USATC S100

[spikey faz]

Today I got around to fitting the Nathan lubricator (Precision Scale).



I'm thinking now I can finally get on with the valve gear. Yay!



Mike

 

[spikey faz]

Having more or less finished building the Airfix Land Rover, I was feeling suitably energised to crack on with the valvegear. But..... not sure if this bodes well.



It looks like the return crank is too long. I'm going from the plans published in the September 1995 edition of Modelling Railways Illustrated, but I've also been peering at prototype pics and I'm convinced the return crank etchings are too long. I guess I'll have to see if I can shorten it, unless anyone can offer an alternative plan.

Mike

 

[spikey faz]

By my reckoning the return cranks are 2mm too long (centre to centre).

What to do? Try and source some more of the correct length or modify what I have. Going to sleep on it I think.

Mike

 

[simond]

If you modify, silver solder will be your friend.

 

[spikey faz]

If you modify, silver solder will be your friend.

Never attempted silver soldering. Something I'd have to do outside in the garden as I don't fancy setting fire to our spare bedroom/workshop/home-office!

Anyway, I've made a start on cutting out some replacements from scratch. Not something I envisaged doing. But I feel more confident doing this sort of thing now than say ten or fifteen years ago.

Mike

 

[simond]

@adrian did a couple of posts about it a while back which helped me.

you can buy the stuff as a paste with flux in a syringe, and you can get some kind of heatproof tiles with holes in that you can pin your parts to, though I use an offcut of marble tile which I drilled holes in with TCT drill bits.

its crucial that you heat the whole job to bright red in a single go, and it “flashes” through the joint, if not, clean up and try again!

 

[daifly]

@adrian did a couple of posts about it a while back which helped me.

you can buy the stuff as a paste with flux in a syringe, and you can get some kind of heatproof tiles with holes in that you can pin your parts to, though I use an offcut of marble tile which I drilled holes in with TCT drill bits.

its crucial that you heat the whole job to bright red in a single go, and it “flashes” through the joint, if not, clean up and try again!

Or go here for Adrian’s full article.