 inch round for the needle, and 5/16 inch hex stock for the body. Size of components was chosen for practical reasons. I figured that 8-32 was about as small as would be strong enough in brass. So the 2.8MM end of the needle was as large as would clear the 8-32 die. Since I am a jeweler my only accurate caliper is metric, and I used it to lay out the lengths while I was turning the needle. So there are mixed measurements galore. When I made this I did not think I would be trying to duplicate it or I may have drawn a plan first, but probably not. If you need more info let me know. The "point on the needle was left fairly blunt to be more durable as this is a shut-off only valve.
redbeard AKA Larry Newman SA #1956

 

[redbeard]

Hi Howard,
No sweat, I am sure I will be glad to have the drawing later as well. And THIS is what these forums are about - sharing and helping each other.
Larry

Well!

Got several loose ends tied up and ran a steam test on everything this weekend. Lots of small problems that were worked out, and a successful BUT disappointing first steam. Everything worked as it should, but the boiler does seem to be too small or not efficient enough to maintain pressure with the two Ruby cylinders. This was somewhat expected from several long "chats" with Larry Herget about his experiences with similar boilers. I decided early in the process that I would proceed as if I knew it would work because the entire truck project is an education for me. Larry suggested a couple of "remedies" that might help, and I will probably try them. This may slow progress down a bit but THAT'S LIFE ! So my next post may be slow in appearing. But the truck will be made functional one way or another, and WILL be at Diamondhead 09 !
redbeard AKA Larry Newman SA #1956

 

[redbeard]

Hey Bill,
If you are talking about cutting back on the steam valve, it is still not enough to overcome the bad match-up of boiler and cylinders. I am REAL new to this hobby and while I am enjoying it , I am doing a lot of learning by making mistakes. Where I erred was that assuming that the volume of different types of boilers made them comparable in output. This boiler size was based on the volume of water in the Ruby's original boiler. But it turns out that a single flue vertical boiler is not nearly as efficient as a single flue horizontal boiler. So what I am looking at now is an engine combo that can't hold a head of steam at the slowest speed I can make it run. I am going to try a couple of things before I make major changes, but I am afraid that the combination is just too far off to work well.
redbeard AKA Larry Newman SA #1956

 

[redbeard]

As Dwight would say;
HEHEHE What a difference a day can make!
Did not do any finish work or even smoothing of corners, but today I "temped" up an "outside flue" on the boiler. This was from a suggestion from Larry Herget about improving efficiency of vertical boilers. Still needs work but I needed to know if it would make a difference. Here is a picture of the top of the boiler. Basically it's a wrapper that is spaced out from the boiler to let the burner heat the outside of the boiler as well as the flue.

Then I rigged a Ruby fuel tank to the truck bed with some clamps.

And took her outside and fired her off. Ran a whole tank of fuel through while she ran around in little circles. I added water through the goodall once. Kept a fair head of steam (20-25 lbs) without any problem. Maybe, just maybe this will work out!

redbeard AKA Larry Newman

 

[redbeard]

Hey Howard,
Yes that is part of the finishing plan for the wrapper/flue. Also will add a spiral flue retarder to "grab" a little more heat from the fire. Then maybe I can get her to steam well enough to move on to the rest of construction. I have a few "pain" problems to deal with as well. Both of the brass linkages that thread into the valve pistons are undersized on the threads, so I think I have to make new ones. This means getting tap and die for whatever metric size they are. The Ruby book just calls them "M2", I don't know if there is only one 2mm metric thread. Any help out there?
redbeard AKA Larry Newman SA #1956

 

[redbeard]

Hey Ryan,
Thanks! I knew one of you guys would know the answer to my question. And thanks for the comments, I try to be as self sufficient as I can but this is all so new to me I ask a lot of questions. So some of my "solutions" were suggestions from more experienced steamers. THAT is why this is so much fun, everybody helping each other.
Thanks again!
redbeard AKA Larry Newman SA 31956

 

[redbeard]

Hey Gerald,
Thanks for the suggestion. During the first testing with steam I did try insulating the boiler without the outside flue. There was a slight improvement but not enough to run the truck without waiting for steam to "catch-up". This was a sort of bad and hectic test period and I neglected to list all the things I tried while testing.(bit of a panic time!) The difference with the "outside flue" wrapper is night and day. Hopefully it will be enough to squeak by with enough capacity for steam.
Thanks Larry Herget for the advice, I listen even if I am bull-headed!
redbeard AKA Larry Newman SA #1956

 

[redbeard]

Hey Howard,
Thanks for the suggestion. I am hoping that I don't need to go that far. That is a little more than I want to deal with on THIS truck. Too many other projects in the queue right now. Next time I will be better prepared for what I need to plan for!
redbeard AKA Larry Newman SA #1956