sight glass fittings
Hi Listers. This was probably covered at some time but I need some info on water sight glass fittings, including appropriate boiler bushes. Seems that I read that ALL passageways to sight glass had to be min 1/4 id. And does anyone have any sketches on right angle fittings which would maintain this id (if necessary)? TIA royce in SB (that's Santa Barbara, CA - home of Seymour Johnson and Gene Allen) Norman S. Briskman wrote: Thanks Phil. My son-in-law is doing a copper roof and gutters. He is planning to use stainless screws to secure the gutters. A lot of pots and pans manufacturers plate their wares with copper. Phil
Re: sight glass fittings
At 07:10 AM 4/30/02 -0700, you wrote: . . . . I read that ALL passageways to sight glass had to be min 1/4 id. royce in SB Royce, That would be impratical in most Ga1 locomotives. Of course the larger you can make the lower passage to the gauge glass the better but both can be as small as 1/8 ID and still be OK. The diameter of the gauge glass is what needs to be as large as you can stand it because that's the point where capillary action most affects the water level readings in small glasses. An increase of just a couple of mm's in any given gauge glass size will reduce the effects of capillary attraction. Regards, Harry
Re: sight glass fittings
At 11:11 AM 4/30/02 -0400, you wrote: I had an older stationary boiler and steam engine many years ago which had a glass window at one end of the boiler. The boiler diameter was probably similar to many gauge 1 boilers. If the back head did not have many appliances, could something like this work? J.R., Sure, and that alternative is still used occasionally. I'd want to make the bushing, or porthole, as beefy as necessary to fully embrace the glass and of course I'd use only Pyrex (borosilicate) glass. Scale considerations aside, personally I'm not comfortable with porthole gauges because of the direction (and the volume) the steam and water will go if a glass should shatter, but then I've not yet heard of a porthole glass shattering. electronic water level lights. Does anyone have any experience with this concept I know of several schemes for on electronic water level indication. The first one, and the only one I'm familiar with, was by C.T. Amsbury and was published in ME in 1974. This one, probably like the others, used small sensors in bushings on the backhead and used the non-conductive quality of steam as the trigger to feed a signal to a detection circuit which lit up LEDS's. I've never heard anyone who reported on building one of these systems say that it didn't work. I think the only negative comment I've ever heard was that in bright sunlight conditions the LED's were sometimes difficult to see. Regards, Harry
Re: sight glass fittings
Royce: glass window at one end of the boiler. could something like this work? To the best of my knowledge, Charlie Mynhier designs all his boilers with portholes. But then again, his are bolt together stainless steel boilersvery well engineered. Jim
Re: sight glass fittings
Take a look at the Aster built Frank S loco that LGB put out in 1990 or so. It has a large porthole sight glass and you can really see the water level. I like that design. Clark Jim Curry wrote: Royce: glass window at one end of the boiler. could something like this work? To the best of my knowledge, Charlie Mynhier designs all his boilers with portholes. But then again, his are bolt together stainless steel boilersvery well engineered. Jim
Re: sight glass fittings
glass window at one end of the boiler. could something like this work? I've seen this done on several different designs, most relevantly (to us) the Aster/LGB Frank S. regards, -vance- Vance Bass Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA Small-scale live steam resources: http://www.nmia.com/~vrbass
Re: sight glass fittings
Rishon Locomotives makes the Mason Bogie that uses LED's for water level control. A member of PLS has one and it works fine. In Sunny weather he does shade the light to make sure he can see it. Phil Harry, I had an older stationary boiler and steam engine many years ago which had a glass window at one end of the boiler. The boiler diameter was probably similar to many gauge 1 boilers. If the back head did not have many appliances, could something like this work? Also, the latest gauge 1 magazine (another fantastic issue!!) had a neat article on a coal fired boiler and hit on some electronic water level lights. Does anyone have any experience with this concept for water level indication? J.R.
Re: sight glass fittings
I have also seen one of the little 'tea pot' locomotives that had a system like this installed. He knew right when to start pumping water with that. :] I'd like to have something similar but I do not have the boiler constructions skills to make me comfortable drilling holes in my Ruby. ;] Trot, the fox who'll get there, eventually... On Tue, 30 Apr 2002, Phil. Paskos wrote: Rishon Locomotives makes the Mason Bogie that uses LED's for water level control. A member of PLS has one and it works fine. In Sunny weather he does shade the light to make sure he can see it. Phil /\_/\TrotFox\ Always remember, ( o o ) AKA Landon Solomon \ There is a \./ [EMAIL PROTECTED] \ third alternative.
