experienced driver, newbie fireman

thank you guys, may have had the blower on a bit too much that time, and obviously tricky to hear the spluttering of priming, but will work on that. might lay off the house coal until i know it better as well. definitely getting an inline filter as recommended. should be easy to service, just pull off the tubes when loco upside down. dont want to scratch the pump bore. hope to meet some of you at exeter. thanx, martin...
 
hi john, hope you dont mind me asking but was this loco (annette 014) yours previously? just wondering if you know about the transfer sheets on the tank and how they are fixed. might try a little hot air gun on them to try to remove. they have gone all crinkly. thanks, martin..
 
Hi Martin,
I never owned the loco but have good knowledge of it as it used to belong to a gent in Oxford who was unable to get it to steam. He came to see me and run on my old indoor layout Llanwellyn. The layout is on Youtube just type in the name to view. When we had a steam up I could get the loco to run but only just. I spoke to David Cooper about it and he had it back to check it out. It was full of clinker in all the steam passages because the loco was run without the water tank cover on. When the loco was returned he came ovrr again and the loco ran a treat. Operator error rather than loco build error. ( I don't recall seeing any logo's on the loco though ). We ran the loco for over 90 minutes when it came back from a good clean out with no problems. I did feel at the time it would benefit from a new grate.
Hope this helps,
Regards, John.
 
I tend to keep an eye on what's coming out of the chimney. I reckon the puffs at 1 min 26 secs and after 1 min 40 secs look like the loco is starting to prime. If you have a quiet garden you can probably hear it, but with the traffic that goes past mine (trucks from the Mendip quarries are the worst offenders) I have to rely on sight.
Steve
 
well, today,on steves recommendation, i tilted the loco forward and poured water into the chimney, and it actually dribbled out the bottom of smokebox door! even though it looks a good fit as i have cleaned off all the crud theres clearly an air leak then. so i have twisted a string of ptfe tape as a gasket to see if that helps smokebox vacuum. also squeezed the blower pipe onto a strand of steel wire to decrease bore to give more blow and checked alignment. blast nozzle is correct size and height but a little off centre when viewed down the chimney. but i did put a straight piece of wire down into it and it seems to be aiming centrally up the chimney. so all looks well for the next run but will be using the goodall valve only until the filter arrives and i fit it. some more photos put into gallery. might be able to attach them here soon. ...mart
 
thanx daniel, thats a great idea that i will try. the ptfe was a test to see if it would improve smokebox vacuum, and i believe it certainly has. i had a superb run for an hour this morning, pulling up every 4 laps for coal and topping up the water until it splutters in the blower, which is now more effective after i reduced its aperture. felt like i had complete control of everything this time. after pumping in 1.5 litres of water i now have "goodall wrist" pain, so need one of steves high capacity bottles instead of this daisy watering thing i have. she turned 3/4 of a jamjar of anthracite into a tablespoon of ash and was pulling my dragwagon, made so i dont have the hassle of unloading and coupling all the wagons every time i want a quick run. i can load it with weights and i have wooden pads sprung against the axles so it simulates a train load but doesnt look as impressive. will put some pix in the gallery. if you go to photo galleries button on top of this page daniel, then click on random galleries, and finally click on green park icon, you should find my pics. thanks again for advice, martin....
 
just realized that i can view all the previous threads on this forum from the start instead of last 30 days... duh. a wealth of info there. maybe time to draw a line under this thread as i am getting great runs from the annette now i have improved the blower and smokebox vacuum and listened to how others do it. i have now stripped off the wrinkled transfer sheets from the tanks ready for respray. as expected there was no primer underneath. thanx for all your help... martin
 
Dave Cooper didn't believe in using primer. :)
I'm glad you've managed to sort things out Martin. The locos are super when their faults are cured.
See you on Saturday.
Steve
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top