Is my safety valve functioning correctly?

DannyTheElfman said:
Hey everyone. Just a quick update. I heeded your warnings and took the engine to a a friend who works with compressors so I could figure out exactly what was going on. Several important discoveries were made.

First discovery: The big one. The pressure gauge is totally incorrect. At 55psi the gauge on the loco reads 45psi. The gauge appears to be pretty unreliable throughout the entire pressure range. Not good. This will be replaced.

Second discovery: Safety valve. As it turns out, this doesn't appear to be a problem at all. It starts to release a little trickle of air at 40psi and is fully open at 55psi. The "early release" problems I was describing earlier seem to have come from the faulty pressure gauge. The safety valve is functioning as intended, but I'm still going to send it away to have it looked at, just in case!

Last discovery: Barring the two previous issues, everything else seems to be in good condition. No leaks were found and the loco will hold pressure nicely. Pleased with that one!

I'll hold off steaming the engine until the two items above are rectified. Many thanks for your suggestions!
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Pleased you headed the advice :)
 
tac foley said:
Has ANYBODY here, EVER witnessed a boiler in our area of model steam locomotion that actually 'burst'?

In over 45 years, I've never even heard of it happening.
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As an impetuous teenager, I once blew the end off a Mamod boiler. I can't remember how I did it, but a bicycle pump was involved. I may have screwed it into the safety valve bush...
In my defence, there was evidence of wasting on the area of the boiler where the end cap detached itself...
 
JimmyB said:
Yes, I know a story about a Nimrod, minor fuel leak not an issue - until it was. Every big disaster wasn't an issue, till it was, hindsight and all of that stuff.
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Just wait till AI takes over, we are sleepwalking into catastrophy.
 
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