Re: sight glass fittings
On Tue, 30 Apr 2002, Jim Curry wrote: To the best of my knowledge, Charlie Mynhier designs all his boilers with portholes. But then again, his are bolt together stainless steel boilersvery well engineered. Though, doesn't stainless steel traditionally have a terrible time in boiler duty? --- Paul Anderson geeky1!paul Nature has been kinder to us than we had any right to expect. --- Freeman Dyson
Re: stainless boilers
Though, doesn't stainless steel traditionally have a terrible time in boiler duty? Paul, it's a good questions, perhaps others can address the metallurgical aspects of s.s. as a boiler material. Charlie's been designing and building these things for a while. He laughs at our conversations about silver brazing of boilers so far be it for me to quiz the use of stainless in his application. Jim
Re: stainless boilers
At 05:14 PM 4/30/02 -0400, you wrote: Charlie's been designing and building these things for a while. He laughs at our conversations about silver brazing of boilers so far be it for me to quiz the use of stainless in his application. Jim Despite its apparent advantages stainless is normally not an appropriate material for model boilers for a couple of metalurgical reasons and I can provide a relatively complete metalurgical explanation of this should anyone be interested. Of course Charlie marches to the beat of a different drummer in a number of ways and his locomotives aren't the usual fare are they. My opinion (unsubstantiated by fact) is that Charlie's boilers are over-engineered (understatement) to the point where the troubles one usually expects with SS are far enough removed so as to not present an immediate problem. I've never asked him but I would guess Charlie uses the materials and construction he does because that is what he has experience with, he knows its behavior, he has access to it, and he has the machines to work it and that puts it in his comfort zone. However technically speaking the potential for problems doesn't go away because the metalurgy remains the same, but in this case they appear to be far removed because of the construction. I'm sure Charlie would strongly object to any talk of there being a danger with SS in his bullet-proof boilers on any grounds and on that individual point he'd have a very strong case but in conventionally designed and built miniature boilers SS presents potential problems. There is a record of experience with SS in large scale and it's very erratic, ranging from boiler failure within a few weeks to no apparent problems after some years. Brass boilers, as we talked about a few days ago, has the same erratic record of failure. Some go quickly, some don't, but the problem for both brass and SS is that the symptoms of impending failure are usually invisible to the eye so they can go without warning. As far as I know no experimental work in small scale boilers has been done so there is no record of experience to tell us whether the same problems will occur in small scale, a scale factor?, that are known in larger scales. Even if one chose to ignore the general prohibition on SS for conventional boiler construction (this does not include Charlie) all things considered I would be hard pressed to find any compelling reasons to use SS over copper for our boilers. Stainless is a pig to work with and the additional effort required to use it wouldn't be repaid in better performance, longer life, less cost, etc. Regards, Harry Wade Nashville, Tn
Mason Bogie Re: sight glass fittings
Do you have a web address or e-mail address for Rishon Locomotives? I am VERY interested in Mason Bogies! Cheers Michael Florida USA Iron Nut - Original Message - From: Phil. Paskos [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Multiple recipients of sslivesteam [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2002 3:15 PM Subject: Re: sight glass fittings Rishon Locomotives makes the Mason Bogie that uses LED's for water level control. A member of PLS has one and it works fine. In Sunny weather he does shade the light to make sure he can see it. Phil Harry, I had an older stationary boiler and steam engine many years ago which had a glass window at one end of the boiler. The boiler diameter was probably similar to many gauge 1 boilers. If the back head did not have many appliances, could something like this work? Also, the latest gauge 1 magazine (another fantastic issue!!) had a neat article on a coal fired boiler and hit on some electronic water level lights. Does anyone have any experience with this concept for water level indication? J.R.
Re: Mason Bogie Re: sight glass fittings
Do you have a web address or e-mail address for Rishon Locomotives? You should always be able to answer a question like that at http://www.nmia.com/~vrbass/steam/steammfr.htm. If not, please let me know about the omission or error and I'll correct it. regards, -vance- Vance Bass Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA Small-scale live steam resources: http://www.nmia.com/~vrbass
Re: Mason Bogie Re: sight glass fittings
In a message dated 04/30/02 5:22:34 PM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: web address or e-mail address for Rishon Locomotives? As listed in Steam in the Garden magazine - [EMAIL PROTECTED] and available from Sulphur Springs Steam Models [EMAIL PROTECTED] Good luck Michael. They are beautiful engines. Jim Crabb Texas Roundhouse (for Roundhouse Engineering) Seabrook, Texas
Re: Mason Bogie Re: sight glass fittings
Sulphur Springs distributes these in the U.S. Give them a call. Or E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phil Do you have a web address or e-mail address for Rishon Locomotives? I am VERY interested in Mason Bogies! Cheers Michael Florida USA Iron Nut
